person
Dmitry Averkiev
Averkiev
also: Г. Аверкиев
Dmitry Averkiev, a Russian playwright known for historical and pseudo-folk verse dramas, mocked here for an absurdly long eighteen-act play title.
Reading notes
- The Alarm Clock's Calendar §214 Averkiev
Dmitry Averkiev, a Russian playwright known for florid historical and pseudo-folk verse dramas; the calendar mocks him with an absurdly bloated eighteen-act play title.
- To Al. P. Chekhov, 16 November 1888. Moscow. §9 Averkiev can know nothing about "Severny Vestnik."
Dmitry Averkiev, a conservative playwright and critic -- distinct from the unrelated invented character found elsewhere in the corpus's satirical squibs. The joke here is that Averkiev "wheezes, and that's all," i.e. he is a gossipy nonentity with no real inside knowledge of the journal's affairs.
- To A. S. Suvorin, 6 February 1891. Moscow. §8 Averkiev-grade self-regard
A coinage on the spot: Chekhov forms the adjective "аверкиевское" ("Averkiev-grade" / "of Averkiev's caliber") directly from the surname of Dmitry Averkiev, a playwright of historical and pseudo-folk verse dramas already mocked elsewhere in the corpus for grandiosity, to characterize the scale of Karpov's vanity -- using a real contemporary's name as a byword for a certain register of literary self-importance, on the same pattern as the earlier "à la Yasinsky" comparison in.