person
Ivan Nikolayevich Durnovo
Durnovo
also: Дурново, Durnovo
Ivan Nikolayevich Durnovo (1834-1903), who as Minister of Internal Affairs (1889-1895) held authority over the official channels permitted to organize and administer charitable relief during the 1891-92 Russian famine. Named here as the official who refused Moscow circles' request to organize independent famine relief, ruling that only the ecclesiastical (diocesan) authorities and the Red Cross Society (institution:red-cross-society) could collect and administer donations -- the same policy applied a month earlier, per, to the philanthropist Morozova.
Reading notes
- To Ye. P. Yegorov, 11 December 1891. Moscow. §4 Certain ringleaders of these circles, men of weight, went to Durnovo to ask permission, and Durnovo refused
The episode Chekhov reports here as background -- Moscow's private relief-minded circles rebuffed by the minister -- is the same refusal reported a month earlier, more tersely and about a different petitioner (Morozova), in (\S12): "The minister refused Morozova, declaring to her categorically that only the diocesan authorities and the Red Cross may collect and administer donations." Here Chekhov names the minister directly and gives the fuller shape of the policy: private famine-relief organizing was refused across the board in autumn 1891, not as an isolated case.