person
Mikhail Nikolaevich Galkin-Vraskoy
Galkin-Vraskoy
also: Михаил Николаевич Галкин-Враской, Галкин-Враской
Head of the Main Prison Administration (Glavnoe tyuremnoe upravlenie) of the Russian Empire, the official body with jurisdiction over Sakhalin as a penal colony; addressee of Chekhov's formal petition of 20 January 1890 announcing his planned journey to Eastern Siberia and Sakhalin and requesting official assistance -- one of the earliest documentary traces of the Sakhalin expedition that Chekhov undertook later that year.
Reading notes
- To M. N. Galkin-Vrasky, 20 January 1890. Petersburg. §4 Mikhail Nikolaevich!
Mikhail Nikolaevich Galkin-Vraskoy, head of the Main Prison Administration (Glavnoe tyuremnoe upravlenie, see the note below) of the Russian Empire, the official body with jurisdiction over Sakhalin as a penal colony. This is one of the earliest documentary traces of the journey to Sakhalin that Chekhov would undertake later that year, departing that April: from its first formal step, the trip is licensed through the prison administration rather than pursued as an informal or purely literary excursion.
- To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 15 February 1890. Moscow. §6 he need not trouble himself so much over a review for his reports
Chekhov reassures Galkin-Vraskoy, via Pleshcheyev as intermediary, about the forthcoming Sakhalin book: he will discuss Galkin-Vraskoy's official prison-administration reports at length and "immortalize his name," but is candid that the reports themselves are of little value in their existing form -- rich raw material that the officials who compiled them did not know how to put to use. The reassurance is about tone and prominence, not a promise of uncritical praise; compare the franker research-stage picture of the same Sakhalin project in and.
- To A. S. Suvorin, 9 December 1890. Moscow. §11 Как я рад, что всё обошлось без Галкина-Враского!
Mikhail Nikolaevich Galkin-Vrasky, head of the Main Prison Administration, to whom Chekhov had addressed a formal petition in January 1890 announcing his planned Sakhalin expedition. Chekhov's relief here is that Galkin-Vrasky did NOT send any advance word to the island's administration -- meaning Chekhov arrived as "a complete stranger," able to observe Sakhalin's conditions without officials having been forewarned and given the chance to stage-manage what he would be shown. This is a distinct and separate complaint from the earlier, unrelated "Galkin" of, who had failed to provide Chekhov some other kind of assistance before departure; the two are not to be conflated despite the similar surname.