Roman Romanovich Golike

Reading notes

• To V. V. Bilibin, 1 February 1886. Moscow. §13 Roman Romanych

  Roman Romanovich Golike, the St. Petersburg printer whose firm Chekhov hoped would typeset his forthcoming story collection; Chekhov sends him greetings via the visiting architect Shekhtel rather than writing directly.

• To F. O. Shekhtel, 8–9 February 1886. Moscow. §3 The paper has been received from Golike

  Continues the production thread from Chekhov's letter to Golike three days earlier (5 February 1886): the printer Roman Golike had promised to send a sample sheet of the paper his firm would use for Chekhov's forthcoming book, "somewhat in the French style," and it has now arrived, together with a covering letter Chekhov jokes about preserving as a memento.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 17 January 1887. Moscow. §8 Golike

  Roman Golike, a St. Petersburg printer connected with Leikin's circle, mentioned here in passing as a cordial acquaintance Chekhov keeps meaning to write to.

• To A. S. Lazarev, 22 March 1888. Moscow. §6 I did not speak with Golike about your book

  Roman Golike, the St. Petersburg printer whose firm handled printing for Leikin's circle; Chekhov had apparently agreed to raise Lazarev's forthcoming book with him but missed the chance when Golike was not among those seeing him off at the station.

• To A. S. Lazarev, 31 August 1888. Sumy. §5 Leikin is a good man, but Golike is even better

  Roman Romanovich Golike, a St. Petersburg printer and publisher whose firm Chekhov recommends over Leikin for handling Lazarev's book, without spelling out his reasons.

• To F. O. Shekhtel, 16 December 1888. Moscow. §8 Golike

  Roman Romanovich Golike, co-publisher of the humor magazine "Oskolki" and owner of the printing house that produced it, attested elsewhere in the corpus in connection with Chekhov's collection "Pestrye rasskazy" ("Motley Stories"); here Chekhov relays a greeting from Golike as a shared professional acquaintance, made explicit by name rather than pronoun to avoid confusion with Shekhtel's own household in the preceding section.

• To N. A. Leikin, 21 February 1889. Moscow. §8 asked Golike to settle accounts

  Roman Romanovich Golike, co-publisher of "Oskolki" and owner of the printing house that produced both it and "Motley Stories."

• To N. A. Leikin, 12 October 1891. Moscow. §7 Roman Romanovich

  The source gives only the given name and patronymic, no surname -- but this is almost certainly Roman Romanovich Golike, the St. Petersburg printer-publisher whose firm handled printing for Leikin's \emph{Oskolki} circle and had earlier been slated to typeset a Chekhov story collection (see, where Chekhov sends greetings to "Roman Romanych" via the architect Shekhtel, there also glossed as Golike). The identification is corroborated internally by the corpus itself, not merely by the shared name: Golike's firm's business relationship with \emph{Oskolki} and with printing Chekhov's own \emph{Pestrye rasskazy} (\emph{Motley Stories}) makes him exactly the person Chekhov would query about whether a print run of that book had sold out -- precisely the question posed here. No other "Roman Romanovich" appears elsewhere in Chekhov's Leikin correspondence of this period.

• To R. R. Golike, 31 March 1890. Moscow. §3 Христос воскрес, милый Роман Романович!

  The letter opens with the traditional Orthodox Paschal greeting "Christ is risen" (Христос воскресе / Христос воскрес), addressed to Roman Romanovich Golike, the St. Petersburg printer and publisher whose firm had handled the printing of Chekhov's 1886 collection "Motley Stories" (see, this entity's first appearance). Golike's firm later became known as the printing and publishing house Golike & Vilborg, though that formal partnership name does not appear in this letter.