Ivan Gorbunov

Reading notes

• The Liberal Sweetheart §57 Gorbunov

  Ivan Fyodorovich Gorbunov (1831-1895), a hugely popular actor and raconteur famous for comic monologues in the voices of merchants, cabbies, and peasants -- his "scenes from Russian folk life" were a fixture of exactly this kind of charity recitation evening, which is why the Governor calls them "mockery of the common people."

• To N. A. Leikin, 12–13 February 1884. Moscow. §9 The Gorbunov-style story

  A story written in the manner of Ivan Gorbunov, the popular actor-writer famous for his comic monologues in demotic Russian speech; Chekhov uses the adjective to praise its handling of form over a well-worn theme.

• To A. P. Lensky, 16 March 1890. Moscow. §3 a feuilleton by Iv. F. Gorbunov

  Ivan Fyodorovich Gorbunov (1831-1895/96), actor at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in Petersburg and celebrated raconteur, famous for comic monologues delivered in the voices of merchants, cabbies, and peasants; already established in this corpus (first appearance: liberalnyy-dushka). Here Chekhov forwards a prose feuilleton -- a short, topical piece of journalistic writing -- rather than one of the stage monologues, praising it as a useful record for future historians of Russian theater while noting Gorbunov's tendency in places to distort the facts ("vret") and lapse into tendentiousness. The specific feuilleton is not named.