Alexander Ivanenko

Reading notes

• To M. P. Chekhova, 5 May 1887. Chasov-Yar. §11 Ivanenko

  Alexander Ivanenko, a flautist and family friend of the Chekhovs in Moscow, whose travel plans home Chekhov asks after in passing.

• To I. P. Chekhov, 23 May 1888. Sumy. §3 Ivanenko and I have gotten up to a comedy

  The "we" here is Chekhov and the flautist Alexander Ivanenko, a family friend visiting along with the poet Pleshcheev -- not the letter's addressee, Ivan Pavlovich Chekhov, despite the similar name. Kept explicit in translation to avoid misreading Ivan as a party to the prank.

• To M. P. Chekhova, 14 July 1888. Feodosia. §3 Ivanenko's stories

  Alexander Ivanenko, a flautist and family friend, teased here (as elsewhere in the corpus) for the dullness of his conversation or storytelling, used as a byword for tedium.

• To N. M. Lintvareva, 25 October 1891. Moscow. §12 My regards to the great martyr Ivanenko.

  Alexander Ivanenko, a flautist and longstanding family friend in the Chekhovs' Moscow circle, first named among the friends routinely teased in the corpus's earliest letters and a familiar presence at the Lintvaryov household at Luka/Sumy. The source names him here only by surname ("великомученику Иваненко"), but the mock-solemn epithet "great martyr" -- continued in the next sentence's request that he "remember me in his holy prayers" -- matches the same affectionate, joking-devotional register Chekhov elsewhere applies to Ivanenko, and no other Ivanenko is documented in this corpus; the identification with is accordingly treated as confirmed rather than merely probable.

• To N. M. Lintvareva, 14 December 1891. Moscow. §6 This is in case Ivanenko should give a concert for charitable purposes at Your place.

  Alexander Ivanenko, the flautist and family friend familiar from the Lintvaryov household at Luka/Sumy and addressed with mock-devotional teasing in Chekhov's earlier letter to Natalya Mikhailovna (\S12: "the great martyr Ivanenko"); here his musical talent is put to practical use as a hypothetical fundraiser for the relief effort, with Chekhov supplying the address to which any proceeds should be sent.

• To A. I. Smagin, 14 January 1892. Moscow. §4 Ivanenko, in the name of the Lintvaryovs, begs us please not to buy that khutor, since it is damp, inconvenient, and so on and so on

  Alexander Ivanenko, the flautist and family friend long associated with the Lintvaryov circle at Luka, here acts as the Lintvaryov family's spokesman, relaying their practical objections -- dampness, inconvenience -- to the Kublitsky khutor Smagin has proposed. The Lintvaryovs' informed opinion carries weight precisely because they are established landowners in the same Sumy district where their own estate at Luka lies, giving them local knowledge of the property Smagin is recommending at a remove.

• To M. P. Chekhova, 16 March 1891. Petersburg. §3 Ivanenko

  Alexander Ivanenko, a flautist and family friend within the Chekhov circle, here the subject of Chekhov's joking request that Mizinova use her supposed influence to find him a position.