person
Ivanov (Finik's schoolmate)
Ivanov
also: Иванов
A schoolmate of Finik (Maria Kiseleva's son) who calls at the Chekhov apartment to deliver the day's homework assignment; the visit's mutual awkwardness and Ivanov's gruff, wordless exit are played for comic effect and mock-diagnosed by Chekhov as the manner of "a socialist" (a period joke about sullen schoolboy demeanor, not a substantive political claim). Not otherwise identified; distinct from the many other Ivanovs in the corpus (a stock Russian surname, echoed in the same letter's closing joke about "an invasion of Ivanovs, Petrovs, and Sidorovs").
Reading notes
- To M. V. Kiseleva, 17 September 1888. Moscow. §4 Ivanov... grew embarrassed... announced... elbowed Finik
In the Russian, a chain of verbs (entering, growing embarrassed, announcing the assignment, elbowing, speaking) all trail from "Ivanov" as their single grammatical subject; Finik is only ever the passive party being addressed and elbowed. The translation repeats "Ivanov" explicitly as agent at each verb to keep the two boys' actions unambiguous in English, where the Russian's dropped pronouns would otherwise blur who is doing what to whom.
- To M. V. Kiseleva, 17 September 1888. Moscow. §4 A socialist, by the look of him
"По-видимому, социалист" is a period joke about a sullen, gruff-mannered schoolboy's demeanor -- not a substantive political claim about the boy or his family. Translated literally, and flagged here as non-substantive so it is not mistaken for real reportage of the boy's politics.