Kotelnikov

Reading notes

• To A. S. Suvorin, 28 December 1888. Moscow. §5 The insertion for Kotelnikov about the Shmuls risks being hissed off: half our theatre is always taken up with Abrahams, Isaacs, and Sarahs.

  The source's "шмулях" ("Shmuls") is a derogatory diminutive of the Hebrew/Yiddish name Shmuel (Samuel), used here as an ethnic slur for Jews in a scripted comic stage bit written for the character Kotelnikov (played by the actor Sadovsky per, \S10). Chekhov's own reasoning against using the insertion is ALSO couched in casual, period-typical ethnic terms ("Abrahams, Isaacs, and Sarahs" for the theatre's Jewish patrons). Per this corpus's general policy, both are rendered faithfully without euphemism or softening. IMPORTANT DISTINCTION FOR FUTURE SUMMARIZATION: Chekhov's stated objection here is PRAGMATIC and THEATRICAL, not moral -- he warns the joke risks being "hissed off" the stage because a large share of the audience is Jewish, i.e., he is worried about box-office/audience backlash to the play, not raising an ethical objection to the slur or the joke's content. Do not characterize this passage as Chekhov condemning the insertion on moral grounds; the letter itself gives no such indication, only a calculation of theatrical risk.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 30 December 1888. Moscow. §12 whether Messrs. Kotelnikov, Sabinin, Adashev, and Matveyev are scoundrels or not

  NEW ENTITIES (Kotelnikov, Matveyev) -- all four names are characters in Suvorin's play "Tatyana Repina." Chekhov cites them as the kind of morally ambiguous figures Lvov would demand be sorted into "scoundrel" or "not." DISAMBIGUATION: this "Sabinin" is the play's character, distinct from the real actor Sabinin named in \S3 who is playing the role of Gorev in the same production; "Adashev" here is likewise the play's character, already established in this corpus's casting correspondence.