person
Ivan Kazimirovich Lyashkevsky
Lyashkevsky
also: Иван Казимирович Ляшкевский, Lyashkevsky, the Pole, поляк
A retired lieutenant of Polish extraction, once wounded in the head, now living on his pension in a southern provincial Russian town. He spends his days at his open window haranguing his landlord and the townsfolk opposite for their idleness, working himself into rages that spill from Russian invective into Polish curses.
Reading notes
- Obscure People §1 a lieutenant of Polish extraction
Lyashkevsky is a szlachta-surnamed retired officer, part of the substantial Polish minority resident across the southern and southwestern provinces of the Russian Empire after the partitions of Poland; his headwound pension explains how a man of his age is free to spend entire days at his window.
- Obscure People §9 польским акцентом
The narrator notes that Lyashkevsky speaks with a Polish accent that thickens as his temper rises; the passage marks his outburst as a linguistic performance -- Russian invective giving way to Polish curses -- consistent with a Pole long resident in a Russian provincial town.