Lyudmila Pavlovna

Reading notes

• To L. A. Kamburova, 1880. Moscow. §10 Lyudmila Pavlovna

  An unidentified acquaintance in Kamburova's circle whose name-day ("angel day," the feast of one's patron saint) Nikolai admits he failed to acknowledge on time, adding that he does not consult the church calendar of saints.

• To the Chekhovs, 11 May 1887. Taganrog. §22 looks very much like a Jewess

  Translates "очень похожа на жидовку" -- again "жидовку," the accusative of "жидовка" ("zhidovka," see loc. 4), the period ethnic slur for a Jewish woman, used here not to identify Lyudmila Pavlovna's actual ethnicity but as a hostile physical comparison: Chekhov reaches for the slur as a ready-made insult for a woman he is mocking as fat and stupid, layering an ethnic slur onto misogynistic mockery of her appearance and intelligence in the same breath ('no mind can fathom the depth of her mind,' 'I am beginning to disbelieve... in the substance called the brain'). This is a harsher and more pointed use than the incidental, descriptive slur at loc. 4: here the ethnic epithet is deployed specifically as an insult, weaponized against a named acquaintance's body and mind together. Translated literally and in full, per Hermitsh Press's practice of rendering period language as historical evidence rather than softening or omitting it; the passage should be read as clear evidence of casual, compounding prejudice in Chekhov's private correspondence, not excused by its jocular tone.