person
Dmitry Narkisovich Mamin-Sibiryak
Sibiryak-Mamin
also: Сибиряк-Мамин, Д. Н. Мамин-Сибиряк, Mamin-Sibiryak
A real Ural-born regional novelist (1852-1912), popular for fiction set in the Urals and Siberia; Chekhov reports here that Mamin-Sibiryak is talked of locally more than Tolstoy, an observation about regional literary taste rather than a claim about relative merit. Chekhov calls him "Sibiryak-Mamin," inverting the writer's own compound pen name (he published as Mamin-Sibiryak, from his surname Mamin plus the pen-suffix -Sibiryak).
Reading notes
- To the Chekhovs, 29 April 1890. Yekaterinburg. §4 The most popular writer in these parts is Sibiryak-Mamin
D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak (1852-1912) was a real, still-living Ural-born novelist whose regional fiction Chekhov reports hearing discussed more than Tolstoy's among his fellow passengers -- a piece of literary-geography observation, not a ranking Chekhov himself endorses. Chekhov inverts the writer's actual pen name (Mamin-Sibiryak) to "Sibiryak-Mamin," which may simply reflect how it was spoken aboard the steamer or may be Chekhov's own loose recollection; both orderings refer to the same person.