Maria Pavlovna Chekhova

Reading notes

• To M. P. Chekhov, 1879. Taganrog. §3 Masha

  Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, Anton's sister, to whom he sends a bow through Misha; she later managed his household at Melikhovo and Yalta.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 3 February 1886. Moscow. §11 her Efros

  A comic collective nickname (from Greek euphrosyne, "good cheer") Chekhov gives to Masha's circle of visiting young women friends, playfully listed just after with their own joke nicknames -- Reve-Khave, Nelly, the baroness, the Yanov girls.

• To Yu. I. Lyadova, 18 November 1879. Moscow. §2 M. P. Chekhova

  Maria Pavlovna Chekhova ("Masha"), Anton's younger sister, then nineteen; she writes almost the entire body of this letter to her friend Yulia Lyadova, with Anton adding only a closing line.

• To M. V. Kiseleva, 29 March 1886. Moscow. §2 Рукой М. П. Чеховой

  "In the hand of M. P. Chekhova": one of several surviving Chekhov family letters composed by more than one household member, here opening in sister Maria Pavlovna's hand (sections 1-9, signed "Your Maryushka") before Anton takes over the pen for his own separate name-day greeting (sections 10-14, with its own salutation and signature) -- a dual-hand convention distinct from a single letter merely reporting on multiple people.

• To M. P. Chekhova, 6 May 1886. Petersburg. §3 Gracious lady Masha

  A mock-formal salutation -- "Milostivaya gosudarynya," the stock deferential address of official or business correspondence to a lady -- applied teasingly to his own sister, setting the letter's jokey register from the first line.

• To Yu. I. Lyadova, 21 September 1880. Moscow. §4 Marya

  Maria Pavlovna Chekhova ("Masha"), Anton's younger sister, from whom he snatches the paper to add his own postscript before she can finish her own letter to Lyadova.

• To M. V. Kiseleva, 21 September 1886. Moscow. §11 gives lessons at the dairy for 7 kopecks a lesson

  Maria Pavlovna Chekhova supported herself in part by giving private lessons; the trivial, specific fee (7 kopecks) is characteristic of Chekhov's habit of itemizing small domestic economic facts for comic and documentary effect in family letters.

• To M. V. Kiseleva, 29 October 1886. Moscow. §11 Ma-Pa may, if she likes, already take ten (10) rubles

  Chekhov's sister Maria Pavlovna ("Ma-Pa" in the family's private shorthand) evidently handled small errands and cash advances connected with his editorial dealings on Kiseleva's behalf, collecting payment in person from the journals he placed her stories with.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 25 January 1883. Moscow. §7 Marya Pavlovna

  Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, Anton's younger sister, then in her late teens; Anton reports her having appeared, thinly disguised under the initials "Ch--va," in a society column, and being fussed over by literary acquaintances.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 17–18 April 1883. Moscow. §2 Marya

  Anton's younger sister Maria (Masha), reported to have cried reading Alexander's letter and quarreled with their father over it.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 13 May 1883. Moscow. §4 Marya

  Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, Anton's younger sister, invoked here as a stand-in for a household dispute over how she is treated -- Anton insists he was speaking of a general disregard for her as a person, not gossip about her specifically.

• To M. P. Chekhova, 3 April 1887. Orel. §9 Maria Pavlovna Chekhova

  Chekhov's younger sister Masha, the letter's addressee.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 21 October 1887. Moscow. §16 Marya's

  Chekhov's sister Maria, whose photograph he references as the format he had his own portrait taken in.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 24 October 1887. Moscow. §16 Marya

  Chekhov's sister Maria ("Marya"/"Masha"), reported here sewing clothes for Alexander's children.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 5 April 1888. Moscow. §10 M. P. Chekhova

  Maria Pavlovna Chekhova (Masha), Anton's sister, who adds a closing greeting in her own hand, addressed in part to Anna Ivanovna.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 11 June 1888. Vorozhba. §2 Maria

  Referent tracking: identified with Chekhov's sister Maria Pavlovna ("Marya"/"Masha"), a member of the household party at Sumy that summer, rather than any Lintvaryov daughter -- the three Lintvaryov sisters are elsewhere named as Elena, Zinaida, and Natalya, with no Maria among them.

• To M. P. Chekhova, 14 July 1888. Feodosia. §3 Mademoiselle sister!

  A mock-formal French address to his sister Maria Pavlovna, one of Chekhov's habitual joking salutations in the family correspondence; she is not named directly elsewhere in the letter.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 30 September 1888. Moscow. §31 М. П. Чеховой

  M. P. Chekhova here is Chekhov's sister Maria Pavlovna, editor of the six-volume 1912-1916 "Pisma A. P. Chekhova" -- distinct from their brother M. P. Chekhov, who shares her initials but is cited separately in section 21 as the author of a different book. Maria Pavlovna edited three of the printed sources catalogued in this bibliography (section 31, 32, 37).

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 30 September 1888. Moscow. §49 М. П. Чеховой

  The afterword explicitly raises and resolves an ambiguity: earlier editions attributed the April-May 1887 letter-diaries to M. P. Chekhova (Chekhov's sister Maria), but the present edition reassigns them to Chekhov addressing his family collectively, since Chekhov's own words ("the letters I am sending to Moscow belong to the whole Chekhov family") show the addressee was never Maria alone. The same reasoning is applied to the letter of 3 December 1887 to M. P. Chekhov -- their brother Mikhail, not their sister -- one section later.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 20 October 1888. Moscow. §6 сестры

  "My sister" is Maria Pavlovna Chekhova (Masha), present at the scene of the Kuznetsky Most wall collapse reported in this section -- not merely a passing mention, since her proximity to the accident is the reason Chekhov includes the story at all.

• To M. V. Kiseleva, 2 November 1888. Moscow. §3 Masha received a letter from you

  "Masha" here is Chekhov's younger sister, Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, who received and relayed Kiseleva's letter. She is a DIFFERENT Maria from the letter's addressee, Maria Vladimirovna Kiseleva -- the two share only a first name; one is Chekhov's own sister, the other the mistress of Babkino and the letter's "Dear Maria Vladimirovna."

• To A. S. Suvorin, 24–25 November 1888. Moscow. §4 my sister is indignant

  Chekhov's sister, unnamed in the text, is Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, already established in this corpus (e.g.'s headnote, as "Masha"); the entity is linked here though she is referred to only as "my sister."

• To D. V. Grigorovich, 24 December 1888. Moscow. §3 My sister

  Chekhov's sister is left unnamed in the Russian source itself; the identification with Maria Pavlovna Chekhova is an INFERENCE from established corpus usage elsewhere for Chekhov's sister (compare's headnote), not a certainty stated in this letter.

• To S. P. Kuvshinnikova, 25 December 1888. Moscow. §6 My sister

  Unnamed here but identified elsewhere throughout Chekhov's letters of this period simply as "sister" -- Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, inferred rather than stated in this source line.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 30 December 1888. Moscow. §27 My sister is ill. Aches, high fever, headache, and so on. The cook has the same. Both are laid up. I'm afraid it may be typhus.

  Continues the same-day thread also touched in (to Pleshcheyev, written the same date), where Maria Pavlovna sends her regards without any mention of illness -- suggesting this letter to Suvorin may be the more candid, private report of a crisis just then emerging.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 3 January 1889. Moscow. §8 My sister

  Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, Chekhov's sister, whose grave illness -- feared by Chekhov to be typhus -- was reported with alarm in's \S27; this letter's brief note of her recovery closes that episode.

• To A. P. Lensky, 6 January 1889. Moscow. §6 my sister

  INFERENCE BY CONTINUITY, not stated explicitly in this letter: identified here with Maria Pavlovna Chekhova on the strength of the corpus's established pattern of referring to her this way (e.g., \S8, "My sister has recovered and sends her thanks," reporting her recovery from a feared serious illness just five days before this letter). This letter gives no further identifying detail beyond "my sister" and does not specify her connection to the Maly Theatre circle; the request that Lensky pass along rehearsal and opening news to her should be read as a routine courtesy within a household already following "Tatyana Repina"'s progress closely, consistent with but not confirming any specific role of hers in the production.

• To Ye. K. Sakharova, 13 January 1889. Moscow. §7 my sister M. P.

  Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, Chekhov's sister, already established in this corpus; named here as a fallback contact if Chekhov has already left for Petersburg.

• To M. P. Chekhov, January 1889. Petersburg. §2 There's no need for Masha to come

  Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, Chekhov's younger sister; he is telling their brother Mikhail there is no need for her to make the trip to Petersburg.

• To A. P. Lensky, 9 April 1889. Moscow. §4 My sister

  Almost certainly Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, Chekhov's sister and a member of the household in this period, consistent with her role in the surrounding correspondence (e.g., \S6). She is not named explicitly in this letter, so the identification is a contextual inference rather than a certainty from the text alone.

• To N. N. Obolonsky, 23 April 1889. Moscow. §3 the relics of Lina Salomonskaya

  "Lina Salomonskaya" (мощи Лины Саломонской, literally "the relics of Lina Salomonskaya") is a private joking nickname Chekhov and Obolonsky gave to Chekhov's sister, Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, coined after an illness had left her thin (per the standard PSS editorial note, citing M. P. Chekhova's own annotation). It is not a separate character or a real person named Lina Salomonskaya.

• To N. N. Obolonsky, 23 April 1889. Moscow. §3 the artist's health

  "The artist" (художник) here continues the same private joke as "the relics of Lina Salomonskaya" earlier in this section: both refer to Chekhov's sister Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, not to a literal painter. DO NOT confuse with Chekhov's actual painter brother, Nikolai Pavlovich Chekhov, who is named separately and literally in §7 of this same letter ("Nikolai and my sister send their regards") -- there Nikolai and Maria appear as two distinct, correctly named people, confirming that "the artist" in §3 cannot be Nikolai.

• To N. N. Obolonsky, 23 April 1889. Moscow. §4 our Minister of the Arts

  "Minister of the Arts" (министра художеств) is the same running private joke as "the artist" in §3 -- an invented mock-title for Chekhov's sister Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, whom Obolonsky had evidently been treating medically. This is NOT a reference to Chekhov's painter brother Nikolai Pavlovich Chekhov, despite the painterly/artistic vocabulary; Nikolai is named literally and separately in §7. The joke plays on Obolonsky's medical care of Maria by pretending she holds a grand official post worthy of a decoration.

• To M. P. Chekhova, 28 April 1889. Sumy. §10 To Maria Pavlovna Chekhova.

  The letter's addressee, Chekhov's sister Maria ("Masha") Pavlovna Chekhova, already established in the immediately preceding letter.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 26 June 1889. Sumy. §13 My sister thanks you for your greetings

  Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, Anton's younger sister, unnamed here but consistent with her frequent unnamed appearances elsewhere in the corpus's family correspondence.

• To I. M. Kondratyev, 18 July 1889. Yalta. §6 Sumy, Kharkov province, to Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, to be passed on to me.

  Maria Pavlovna Chekhova ("Masha"), Chekhov's sister, is named here as the intermediary at the Lintvaryov family's estate near Sumy, where the Chekhov family was again spending the summer, as in 1888; forwarding fee payments through a family member at a summer address while Chekhov himself traveled is consistent with his practice elsewhere in this period.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 12 December 1889. Moscow. §6 My sister is also ill.

  Chekhov's sister, Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, referred to only as "Сестра"/"my sister" here, not named directly in the letter.

• To A. I. Smagin, 21 November 1891. Moscow. §8 Marya Pavlovna is the chief authority among us, and without her nothing gets cooked

  "Каша не варится" -- literally "the kasha (porridge) doesn't cook," a Russian idiom for nothing getting done or organized. Chekhov formally deputizes his sister Maria Pavlovna (Masha) to travel south over her Christmas school break to inspect the estate in person, describing the family's deference to her judgment on the matter almost as a matter of household record (the whole section is phrased as minutes of a family council). Compare the earlier letters to Smagin in this run, where the estate hunt is still an open, undecided business; here it has advanced to a specific numbered property ("No. 3") and a concrete inspection trip.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 22 November 1891. Moscow. §4 I am sending my sister to look the estate over

  Maria Pavlovna Chekhova ("Masha"), Anton's sister, who by the family's own plan (see, \S8, and, \S6) was to travel to Poltava province -- not before Christmas, since she could not leave her boarding-school post earlier -- to inspect the property in person, since, as Chekhov puts it to Smagin, "без нее каша не варится" ("without her nothing gets cooked up").

• To A. I. Smagin, 24 November 1891. Moscow. §6 Masha will leave Moscow on 20 December

  Marya Pavlovna Chekhova ("Masha"), Chekhov's sister, entrusted with the practical, on-the-ground business of the estate purchase -- consistent with, \S8, which names her "the chief authority among us" for the errand and records that she would travel to inspect the property at Christmas.

• To A. I. Smagin, 1891. Moscow. §3 I already wrote to You that my sister leaves Moscow on the 20th.

  Chekhov's sister Marya Pavlovna ("Masha"), whose departure date for the khutor inspection trip had been firmed up three days earlier at, \S6 ("Masha will leave Moscow on 20 December"); the unqualified "the 20th" here continues that same arrangement without needing to repeat the month.

• To A. S. Kiselev, 8 December 1891. Moscow. §9 Masha will probably come to see you

  Chekhov's sister Maria Pavlovna Chekhova ("Masha"), a frequent visitor to Babkino and a friend of Maria Vladimirovna Kiseleva in her own right, distinct from Kiseleva despite the shared given name.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 13 December 1891. Moscow. §9 my sister leaves to look at the farmstead

  Maria Pavlovna ("Masha") Chekhova, about to travel on the 20th to inspect the farmstead (\textit{khutor}) near Sorochintsy the family was then in the process of buying through their neighbor A. I. Smagin -- the same purchase discussed in and. Chekhov weighs seeing her off against not leaving their aging parents alone over the holidays, while still promising to be at Suvorin's for New Year's.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 13 December 1891. Moscow. §10 I gave your story to Masha

  Chekhov passes Suvorin's story draft -- the same manuscript he has just finished editing in sections 3-5 -- to his sister Masha as bedtime reading, a small domestic coda to the letter's opening editorial business.

• To N. M. Lintvareva, 14 December 1891. Moscow. §4 Masha sets out to You on the 22nd, accompanied by my blessing

  Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, Chekhov's sister, sent ahead to the Lintvaryov estate at Luka/Sumy with the practical errand of assessing farmstead properties on the family's behalf (\S5 below); Chekhov's mock-solemn "blessing, which is eternally unbreakable" is characteristic comic inflation of an ordinary family travel arrangement.

• To A. I. Smagin, 16 December 1891. Moscow. §7 Allow me to offer Marya Pavlovna ten sheep well in advance.

  The punchline of the letter's comic anecdote: Smagin's handwriting was so bad that a line meant to concern a carriage (\textit{выезд}) was misread as an offer of ten sheep involving Chekhov's sister Marya Pavlovna ("Masha";) -- and Chekhov, taking the misreading at face value, went ahead and actually bought the sheep from her and paid her two rubles before the mistake came to light. A small, self-mocking domestic joke rather than a real transaction of consequence.

• To the Chekhovs, 28 May 1890. Krasnoyarsk. §18 the address will say "to Her Highness"

  "Ее высокоблагородию" is properly a formal Table-of-Ranks honorific ("Her High Well-Born," the address due a person of a specific mid-level civil or military rank, roughly ranks 6-8), not a title of nobility; "Her Highness" is used here as the nearest recognizable English formal-address equivalent for the joke rather than a literal rank-for-rank translation. Chekhov is setting up a private cipher with his sister Maria (Masha): any envelope addressed to plain "Masha" is understood to be open household mail, but one addressed with this mock-grand honorific signals contents meant for her eyes only. The joke depends on the gap between the honorific's genuine bureaucratic weight and its use here as a cute domestic code between siblings.

• To M. P. Chekhova, 9–10 January 1891. Petersburg. §2 Cecilia Archimandritova

  A mock-grand invented name Chekhov uses to address his sister Maria Pavlovna ("Masha") -- pairing a stately Latinate saint's name with an ecclesiastical-sounding surname built on "archimandrite" -- typical of the family's running joke-nicknames in the correspondence rather than any real title or person.

• To M. P. Chekhova, 16 March 1891. Petersburg. §3 Семашечка

  "Semashechka" here is an affectionate nonce nickname Chekhov applies to Masha herself in this letter's closing aside, distinct from the unrelated family acquaintance "Semashko" ("Semashechka," a cellist) addressed by the same pet form elsewhere in the correspondence.

• To the Chekhovs, April 1891. Naples. §9 I did buy you a watch, Masha, but threw it to the pigs

  A characteristic Chekhov comic escalation: the mock-grievance about unanswered letters turns into an absurd, deadpan claim that a real gift bought for his sister was deliberately destroyed in petty retaliation, immediately undercut by the throwaway "Still, God will forgive you."

• To L. S. Mizinova, July 1891. Bogimovo. §5 Loving M. Chekhova

  The signature reveals that this note, though addressed in the family's usual bantering register, is written not by Anton but by his sister Maria Pavlovna Chekhova; she refers to Anton in the third person in \S3 ("I will persuade my brother") rather than speaking in her own voice for him, and the comic stomachache complaint of \S4 is accordingly hers, not his -- a rare instance in this corpus of a Chekhov-family letter to Mizinova not actually penned by Anton himself.