Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky

Reading notes

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 6 March 1888. Moscow. §5 Burenin's review of Merezhkovsky

  Dmitry Merezhkovsky, young poet later a major novelist and critic; Burenin's harsh review of him is used here only as a passing joke about the Petersburg weather.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 4 October 1888. Moscow. §4 что написал Мережковский

  Refers to an article about Chekhov by the young critic Dmitri Merezhkovsky, which would appear that November in "Severny Vestnik" as "Старый вопрос по поводу нового таланта" ("An Old Question Apropos a New Talent") -- still forthcoming/unread by Chekhov at the time of this letter.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 3 November 1888. Moscow. §8 Merezhkovsky's article

  Dmitry Merezhkovsky, already established in letter 3-491's headnote as writing a piece about Chekhov that would appear that November in "Severny Vestnik" as "An Old Question Apropos a New Talent." This letter documents Chekhov having now received and read the article Pleshcheyev sent, following up on his earlier anticipation of it in letter 3-491.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 3 November 1888. Moscow. §4 an article by the poet Merezhkovsky about my person

  Dmitry Merezhkovsky, already established in this corpus (first attested); this letter's extended, mildly condescending assessment of him as "still very young, a student, all but a natural scientist" is an early view of a figure who would go on to considerable literary importance as a Symbolist, and should be read in that light rather than with his later reputation retrojected onto 1888.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 13 November 1888. Moscow. §8 Merezhkovsky's article

  Dmitri Merezhkovsky, the critic already established in letters 491 and 519 as author of "An Old Question Apropos a New Talent". This letter is Chekhov's promised "separate" commentary on the article, flagged in advance in letter 3-519 (\S8: "I will write to you separately about Merezhkovsky's article"); here he delivers the fuller critical assessment -- praising the underlying wish to write serious criticism while faulting its lack of simplicity, the author's unsettled convictions, and the appended editorial note.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 5 January 1891. Moscow. §7 The poet Merezhkovsky came to see me twice

  Dmitry Merezhkovsky, then a young poet not yet associated with the Symbolist movement he would later help found, visiting Chekhov in Moscow; elsewhere in the corpus he appears as the subject of a dismissive Burenin review.

• To I. P. Chekhov, 1891. Venice. §6 Merezhkovsky

  Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky, the poet and future novelist/critic (previously mentioned in passing at), encountered by Chekhov in Venice and reported here as "gone out of his mind with delight" at the city.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 24 July 1891. Bogimovo. §9 the poet Merezhkovsky and his muse are still abroad

  Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky, poet and critic; "his muse" (его муза) refers teasingly to his wife and literary partner Zinaida Gippius, traveling with him in this period -- Chekhov's "Ah, ah!" is a mock-exasperated aside at their prolonged absence abroad, not a substantive report.