Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov

Reading notes

• To M. M. Chekhov, 4 November 1877. Taganrog. §4 Uncle Mitrofan Yegorovich

  Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's paternal uncle, a merchant who remained in Taganrog and looked after Anton during his final school years there.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 12 November 1882. Moscow. §12 M. Ye. Chekhov

  Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's uncle, a Taganrog merchant, sent regards here along with a nod to his children ("his brood").

• To M. M. Chekhov, 7 December 1876. Taganrog. §6 Uncle Mitrofan Yegorovich

  Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's uncle and the father of the letter's addressee; a Taganrog merchant to whom the family remained close after Anton's own father's business failed.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 25 January 1883. Moscow. §6 Uncle M. Ye.

  Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's uncle, a Taganrog merchant to whom the family remained close and who is the recurring subject of family errands in these letters.

• To M. M. Chekhov, 9 June 1877. Taganrog. §5 твоей мамаше, а моей тетушке

  Misha's mother, i.e. the wife of Chekhov's uncle Mitrofan Yegorovich -- addressed here only by her family relation, not by name.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 17 January 1887. Moscow. §4 Uncle Mitrofan Yegorovich

  Chekhov's uncle, a Taganrog merchant, held up here as a byword for a certain florid epistolary style of thanks the brothers found amusing.

• To M. Ye. Chekhov, 18 January 1887. Moscow. §4 Mitrofan Egorovich!

  Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's uncle in Taganrog (his father Pavel's brother), a merchant whom the family held in particular esteem.

• To P. G. Rozanov, 1887. Moscow. §7 the house of M. E. Chekhov

  Chekhov's uncle Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov, a Taganrog merchant, at whose house on Kontorskaya Street he would be staying during his visit south.

• To the Chekhovs, 7 April 1887. Taganrog. §14 Uncle has not only his own halva-shop but will even have his own metropolitan

  Chekhov's uncle Mitrofan Yegorovich kept a small grocery/general shop in Taganrog (hence "halva-shop"); the joke pairs that petty-merchant trade with his son Vladimir's ambition toward the church's highest rank, metropolitan.

• To F. O. Shekhtel, 11 April 1887. Taganrog. §5 the house of M. E. Chekhov

  Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton Chekhov's paternal uncle, a Taganrog merchant with whom the family had close ties; Chekhov used his uncle's house in Taganrog as a mailing address during this trip.

• To N. A. Leikin, 17 April 1887. Taganrog. §15 my uncle Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov

  Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton Chekhov's paternal uncle, a Taganrog merchant through whose address Chekhov was routing his mail and, here, his magazine honorarium during this stay.

• To G. M. Chekhov, 9 February 1888. Moscow. §4 your father, my uncle

  Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov, a Taganrog merchant and Anton's uncle, whom the family held in particular esteem; Georgy's father. Chekhov recalls him giving small holiday gifts of change in his own childhood.

• To G. M. Chekhov, 9 February 1888. Moscow. §11 your father

  Again Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov, Georgy's father -- Chekhov nudges Georgy to remind him about an unresolved subscription account at Suvorin's shop.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 13 October 1888. Moscow. §6 à la Mitrofan Yegorovich

  The simile compares Suvorin's tone -- good-natured, naive, faintly bumbling as he asks about "binge-drinking" -- to the manner of Chekhov's own uncle, Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov, a kindly and guileless Taganrog merchant already established in this correspondence (see and the earliest surviving letter). The phrase characterizes how Suvorin is speaking, not a claim that the uncle himself is in any way involved in this incident.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 16 November 1888. Moscow. §10 Not Mitrofan, is it?

  DISAMBIGUATION (load-bearing): this "M. Chekhov," announced by the journal "Rodina" as a forthcoming contributor, is almost certainly Chekhov's UNCLE Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov, a Taganrog merchant already established throughout the corpus (e.g., invoked by nickname via Suvorin in §6) -- NOT Alexander's son (there is no son of Alexander's with the initial "M."; Alexander's sons are collectively "the pups," family:alexander-chekhov-sons, and individually) and NOT any other relation. Chekhov's question is rhetorical surprise that their staid merchant uncle might be publishing in a literary journal -- the humor depends on Mitrofan Yegorovich being a decidedly non-literary figure. Do not conflate with any other "M. Chekhov" in the corpus.

• To G. M. Chekhov, 29 December 1890. Moscow. §3 твоего папы

  "Your papa" is Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's uncle and a Taganrog merchant, father of the letter's addressee Georgy. The complaint that follows -- endless visitors interrupting any attempt to write -- is framed as Chekhov discovering he has become like his uncle, whose shop is constantly invaded by talkative monks and self-important men wanting an audience; a comic, affectionate comparison rather than a real grievance.

• To M. Ye. Chekhov, April 1891. Rome. §9 Mitrofan Georgiyevich Chekhov

  The envelope address gives the patronymic as "Георгиевич" (Georgiyevich) rather than the "Егорович" (Yegorovich) used in the letter's own dateline heading ("М. Е. ЧЕХОВУ") and consistently elsewhere in this corpus for the same uncle (see, and the entity's first appearance at). Georgy/Yegor are historically variant forms of the same given name (both ultimately from Greek Georgios), so "Georgiyevich" and "Yegorovich" are two spellings of the same patronymic rather than two different fathers' names -- most likely a slip on the historical envelope itself, or in the source transcription, rather than evidence of a second, distinct uncle. Translated literally as the source gives it ("Mitrofan Georgiyevich Chekhov") rather than silently normalized to "Yegorovich," since that is what the source actually says at this point. This is the same addressee as elsewhere in the corpus: reuse for this mention; no separate "Georgiyevich" entity has been or should be created.

• To M. Ye. Chekhov, 1891. Paris. §3 Uncle Mitrofan Georgiyevich

  The salutation gives the patronymic as "Георгиевич" (Georgiyevich) rather than the "Егорович" (Yegorovich) used for the same uncle elsewhere in the corpus (see, and the entity's first appearance at). This is the same variant already flagged in the envelope line; here it recurs in both the salutation (\S3) and the envelope (\S8), not just the address. Georgy/Yegor are historically variant forms of the same given name (both ultimately from Greek Georgios), so "Georgiyevich" and "Yegorovich" are two spellings of one patronymic, not two different fathers -- most likely a slip on the historical letter/transcription rather than evidence of a second uncle. Translated literally as the source gives it rather than silently normalized. Reuse for every mention in this letter; no separate "Georgiyevich" entity is or should be created.

• To M. Ye. Chekhov, 1891. Paris. §8 Mitrofan Georgiyevich Chekhov

  The envelope repeats the "Georgiyevich" patronymic variant discussed at \S3; same entity,. See that note for the full discussion.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 6 August 1891. Bogimovo. §14 you're turning into an uncle M. E.

  FLAGGED, genuinely uncertain: "дядьку М Е" ("uncle M. E.") is left unexpanded in the source. The literal wording ("uncle," \textit{дядька}) matches best with Chekhov's own real uncle, Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov (initials M. E.), already identified by those same bare initials elsewhere in this corpus (see, \S4: "M. E. Chekhov is his uncle Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov") and elsewhere characterized in family letters as given to pious, weighty pronouncements -- consistent with the "forcefully and weightily and floridly" manner teased here. However, the initials M. E. equally match Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin, the satirist whose grandiloquent, mock-bureaucratic prose style was proverbial in the period and whom Chekhov's letters elsewhere invoke by name -- and the joke would work at least as well as a literary comparison ("you're starting to write like Shchedrin") as a family one. Genuinely uncertain between the two; tagged provisionally to the family reading on the strength of the literal "uncle" wording and the direct corpus precedent for those initials, but left flagged rather than treated as settled.

• Captions for Drawings §100 Mitrofan Yegorych

  Mitrofan Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton Chekhov's paternal uncle in Taganrog, here comically cast in the wedding-bill ledger as a rowdy guest removed by the constable.