person
Nana Sukhorovskaya
also: Нана Сухоровская
A fictitious arrival invented for the squib: billed as a 'French subject' yet named with a conspicuously Russian surname and listed as coming from Petersburg rather than France. The given name 'Nana' echoes the scandalous heroine of Zola's 1880 novel.
Reading notes
- Departed from Moscow: §3 MME. NANA SUKHOROVSKAYA
A fictitious performer Chekhov reuses across several of these newspaper-spoof squibs of 1880; the first name echoes the scandalous heroine of Zola's newly published novel Nana, while the surname is a stock comic-Russian invention.
- Arrived in Moscow: §1 Nana Sukhorovskaya
A fictitious arrival invented for the squib: 'Nana' evokes the scandalous Parisian courtesan of Zola's 1880 novel, while 'Sukhorovskaya' is conspicuously Russian for a supposed French subject.