Olga Petrovna Kundasova

Reading notes

• To A. S. Suvorin, 19 December 1891. Moscow. §6 The astronomer lady is in Petersburg.

  Olga Petrovna Kundasova, the astronomer and eccentric family friend nicknamed "the Astronomer" in the Chekhov household, here reduced to a single bare locative sentence -- apparently answering another query from Suvorin about her whereabouts, without further comment or context.

• To the Chekhovs, 23 April 1890. Volga, parokhod "Aleksandr Nevsky". §6 Kundasova

  Olga Petrovna Kundasova was an astronomer at the Moscow University observatory and a fixture of the Chekhov family's circle of friends, nicknamed "the Astronomer" in the household's private vocabulary. Her volatile, unfiltered manner -- the sudden fits of wild laughter, the drumming and foot-stamping, the mechanical eating "as though chewing oats" -- was a running subject of Chekhov's amused affection in letters of this period, not mockery of a stranger; she was travelling some part of the Volga route with him by her own arrangement, for reasons Chekhov professes (perhaps disingenuously, given the joke that follows about Kopfer) not to know.

• To the Chekhovs, 28 May 1890. Krasnoyarsk. §11 Gundasova

  "Гундасова" is Chekhov's own comic misspelling of Kundasova's surname (properly "Кундасова," replacing the K with a G) -- a private joke-nickname rather than an error to be corrected; compare's \S-level use of the more standard "Кундасовой." Olga Petrovna Kundasova, an astronomer nicknamed "the Astronomer" in the Chekhov household and a family friend given to eccentric, high-spirited behavior, had traveled with Chekhov for part of the Volga leg of the same 1890 journey east; this letter finds him, weeks later and hundreds of versts on, still fondly asking after her whereabouts.

• To M. P. Chekhova, 14 January 1891. Petersburg. §7 he's in love with Kundasova

  Olga Kundasova, the astronomer and family friend nicknamed "the Astronomer"; Suvorin's infatuation with her is mentioned here in passing, one of several glancing references to her across the corpus's letters from this period.

• To M. P. Chekhova, 16 January 1891. Petersburg. §10 Kundasova

  Olga Petrovna Kundasova, the astronomer and family friend nicknamed "the Astronomer" in the household, asked after here regarding the same fundraising effort.

• To M. P. Chekhova, 16 March 1891. Petersburg. §8 M-elle Studente

  A French-flavored mock-academic nickname ("Mademoiselle the Student") for Olga Kundasova, apparently coined or used by the Suvorin household's French-speaking governesses (Emilie and Adele) in reaction to her boisterous, unladylike laughter -- Kundasova had studied mathematics and physics at the Higher Women's Courses and was popularly known elsewhere in Chekhov's circle as "the Astronomer"; no separate entity is needed for the nickname itself, which functions here as an epithet for the already-identified Kundasova rather than a distinct figure.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 6 August 1891. Bogimovo. §8 an astonishing astronomer-lady

  Renders \textit{изумительная астрономка}. The visitor is not named in this letter's text, but is identified here -- with medium confidence, as an inferential (not asserted) identification -- as Olga Petrovna Kundasova, whom Chekhov elsewhere in this correspondence calls "the astronomka"/"astronomer" as a standing nickname (cf., \S8-9, where she is named directly and linked to Suvorin's household). The circumstantial fit is strong: an unmarried, independent-minded friend nicknamed for astronomy, visiting the Chekhovs' summer residence, on terms familiar enough with Suvorin for him to have forwarded her Chekhov's address with a teasing romantic inscription.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 18 August 1891. Bogimovo. §10 The astronomer-lady is in Batum now

  Identified, with medium confidence, as Olga Petrovna Kundasova, Chekhov's recurring "astronomka" acquaintance -- not named directly in this letter's text, but consistent with her treatment as an unnamed standing figure in the same Bogimovo correspondence run (cf., \S8, where the identification with Kundasova is likewise inferential).

• To A. S. Suvorin, 18 August 1891. Bogimovo. §10 there's no rudder near her backside

  Renders \textit{нет руля около задницы}, a coarse, physically blunt idiom for a lack of practical direction or steering -- rendered at full force per the corpus's no-softening policy, capping an otherwise admiring passage on Kundasova's intelligence with a characteristically crude Chekhov aside.