person
Ostrovsky (the minister's relative)
Ostrovsky
also: Островский, брат министра
An Ostrovsky described by Chekhov only as "the minister's brother" (likely kin of Mikhail Nikolayevich Ostrovsky, then Minister of State Domains), who visited Chekhov in Moscow bearing a bundle of manuscripts and drawings for Suvorin's consideration and negotiated standard 30% terms; Chekhov calls him "a very good man" despite his bad cigar. Explicitly NOT the playwright Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky -- a distinct, unrelated figure who shares only the surname.
Reading notes
- To A. S. Suvorin, 23 October 1889. Moscow. §4 Ostrovsky, the minister's brother
This Ostrovsky is NOT the playwright Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky, Russia's leading dramatist and a wholly unrelated figure who shares only the surname. Chekhov's own phrase identifies him instead as "the minister's brother" -- almost certainly kin of Mikhail Nikolayevich Ostrovsky, then Minister of State Domains -- who visited in person carrying a bundle of manuscripts and drawings for Suvorin to consider publishing. Flagged explicitly here per the translator's note to prevent conflation with the playwright, who appears elsewhere in this corpus under.
- To A. S. Suvorin, 20 February 1890. Moscow. §7 брат-министр захворал сахарной болезнью
The visiting Ostrovsky's brother "the minister" -- likely Mikhail Nikolayevich Ostrovsky, a government minister and, per the corpus's existing identification of, also a sibling in this same Ostrovsky family -- has fallen ill with "sugar disease" (сахарная болезнь), the period Russian term for diabetes mellitus, rendered directly by its modern medical name.