Alexander Ostrovsky

Reading notes

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 23 February 1888. Moscow. §4 Островского

  Alexander Ostrovsky, Russia's leading dramatist, whom Chekhov visited for a two-hour conversation; Ostrovsky is described as impatiently awaiting the proofs of "The Steppe."

• To A. S. Suvorin, 29 August 1888. Sumy. §8 A. N. Ostrovsky

  Alexander Ostrovsky, the dramatist, who had died in 1886; Chekhov reports the death by diphtheria of Ostrovsky's son on the eve of his wedding, his bride's subsequent suicide by carbolic-acid poisoning, and her brother's serious riding accident -- grim news relayed factually, without embellishment.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 11 February 1889. Moscow. §5 Ostrovsky called on me yesterday

  The playwright Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky (1823-1886), Russia's leading dramatist of the era --. Not to be confused with Pyotr Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, the dramatist's half-brother and a Moscow acquaintance of Chekhov's, who is a different figure tracked elsewhere in this corpus. NB: the dramatist Alexander Ostrovsky died in 1886, three years before this letter's date; the corpus's existing entity summary for (drawn from an earlier, fictional first-appearance context) states his dates but was written without reference to this letter -- here the name refers to the same real playwright, and the visit as described is consistent with Chekhov's actual acquaintance with him in his final years is not implied; this is presented as the letter states it, without further adjudication of the discrepancy.

• To I. L. Leontyev, 18 February 1889. Moscow. §9 Either become an Ostrovsky,

  Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, the leading Russian playwright of the era, held up as the standard a fiction-writer would need to meet to justify staying in the theater.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 5 March 1889. Moscow. §10 Ostrovsky's "The Storm"

  Alexander Ostrovsky's best-known play, "Groza" ("The Storm"); Chekhov objects to a French production of it, which he expects will only let French critics condescend to material they find "unbearably dull and incomprehensible," and jokingly threatens the translators with exile to Siberia for their lack of patriotism.

• To Ye. M. Lintvareva, 17 April 1889. Moscow. §5 the Ostrovskys' (the playwright's brother)

  A brother of the dramatist Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky, at whose Moscow home Chekhov dines with Pleshcheev; the brother is not otherwise identified by first name in this letter and is left unresolved beyond the family link to the playwright.

• Modern Prayers §9 Ostrovsky

  Alexander Ostrovsky (1823-1886), Russia's leading dramatist of the era and author of dozens of enduring plays of the Russian stage; invoked as the standard of serious theatrical fame the petitioner claims not to want.