Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov

Reading notes

• To P. Ye. Chekhov, 14–15 October 1882. Moscow. §4 papa

  Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's father, a former Taganrog merchant then in Moscow with the family; Anton asks him to bring ruled paper and instructs him on filing a petition.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 8 November 1882. Moscow. §4 Father

  Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's father, a former Taganrog shopkeeper then living with the family in Moscow after his 1876 bankruptcy.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, February 1883. Moscow. §8 Father

  Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, the family patriarch, described here as immovable on the subjects of tobacco and Alexander's unmarried cohabitation -- as unyielding, Anton says, as an Old Believer.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 17–18 April 1883. Moscow. §2 Father

  Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's father, who wrote to Alexander without Marya's knowledge.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, July 1884. Zvenigorod. §4 father's letter

  Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's father; his letter is being forwarded for Alexander's guidance regarding the family's finances.

• To M. M. Chekhov, 29 July 1877. Taganrog. §4 my father

  Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's father, who had already relocated to Moscow with the rest of the family after the collapse of his Taganrog shop, leaving Anton behind to finish school.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 17 January 1887. Moscow. §14 Malthus and Pavel Chekhov both want

  Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton and Alexander's father, invoked here jointly with Malthus as an authority wishing the family no further mouths to feed -- likely a further jab at the father's own strained finances and stern temperament rather than a reported statement of his.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 3–4 February 1887. Moscow. §4 your benefactor and father

  Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton and Alexander's father, then living and working in Moscow near the rest of the family; the joke turns on treating Alexander's own father as a source of patronage to be exploited on Anton's behalf.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 18 March 1887. Moscow. §9 My father, a contemporary of Dmitri Vasilyevich's, has been living with degeneration of the arteries for ten years now.

  Chekhov offers his own father's case, alongside an unnamed professor's, as evidence that the same diagnosis does not dictate a uniform prognosis -- part of his effort to temper the letter's grim diagnosis with genuine, medically grounded hope.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 25 September 1887. Moscow. §10 Father

  Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, the brothers' father, on whose behalf Anton here relays a grievance to Alexander.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 18–24 April 1888. Moscow. §5 The old man

  Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton and Alexander's father, referred to here by the family nickname "Старичина" (roughly "the old fellow"); he is a third party whom Chekhov jokes will come to Moscow and "chase off" Alexander -- not a direct address to the letter's addressee. See section 6 for a distinct third party, A. I.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 1888. Moscow. §5 the old man

  "батька" (the old man/father), an affectionately gruff reference to Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's father, who drops by the flat in the evenings.

• To I. P. Chekhov, 7–8 May 1888. Sumy. §5 Tell Father

  FATHER-REFERENT DISAMBIGUATION: 'papasha' here refers to Chekhov's own father, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, whom the addressee Ivan (also Pavel Yegorovich's son) is asked to relay the invitation to -- not to Ivan himself, and not to any other family member. The same referent recurs at loc 8 ('I mean to keep Father here for three weeks').

• To I. P. Chekhov, 7–8 May 1888. Sumy. §8 I mean to keep Father here for three weeks

  Same referent as 'Father' in loc 5 -- Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's father.

• Ivan Pavlovich Chekhov, 10 May 1888. Sumy. §15 Father

  Chekhov's own father, Pavel Yegorovich, whom Ivan is asked to greet on Chekhov's behalf -- not Ivan himself or any other addressee.

• To I. P. Chekhov, 27 July 1888. Poti. §3 My regards to Father

  FATHER-REFERENT DISAMBIGUATION: 'papashe' here refers to Chekhov's own father, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, whom the addressee Ivan (also Pavel Yegorovich's son) is asked to relay the regards to -- this is a message for Ivan to pass along, not a remark addressed to Ivan himself, and Ivan is not the referent of 'Father.'

• To F. Ya. Dolzhenko, 28 July 1888. Tiflis. §3 Father

  Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's own father, greeted here as part of the same Moscow household as the aunt and Alyosha, not a relative of the aunt's.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 11 September 1888. Moscow. §4 from the old fellow

  "The old fellow" (старичина) is Chekhov's father, Pavel Yegorovich, quoted here at length on his uneasy, guilty relationship with money drawn from the family till -- even money he is told is technically his own, left over from the sale of the Taganrog estate, or earmarked for his new house on the Feodosia land. Distinct from "young Suvorin" two sections later (loc 6); the two figures appear back to back in this letter and should not be conflated.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 13 October 1888. Moscow. §13 Father used to smile at customers and guests even when he was sick to his stomach from Swiss cheese

  SENSITIVITY: this section, and the drunken-episode narrative at locs 6-9, are translated at full, unsoftened force per policy. Chekhov's comparison of Alexander to their father, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, is pointed and unflattering (overexplaining himself to people who had not asked, writing things he should not have written), and the letter's earlier description of Alexander's own drunken behavior -- growing misty-eyed, forgetting his rank, drooping his lip, talking nonsense, boasting of the Chekhov name, then being sick the next morning -- is rendered plainly rather than euphemized, matching the headnote's stated translation policy of frank, unsoftened treatment.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 23 November 1888. Moscow. §4 the old man

  INFERENCE FLAG (not explicit in the source): "the old man" (старик) most likely refers to the Chekhovs' father, Pavel Yegorovich, who was living within Alexander's household circle in Petersburg at this time. The letter does not name him directly, so this identification is an inference, not an explicit statement of the source text.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 2 January 1889. Moscow. §7 Father would raise a riot

  Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton and Alexander's father, recalled here for his household tyranny during the family's Taganrog years -- the oversalted-soup anecdote is a specific, remembered instance of his temper.

• To M. P. Chekhova, 26 April 1889. Sumy. §5 to Papa, to the Ivans

  "Papa" is Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's father, then in Moscow with the rest of the household not yet departed for Luka; "the Ivans" is a plural informal reference resolving most naturally to brother Ivan Pavlovich Chekhov and, by the plural form, his circle or household, rather than to a distinct additional 'Ivan.'

• To I. P. Chekhov, May 1889. Sumy. §8 Papasha

  Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's father, addressed here as a third party since the letter is to Ivan; consistent with the family's usual affectionate diminutive for him elsewhere in the corpus.

• To the Chekhovs, 1891. Venice. §9 I am afraid Papa is angry with me for not saying goodbye to him

  Chekhov left Moscow for the European trip in some haste; this brief aside suggests he departed without a proper leave-taking from his father, a lapse he here half-jokingly apologizes for from abroad.

• To the Chekhovs, April 1891. Nice. §3 Papasha

  Chekhov's father, Pavel Yegorovich, evidently himself traveling or staying in Rome at this date and forwarding word to Nice that the family's summer dacha near Moscow has been rented; "Папаша" ("Papasha"/"Dad") is Chekhov's habitual family nickname for him.

• To I. P. Chekhov, 1891. Paris. §3 Papasha's

  Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's father, then living with the family in Moscow; Chekhov plans to leave the English paper and other purchases with him before going on to the dacha at Bogimovo.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 29 July 1891. Bogimovo. §6 Father had a slight apoplectic fit

  Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, Anton's father, reported here in a single terse line -- summering with the family at Bogimovo that year (cf., where Chekhov notes their father had recently left his post and moved in with them). The apoplectic episode is mentioned and dropped without further comment, in keeping with Chekhov's characteristically clipped delivery of family health news in this letter.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 6 August 1891. Bogimovo. §8 Father has gone to church to take communion, mother is asleep, my sister has gone off for mushrooms

  A brief early-morning domestic tableau at Bogimovo. "My sister" (сестра) names Chekhov's only sister, Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, but is left unlinked here (no entity_id) since the source names her only by relation, not by name, and this corpus's practice is to link named references rather than infer an identity for an unnamed one.