Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev

Reading notes

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 25 December 1887. Moscow. §11 Pleshcheyev

  Aleksei Pleshcheyev, the poet and editor, then in his early sixties, widowed, and living out his last years in modest circumstances in Petersburg -- the basis for Chekhov's compressed epitaph-like description "a fine past, a widowed present, and an uncertain future."

• To V. G. Korolenko, 9 January 1888. Moscow. §9 Pleshcheyev

  Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, poet, editor, and a mentor figure to the Chekhov literary circle, here reporting to Chekhov that censors had cut Korolenko's story before publication.

• To I. L. Leontyev, 10 January 1888. Moscow. §7 A. N. Pleshcheev's

  The poet and Severny Vestnik editor Alexei Pleshcheyev, a mentor figure to both Chekhov and Shcheglov; Chekhov asks Shcheglov to drink a toast in his stead at their next supper together.

• To I. L. Leontyev, 22 January 1888. Moscow. §7 A. N. Pleshcheev

  The poet and Severny Vestnik editor Alexei Pleshcheyev, a mentor figure to both Chekhov and Shcheglov; Chekhov reports receiving a warm letter from him and passes along his complaint that Shcheglov visits him too rarely.

• Georgy M. Gusopoulo, January 29, 1888. Moscow. §5 Pleshcheev

  Alexei Pleshcheyev (1825-1893), poet and Severny Vestnik editor, a mentor figure to the Chekhov circle whom Gusopoulo is chided for neglecting to visit.

• To I. L. Leontyev, 4 February 1888. Moscow. §10 A. N. Pleshcheev

  Alexei Pleshcheyev, poet and an editor at "Severny Vestnik," to whom Chekhov had just sent his new novella.

• To I. L. Leontyev, 10 February 1888. Moscow. §5 if you are at Pleshcheev's

  Aleksey Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, poet and editor at "Severny Vestnik," a mentor figure to both Chekhov and Shcheglov; Chekhov asks Shcheglov to toast his health on the 12th.

• To I. L. Leontyev, 10 February 1888. Moscow. §9 Pleshcheev wrote that his Lyonochka

  Introduces the following mention of Pleshcheyev's daughter.

• To M. P. Chekhov, 16 March 1888. Petersburg. §7 Pleshcheyev, Shcheglov, and others

  Alexei Pleshcheyev, poet and editor, one of the literary friends Chekhov calls on in Petersburg; see also.

• To N. A. Khlopov, 22 March 1888. Moscow. §4 old Pleshcheev's letter

  Aleksei Pleshcheyev, poet and an editor at Severny Vestnik, to whom Chekhov had earlier forwarded "The Eleventh" on Khlopov's behalf.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 24 March 1888. Moscow. §3 Lieutenant Pleshcheyev

  Alexei Pleshcheyev, poet, editor, and mentor to the young Chekhov, comically drafted here into the mock-clerical fantasy as the courier of the manuscripts.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 31 March 1888. Moscow. §3 Aleksei Nikolaevich

  Aleksei Pleshcheyev, poet and editor, a mentor figure to the young Chekhov and a frequent correspondent.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 31 March 1888. Moscow. §3 Alexey Nikolaevich

  Alexei Pleshcheyev, poet and editor, a mentor figure to the young Chekhov; this is the second letter Chekhov sends him the same day, prompted by a visit from Pleshcheyev's brother with a letter.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 4 April 1888. Moscow. §3 Alexei Nikolayevich

  Alexei Pleshcheyev, poet and editor at "Severny Vestnik," a mentor figure and close correspondent to Chekhov.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 9 April 1888. Moscow. §3 Alexei Nikolaevich

  Alexei Pleshcheyev, poet and editor at "Severny Vestnik" ("Northern Herald"), a mentor figure and close correspondent to Chekhov.

• To K. S. Barantsevich, 14 April 1888. Moscow. §5 old Pleshcheev

  Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, the poet and "Severny Vestnik" staff member whose sincere devotion to Garshin's memory Chekhov vouches for.

• To M. P. Chekhov, 24–25 April 1888. Moscow. §3 Pleshcheyev arrives on the 10th of May

  Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, poet and Severny Vestnik editor, expected as a guest at the summer dacha.

• To K. S. Barantsevich, 25 April 1888. Moscow. §6 A. N. Pleshcheyev

  Alexei Pleshcheyev, poet, editor, and mentor figure to the young Chekhov, expected as a houseguest at the Sumy dacha from mid-May into early June.

• To I. L. Leontyev, 3 May 1888. Moscow. §3 A. N. Pleshcheyev

  The poet Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, an older friend and literary mentor of Chekhov's, expected to visit the Lintvaryov estate after 10 May 1888.

• To K. S. Barantsevich, 17 May 1888. Sumy. §7 A. N. Pleshcheyev

  Alexei Pleshcheyev, poet and mentor to the younger Chekhov circle, expected as a guest at the estate that summer alongside the invited Barantsevich.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 27 May 1888. Sumy. §4 Pleshcheev

  The poet and editor Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, a mentor figure to Chekhov, is currently a houseguest at Sumy.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 27 May 1888. Sumy. §4 The old man

  "Старцу" (the old man/elder) is a joking nickname for the houseguest just named, Alexei Pleshcheyev -- not a third figure introduced only here. Chekhov immediately worries this "elder" will overeat and fall ill, continuing the joke about his houseguest's appetite.

• To V. G. Korolenko, 1888. Sumy. §4 he sends you his greetings "quite so" (his own words)

  The phrase "quite so" (очень даже) is flagged by Chekhov himself as Pleshcheyev's own characteristic verbal tic, quoted rather than coined by Chekhov -- attributed to the houseguest Pleshcheyev, not a comment addressed to or about Korolenko.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 30 May 1888. Sumy. §8 talking with Pleshcheev

  The poet Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, a summer houseguest at the Lintvaryov estate -- distinct from the letter's addressee Suvorin (Alexei Sergeyevich) despite the shared given name; see the disambiguation at loc 4.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 30 May 1888. Sumy. §16 I have A. N. Pleshcheev staying with me

  Confirms the houseguest introduced at loc 8 by full initials -- Alexei Nikolaevich Pleshcheyev, not the addressee Suvorin (Alexei Sergeyevich); see the disambiguation at loc 4.

• To I. L. Leontyev, 9 June 1888. Sumy. §3 old man Pleshcheev

  Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, the veteran poet, then a houseguest of Chekhov's at the Lintvaryov estate for about a month; Chekhov's affectionate "old man" ("дед") is a running nickname, not a literal kinship term.

• To N. A. Leikin, 21 June 1888. Sumy. §11 A. N. Pleshcheev

  Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, poet and mentor figure to the younger Chekhov, who had just spent three weeks as Chekhov's houseguest -- a third party unrelated to the marriages of Lazarev and Ezhov or to Chekhov's brother Alexander.

• To A. S. Lazarev, 26 June 1888. Sumy. §6 Old Pleshcheyev stayed with me for three weeks. Now Barantsevich is staying with me.

  Alexei Pleshcheyev, poet and literary elder statesman who spent three weeks as Chekhov's guest at the Lintvaryov estate near Sumy in the summer of 1888, followed immediately by the prose writer Kazimir Barantsevich.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 28 June 1888. Sumy. §3 dear lodger

  Playful nickname for Pleshcheyev, who had recently stayed as a summer guest at the Lintvaryovs' Luka estate; Chekhov is answering, and turning back on him, a letter in which Pleshcheyev called himself "irreplaceable."

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 1 October 1888. Moscow. §3 Alexei Nikolayevich

  The salutation names the addressee himself, Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, by name and patronymic -- not a third party being discussed.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 20 October 1888. Moscow. §1 20 October 1888

  Date discrepancy, preserved unresolved: the source header dates this letter 20 October 1888, but the letter's own opening line reads "10 окт." ("10th Oct.") in section 2, Chekhov's habitual shorthand double-dating. The two dates are not reconciled here -- both are given exactly as in the source, following the translator's decision to preserve rather than silently correct the discrepancy. Compare the companion letter of 4 October, which uses the same header-plus-shorthand convention and there the two dates agree.

• To Ye. M. Lintvareva, 23 November 1888. Moscow. §8 Pleshcheev writes to me that your composer is working

  Alexei Pleshcheyev, the poet/editor and recurring correspondent (addressee of and, mentioned in passing in's \S21), relays news of an unnamed "composer" of Elena Mikhailovna's -- not otherwise identified in this corpus, left unresolved rather than guessed at.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 11 February 1889. Moscow. §3 I write you these lines on the eve of your name-day

  Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev's name-day, per the Orthodox calendar, fell on 12 February (St. Alexis of Rome); Chekhov writes on the eve, from Moscow, apologizing for missing the Petersburg celebration.

• To N. N. Obolonsky, 12–13 February 1889. Moscow. §2 Alexei Nikolaevich Pleshcheyev

  The poet and editor Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, already extensively established in this corpus as one of Chekhov's closest literary correspondents (see, e.g., written the day before to Pleshcheyev himself). Here he is the patient: he has just arrived in Moscow and fallen ill with vomiting and diarrhea after eating a name-day pie.

• To P. A. Sergeyenko, 6 March 1889. Moscow. §4 old Pleshcheyev

  Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, poet and editor at "Severny Vestnik," an important patron and correspondent of Chekhov's; "old" is affectionate rather than literal (Pleshcheyev was in his early sixties at this date), and Chekhov undertakes here to forward Sergeyenko's verses to him.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 7 March 1889. Moscow. §3 dear Alexei Nikolayevich

  Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, poet and "Severny Vestnik" editor, one of Chekhov's most valued literary correspondents and early champions; already established in this corpus (first appearance literaturnaya-tabel-o-rangah).

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 9 April 1889. Moscow. §3 Alexei Nikolayevich

  The addressee, Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, poet and "Severny Vestnik" editor, extensively established elsewhere in this corpus as one of Chekhov's most valued literary correspondents; the letter's closing jab at "Severny Vestnik" criticism (\S14) is aimed, pointedly, at Pleshcheyev's own journal.

• To Ye. M. Lintvareva, 17 April 1889. Moscow. §5 A. N. Pleshcheev is visiting Moscow

  Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheev, poet and editor, a recurring correspondent and friend of Chekhov's in this period (cf., addressed to him directly).

• To K. S. Barantsevich, 22 April 1889. Moscow. §5 you and Pleshcheyev have been the most peaceable and convenient.

  Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, the poet and editor, a recurring guest at the Lintvaryov estate named at length in the headnote to and elsewhere in the corpus.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 14 May 1889. Sumy. §3 dear Alexei Nikolayevich!

  The addressee, Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, poet and editor, extensively established elsewhere in this corpus (e.g.) as one of Chekhov's most valued literary correspondents and a recurring guest at the Lintvaryov estate.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 15 May 1889. Sumy. §9 Pleshcheyev will not be coming to me,

  Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev (1825-1893), poet and editor, an older friend and mentor figure to Chekhov at this period, whose hoped-for visit to Sumy falls through.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 26 June 1889. Sumy. §3 my dear and kind Alexei Nikolayevich!

  Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, poet and editor at "Severny Vestnik," extensively established elsewhere in this corpus (e.g.) as one of Chekhov's most valued literary correspondents. This is the first letter to him since Nikolai's death, arriving nine days after it and answering a condolence letter.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 14 September 1889. Moscow. §3 May heaven's thunder and the teeth of crocodiles fall upon the heads of your enemies and creditors, dear and kind Alexei Nikolaevich!

  A mock-oriental invocation, deliberately overblown ceremonial language ('an oriental and graceful greeting,' as Chekhov himself calls it in the next sentence) parodying the elaborate curses/blessings of Eastern epistolary style, used here purely as comic throat-clearing before the letter's real business.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 17 October 1889. Moscow. §6 Плещеев, Баранцевич, Вы, Свободин и другие

  The list of writers/actors who stayed with Chekhov over the summer of 1889 -- Alexei Pleshcheyev, Kazimir Barantsevich, Suvorin himself, and Pavel Svobodin (the actor associated with the imperial stage, canonical over any Yakov Svobodin) -- names Chekhov's actual literary/theatrical circle at Luka that summer, later maligned by the unnamed Petersburg literary man in \S7-\S8 as merely self-serving networking.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 12 December 1889. Moscow. §3 Dear Alexei Nikolaevich,

  Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, poet, editor, and Chekhov's elder friend and patron, addressed here as "Милый Алексей Николаевич."

• To I. M. Kondratyev, 28 December 1889. Moscow. §45 D. V. Grigorovich, K. S. Barantsevich, I. L. Leontyev (Shcheglov), A. S. Lazarev (Gruzinsky), V. A. Tikhonov

  The afterword's list of Chekhov's principal literary correspondents in this period, alongside the more extensively documented Pleshcheyev and Suvorin; two of the five are given in the disambiguating pen-name form (real surname followed by parenthetical pen name), matching the convention used elsewhere in this edition's apparatus for Shcheglov and Lazarev.

• To Ye. P. Yegorov, 20 December 1891. Moscow. §5 На беду я никак не могу узнать адреса А. Н. Плещеева -- поэта, который теперь за границей. Он, как Вам известно, получил миллионное наследство и мне бы не отказал.

  Chekhov thinks of Pleshcheyev as a second potential lender after the Literary Fund refuses him, recalling the poet's large inheritance and his standing offer of a loan made in Paris that spring -- but cannot locate his address. Five days later, in (25 December 1891), Chekhov reports he has just learned Pleshcheyev's address by chance and writes to him directly, closing the loop opened here; that later letter also revisits the Paris loan offer in more personal detail, explaining he had declined it at the time purely out of self-preservation.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 25 December 1891. Moscow. §3 yesterday I learned your address by chance

  Chekhov had lost track of Pleshcheyev's whereabouts entirely: five days earlier, in a 20 December 1891 letter to Ye. P. Yegorov about famine-relief funds, he complained that he "cannot manage to find out the address of A. N. Pleshcheyev -- the poet, who is now abroad," adding that Pleshcheyev, "as you know, received a million-ruble inheritance and would not have refused" him a loan. This letter opens by reporting that the address problem has just been solved by chance, which is why the correspondence resumes here after the gap.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 25 December 1891. Moscow. §10 как-то в Париже за обедом Вы... предложили мне взаймы денег, я отказался

  The Paris loan episode: during a spring 1891 meeting in Paris (Chekhov and Suvorin had traveled through Western Europe together that March-April, and Pleshcheyev -- then living abroad on his recent inheritance -- was also there), Pleshcheyev, at dinner, urged Chekhov to extend his stay and offered to lend him money toward it. Chekhov declined, and worried afterward that the refusal had wounded his older friend -- he recalls a perceptible "coldness" at their parting. He raises the matter here, seven months later and "in confidence," explicitly to reassure Pleshcheyev that the refusal was not personal: he was living carelessly in Paris at the time (see the Yegorov letter of five days earlier, which independently confirms Chekhov and Pleshcheyev met in Paris that spring and that Pleshcheyev again offered him a loan) and feared extra spending money would only aggravate his health, not that he was unwilling to be beholden to Pleshcheyev -- whom he says he would have borrowed from as readily as from Suvorin had real need arisen.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 10 February 1890. Moscow. §3 Alexey Nikolayevich

  Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev (1825-1893), poet, translator, and editor at "Severny Vestnik," one of Chekhov's closest literary confidants in this period; the letter's warm, joking opening register is typical of their correspondence.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 20 February 1890. Moscow. §4 повесил себя… в одно и то же время повесить и произвести в генералы

  "Hanged myself" is Chekhov's own compressed shorthand for a joking self-accusation made in an earlier (non-surviving in this corpus) letter to Pleshcheyev, which he now half-remembers and reconstructs: he ought "at one and the same time to be hanged and promoted to general" for his conduct in Petersburg. The joke turns on pairing an extreme punishment with an absurd honor for the same behavior -- heavy drinking and idling that Chekhov simultaneously mocks and boasts about in the sentences that follow.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 9 December 1890. Moscow. §8 Плещеева к чёрту. Актеров тоже к чёрту.

  "Pleshcheyev can go to hell. The actors too can go to hell" -- a mock-dismissive aside, not a real break with Pleshcheyev (Chekhov's friend and editor at Severny Vestnik), but an expression of wanting to talk to no one but Suvorin right now; consistent with Chekhov's habitual joking irritability toward friends when eager to focus his attention on a single correspondent, as noted in the headnote.

• To V. O. Kononovich, 27 February 1891. Moscow. §6 The poet Pleshcheyev has come into an inheritance of two million

  Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev, poet and editor, had recently and unexpectedly inherited a substantial fortune from a distant relative; Chekhov's letters of this period repeatedly marvel at the sudden reversal in the elderly poet's circumstances.

• To M. P. Chekhova, 16 March 1891. Petersburg. §7 he calls it a quiet retreat, and here everything is bursting with life

  Pleshcheyev's objection turns on the title of Levitan's exhibited canvas, \textit{Тихая обитель} (\textit{Quiet Abode}/\textit{The Quiet Cloister}) -- he finds a mismatch between the tranquil, monastic title and what he reads as the picture's vivid, life-filled content.

• To the Chekhovs, 1891. Paris. §7 Pleshcheev is here with his daughters and his son

  Alexei Nikolayevich Pleshcheyev (1825-1893), poet, editor, and mentor figure to Chekhov, elsewhere in this corpus's letters; also traveling in Paris at this time with his children, adding to the impromptu "whole colony of Russians" Chekhov describes.