Yakov Petrovich Polonsky

Reading notes

• To Ya. P. Polonsky, 18 January 1888. Moscow. §3 Yakov Petrovich

  Yakov Petrovich Polonsky (1819-1898), the veteran lyric poet, then in his late sixties, whose unsolicited letter of praise and offer to dedicate a poem to the twenty-seven-year-old Chekhov prompts this warm, self-deprecating reply.

• To Ya. P. Polonsky, 22 February 1888. Moscow. §3 Yakov Petrovich

  Yakov Petrovich Polonsky (1819-1898), the veteran lyric poet whose earlier letter and poem prompted this reply; see also Chekhov's letter of January 18, 1888.

• To M. P. Chekhov, 16 March 1888. Petersburg. §7 Polonsky's

  Yakov Polonsky, veteran poet, whom Chekhov plans to visit that evening.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 24 March 1888. Moscow. §13 Ya. P. Polonsky

  Yakov Polonsky, an elder poet of the mid-century generation who had dedicated a poem to Chekhov; Chekhov here reciprocates by dedicating "Happiness" to him.

• To Ya. P. Polonsky, 25 March 1888. Moscow. §3 Yakov Petrovich

  Yakov Petrovich Polonsky (1819-1898), the veteran lyric poet to whom Chekhov confesses two small "sins" here; a follow-up to his letter of February 22, 1888.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 31 March 1888. Moscow. §19 Ya. P. Polonsky

  Yakov Polonsky, elder poet and friend, from whom Chekhov reports having recently received a warm letter.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 11–12 April 1888. Moscow. §2 Ya. P. Polonsky

  Yakov Polonsky, the elder poet to whom Chekhov dedicates "Happiness," reiterating the same instruction given earlier in.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 1888. Sumy. §7 Ya. P. Polonsky

  Yakov Petrovich Polonsky, the veteran lyric poet; his copy is conditional on his still being in Petersburg for the summer, otherwise Alexander is asked to track down his summer address.

• To D. V. Grigorovich, 9 October 1888. Moscow. §5 Ya. P. Polonsky

  Yakov Polonsky, poet, credited by Chekhov as the one who first put forward the idea of nominating him for the prize.

• To M. P. Chekhova, 16 March 1891. Petersburg. §7 Polonsky finds the bridge too long

  A fussy, narrowly compositional quibble (about a bridge depicted in Levitan's picture) that Chekhov reports deadpan alongside the more substantial critical reactions, part of the letter's cataloguing of the older generation's mixed, sometimes petty verdicts.

• Happiness §1 Ya. P. Polonsky

  Yakov Polonsky (1819-1898), an established lyric poet of the generation before Chekhov's own; the dedication signals that Chekhov, not yet thirty and still mostly known for comic sketches, considered "Happiness" a serious literary bid -- one of several 1887 stories he began dedicating to older writers he admired as his ambitions shifted from newspaper humor toward literature proper.