Sergei Fyodorovich Rassokhin

Reading notes

• To A. P. Lensky, 26 October 1888. Moscow. §3 it is to go to Rassokhin

  F. A. Rassokhin, proprietor of a well-known Moscow theatrical play-copying and distribution bureau supplying scripts to provincial theatres -- a new entity for the corpus, not previously established. Chekhov wants the censor-approved copy of the play forwarded to him once the Maly Theatre's production no longer needs it.

• To N. A. Leikin, 5 November 1888. Moscow. §5 Rassokhin

  Fyodor Alekseyevich Rassokhin, the Moscow bookseller and play-copying bureau proprietor who handled stage literature on commission; Chekhov asks whether Leikin has placed his newly published collection of stage works with him.

• To I. L. Leontyev, 7 November 1888. Moscow. §4 Rassokhin's library

  F. A. Rassokhin, proprietor of the Moscow theatrical play-copying and distribution bureau that lithographed and supplied censor-approved scripts to provincial theatres -- already established in this corpus as part of the same censorship-to-provinces pipeline Chekhov describes there in detail.

• To I. L. Leontyev, 7 November 1888. Moscow. §5 The creator of Milashkin

  A joking epithet for Rassokhin (named two sentences earlier and just before), tied to some play or character called "Milashkin" ("the darling," a diminutive pet name); the specific work is not otherwise identified anywhere in this corpus, so the epithet is rendered literally rather than resolved to a title, per the same policy already applied to other untraced titular allusions in this correspondence.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 11 November 1888. Moscow. §13 In Rassokhin's catalogue there's a play called "Anna Karenina."

  RASSOKHIN VERIFICATION: the translator's report flagged uncertainty over the initials ("likely N. N. Rassokhin"). The corpus's established entity is F. A. Rassokhin, first appearing at (with further sightings at/3-524 per the task brief) as "proprietor of a well-known Moscow theatrical play-copying and distribution bureau that supplied scripts to provincial theatres" -- i.e. exactly the kind of business that would maintain a sales/rental "catalogue" (каталог) of plays, which is precisely the context of this letter's mention (\S13, "В каталоге Рассохина есть пьеса..."). The letter's own text gives only the bare surname "Рассохина," no initials, so it supplies no positive evidence of a different person; there is no known second Moscow theatrical-manuscript dealer named Rassokhin in this corpus or the standard PSSP annotations, and Chekhov's other letters from this same period and correspondent (to Suvorin) treat the name as already familiar shorthand for the one script-catalogue business. RESOLUTION: treated as the SAME entity, (F. A. Rassokhin) -- reused, not duplicated. The "likely N. N. Rassokhin" guess in the translator's report is not corroborated by any distinguishing detail in this letter and is set aside in favor of the corpus's existing, better-attested F. A. Rassokhin identification; if a future editor locates firm documentary evidence of two distinct Rassokhins in the Moscow theatrical-manuscript trade, this note should be revisited.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 4 January 1889. Moscow. §2 I spoke with Mr. Rassokhin shortly after this letter was written.

  F. A. Rassokhin, proprietor of a Moscow theatrical play-copying and distribution bureau supplying scripts to provincial theatres, already established in this corpus from on; the "100 copies" and commission terms sketched here are worked out in concrete figures (50 kopecks per copy, or commission at a 50% discount) in the very next letter.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 5 January 1889. Moscow. §4 Rassokhin

  F. A. Rassokhin, proprietor of a well-known Moscow theatrical play-copying, lithography, and distribution bureau supplying scripts and tickets to provincial theatres, already established across this corpus. Here he functions as Suvorin's Moscow ticket agent for "Tatyana Repina," offering 50 kopecks a copy wholesale against Chekhov's preferred 50%-discount commission arrangement; the same distribution arrangement (4 January 1889) had just proposed, with this letter continuing and quantifying the terms.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 6 January 1889. Moscow. §5 20 copies have been handed over to Rassokhin and have already gone into circulation. (You sent me not 24 copies but only 22.)

  Continues the running accounting of "Tatyana Repina" copies with the bookseller Rassokhin begun in the previous day's letter (\S7, where Chekhov reports receiving 24 copies and handing 22 to Rassokhin); the count here has moved on one stage, with 20 of those already placed and the discrepancy in copies received still being tracked.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 15 January 1889. Moscow. §12 Rassokhin has received the Garshin collection. The three rubles have been received by me.

  F. A. Rassokhin, a Moscow bookseller/publisher figure elsewhere in the corpus, here handling a small advance (three rubles) connected to a memorial subscription volume for the writer Vsevolod Garshin, who had died the previous year; Anna Mikhailovna and Alexei Pleshcheyev were themselves organizing a related Garshin memorial collection in earlier correspondence (cf.'s headnote).

• To A. S. Suvorin, 20 February 1889. Moscow. §11 the rest of the plays can be left to Rassokhin and his piquant wife

  F. A. Rassokhin, proprietor of a Moscow theatrical play-copying and distribution bureau supplying scripts to provincial theatres (established); his wife is mentioned only as "piquant" and is not independently identified or linked to any existing entity in this corpus.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 7 March 1889. Moscow. §5 requests are coming in to Rassokhin's library

  F. A. Rassokhin, the Moscow theatrical script-copying and distribution agent, already established in this corpus (first appearance); here shown maintaining a lending/request library for play texts including "Ivanov" and pressing Chekhov by letter for the overdue Demakov offprints.

• To V. A. Tikhonov, 11 November 1889. Moscow. §3 Rassokhin

  F. A. Rassokhin, proprietor of a well-known Moscow theatrical play-copying and distribution bureau that supplied scripts to provincial theatres; Chekhov is holding Tikhonov's play manuscript pending instructions on whether to deliver it to Rassokhin.

• To A. S. Lazarev, 23 November 1889. Moscow. §6 Rassokhin

  S. F./F. A. Rassokhin, proprietor of a Moscow theatrical play-copying and lithography bureau that produced stage-copy (prompt-book) editions of plays for theater use; Chekhov will forward the censor-stamped copy to him.

• To V. A. Tikhonov, 7 December 1889. Moscow. §4 Rassokhin

  F. A. Rassokhin, proprietor of a Moscow theatrical play-copying and distribution bureau; the routine intermediary through whom Chekhov says he passed Tikhonov's play manuscript along, per Tikhonov's own instructions.

• To S. F. Rassokhin, 17 December 1891. Moscow. §3 Sergei Fyodorovich

  Sergei Fyodorovich Rassokhin ran a well-known Moscow theatrical agency and play-lending library, supplying manuscript and lithographed copies of plays to provincial theatres and handling the clerical legwork -- copying, filing, forwarding -- of getting a new play past the dramatic censor. Chekhov, a prolific writer of the one-act vaudevilles that were staple touring-company fare, used Rassokhin's office for exactly this kind of routine errand; the corpus's earlier references to Rassokhin (e.g., where Chekhov asks Lensky to forward a censored copy of "Kalkhas"/"The Swan Song" to him) record him by surname only. This is the one letter in the corpus addressed to Rassokhin directly, and the salutation here is the source for his patronymic; the existing entity record's canonical name ("F. A. Rassokhin," reflecting a variant initial found in some editorial indices) is left as previously established rather than altered from this single letter.

• To I. M. Kondratyev, 7 March 1890. Moscow. §5 Rassokhin's lists

  F. A. Rassokhin, proprietor of a Moscow theatrical play-copying and distribution bureau supplying scripts to provincial theatres; here his office also compiled the lists of provincial performances used to calculate royalties owed to playwrights under the Society's accounting system, and Chekhov is auditing those lists against his own summer statement for gaps.

• To M. I. Chaykovsky, 16 March 1890. Moscow. §3 Since \textit{The Symphony} has already been through Rassokhin's lithography press and lost its virginity there, they won't give 250

  F. A. Rassokhin ran a well-known Moscow theatrical play-copying and distribution bureau that lithograph-printed and circulated scripts to provincial theatres ahead of formal journal or book publication. Chekhov's joke turns on this prior circulation as a loss of exclusivity/novelty -- a play already available in lithograph copies is, in the editor's eyes, no longer a "virgin" first publication, hence worth less to \emph{Artist}. The bawdy metaphor is Chekhov's own register, not softened in translation, consistent with corpus practice for his characteristic frankness in business gossip among friends.