person

Semashko

also: Семашко

A travelling companion of Chekhov's on the September 1889 journey from Luka back to Moscow; joined in the comic carriage prank on Maria Pavlovna Chekhova by play-acting a valet, and sent along his own greetings to the Lintvaryov household. First name not given in the surviving letters; not otherwise identified.

Reading notes

To P. I. Chaykovsky, 18 October 1891. Moscow. §5 Marian Semashko, a splendid man
Marian Romualdovich Semashko was a cellist in the orchestra of the Bolshoi Theatre and a longtime friend of the Chekhov household, one of the informal hangers-on who treated the family's rooms as his own rather than as a guest's. He had studied cello under Wilhelm Fitzenhagen at the Moscow Conservatory (institution:moscow-conservatory) -- the dedicatee of Tchaikovsky's own \emph{Variations on a Rococo Theme} for cello, a detail that sharpens the appropriateness of appealing to Tchaikovsky specifically on a cellist's behalf. Semashko appears earlier in the corpus as an unnamed travelling companion on Chekhov's September 1889 return from Luka (\S4 and \S7), where he play-acted a valet in one of Chekhov's comic impersonations; this letter is the first place his full name and profession are given. The favor evidently succeeded: by 1892 Semashko had secured a post in the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra in Moscow, the kind of settled position Chekhov is requesting here.
To A. I. Smagin, 21 November 1891. Moscow. §20 Semashko, since Your departure, has still not once seen them naked
Reuses the corpus's existing (a travelling companion of Chekhov's, first attested at on the 1889 Luka-to-Moscow journey); the household or family circle overlaps enough between the two letters that this is plausibly the same acquaintance, evidently now present at or connected to the household near Smagin's estate. The joke about not having "seen them naked" depends on the unresolved identity of "the Pigots" immediately above and cannot be further glossed without it.
To M. P. Chekhova, 9–10 January 1891. Petersburg. §9 Semashka
The same Semashko who joined Chekhov and Maria Pavlovna on the September 1889 journey back from Luka and took part in a comic carriage prank on her; his first name is not given in the surviving letters.
To the Chekhovs, 1891. Venice. §11 Semashechka
\textit{Семашечке} -- an affectionate diminutive of "Semashko", greeted here along with his wife (\textit{с супругою}). the plain "Semashko" addressed directly in, \S12.
To the Chekhovs, April 1891. Naples. §6 so great a maestro as Semashko
A mock-deferential title ("maestro") for Semashko, a friend of the Taganrog/family circle who had apparently asked for a shop catalogue as a souvenir errand; Chekhov's inability to produce one becomes a small comic set piece rather than a real complaint. Semashko recurs across this trip's family correspondence.
To A. A. Dolzhenko, 29 July 1891. Bogimovo. §5 Take what you need from Ivan or Semashko
Semashko here is the family friend/travelling companion already established in this corpus, expected to arrive at Bogimovo along with Ivan and bring goods with him -- the same practical, errand-running role Semashko plays in the closely parallel wine-collection letter (\S4, "Semashko or Ivan"), not the separate, provisional "Semashko" tied to a batch of photographs in, which that entry itself treats as unconfirmed and possibly, but not certainly, the same figure.