Vasily Sobolevsky

Reading notes

• To K. S. Barantsevich, 27 March 1888. Moscow. §5 Sobolevsky

  Vasily Mikhailovich Sobolevsky, the paper's editor; Chekhov supplies his patronymic so Barantsevich can address the submission properly.

• To V. M. Sobolevsky, 7 October 1891. Moscow. §9 Much-esteemed Vasily Mikhailovich

  Vasily Mikhailovich Sobolevsky, the addressee: editor of the liberal Moscow daily Russkiye Vedomosti, whose editorial board had undertaken the famine-relief Miscellany that is the subject of both halves of this letter. Chekhov and Sobolevsky moved in overlapping Moscow literary-journalistic circles, though this letter is a comparatively formal, businesslike approach -- Chekhov addresses him with the polite "Mnogouvazhaemyi" ("much-esteemed") rather than as an intimate correspondent.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 10 October 1891. Moscow. §4 Today I am lunching at Sobolevsky's

  Almost certainly Vasily Mikhailovich Sobolevsky, editor of the liberal Moscow daily Russkiye Vedomosti, whom Chekhov had written to only three days earlier (7 October 1891) forwarding Suvorin's famine-relief publishing scheme -- a letter addressed to Sobolevsky by full name and patronymic. The surname alone, given here without further identification, is consistent with an established acquaintance Chekhov had just been in correspondence with; no other Sobolevsky appears in Chekhov's circle at this date. The text itself supplies no patronymic or initial to close the identification with certainty, but the timing (a lunch invitation following directly on a substantive exchange of letters) makes the identity highly probable rather than a bare guess.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 13 October 1891. Moscow. §3 Sobolevsky was touched not so much by the profitable proposal as by your wish to take part

  Vasily Sobolevsky, editor of Russkiye Vedomosti and the addressee of Chekhov's covering letter forwarding Suvorin's original proposal. This letter reports back to Suvorin himself on how that proposal was received in person.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 11 December 1891. Moscow. §13 the editor of \emph{Russkiye Vedomosti}, Sobolevsky

  Vasily Mikhailovich Sobolevsky, editor of the liberal Moscow daily Russkiye Vedomosti and the addressee of Chekhov's covering letter forwarding Suvorin's Sbornik proposal in; here Chekhov relays Sobolevsky's own verdict on Tolstoy's soup-kitchen article as evidence of its unusual practical value.

• To K. S. Barantsevich, 9 February 1890. Moscow. §6 I'm not acquainted with Sobolevsky

  Vasily Mikhailovich Sobolevsky, editor of the liberal Moscow daily \emph{Russkiye Vedomosti} (\emph{The Russian Gazette}); Barantsevich has apparently asked Chekhov to approach him with some commission, but Chekhov, not personally acquainted with Sobolevsky, prefers to route the request through Sablin instead.

• The Mysteries of One Hundred and Forty-Four Catastrophes §47 the editor of The Russian Gazette, Sobolevsky

  Vasily Sobolevsky, the real editor of the liberal Moscow daily Russkiye Vedomosti (The Russian Gazette), inserted here as a guest at the ball -- a topical cameo of the actual Moscow press world Chekhov moved in.

• Notebooks. Diaries §4071 Sobolevsky came to Melikhovo

  Vasily Mikhailovich Sobolevsky, editor of the liberal Moscow newspaper Russkiye Vedomosti and a Chekhov acquaintance who visited Melikhovo.