person
Titular Councillor Slyunkin
Slyunkin
also: Слюнкин, титулярный советник Слюнкин
A titular councillor in "About Women" whose wife keeps the vodka locked away from him, and who is fond of declaring that "the most venomous insect in creation is the female sex" -- his low civil rank (titular councillor, ninth of fourteen) and his transparently self-interested grievance mark him as another petty, undignified mouthpiece for the piece's satirized misogyny.
Reading notes
- From the Notebook of Ivan Ivanych (Thoughts and Notes) §5 Titular Councillor Slyunkin
Titulyarny sovetnik, the ninth of fourteen ranks in the Table of Ranks -- a modest civil-service grade. This titular councillor's wife locks the vodka away from him, and his complaint about the "venomous" female sex is undercut by its obvious self-interest.
- About Women §3 Titular Councillor
Titulyarny sovetnik was the ninth of the fourteen ranks in Peter the Great's Table of Ranks -- a modest, often mocked civil-service grade (compare Gogol's Akaky Akakievich and Poprishchin), signaling that Slyunkin is a minor bureaucrat, not a figure of any real authority.