Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev

Reading notes

• The Man in a Case §9 Turgenev

  The Russian novelist, invoked here as one of the writers the town's thinking, decent teachers were raised on -- and still gave way to Belikov despite it.

• The Summer Girl §26 Turgenevian

  Refers to the idealistic, high-principled heroes typical of Ivan Turgenev's novels, whom the institute-educated Lyolya expected to meet in life.

• The Duel §149 Turgenev

  Ivan Turgenev, blamed by von Koren (paraphrasing Laevsky's own excuses) for inventing the literary type of the 'superfluous man' that Laevsky hides behind.

• Uncle Vanya §165 angina pectoris

  Chest pain caused by reduced blood flow to the heart, here named by its Latin medical term (transliterated into Russian as "грудная жаба," literally "chest toad") as Serebryakov frets over developing the condition he believes killed Turgenev. Turgenev in fact died of a spinal/vertebral cancer (myxosarcoma) in 1883, not of angina or gout; whether this is Chekhov's own deliberate period misconception or a piece of characterization (Serebryakov getting his facts wrong, as his critics in the play repeatedly claim he does) is left to the reader -- this note flags the discrepancy rather than silently correcting the character's line.

• Ivan Matveich §51 Turgenev

  Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883), a leading Russian novelist of the era; that the young copyist has read neither him nor Gogol underscores the gap in education and culture between the two men.

• To M. P. Chekhov, 1879. Taganrog. §3 Turgenev

  Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, the novelist and essayist whose "Hamlet and Don Quixote" Chekhov recommends alongside the novel itself.

• To N. A. Leikin, 1883. Moscow. §6 Turgenevs

  Ivan Turgenev, the celebrated Russian novelist. The half-remembered phrase "There are all sorts of Turgenevs," spoken by a photograph-seller in a story Chekhov is trying to identify, plays on the commonness of the name versus the fame of the writer.

• To N. A. Leikin, 19 September 1883. Moscow. §6 Turgenev

  Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, the celebrated Russian novelist; the sketch "In the Landau" that Chekhov is sending concerns him.

• To the Chekhovs, 11 May 1887. Taganrog. §5 Turgenev

  The peasants doffing their caps mistake Chekhov, with his beard and city dress, for the famous novelist -- a self-deprecating joke about being taken for a celebrity he does not resemble.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 15 November 1888. Moscow. §7 to get him a discount on a Turgenev

  Refers generically to an edition of Ivan Turgenev's works sold at Suvorin's bookshop, not to any specific title; Chekhov clarifies that this particular edition is not Suvorin's own publication, so no discount could be arranged through him. The unnamed "Korsh actor" (\S7) requesting the discount is not otherwise identified and is left unlinked, distinct from the named Korsh-company actors already established elsewhere in this corpus (see's's, and's headnotes).

• List of Exhibitors Awarded Cast-Iron Medals in the Russian Section at the Amsterdam Exhibition §3 Turgenev's funeral

  Ivan Turgenev died in September 1883; his Moscow memorial observances became a notorious embarrassment when local theaters were criticized for tone-deaf, business-as-usual programming on the day, which this entry mocks.

• In the Landau §6 requiem for Turgenev

  Ivan Turgenev died on 22 August (3 September) 1883; his death prompted memorial services across Russia, including, evidently, among the baron's fellow office workers -- the occasion for the story's mock-literary debate.

• If You Chase Two Hares, You Won't Catch Either §56 Turgenev

  Ivan Turgenev, the major Russian novelist, whose prose Nadenka claims to have read -- and, unwittingly, to have plagiarized in the very next sentence.

• Notebooks. Diaries §302 better than Turgenev

  Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818-1883), the elder statesman of Russian prose fiction against whom the minor novelist Boleslav Markevich is here unfavorably (and absurdly) compared.