Viktor Alexandrovich Krylov

Reading notes

• To A. S. Suvorin, 30 May 1888. Sumy. §20 Krylov, say, or Tikhonov

  Viktor Alexandrovich Krylov, a prolific but critically disdained playwright -- not to be confused with the fabulist Ivan Krylov named earlier in the same letter at loc 12. Named here alongside the playwright Vladimir Alekseevich Tikhonov as examples of dramatists whose work could use Suvorin's excess of "positive qualities."

• To I. L. Leontyev, 7 November 1888. Moscow. §11 I think that V. Krylov

  Viktor Alexandrovich Krylov (1838-1908), the prolific, commercially successful and critically disdained playwright, named only by surname and initial in the source; the identification is contextual (Krylov being a well-known stock target of literary scorn in this period) rather than made explicit in the letter itself. Explicitly distinct from Ivan Krylov, the 18th/19th-century fabulist invoked as a cultural touchstone elsewhere in this corpus -- a different man by a different Krylov entirely, sharing only a surname.

• To I. L. Leontyev, 7 November 1888. Moscow. §11 He's wrong to be a son of a bitch

  SENSITIVITY: Chekhov's own blunt, provocative judgment of a real contemporary, translated faithfully and without softening ("сукин сын"/"son of a bitch"), in the same breath as crediting Krylov with clear-sighted honesty about the theater business -- a characteristic Chekhovian mixed verdict, not a casual slur; preserved per this corpus's standing policy of rendering the writer's own sharp language faithfully rather than sanitizing it.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 7 November 1888. Moscow. §11 Viktor Krylov is a great son of a bitch, but given that aim I'd be the first to raise my voice for making him chairman.

  an unsoftened profane insult ("большой сукин сын" / "a great son of a bitch") directed at the playwright Viktor Alexandrovich Krylov, translated faithfully per corpus policy, since it is Chekhov's own characterization offered semi-seriously in service of an argument about the Dramatic Society's commercial priorities, not incidental or gratuitous profanity. Viktor Krylov must not be confused with the fabulist Ivan Krylov, already referenced elsewhere in this corpus.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 18 December 1888. Moscow. §9 I had Krylov's play, we'd already copied out the parts and set a rehearsal date, but when I got the first telegram from Suvorin, I turned Krylov down -- and he went and sold his play to Korsh, for Rybchinskaya's benefit.

  Viktor Alexandrovich Krylov, the prolific commercial playwright already established in this corpus, whose play Nikulina dropped in favor of "Tatyana Repina" and who then sold it to Fyodor Korsh (of institution:korsh-theatre) for a benefit performance for the actress Rybchinskaya (also already established in this corpus). This sale is the origin of the letter's closing irony at \S31, where Chekhov notes that Krylov's haste has inadvertently kept "Tatyana Repina" a live possibility for Nikulina, since she is now without an alternative vehicle.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 14 February 1889. Moscow. §3 Krylov

  Almost certainly Viktor Alexandrovich Krylov, a prolific, commercially successful but critically disdained rival playwright, whose antipathy toward both Chekhov's and Suvorin's stage work is referenced here only in passing.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 11 April 1889. Moscow. §3 A new Victor Krylov!

  Viktor Alexandrovich Krylov, a prolific and commercially successful but critically unrespected Petersburg playwright of the period; Chekhov's mocking greeting compares Alexander (ironically) to him ahead of the play discussed at length in §6. Purely an ironic point of comparison -- not otherwise part of this correspondence.

• To I. L. Leontyev, 26 December 1890. Moscow. §4 One mongoose is called the Scoundrel -- so the sailors nicknamed him, out of affection; another, who has very cunning, thievish eyes, is named Viktor Krylov; the third, a female, timid, discontented, and forever sitting under the washstand, is called Omutova.

  Chekhov here declines Shcheglov's earlier request (made in a letter now lost or unpublished) that a mongoose be named after him, reporting that his three mongooses -- brought back from the Sakhalin/Ceylon voyage, see -- already have names of their own, each a small comic character sketch. The middle name is very likely a joking dig at Viktor Alexandrovich Krylov, a prolific, commercially successful but critically disdained playwright of the day: giving a mongoose with "cunning, thievish eyes" the name of a writer widely accused of borrowing and reworking others' plots for the stage fits Chekhov's mockery of playwrights in general, and pointedly anticipates \S6 of this same letter, where Chekhov teases Shcheglov at length for having "swilled down" too many plays that summer at the expense of his fiction. The connection is probable rather than certain -- Chekhov does not gloss the name here, and "Viktor Krylov" was also simply a common-enough name -- but the thematic echo (a mongoose named for a theater figure, in a letter that goes on to needle Shcheglov specifically about theater eating into his art) makes the allusion likely rather than coincidental. "Omutova" (from омут, a deep pool or whirlpool) appears to be an invented, faintly ominous-sounding surname fitting the timid female mongoose's character, with no identified real-world referent.