Vladimir Alexeyevich Gilyarovsky

Reading notes

• To N. A. Leikin, 22 March 1885. Moscow. §5 Moscow's chief know-it-all Gilyarovsky

  Vladimir Alexeyevich Gilyarovsky, journalist and later famous chronicler of old Moscow street life, at this date a well-connected Moscow reporter Chekhov relied on for raw local material for his feuilletons.

• To N. A. Leikin, 24 May 1886. Voskresensk. §6 Заказал Гиляровскому рекламы

  Vladimir Gilyarovsky, journalist and Moscow newspaperman well connected across the city's press, was well placed to arrange advertisement placements for the new book in the papers Chekhov names, a small favor typical of the informal literary-world networking that got a first book noticed.

• To N. A. Leikin, 4 November 1884. Moscow. §9 Gilyarovsky

  Vladimir Gilyarovsky, journalist, former actor and strongman, and a Moscow literary acquaintance of Chekhov's -- noted here in passing on the birth of a son.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 10–12 October 1887. Moscow. §15 To V. A. GILIAROVSKY

  Vladimir Alexeyevich Gilyarovsky, journalist, memoirist, and famous chronicler of old Moscow street life, nicknamed "Uncle Gilyai"; addressee of the second, much shorter letter bundled in this file. Reused from the existing corpus entity established at (note the source-edition spelling "Гиляровский"/"Giliarovsky" used in this letter's heading, matching the entity's alias "Гиляровский").

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 21 October 1887. Moscow. §14 Gilyai is putting out a book, "Slum People"

  Vladimir Gilyarovsky ("Uncle Gilyai"), the Moscow journalist and chronicler of street life, publishing his book Trushchobnye lyudi (Slum People/People of the Slums) -- Chekhov's pun ("not a bad edition, but slummy") plays on the book's own subject matter.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 5–6 July 1888. Sumy. §4 Gilyarovsky's

  Vladimir Gilyarovsky, the Moscow journalist and memoirist; Chekhov's assessment here -- talented but literarily timid, unable to risk plain sincerity -- concerns Gilyarovsky's prose style specifically.

• To A. M. Yevreinova, 10 March 1889. Moscow. §16 Gilyarovsky

  Vladimir Alexeyevich Gilyarovsky, journalist and memoirist celebrated as the chronicler of old Moscow street and river life; already established elsewhere in this corpus (first_appearance). Chekhov here recommends Yevreinova run Gilyarovsky's story about log rafts while it remains topical.

• To N. M. Lintvareva, 25 October 1891. Moscow. §5 I would gladly sell Gilyarovsky too, along with his verses, but no one will buy him.

  Vladimir Alexeyevich Gilyarovsky, journalist, memoirist, and boisterous Moscow literary acquaintance nicknamed "dyadya Gilyay"; the same figure addressed directly and at length in the Sakhalin-era letters (e.g.). His frequent, voluble evening visits and taste for florid verse and tall talk -- "his doubts, his struggles, his volcanoes, his torn nostrils, his atamans, his free untrammeled will" -- are affectionately mocked here in a register consistent with Chekhov's other references to him.

• To A. I. Smagin, 24 November 1891. Moscow. §7 Gilyarovsky recently covered 80 versts on foot in a single day

  Vladimir Alexeyevich Gilyarovsky, the journalist, memoirist, and celebrated Moscow strongman known to friends as "dyadya Gilyay"; a verst is roughly 1.07 kilometers, so 80 versts is a feat of about 85 kilometers covered on foot in a single day, offered here as an anecdote illustrating his legendary stamina and outdoorsmanship.

• To A. I. Smagin, 11 December 1891. Moscow. §5 in verse, which Gilyarovsky will write to my commission

  Vladimir Alexeyevich Gilyarovsky, the boisterous Moscow journalist and old friend, is jokingly conscripted to compose the donors' formal accounting in verse -- a comic touch typical of how Chekhov dresses up the famine-relief bookkeeping.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 13 December 1891. Moscow. §6 as Gilyarovsky says, is no small potatoes

  Vladimir Alekseyevich Gilyarovsky, the Moscow journalist, memoirist, and raconteur, credited here with the colloquial expression \textit{не баран начихал} (literally "it's not something a ram sneezed on"), rendered idiomatically as "no small potatoes" -- Chekhov's way of saying that giving a reader ten or twelve genuinely absorbing minutes is no trivial accomplishment.

• To A. I. Smagin, 16 December 1891. Moscow. §5 then Gilyarovsky will read a splendid poem, welcoming my entry into that khutor

  Vladimir Alexeyevich Gilyarovsky, the boisterous Moscow journalist, is imagined again -- as in the horse-buying scheme of, written five days earlier -- composing commemorative verse, here mock-solemnly marking Chekhov's eventual, cramped arrival at the khutor rather than a charitable accounting.

• To V. A. Gilyarovsky, 24 January 1892. Moscow. §9 To Vladimir Alekseyevich Gilyarovsky.

  Vladimir Alexeyevich Gilyarovsky -- journalist, memoirist, former actor, soldier, and strongman celebrated as the great chronicler of old Moscow street life -- has been a warm presence in this corpus for years purely by way of other people's letters: writing to Smagin about the famine-relief horse-buying scheme, Chekhov twice invoked him admiringly and half-jokingly as the friend who would versify the accounts of it and who would one day welcome Chekhov's dried-out, paper-scribbling old age with a splendid poem -- always spoken of, never yet written to. This brief travel note -- barely more than "I have returned" and an address -- is nevertheless the first letter in the corpus actually sent TO Gilyarovsky himself, closing the gap between the admiring third-party mentions and direct contact. Its very terseness suggests an already-easy, low-ceremony friendship: no preamble is needed to tell dyadya Gilyay that Chekhov is back in Moscow for five days.