Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov

Reading notes

• The Critic §50 Davydov, for instance, at Korsh's in Moscow

  Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov was a genuinely celebrated actor who had recently left the Imperial stage for Fyodor Korsh's private Moscow theater; the journalist's praise of him here is sincere and historically accurate, which is precisely why the noble father immediately undercuts it ("no training, no schooling... colorless") in the next line -- the joke being that he cannot let a single actor go uninsulted.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 10–12 October 1887. Moscow. §9 a talent like Davydov

  Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov, the celebrated actor then at the Korsh Theater, whom Chekhov names as the caliber of performer suited to the play's central role.

• To N. M. Yezhov, 27 October 1887. Moscow. §5 Davydov

  Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov, the celebrated actor engaged to play the title role of Ivanov.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 29 October 1887. Moscow. §6 Davydov

  Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov, the actor cast in the lead role of Chekhov's play ("Ivanov"), whose enthusiastic reception of it -- including an all-night audience with Chekhov -- is recounted here.

• To N. A. Leikin, 4 November 1887. Moscow. §4 Davydov and Kiselevsky

  Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov (see also for Ivan Kiselevsky), the two actors in Korsh's troupe Chekhov singles out as the only ones fit for their roles; both went on to create, respectively, the parts of Ivanov and Count Shabelsky in the original production.

• To N. A. Leikin, 15 November 1887. Moscow. §9 your remark concerning Davydov

  Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov, the actor Chekhov had praised in as certain to be "brilliant" in \textit{Ivanov}; here Chekhov defers to Suvorin's endorsement of Davydov over his own direct impression, in reply to some skeptical remark Leikin had apparently made.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 20 November 1887. Moscow. §3 Only Davydov and Glama knew their parts

  Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov, who created the title role, and Alexandra Yakovlevna Glama-Meshcherskaya (see also), singled out here as the only two cast members who had actually learned their lines before opening night.

• To I. L. Leontyev, 1 January 1888. Moscow. §13 Davydov ... Kiselevsky

  Vladimir Davydov and Ippolit Kiselevsky, both prominent actors of the day; Chekhov passes on theater-world gossip about a falling-out between them.

• To D. V. Grigorovich, 12 January 1888. Moscow. §6 V. N. Davydov

  Vladimir Davydov, a leading Moscow actor who had played the title role in Chekhov's play "Ivanov" at its November 1887 premiere at the Korsh Theatre; the two had become friendly through the production.

• To D. V. Grigorovich, 5 February 1888. Moscow. §5 V. N. Davydov

  Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov, the actor, whose separate letter to Grigorovich Chekhov says he enclosed along with his own around 10 January 1888.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 5 February 1888. Moscow. §7 Davydov's benefit

  Vladimir Nikolaevich Davydov, the Moscow actor whose benefit performance on 5 February 1888 -- the day of this letter -- staged Moliere's "The Bourgeois Gentleman."

• To Ya. P. Polonsky, 22 February 1888. Moscow. §3 V. N. Davydov

  Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov (1849-1925), the celebrated actor, who happened to be visiting when Polonsky's poem arrived and so gave it a professional reading aloud.

• To V. N. Davydov, 7–10 March 1888. §3 Vladimir Nikolaevich

  Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov, the celebrated actor who created the role of Svetlovidov and had helped route the manuscript of "Kalkhas" (later "Swan Song") to the theatrical censor a few months earlier, in December 1887. With the season closing and Davydov leaving Moscow for his native parts, Chekhov now wants his censor-approved copy of the script back.

• To V. N. Davydov, 23 April 1888. Moscow. §3 Vladimir Nikolaevich

  Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov, the celebrated comic actor at Korsh's Moscow theatre, who has just accepted a post at the Imperial theatre in Petersburg -- the "happy outcome" of the negotiations Chekhov congratulates him on here.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 10 November 1888. Moscow. §14 V. N. Davydov

  Vladimir Nikolaevich Davydov, the celebrated actor already established in this corpus, who had helped route the manuscript of "Kalkhas" (later "Swan Song") to the censor and played the lead role of Svetlovidov (cf. letter 2-387); the same figure here, greeted in passing via a postscript rather than discussed at length.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 19 December 1888. Moscow. §18 Sazonov, Svobodin, and Varlamov will play their parts so well, so very well, that they'll wipe the floor with dear little Davydov and cure him of taking up drama.

  Compare the closing dismissal of Dalmatov as "wooden" at \S34, a related jab in the same vein.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 30 December 1888. Moscow. §23 Davydov played Ivanov!

  Vladimir Davydov, the actor who played Ivanov in the original Moscow production, cited by Chekhov as precedent for casting a known actor in the lead.

• To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 15 January 1889. Moscow. §9 not swathed in Davydov's wearisomely clever guise

  PROBABLE, NOT CERTAIN -- per the translator's note, "Davydov" here most likely refers to the celebrated actor Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov, already established elsewhere in this corpus (e.g.) in connection with the Petersburg "Ivanov" casting; Chekhov invokes him here by contrast, faulting the "wearisomely clever" journalist-type Davydov is associated with against Lensky's more winning version of the same type in "Tanya." The letter gives only the bare adjectival surname ("давыдовской"), so the identification, while contextually strong, is reused with the same caveat the translator flagged rather than treated as certain.

• To V. N. Davydov, 22–23 January 1889. Petersburg. §2 Dear Vladimir Nikolayevich, today I shall call on you and give you an answer to your letter

  "Vladimir Nikolayevich" is the actor Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov, addressed here only by first name and patronymic, as the letter's salutation. The identification of the addressee as Davydov comes from the archive's letterhead/heading ("В. Н. Давыдову"), not from the body text itself, which never gives his surname. the immediately preceding letter to Davydov, part of the same run of Petersburg "Ivanov" correspondence.

• To M. P. Chekhov, January 1889. Petersburg. §2 the tiresome Davydov

  Almost certainly Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov, the Alexandrinsky Theater actor preparing the title role in "Ivanov," already established in this corpus via the headnote (a note to Davydov himself, written within days of this one). CONTEXTUAL INFERENCE: the letter itself gives only the bare surname "Давыдовым"; the identification rests on the surrounding January 1889 Petersburg correspondence documenting Chekhov's running friction with Davydov over the same production, not on any explicit first name or patronymic in this letter.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 14 February 1889. Moscow. §4 Davydov and Svobodin

  Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov, the actor who created the title role in the original Moscow production of Chekhov's "Ivanov," cited here alongside Svobodin as an example of an actor with an unexpectedly respectable, well-off domestic life.

• To I. L. Leontyev, 11 March 1889. Moscow. §5 V. N. Davydov

  Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov, the celebrated actor already established in this corpus, here reported as having spoken of staging "The Proposal" at the Alexandrinsky Theatre.

• To V. N. Davydov, 26 April 1889. Sumy. §3 Vladimir Nikolaevich

  Vladimir Nikolayevich Davydov, the celebrated comic actor of the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, already established in this corpus as the recipient of Chekhov's "Calchas" manuscript and of the earlier Ivanov-casting correspondence; reuse that identity here.