person
"Volodya" (Taganrog, 1890)
Volodya
also: Володя, Volodya
A young man in Georgy Chekhov's Taganrog circle -- Anton is glad to hear good news of him via Misha and jokes about his having grown taller than Georgy, adding that when he becomes a metropolitan the short deacons will struggle to fit the mitre onto him, implying Volodya is training for or already within the church (compare the letter's later greeting to "the seminary"). Not further identified in this letter; not to be confused with the many unrelated fictional Volodyas in the corpus (e.g.) or with.
Reading notes
- To G. M. Chekhov, 29 December 1890. Moscow. §6 Когда он будет митрополитом
"When he becomes a metropolitan" -- a joking prediction that the unidentified "Volodya" is headed for high clerical office, continuing the letter's church-adjacent imagery (compare the later greeting to "the seminary," S11). A metropolitan is a senior bishop in the Orthodox hierarchy; Chekhov's joke turns on the practical difficulty short deacons would have raising the ceremonial mitre onto an unusually tall metropolitan's head -- pure whimsy rather than a serious claim about Volodya's actual career.