person
Yakov Grot
Grot
also: Грот, Я. К. Грот, Yakov Karlovich Grot
Russian philologist and academician (1812-1893) whose 1885 spelling and grammar reference ("Russian Spelling," codifying Academy of Sciences norms) became the standard schoolroom authority on questions like adjectival genitive endings -- the subject of the schoolteacher Lampadkin's pedantic obsession throughout the story.
Reading notes
- To Al. P. Chekhov, 21 October 1887. Moscow. §16 Grot
Yakov Grot, the academician actually in charge of the Academy's literary section, misidentified in Alexander's report as its president.
- To Paris! §2 новая грамматика Грота
Yakov Grot's 1885 codification of Russian spelling and grammar was the era's new schoolroom authority, including rulings on adjectival case endings (e.g. genitive singular masculine \emph{-ogo} versus the older \emph{-ago}). Lampadkin's obsessive, self-important citing of "Grot's theory" -- while he himself is about to disgrace himself in Kursk -- is the story's running joke about pedantry without substance.