person

Zhitel (Alexander Dyakov)

Zhitel

also: Житель, Alexander Afanasyevich Dyakov, А. А. Дьяков

Pen name ('The Resident,' Russian) of Alexander Afanasyevich Dyakov, a columnist for Suvorin's "Novoye Vremya"; in this letter Chekhov teases Pleshcheyev's jab that Novoye Vremya staff will only mourn when Zhitel himself dies -- a joke about the still-living Zhitel, not a report of his death (compare the same letter's separate, serious discussion of Garshin's actual death).

Reading notes

To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 31 March 1888. Moscow. §5 Zhitel
Pen name of the Novoye Vremya columnist Alexander Dyakov. Chekhov is correcting Pleshcheyev's jab that the Novoye Vremya staff will only shed tears when it is Zhitel's own turn to be buried -- a joke about the still-living Zhitel's eventual death, not a report of his death. Distinct from the letter's separate, serious discussion of Garshin's actual funeral in the same section.
To Al. P. Chekhov, 13 October 1888. Moscow. §6 under Zhitel's supervision
Zhitel is the established pen name of the columnist Alexander Afanasyevich Dyakov, a Novoye Vremya colleague already introduced in this correspondence; Chekhov's half-joking suggestion is to put the errant Alexander under an older, steadier colleague's watch.
To A. S. Suvorin, 8 February 1889. Moscow. §4 Zhitel
Pen name ('The Resident') of Alexei Afanasyevich Dyakov, a "Novoye Vremya" columnist; here he is the source, relayed by Suvorin, of the objection that Chekhov took Ivanov 'ready-made.'
To A. S. Suvorin, 28 October 1889. Moskva/. §11 Ask Zhitel not to use the word "appetite" in his feuilletons.
"Zhitel" ("The Resident"/"Villager"), the pen name of feuilletonist Alexander Dyakov (already established in this corpus via), writing for Suvorin's "Novoye Vremya." Chekhov's complaint is purely stylistic -- an editorial note about overused vocabulary -- not a substantive dispute.
To Al. P. Chekhov, 24 October 1891. Moscow. §3 leaving 104 Mondays and 104 Wednesdays to Petersen, and Maslov, and that hard-labor drudge Zhitel...
Chekhov is being sarcastic at his colleagues' expense: he had a standing Monday/Wednesday slot at "Novoye Vremya" but, by his own count, left it open for roughly two years (104 weeks), during which Petersen, Maslov (writing as Bezhetsky), and the columnist Zhitel filled the space instead. "Каторжному Жителю" -- literally "to the hard-labor [i.e., penal-servitude] Zhitel" -- is ironic hyperbole: Zhitel was not actually condemned to any such thing, and the corpus's existing entry for this figure already identifies him as the pen name of Alexander Afanasyevich Dyakov, a working "Novoye Vremya" columnist of the period, consistent with the joke here being about his heavy, ongoing column-filling labor rather than any real punishment. The identification, and the reading of the epithet as ironic exaggeration rather than a literal claim, is corroborated by this letter and requires no new entity.
To A. S. Suvorin, 27 May 1891. Bogimovo. §6 don't be the Zhitel
"The Zhitel" ("Житель," literally "the Resident" or "the Inhabitant") was the pen name of A. A. Dyakov, a \emph{Novoye Vremya} columnist known for moralizing feuilletons on the decline of contemporary manners. Chekhov turns the name into a verb of reproach -- "don't be the Zhitel" -- accusing Suvorin of lapsing into the same lazy moral panic about "today's girls" that Dyakov's column traded in.