place
Bulgaria
also: Болгария
The Balkan nation, invoked here as the generic object of Russia's outsized diplomatic attention -- Chekhov reports that people along the Amur mock Russia for "fussing over Bulgaria, which is not worth a copper farthing," while neglecting the Amur itself. Distinct from the specific concept entities for the 1885 Bulgarian unification crisis; this is a plain geographic/political reference five years later.
Reading notes
- To A. S. Suvorin, 27 June 1890. Blagoveshchensk. §8 Russia fusses over Bulgaria, which is not worth a copper farthing
A dismissive aside reflecting the mid-1880s-into-1890 Russian press preoccupation with Bulgarian affairs (the 1885 unification crisis and its long diplomatic aftermath) at the perceived expense of attention to Russia's own Far Eastern territory -- the immediate context of \S8's Amur speculation.