place
Little Russia
also: Malorossiya, Khokhlandia, Малороссия, Хохландия, Украина
Period Russian term for Ukraine, invoked in "Trinity Sunday" as the setting of the Semik wreath-casting folk custom the caption describes with affectionate ethnographic detail.
Reading notes
- The Man in a Case §20 Little Russian
The period Russian term for Ukraine and its language and people; Varenka sings Little Russian songs, and Belikov later flatters her that the language recalls ancient Greek.
- To Ya. P. Polonsky, 25 March 1888. Moscow. §5 Ukraine
Chekhov's affectionate coinage "Khokhlandia" for the Ukrainian countryside he invites Polonsky to tour with him, from the Don to the Dnieper.
- To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 9 April 1888. Moscow. §11 Ukraine
Chekhov's rented dacha on the Psyol river near Sumy, in what was then commonly called "Little Russia."
- To I. L. Leontyev, 15 April 1888. Moscow. §7 Ukraine
"Little Russia" in Chekhov's usage, the contemporary term for the Ukrainian lands where he was bound for the summer.
- To Al. P. Chekhov, 23 February 1892. Moscow. §4 Khokhlandia
"Хохландия" is Chekhov's own affectionate nickname for Ukraine/Little Russia, matching the identical usage already established in this corpus at (\S6, "мать и батька... мечтают о своей Хохландии," of his parents' native region) -- there, as here, a warm place-nickname with no hostile charge, tagged to. This is a DIFFERENT usage from the corpus's separate "khokhol" ethnonym material, which label people (a period ethnic term/slur for Ukrainians, from a traditional forelock hairstyle). "Khokhlandia" as Chekhov uses it here and at is a place-nickname, built on the same root but functioning affectionately for the region itself, not as a term for its people -- the two families of usage are kept deliberately distinct in this corpus and should not be conflated.
- To M. P. Chekhova, 5 July 1891. Bogimovo. §9 The socialists aren't showing themselves... Ukraine won't forget them
A scrap of comic political joking rather than a real news report: in the source this line briefly switches into mock-Ukrainian-accented Russian (\"Украина их нэ забудэ\"), rendered here in plain English since the joke depends on the register shift rather than any content that survives translation. Not a slur or contested ethnonym per the corpus's sensitivity policy -- see the headnote.