place

Mirgorod

also: Миргород, Mirgorod district, Миргородский уезд

A district town in Poltava province, famous as the setting of Gogol's Mirgorod tales; named here as the location of the farmstead Chekhov is about to take on as a retreat for writer friends, its funny name noted with amusement.

Reading notes

To K. S. Barantsevich, 12 August 1888. Sumy. §12 Mirgorod district, Poltava province
The location of the farmstead Chekhov is about to take on the debt of, intending it as a retreat ("health resort") for literary friends; Chekhov remarks on the name's comic association (Gogol's Mirgorod).
To A. S. Suvorin, 29 August 1888. Sumy. §5 Mirgorod district
The district (also the setting, via Gogol, evoked later in section 6's "Shponkas and Korobochkas" joke) where Chekhov notes hardly anyone owns a locomobile outright but any farm can hire one by the day -- the occasion for his extended, half-erotic personification of the traveling steam thresher.
To the Chekhovs, 31 December 1891. Petersburg. §4 Mirgorod district
The district (uyezd) in Poltava province, itself named for the town made famous by Gogol's "Mirgorod" collection, within which both farmstead candidates discussed here -- Sorochintsy and Yatsenko -- lie. The two telegrams reporting on them have just arrived from this district.