Nizhny Novgorod

Reading notes

• The Impresario Under the Sofa §14 in Nizhny

  Nizhny Novgorod, a major Volga river city and fair town, a common touring stop for provincial Russian theater companies in the 19th century -- named here as the site of an earlier violent confrontation between Indyukov and Pryndin.

• To the Chekhov Family, 25 April 1887. Cherkassk. §9 a Nizhny-Novgorod cardsharp, who eats another man's bread but carries it off with aplomb

  A stock 19th-century Russian type: the sharper or confidence man associated with the Nizhny Novgorod fair, a major trading and gambling venue. Chekhov's self-deprecating comparison -- living off his hosts' hospitality while maintaining an air of self-assurance -- plays on this popular stereotype rather than accusing himself of actual cheating.

• To V. A. Vagner, 10 October 1891. Moscow. §4 Nizhny Novgorod province

  Chekhov's planned trip before 15 October -- likely connected to famine-relief organizing or estate business rather than the Nizhny Novgorod fair (already closed by October); the letter gives no further detail on the trip's purpose.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 16 October 1891. Moscow. §3 I have not yet gone to Nizhny Novgorod province

  The planned famine-relief-related trip Chekhov had announced six days earlier in ("By the 15th of October I will go to Nizhny Novgorod province"); here he reports it still has not happened, "for reasons not depending on my will."

• To A. S. Suvorin, 11 December 1891. Moscow. §7 Nizhny Novgorod province

  One of the provinces hardest hit by the 1891-92 famine, and the site of relief work -- including the soup kitchens Chekhov and Suvorin discuss later in this same letter (section 12) -- that Chekhov was then organizing with growing, repeatedly emphasized enthusiasm ("I'm very, very, very glad").

• To N. M. Garshina, 10 January 1892. Moscow. §4 14-го я уеду в Нижний, 20-го буду в Москве, 23-го уеду в Воронеж, к 30 буду дома.

  Chekhov lays out his January itinerary: Nizhny Novgorod on the 14th, back in Moscow on the 20th, on to Voronezh on the 23rd, and home by the 30th. The trips are business and family errands typical of this period rather than literary excursions, and the itinerary explains both his inability to promise Petersburg engagements and his relief, in the next sentence, at not having committed to the 12 January literary evening.

• To D. V. Garin-Vinding, 13 January 1892. Moscow. §3 Tomorrow I leave Moscow and shall not return home before the 23rd.

  The departure is Chekhov's trip to Nizhny Novgorod province for famine-relief work, announced two days earlier to Suvorin: "I leave for Nizhny Novgorod province on the 14th of January -- that is settled", with a promised return "as promised, by the 22nd". Writing to Mariya Zankovetskaya on 12 January, Chekhov gives the same window: "14-go I leave for the starving, and on the 23rd I shall be with you and Suvorin". This note to Garin-Vinding, dated 13 January -- the day before departure -- gives the return date as "not before the 23rd," splitting the difference between the 22nd and 23rd named in the other two letters of the same week and confirming the trip, not a change of address, is what makes him hard to catch at home.

• Holy Simplicity §41 trips to Nizhny

  Nizhny Novgorod hosted Russia's largest and most famous annual trade fair, drawing merchants, lawyers, and litigants from across the empire every summer -- a natural venue for a fashionable Moscow barrister's business and a further prop for his stories of a glamorous, well-traveled practice.

• The Meeting §21 Nizhny for the fair

  The Nizhny Novgorod Fair was the largest trade fair in the Russian Empire, drawing merchants and pilgrims from across the country each summer -- a plausible, lucrative final destination for an alms-collector hoping to solicit from a large concentration of travelers with money.