Saint Petersburg

Reading notes

• The Ram and the Young Lady §8 Petersburg

  The imperial Russian capital, where the young lady currently lives and works, and from which she seeks a free ticket home.

• The Lady with the Little Dog §20 Petersburg

  The Russian imperial capital, where Anna Sergeyevna grew up before her marriage took her to the provinces.

• The Duel §43 Petersburg

  St. Petersburg, the imperial capital Laevsky abandoned for the Caucasus and now dreams constantly of returning to.

• The Chameleon §64 Petersburg

  The imperial Russian capital, invoked by Ochumelov as a byword for a stricter, less forgiving jurisdiction than his own provincial marketplace.

• Surgery §45 Petersburg

  St. Petersburg, imperial Russia's capital -- Kuryatin cites Egyptsky's seven years there as proof of his sophistication.

• The Wood Demon §168 Petersburg

  The imperial Russian capital, invoked here by Zheltukhin as the standard for musical sophistication against which he measures Sonya's voice.

• M. P. §43 from Petersburg

  Saint Petersburg, the imperial capital; the lottery results are telegraphed from there, making the winning number a matter of national news reported in the Moscow papers.

• At Christmastime §4 Petersburg

  The imperial Russian capital, where Yefimya has gone to live after her marriage -- a great distance, in this story, from her parents' village.

• Unpublished. An Unfinished Novel §6 Petersburg

  The imperial capital, mocked here as a city of "mockers" the fictional magazine refuses to serve at any price.

• The Bride §117 Petersburg

  The imperial Russian capital, where Nadya goes to study after leaving her fiancé and, unlike her hometown, a place she comes to long for.

• He and She §1 Petersburg

  The imperial Russian capital, included among the international capitals on the celebrated singer's touring circuit.

• The Retired Slave §6 Petersburg

  Saint Petersburg, the imperial capital, where the prince carried on his affair with Baroness von Tussikh.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 1875. Taganrog. §4 Petersburg

  The imperial Russian capital, one of the two cities (with Moscow) where the Taganrog gymnasium's graduating class was headed that year.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 8 November 1882. Moscow. §21 Petersburg

  Saint Petersburg, the imperial capital, whose comic weeklies (such as "Oskolki") were an important market for Chekhov's early humorous sketches alongside the Moscow press.

• To G. P. Kravtsov, 29 January 1883. Moscow. §11 Petersburg

  Saint Petersburg, the imperial capital; alongside Moscow one of the two cities whose humor magazines Chekhov was writing for on commission at this time.

• To A. N. Kanayev, 26 March 1883. Moscow. §13 Petersburg

  St. Petersburg, home to Kanaev and to the journals -- chiefly "Oskolki" -- that formed the bulk of Chekhov's paying market at this date.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 17–18 April 1883. Moscow. §2 Send straight to Petersburg

  The imperial capital, where Oskolki and the other humor weeklies Chekhov names were published.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 15–28 October 1883. Moscow. §11 Petersburg

  The Russian imperial capital, where Leskov lived and where Chekhov promises to pay him a visit.

• To I. P. Chekhov, October 1883. Moscow. §4 Petersburg

  The imperial Russian capital, here the source of a small payment Chekhov is anxiously awaiting -- likely a magazine fee from a Petersburg publication.

• To N. A. Leikin, 31 December 1883. Moscow. §7 Petersburg

  St. Petersburg, the imperial capital, where Leikin's magazine Oskolki was based and where Chekhov's New Year's visit would ordinarily have taken him.

• To N. A. Leikin, 20–21 May 1884. Moscow. §6 reigning city

  A wry epithet for St. Petersburg as the imperial capital, in playful contrast to Moscow, where Chekhov lived and wrote.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 17 January 1887. Moscow. §15 Petersburg loves money

  A wry proverb-style aside -- playing on the Russian saying that "Moscow loves money" -- redirected at Petersburg, where Alexander lived, as a needling reminder that he should be earning rather than idling.

• To N. A. Leikin, 26 January 1887. Moscow. §7 the trip to Petersburg in the second week of Lent

  Leikin had evidently proposed that Chekhov travel to Petersburg to give a public reading during Great Lent, when theatrical performances were restricted by church custom but literary readings were a common substitute entertainment.

• To M. V. Kiseleva, 17 March 1887. Moscow. §6 Petersburg made on me the impression of a city of death

  Chekhov, himself a practicing physician, frames the whole of this letter around a chance concentration of illness and death encountered on a single Petersburg visit: typhus in his brother's household, a porter's fatal typhoid fever, a child's croup, a stranger's consumption, and finally Grigorovich's cardiac attack. The letter is frank period-medical reportage rather than sensationalism -- Chekhov's diction throughout (тиф/typhus, брюшной тиф/typhoid fever, круп/croup, чахотка/consumption, грудная жаба/angina pectoris) reflects standard 1880s Russian clinical vocabulary, not folk or figurative usage. No content has been softened or omitted; readers should expect direct, unsentimental descriptions of contemporary disease and mortality consistent with Chekhov's medical training and the letter's documentary tone.

• To I. P. Chekhov, 4 June 1887. Babkino. §2 Peter

  "Питер" (Peter), the familiar colloquial nickname St. Petersburg residents and visitors used for the city, as ubiquitous in casual Russian speech as "the Big Apple" for New York.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 16 June 1887. Babkino". §9 Petersburg

  "Питер," the colloquial nickname for Saint Petersburg, used casually here for the city where Alexander lived and worked.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 3 September 1887. Moscow. §6 Petersburg,

  The imperial Russian capital, where Alexander was then living and working for Novoye Vremya.

• To Al. P. Chekhov, 7–8 September 1887. Moscow. §3 a trip to go and live in Petersburg

  Chekhov reports on his finances and near-term plans following the exertions of getting his book out; a permanent move to Petersburg is not feasible, though extended working visits will continue.

• To N. A. Leikin, 15 November 1887. Moscow. §8 I shall come to Petersburg by December

  Saint Petersburg, Leikin's home base and the seat of \textit{Oskolki}; Chekhov had already promised in to visit and talk things over "around the beginning of December."

• To A. S. Kiselev, 24 November 1887. Moscow. §8 from Petersburg

  Chekhov was about to travel to St. Petersburg, where "Ivanov" and his broader literary business would keep him occupied for a stretch of weeks in the winter of 1887-88.

• To Ya. P. Polonsky, 22 February 1888. Moscow. §6 Petersburg

  Chekhov promises to visit Polonsky in Petersburg, accepting the invitation extended in Polonsky's earlier letter.

• To V. N. Davydov, 7–10 March 1888. §3 Petersburg

  The imperial capital, where Chekhov expected to arrive the following Saturday and where he offers to collect the manuscript from Davydov in person if it does not reach him beforehand.

• To N. A. Leikin, 29 March 1888. Moscow. §11 Returning from Petersburg

  Chekhov had just returned from a trip to Petersburg to find Moscow in the midst of its spring ice breakup and flooding.

• To V. N. Davydov, 23 April 1888. Moscow. §3 Petersburg

  The imperial capital, where Davydov's new post at the Imperial theatre now takes him, and where -- Chekhov suggests -- an audience "drier" but sharper than Moscow's will better appreciate his talent.

• To K. S. Barantsevich, 2 December 1888. en route to Petersburg. §2 polishing the pavements of the Neva

  A playful figure for walking the streets of Petersburg (the Neva being the river the city sits on), meaning that by the time the letter arrives Chekhov will already be there in person.

• To V. A. Tikhonov, 2 December 1888. en route to Petersburg. §1 On the way to Petersburg

  The letter's dateline, written from the mail train itself rather than any fixed address -- Chekhov was en route from Moscow to Petersburg on 2 December 1888; compare the same-day letter to Barantsevich, also headed "On the way to Petersburg."

• To V. A. Tikhonov, 2 December 1888. en route to Petersburg. §5 Petersburg

  Opening line of the envelope address block, on the reverse of the sheet.

• To V. A. Tikhonov, 20 December 1888. Moscow. §4 Petersburg

  Tikhonov's home city, referred to as "your noisy Petersburg," contrasted with Chekhov's own return to the quieter mood of Moscow.

• To V. A. Tikhonov, 19 January 1889. Petersburg. §6 Petersburg

  Opening line of the return-address block on the reverse of the postcard -- this is Chekhov's OWN address, not Tikhonov's; compare the identical Pushkinskaya 19/26 address on the envelope of the 2 December 1888 letter to Tikhonov, confirming this as Chekhov's settled Petersburg address across the winter of 1888-89.

• To N. A. Leikin, 24 February 1889. Moscow. §5 Peter

  "Питер" (Peter), the colloquial period nickname for St. Petersburg, where Chekhov had spent roughly the first half of the preceding month.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 22 April 1889. Moscow. §8 gray Petersburg

  Chekhov's standing dismissive epithet for St. Petersburg (Suvorin's home city) as damp, overcast, and enervating, as against the sunnier south he is himself departing for.

• To V. A. Tikhonov, 7 December 1889. Moscow. §6 Petersburg

  St. Petersburg, where Tikhonov was based; Chekhov reports he will not travel there before January.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 20 December 1889. Moscow. §8 Petersburg

  "в Питер" -- colloquial short form of St. Petersburg, already established in this corpus as; Suvorin's home city and the seat of his newspaper \textit{Novoye Vremya}.

• To V. A. Tikhonov, 14 September 1891. Moscow. §7 Peter

  Colloquial short form of "Петербург"/St. Petersburg, where Tikhonov was based.

• To F. A. Chervinsky, 14 September 1891. Moscow. §9 Petersburg,

  The opening line of the address panel Chekhov copied onto the back of the letter (\S8-\S11), giving Chervinsky's permanent St. Petersburg address rather than his temporary Feodosia whereabouts -- standard practice for ensuring a reply would find its addressee once travel was over.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 13 October 1891. Moscow. §13 I am not leaving, for I am waiting for a passport from Petersburg

  An internal Russian passport (needed for travel and residence registration) evidently in process through Petersburg channels; its delay is the stated reason Chekhov gives here for staying in Moscow, though by \S16 he expects to be in Petersburg before November regardless.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 28 October 1891. Moscow. §2 Petersburg

  Suvorin's base and the seat of "Novoye Vremya"; Chekhov proposes to bring the school plan there in person rather than send it by post, matching the address panel's destination in \S6.

• To I. S. Vologdin, 13 November 1891. Moscow. §2 Petersburg

  Saint Petersburg, the imperial capital -- here the port from which the book shipment departed by steamer for the Far East.

• To A. S. Kiselev, 8 December 1891. Moscow. §7 After the 10th I will probably leave for Petersburg

  A planned trip north, likely tied to Chekhov's ongoing business with \emph{Novoye Vremya} and its editor Suvorin, sets the deadline Chekhov gives Kiselev for a reply -- a small logistical detail typical of how travel plans punctuate his late-1891 correspondence.

• To S. A. Andreyevsky, 25 December 1891. Moscow. §9 Petersburg

  Chekhov's travel note placing him in Petersburg after the 27th, consistent with the New Year's visit to Suvorin discussed in the neighboring letters of this period (e.g.).

• To Ye. P. Yegorov, 26 December 1891. Moscow. §3 Сегодня я уезжаю в Петербург. Благоволите адресоваться туда.

  Chekhov leaves for Petersburg the same day this letter is written; as he had already told Yegorov six days earlier, he will be staying there until 10 January at Suvorin's apartment (Malaya Italyanskaya, 18) and asks that further correspondence follow him there rather than to Moscow -- the practical reason he now gives for his mounting worry, expressed in this same section, that his letters may not be reaching Yegorov at all.

• To N. M. Garshina, 27 December 1891. Petersburg. §1 27 December 1891. Petersburg.

  The first letter in this run datelined Petersburg rather than Moscow, confirming Chekhov's arrival there as announced the day before in (\S3: "Today I am leaving for Petersburg"); he will be staying at Suvorin's apartment (Malaya Italyanskaya, 18) as given to Yegorov in, \S6.

• To N. M. Garshina, 10 January 1892. Moscow. §3 even should You be living a thousand versts from Malaya Italyanskaya.

  A jocular hyperbole built on Suvorin's Petersburg address, Malaya Italyanskaya 18, where Chekhov himself had been staying as of and where he had earlier directed Yegorov to write (\S6;, \S2). Chekhov uses the address as a jesting reference point for Garshina's own residence, promising to seek her out in February no matter how far from that Petersburg landmark she might be found.

• To N. A. Leikin, 10 December 1890. Moscow. §10 not those gray ones now hanging over the Petersburg side, but the true ones, where the holy saints dwell

  A closing benediction built on a pun between the literal gray winter sky over Leikin's home city (St. Petersburg, where \foreignlanguage{russian}{"Осколки"} was published) and "heaven" in the religious sense -- the same wordplay Chekhov uses independently in to Suvorin the following week, wishing that "if in the kingdom of heaven the sun sets as beautifully as it does in the Bay of Bengal... the kingdom of heaven is a very good thing," both letters using an exotic or idealized image (the tropics, the true heaven behind the literal gray sky) to comically deflate the ordinariness of home.

• To V. A. Tikhonov, 25 December 1890. Moscow. §4 Peter

  Colloquial short form of "Петербург"/St. Petersburg, where Tikhonov was based.

• To V. O. Kononovich, 5 January 1891. Moscow. §2 I am going to Petersburg

  A short trip in the weeks after Chekhov's Moscow return, undertaken amid the flurry of publishing and social business (the \emph{Ivanov} revival, Suvorin's circle) that occupied him through the winter of 1890-91; he promises to keep Kononovich's office posted from there by wire rather than by letter, continuing the telegraphic register of this whole exchange.

• To A. S. Suvorin, 5 January 1891. Moscow. §4 I'll arrive in Petersburg, probably, on the 8th of January

  Chekhov did travel to St. Petersburg that January and stayed with Suvorin, as promised here; the visit occasioned several of the letters written from Petersburg later that month (e.g.).

• A Letter to a Learned Neighbor §3 St. Petersburg

  The imperial capital, seat of the Academy of Sciences and the learned institutions the narrator reveres from a comic distance; the addressee has just arrived from there to the provinces.

• On Official Business §51 Petersburg

  The imperial capital, paired with Moscow in Lyzhin's mind as the "real Russia" against which the province where he is stranded counts as mere "colony."

• Advertisements and Notices §1 Piter

  Colloquial Russian nickname for St. Petersburg, the imperial capital -- used here to distinguish it dismissively from provincial Moscow, where the fictitious journal actually appears.

• List of Exhibitors Awarded Cast-Iron Medals in the Russian Section at the Amsterdam Exhibition §3 Petersburg

  The imperial capital, seat of the central civil service and its ranked officialdom.

• Three Sisters §61 born in Petersburg

  Tuzenbach was born and raised in the imperial capital, St. Petersburg, in an idle aristocratic household that never knew labor -- the pampered upbringing he says he is only now, as an adult, trying to shake off.

• Arrived in Moscow: §1 Petersburg

  St. Petersburg, the imperial Russian capital -- an odd point of origin for someone billed as a French subject, the small absurdity the notice never explains.