place
Yatsenko farmstead
also: хутор Яценко, khutor Yatsenko, Yatsenko khutor
A farmstead of 56 desyatinas near Sorochintsy in Mirgorod district, Poltava province, named for its previous owner (surname Yatsenko); the property Maria Pavlovna Chekhova appears to be settling on in place of the Sorochintsy farmstead, having only a peasant hut and sheds and requiring spring building, but with a fine orchard and a river. Chekhov attempted to purchase it via Smagin in early January 1892 (ordering a power of attorney to send 5,000 rubles) but learned from his sister it was not for sale after all.
Reading notes
- To the Chekhovs, 31 December 1891. Petersburg. §4 Yatsenko farmstead
The second, apparently preferred candidate reported in the same pair of telegrams: 56 desyatinas (roughly 150 acres) with a fine orchard and a river, but at present only a peasant hut and sheds, meaning the family would have to build in the spring. Chekhov -- who has seen the property himself, presumably during his own scouting trip to the region -- calls it beautiful and cozy but isolated, a verst and a half from the nearest village, and notes that the sheer amount of land would commit the family to actual farming. This is the entity's first attestation in the corpus; it is a newly created place distinct from the Sorochintsy farmstead of the same paragraph, though both lie in the same Mirgorod-district search.
- To A. I. Smagin, 4 January 1892. Petersburg. §3 found a letter from my sister with the following news: the Yatsenko khutor is not for sale after all
The Yatsenko khutor -- new to this letter -- was, evidently, the specific Poltava-province property Chekhov had most recently settled on and was preparing to buy: he had that same day ordered a power of attorney from the notary Ivanov so as to send Smagin the document and 5,000 rubles the following Tuesday, only to learn from his sister's letter, on returning home, that it was not for sale after all. The collapse of this particular prospect -- distinct from the khutor at Sorochintsy raised as a possible alternative in \S4 -- is the letter's opening blow, setting the plaintive tone ("Не везет мне, да и шабаш" -- "I have no luck, and that's the end of it") that colors the rest of the letter's return to money troubles in \S8.
- To A. I. Smagin, 4 January 1892. Petersburg. §8 Ah, You villains, You villains! When the khutors were for sale, I had no money, and now that the chance has come to get money, the khutors are not for sale.
Chekhov's mock-accusatory outburst -- "злодеи, злодеи" ("villains, villains," playfully addressed to Smagin's household, not seriously meant) -- states the letter's central frustration in its starkest form: a chronic mistiming between the family's available funds and the market's available khutors, of which the Yatsenko property's last-minute withdrawal (\S3) is only the latest instance. The large sum of 5,000 rubles, which had briefly "stunned" him, is made bearable by the closing good news that his books had been selling well over the holidays.