concept
St. Varlaam of Khutyn
St. Varlaam
also: св. Варлаам, Варлаам Хутынский, Varlaam Khutynsky
A venerated Novgorod saint (d. c. 1192, founder of the Khutyn Monastery); Chekhov asks his father to buy him a cheap popular (lubok) devotional print showing the saint riding in a sledge with a bishop watching from a balcony, to set on his desk.
Reading notes
- To the Chekhovs, 1891. Vienna. §10 a cheap popular print of St. Varlaam
\textit{лубочное изображение} -- a \emph{lubok}, the cheap, brightly colored popular woodcut or lithograph print sold widely to a mass readership, typically depicting religious or folk subjects in a naive style; here a devotional image of St. Varlaam of Khutyn (saint:varlaam-khutynsky), with its stock iconography of the saint riding a sledge and a bishop looking on from a balcony, which Chekhov wants for his own desk -- a domestic, half-superstitious, half-decorative request typical of the letters home.