work
The Name-Day
"Name-Day"
also: Именины, Name Day
Chekhov's 1888 story ("Именины"), published September-October 1888 in "Severny Vestnik"; the subject of Suvorin's criticism, answered at length in this letter (\S9-10), that its hero is a figure deserving further development. Chekhov's reply describes the deadline pressure (a 10 September start, 5 October due date) that shaped the story's composition, and uses it as the occasion for an extended self-portrait of his working method. Distinct from (the general Russian custom of celebrating one's name-day) and from ("Lights," a separate, earlier 1888 Chekhov story mentioned alongside it in \S10).
Reading notes
- To A. S. Suvorin, 27 October 1888. Moscow. §9 described his soul during his wife's confinement, the trial brought against him, his nasty feeling after the verdict of acquittal, described how the midwife and the doctors drink tea at night
SENSITIVITY -- frank, clinical-toned material. This passage is Chekhov's own account of the childbirth and trial material he chose to compress out of "The Name-Day," preserved faithfully as reported working method: a wife's confinement (labor/childbirth), a criminal trial, and its acquittal, described without euphemism because Chekhov himself is being direct about his craft, not about the events themselves. No detail beyond what Chekhov states should be invented or added; his medical training (he was a practicing physician) informs the plain, unsentimental register here.
- To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 3 November 1888. Moscow. §12 "Name-Day"
"Именины" ("The Name-Day,"), already established under that title in letter 515's headnote and published that autumn in "Severny Vestnik"; the misprints Chekhov complains of here are not otherwise detailed.
- To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 13 November 1888. Moscow. §10 "Name-Day"
"Именины" ("The Name-Day,"), already established under that title in letter 515's headnote and referenced again in letter 519 (\S12) for its misprints; here the Maly Theater's actors are shown eagerly reading and enjoying it, especially the women among them.
- To A. S. Suvorin, 15 November 1888. Moscow. §4 With my "Name-Day" I have gone over well with the ladies.
"The Name-Day" ("Именины"), already established in this corpus (see's and's headnotes); this letter documents its reception among lay (female) readers, who single out the accuracy of its childbirth scene, distinct from the editorial/critical reception documented elsewhere.