work
Who Won
"Who Won"
also: Кто победил, Kto pobedil, Who Dined, Кто пообедал, Kto poobedal
A play by A. S. Lazarev (Gruzinsky), titled "Who Won" (\emph{Кто победил}); Chekhov returns the manuscript in this letter, explains it must go through the dramatic censor before it can be printed in \emph{The Artist}, supplies a sample censorship petition (which names the play \emph{Кто пообедал}, "Who Dined," a near-homophone slip preserved as it stands in the source), and suggests the title itself is "a bit precious and pretentious" and should be changed to something in one word.
Reading notes
- To A. S. Lazarev, 23 November 1889. Moscow. §5 Who Won
Lazarev's play, titled \emph{Кто победил} ("Who Won") in Russian. Chekhov is returning the manuscript because it has not yet cleared the dramatic censor.
- To A. S. Lazarev, 23 November 1889. Moscow. §5 Who Dined
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE -- SLIP PRESERVED, NOT CORRECTED: the sample censorship petition names the play \emph{Кто пообедал} ("Who Dined" / "Who Had Dinner"), a near-homophone of \emph{Кто победил} ("Who Won"), the title used everywhere else in the letter (section 5, opening; section 8) and in the source text. \emph{Победил} ("won," from \emph{победить}) and \emph{пообедал} ("dined," from \emph{пообедать}) differ by only a couple of letters and share a rhythm, so this reads as an easy slip of the pen or an early transcription/typesetting error -- but it is exactly what the Russian source document contains at this point, and it is rendered into English as the literal, distinct "Who Dined" rather than silently normalized to "Who Won." This preserves the textual anomaly for the reader instead of erasing it.