work
The Wedding (Svadba)
The Wedding
also: Свадьба, Svadba
Chekhov's one-act vaudeville "The Wedding" (Свадьба), written 1889, a farce set at a merchant wedding reception centered on the groom Aplombov, a hired fake general (Revunov-Karaulov), and a comic cast of guests; named in the Volume 3 afterword alongside "The Proposal" and "A Tragedian in Spite of Himself" as one of the vaudevilles written in 1888-89.
Reading notes
- To A. S. Suvorin, 23 February 1890. Moscow. §3 send "The Wedding" back along with the books
"Свадьба" ("The Wedding"), Chekhov's one-act vaudeville, had apparently reached Suvorin's household by mistake -- Chekhov asks for its return along with the books rather than treating it as something to be printed. The letter gives no further detail on how it went astray.
- To A. S. Suvorin, 4 March 1890. Moscow. §5 мой водевиль "Свадьбу", попавший к Вам по вине Сумбатова, который вложил его в Шекспира
Chekhov's own one-act vaudeville "The Wedding" (written 1889) had gone missing into Suvorin's keeping by an odd accident: Sumbatov (stage name Yuzhin, actor-playwright at the Maly Theatre) had apparently tucked the manuscript inside a volume of Shakespeare, from which it evidently passed to Suvorin along with the book itself. Chekhov asks matter-of-factly for its return with the next parcel of books, treating the mishap as a minor, faintly comic inconvenience rather than a real loss.
- To A. S. Suvorin, 1 April 1890. Moscow. §10 we'll hold a requiem service for that vaudeville
Панихида is the Orthodox memorial service for the dead; Chekhov's joke treats the possible loss of his manuscript of "The Wedding" ("Свадьба,") as if it were a death to be mourned with appropriate ritual, a characteristic deflation of his own creative property into a small church-calendar joke rather than a real grievance -- consistent with the Easter-season framing that opens the letter.