To A. S. Suvorin, 8 February 1889. Moscow.

1 Written from Moscow on 8 February 1889 to Alexei Sergeyevich Suvorin, publisher of "Novoye Vremya" and Chekhov’s close friend and patron. Chekhov wrote to Anna Mikhailovna Evreinova the same day; this letter is the longer, more personal companion piece sent to Suvorin.

2 After the dateline (1-2), Chekhov thanks Suvorin warmly for a favorable review, then turns to a spirited defense of his play "Ivanov" against Suvorin’s objection – relayed via a mutual acquaintance, "Zhitel" – that Chekhov took his hero "ready-made" rather than building him from scratch; Chekhov argues by analogy to Gogol’s Khlestakov, Griboyedov’s Chatsky, and Tolstoy’s characters that any weakness lies in his own execution ("the shading"), not in the method (3-4). He explains his minimal, deliberately unglamorous treatment of the female characters in "Ivanov" (5), reports on anonymous mail accusing the play of moral harm – which he takes as proof the play has been understood (6) – and pivots to news of Suvorin’s own play "Tanya Repina": its postponement due to Maria Yermolova’s fatigue rather than any trouble, its enormous advance success, and an anecdote about a provincial admirer’s near-hysterical eagerness to see the actress playing the title role (7-8). He reports that "thinking Moscow" suspects Suvorin of cynically working the public’s nerves, declares he will withhold Moscow performance rights to "Ivanov" out of general contempt for Moscow critical opinion, and asks Suvorin not to argue him out of this stubbornness (9). Shorter closing items follow: a possible visit from his sister during Shrovetide week, his disappointment at a reduced box-office take from Potekhin’s Petersburg staging of "Ivanov," a wry note on his hemorrhoids and drinking, family greetings, and the letter’s characteristic joking signature (10-14).

3 One passage of note. In Chekhov calls Moscow, in its capacity as a moralizing arbiter of his play, a "kitchen-maid" (kukharka) – a class-inflected term of contempt for a figure he regards as presumptuous and beneath serious argument; translated directly. and involve, respectively, an anonymous critic Chekhov brands "some socialist" in a dismissive aside, and a provincial woman’s near-hysterical enthusiasm for the theater, described by Chekhov with some condescension typical of the period and register; both rendered without softening.