To F. A. Kumanin, 10 October 1889. Moscow.
Ф. А. КУМАНИНУ, 10 октября 1889 г. Москва.
Headnote
A short, businesslike note to Fyodor Alexandrovich Kumanin, editor of the Moscow humor-and-satire magazine Artist (and cousin of the publisher F. A. Kumanin more broadly associated with that journal’s circle). By October 1889 Chekhov was deep in work on The Wood Demon ("Леший"), the four-act play that Kumanin has evidently asked about – Chekhov answers cautiously, making clear that nothing can be promised about a Maly Theatre production until the play has cleared theatrical censorship and the Literary-Theatrical Committee and been read by the company’s actors. The Wood Demon did go on that December at Abramova’s theatre in Moscow, to poor reviews, well before it was ever staged at the Maly; Chekhov would later cannibalize it into Uncle Vanya.
The second matter is more guarded: "Kalkhas" ("Калхас"), Chekhov’s one-act monologue (also known as Swan Song, "Лебединая песня"), which he discussed the previous season with the actor and director Alexander Pavlovich Lensky at the Maly, with repeated plans to stage it that kept being postponed. Chekhov asks that the matter not be mentioned yet, in print or otherwise – a small window onto how touchy and provisional theatrical arrangements were for him at this point in his career, and how careful he is not to let an editor’s public mention force his hand with a theater.
The letter closes with a passing, warm note on a drawing by "Pasternak" – almost certainly Leonid Osipovich Pasternak, the painter and illustrator (father of Boris Pasternak), who was doing illustration work for the Moscow press at this time – and an apology for having sat on it before returning or approving it.
The final sections are not part of the letter’s prose body: they transcribe the envelope’s address panel ("На обороте" / "On the back"), giving the addressee’s name and the old-regime courtesy title "Его высокоблагородию" (a civil-rank style of address, rendered here as "To His Honour" – distinct from and lower than "Его превосходительство,His Excellency"). This is a standard feature of the letters corpus and not a separate document.