To V. A. Tikhonov, 21 November 1891. Moscow.
В. А. ТИХОНОВУ, 21 ноября 1891 г. Москва.
Headnote
Written from Moscow on 21 November 1891 to Vladimir Alekseyevich Tikhonov, a playwright and journalist who had just taken over as editor of the magazine Sever ("The North"). Chekhov addresses him throughout with the affectionate nickname "dyadya" (uncle), a running joke between the two that recurs across their correspondence regardless of any real kinship.
The letter is brief and largely business, written while Chekhov was laid up with influenza – a bout of illness, mentioned here and corroborated by Suvorin’s recent visit, that kept him housebound through much of that autumn. Tikhonov had evidently been pressing him for a contribution to the magazine’s first issue under his editorship, and Chekhov, teasing him about the demands of the job, promises to get to work despite being unwell.
The offer of "exotic" photographs – Ceylon, Port Said, the Suez Canal, Vladivostok, Hong Kong – refers to souvenirs of Chekhov’s own journey home from Sakhalin Island earlier that year, which had taken him by sea through Asia and around to Odessa; he offers them here as illustrations for Sever, a magazine that ran engravings alongside its text.