To M. K. Zankovetskaya, 12 January 1892. Moscow.

Dated 12 January 1892, from Moscow, to Marya Konstantinovna Zankovetskaya – the celebrated Ukrainian actress Chekhov admiringly called the "Ukrainian queen" in ("hokhlatskaya koroleva Zankovetskaya, kotoruyu Ukraina ne zabudet"). This is the first letter in the corpus addressed directly to her.

Chekhov reports that he called on Zankovetskaya the previous evening but did not find her at home. He is sending her a copy of his novella "The Duel" and a letter from Korobka, received the day before, and tells her that the artist’s design for a wandering gypsy woman’s costume – evidently for a role or production of hers – will follow shortly. He gives his travel plan: departing on the 14th for the famine-relief districts (the same 1891-92 famine trip to Nizhny Novgorod province detailed in, addressed to Suvorin, with whom he says he will call on her again on the 23rd). He closes with a brief, formal-respectful sign-off and signature, followed by his Moscow address.

Tone: brief and courteous, mixing practical errands (forwarding a book and a letter, relaying word of a costume design) with a warm but formally respectful close ("Sincerely respectful and devoted") fitting the more distant register of a first direct letter to an admired public figure, as against the closer, joking tone of the Smagin and Suvorin correspondence from the same weeks.