To A. N. Pleshcheyev, 27 March 1890. Moscow.
А. Н. ПЛЕЩЕЕВУ, 27 марта 1890 г. Москва.
Headnote
it has a proper dateline, a full salutation ("Милый Алексей Николаевич" – "Dear Alexei Nikolaevich"), a sustained multi-topic body running to eight sections, and a full closing courtesy and signature ("Ваш А. Чехов" – "Yours, A. Chekhov"). The duplicated dateline (gives the full "27 March 1890. Moscow.," repeats just "27 March.") is Chekhov’s own habit of a short recap line opening the body proper, not an artifact of splicing two documents together.
Written from Moscow to Aleksei Nikolaevich Pleshcheyev – poet, editor, and one of Chekhov’s regular correspondents – shortly before Chekhov’s departure for Sakhalin (he left in April 1890). The letter is compact and businesslike, moving through three practical threads: first, grief and irritation at the collapse of the journal "Severny Vestnik" ("The Northern Herald"), which Chekhov calls a "crushing" piece of news and a symptom of something wrong (a journal failing amid an abundance of writers and a shortage of journals); second, a request that Pleshcheyev bring the manuscript/text of "Leshy" ("The Wood Demon," Chekhov’s play) with him when they next meet, since it makes no sense to keep working for a journal that has already folded or is about to; third, an extended report on Society of Dramatic Writers business – a hundred-ruble advance owed to Pleshcheyev that a Committee member (Maykov) has been stalling on, Chekhov’s own maneuvering to be excused from re-election to the Committee ahead of upcoming elections because he will be out of the country until December, and his opinion on who from the outgoing Committee (Nemirovich, Sumbatov, Alexandrov) ought to be re-elected for continuity’s sake. The letter closes with a note that Chekhov has been tasked with writing up the minutes of a commission meeting held the day before, a brief well-wishing, and the signature.
Realia note: the hundred-ruble advance and the treasurer’s reluctance to refuse it are rendered by sense with no in-text gloss needed; "сторублевый аванс" is a plain sum-and-object phrase, not an idiom requiring apparatus treatment.