To V. G. Chertkov, 2 May 1891. Moscow.
В. Г. ЧЕРТКОВУ, 2 мая 1891 г. Москва.
Headnote
Written the day Chekhov got back to Moscow from his two-month tour of Western Europe (Venice, Vienna, Paris, and the rest), this letter is his first order of business on returning: a reply, overdue by his own admission, to Vladimir Grigoryevich Chertkov – Tolstoy’s closest disciple and the organizing hand behind Posrednik, the publishing house turning out cheap, morally improving booklets for the peasantry. Chekhov addresses Chertkov formally and at second hand: the actual request had reached him through two letters from I. I. Gorbunov(-Posadov), Posrednik’s editor, asking permission to reissue "Vanka" (1886), Chekhov’s story of a peasant boy’s apprenticeship letter to his grandfather.
Chekhov’s answer is warm and unreserved in principle – he professes real sympathy for Posrednik’s aims and respect for the people behind it – but comes with a complication he is honor-bound to disclose: Baroness Varvara Ivanovna Ikskul, who ran her own line of cheap popular editions, had already asked for and been promised "Vanka" the previous December. The letter does not resolve the overlap, only flags it and lets Chertkov and Gorbunov sort out the claim. The note closes with Chekhov’s summer address at Aleksin, in Tula province – the estate country south of Moscow where he and his family were then settling for the season – and a request to pass his thanks on to Gorbunov, whom the letter never addresses directly.