NOTES

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1.  Lines from the satirical poem “Other People’s Talk” (1794), by the statesman and poet Ivan Ivanovich Dmitriev (1760–1837).

2.  Before the reforms of the later ninetenth century, the only higher education available to poorer students in Russia was at Orthodox seminaries, which did not necessarily prepare them for a career in the Church.

3.  Pharmaceutical Latin meaning “in sufficient quantity.”

4.  Alexander Ostrovsky (1823–1886) was the most important Russian playwright between Gogol and Chekhov. The reference is to his play The Dowerless Bride, which premiered in 1878 at the Maly Theater in Moscow.

5.  Konstantin Batyushkov (1787–1855) was a major poet of the Romantic period and an older contemporary of Pushkin.

6.  The Old Believers were (and are) Russian Orthodox Christians who rejected the reforms imposed by the Patriarch Nikon in the mid-seventeenth century and thus fell into schism with the official Church.

7.  See Psalm 130: 2. In the original, Chekhov uses a popular Russian saying of obscure origin: “Hang your ears on the nail of attention.”

8.  The line comes from the beginning of Gogol’s famous comedy The Inspector (1836).

9.  The Latin words actually mean “one night awaits us all,” a line from Horace, Odes, Book I, Ode XXVIII. The correct word order is omnes una manet nox.

10.  In the original, Telegin refers to Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (1807–1900), a Russian of Armenian origin, who was a prolific and highly respected painter mainly of seascapes and naval battles.

11.  “The comedy is over.” (Italian)

12.  Russians traditionally kiss each other three times on alternate cheeks in greeting or parting.