The Seagull

Professor Maia Kipp, a native Russian and Chekhov scholar, speaks the place and people names from the play The Seagull, by Anton Chekhov. For further instruction in the Russian accent of English, see Paul Meier’s website.

Recorded by Professor Maia Kipp, edited by Paul Meier, November 3, 2007. This is a revision of an earlier file made March 27, 2001. Run time: 00:02:44.

CHARACTERS
Irina Nikolayevna Arkadina
Konstantin Gavrilovich Treplev (Konstantin Gavrilych* colloquial pronunciation, Kostya short/familiar)
Pyotr Nikolayevich Sorin (Petrusha short/endearing)
Nina Mikhaylovna Zarechnaya
Ilya Afanasyevich Shamraev
Polina Andreyevna
Masha (Marya Ilyinichna Masha’s full first and patronymic; the first name here is a colloquial prounciation of Maria; Mashenka short/endearing)
Boris Grigoryevich Trigorin
Evgeny Sergeyevich Dorn (Evgeny Sergeyich* colloquial pronunciation)
Semyon Semyonovich Medvedenko
Yakov

OTHER NAMES TO WHICH CHARACTERS REFER
Sadovsky (reference to a famous 19th cent. actor)
Chadin Pavel Semyonych* (an obscure, perhaps fictional, provincial actor; Pashka  short/familiar/indicating that Shamraev wishes to be seen as that actor’s buddy)
Rasplyuev ( reference to a character from two of  Sukhovo-Kobylin’s plays, Krechinsky’s Wedding and The Death of Tarelkin)
Turgenev
Tolstoy
Suzdaltsev  (an obscure, perhaps fictional, actor)
Izmaylov  (an actor, perhaps fictional)
Matryona

TITLE OF THE PLAY SHAMRAEV MENTIONS
Ograblennaya Pochta (literally “The Train Robbery,” probably made-up/non-existing play)

GEOGRAPHIC NAMES
Poltava
Tver
Yelisavetgrad (archaic at Chekhov’s time pronunciation of Yelizavetgrad)
Molchanovka  (a street in Moscow)
Kharkov
Yelets

OTHER
Slavyansky Bazar (a hotel in Moscow with the  famous restaurant where Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko met to discuss the creation of the MAT. Also a meeting/gathering place for many Moscow  artists/writers)
Grokholsky House (an apartment house in Moscow)

* Chekhov is not consistent throughout in terms of  rendering patronymic names of his characters. Most of those on the character lists, as well as in the dialogues, are rendered in their full literary form with the endings –ovich, -yevich. However, some names on the character lists and in dialogues are rendered in their colloquial pronunciation/contracted form, with the endings of –ych, -yich. Asterisks (*) indicate each instance of the use of such a form.