Uncle Vanya

Professor Maia Kipp, a native Russian and Chekhov scholar, speaks the place and people names from the play Uncle Vanya, by Anton Chekhov. For 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: 2 minutes, 6 seconds. 

CHARACTERS
Serebryakov Aleksandr Vladimirovich
Yelena Andreevna (Lenochka endearing)
Sofya Aleksandrovna (Sonya short/familiar; Sonechka, Sonyushka, both endearing)
Voynitskaya Maria Vasilyevna (Marya* Vasilyevna, colloquial pronunciation)
Voynitsky Ivan Petrovich (Vanya short/familiar)
Astrov Mikhail Lvovich
Telegin Ilya Ilyich (Vaflya nickname; some English versions offer literal translation of the name as Waffles, apparently in reference to his pockmarked face)
Marina (Marina Timofeyevna Marina’s full first and patronymic names)

OTHER NAMES TO WHICH CHARACTERS REFER
Vera Petrovna
Ostrovsky  (an important playwright, Chekhov’s contemporary, wrote 48 plays, some still performed in major theatres in Russia)
Batyushkov (a major poet of the 19th century)
Turgenev
Yefim
Grigory Ilyich
Konstantin Trofimovich Lakedemonov ( the last name is a made-up one and sounds pompous in Russian)
Dostoevsky
Ayvazovsky (a prominent Russian seascape painter of the 19th century)
Petrushka

GEOGRAPHIC NAMES
Kharkov
Tula
Kursk
Rozhdestvennoye

OTHER
Pestrushka  (the name of one of Marina’s hens)
Zhuchka  ( a common dog name )