# Short Fiction — Character guide

> Key figures in Short Fiction by Aleksandr Kuprin.

- [Olyessia](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/olyessia.md): Olyessia belongs to the old forest of legends and mysterious powers, where her grandmother's occult authority and the villagers' fear keep her both rooted and isolated. Her love for the narrator is fearless and unguarded
- [Sasha](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/sasha_gambrinous.md): Sasha plays violin at the Gambrinus, a beer hall where lonely men, students, and misfits gather, and his playing becomes the emotional center of their evenings. He is generous and open-hearted, pouring himself into his m
- [Sulamith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/sulamith.md): Sulamith tends her brother's vineyard on the slopes outside Jerusalem, a lowly keeper of vines whose beauty draws the attention of watchmen and, ultimately, of King Solomon himself. She is lithe, fearless, and utterly gi
- [Captain Ribnikov](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/captain_ribnikov.md): Ribnikov appears in St. Petersburg as a Russian staff-captain, but his Japanese features, strange passion, and delirious cries of 'Banzai!' mark him as something other than he seems. He drifts through the company of barr
- [King Solomon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/king_solomon.md): Solomon rules Israel in splendor, surrounded by the treasures of Hiram of Tyre and the mysteries of Isis and Osiris, a king whose wisdom is legendary and whose power seems absolute. Yet his first and last love, the viney
- [Princess Vera Sheyin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/vera_sheyin.md): Princess Vera Sheyin moves through the upper reaches of society while managing her husband's dwindling estate with unspoken sacrifices, cutting flowers for a dinner she can barely afford. Her marriage has settled into si
- [Buzyga](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/buzyga.md): Buzyga dominates the fishermen's camp not by noise but by sheer physical presence — slow motions, red-haired hands, a neck like a bull's — and by the casual authority with which he pours whiskey down a coughing child. He
- [Kashintzev](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/kashintzev.md): Kashintzev arrives at Khatzkel's inn hungry and matter-of-fact, ordering food with the calm of a man used to being served, only to watch a drunk peasant howl slurs and threats at his trembling host. He is a quiet witness
- [Kostromsky](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/kostromsky.md): Kostromsky belongs to the smoky, ink-stained milieu of 'The Glory of Petrograd,' where reporters drink, quarrel, and invent scandals about one another between deadlines. He is less a distinct actor than a fixture of that
- [Vladimir Ivanovich Schavinsky](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/schavinsky.md): Schavinsky moves easily between the drawing rooms of society and the dingy back room of 'The Glory of Petrograd,' where reporters scribble and drink and trade unprintable gossip. He is generous, amused, and quietly fasti
- [Anna Friedrichovna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/anna_friedrichovna.md): Anna Friedrichovna moves through drawing rooms and race-day chatter with the fluency of someone who has never had to work for her place. She tells stories of Gorojhevsky nailing a card-sharp's pack to the table with a re
- [Yasha](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/yasha.md): Yasha serves in the narrator's father's household, yet carries himself with an authority no servant should possess and no master can account for. He despises written words as money-making tricks, prefers lying on his box
- [Yarmola](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/yarmola.md): Yarmola serves the narrator of 'The Witch' as servant, hunting companion, and unwitting comic foil, his lean bearded face betraying agonies of thought over letters that refuse to resolve into words. His longing for liter
- [Emerald](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/emerald.md): Emerald's early life is a blur of races, English trainers, and the beloved stablemates Onieguine and Vassili, before a long railway journey deposits him in an unfamiliar stable where he is kept alone and left to pine. Hi
- [Sergey Kondrashov](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/sergey_kondrashov.md): Kondrashov moves through the saloon of Petersburg's reporting world, a milieu of blackmailers, extortionists, and the inseparable Three Musketeers, where reputations are invented and destroyed over drinks. His voluptuous
- [Kate](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/kate.md): Kate — called Mademoiselle Kate in the household — moves between tender mockery and a strange, agitated intimacy, calling Voskresenski 'my angry sparrow' one moment and seizing his hands the next. Her clouded, avid glanc
- [Voskresenski](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/voskresenski.md): Voskresenski arrives at the seaside household as a young man of clean ideals and political seriousness, but Kate's sudden, stifled urgency — 'Sacha, my own one' — catches him in a burning, arid whirl that cripples his wi
- [Boris Goudounov](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/boris_goudounov.md): Boris Goudounov belongs to the older, grander Russia invoked as backdrop to Prince Andrey's Petersburg whirl — a world where landowners outspend bankers and a man's whole fortune can vanish in an evening. He is less a pr
- [Voznitsin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/voznitsin.md): A young officer whose boyish eagerness and moral queasiness make him the raw conscience of the regimental set in 'The Duel'.
- [Onisim Kozel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/onisim_kozel.md): An old Cossack, a minor character in a story.
- [General Anosov](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/general_anosov.md): An old general and family friend whose rambling, hard-won wisdom about love and fate steadies the Sheyins' household and unnerves its certainties.
- [Zavalishine](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/zavalishine.md): A dissipated nobleman and gambler whose weary, theatrical cynicism masks a sharper eye for human weakness than he lets on.
- [Vasil](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/vasil.md): A young peasant man, a character in a story.
- [Mr. Zheltkov](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/zheltkov.md): A poor telegraphist whose silent, obsessive devotion to Princess Vera turns a drawing-room anecdote into a quiet tragedy of the heart.
- [Grandfather Martin Lodishkin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/martin_lodishkin.md): An old organ-grinder wandering with a boy and a dog, carrying a battered dignity through a world that has little use for it.
- [Movsha Khatzkel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/movsha_khatzkel.md): A Jewish tavern keeper in a small town.
- [Nikolay Nikolayevich](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/nikolay_nikolayevich.md): A character in a story, possibly a relative or friend.
- [Stepan Nilitch Rybkin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/stepan_rybkin.md): A journalist and secret police informant whose shabby trade in gossip and denunciation makes him a walking index of the city's compromises.
- [Manuilikha](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/manuilikha.md): Manuilikha lives apart from the village in a hut on chicken legs, surviving on marsh water and the occasional coin from those who seek her fortune-telling. She is fiercely protective of Olyessia and hostile to intruders,
- [Salvatore Trama](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/salvatore_trama.md): A fisherman and boatman in Balaklava.
- [Lenotchka](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/lenotchka.md): A woman in a story, possibly a servant or acquaintance.
- [Prince Vasily Sheyin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/prince_sheyin.md): Prince Vasily Lvovich moves through the social world of the story as a host and family man, bringing his sister, friends, and notable guests together for Vera's name-day dinner. He is kindly and attentive, but his frivol
- [Vassili Akinfievitch](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/vassili_akinfievitch.md): A character in a story, possibly a landowner or official.
- [Samoilenko](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/samoilenko.md): Samoilenko is a man returning after five years in Manchuria to a wife he calls Sannochka and a daughter he last saw as a toddler. His exuberance is almost childlike — he tips conductors royally, presses jade and ivory tr
- [Melle Nora](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/melle_nora.md): A young woman in a story, possibly a dancer or performer.
- [Anna Georgievna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/anna_georgievna.md): A woman involved in a romantic relationship.
- [Balunsky](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/balunsky.md): A fellow officer and friend of the main character.
- [Yureva](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/yureva.md): A society woman, possibly an actress or singer.
- [Mr. Rozanof](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/rozanof.md): A character in a story, possibly a journalist or writer.
- [Jack](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/jack.md): A dog, possibly a character in a story.
- [Vanya Andrutzaki](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/vanya_andrutzaki.md): A young Greek fisherman in Balaklava.
- [Leonka](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/leonka.md): A young boy, a character in a story.
- [Prince Andrey Lvovitch](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/prince_andrey.md): Prince Andrey plunges into the gambling and carousing of Petersburg and Moscow society, squandering his fortune and his reputation in a whirl of suppers and races. When he falls for the beautiful, indifferent Marya Gavri
- [Timofeev](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/timofeev.md): A fellow officer in a story.
- [Father Olympy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/father_olympy.md): A priest in a story.
- [Tommy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/tommy.md): A dog, a character in a story.
- [M. Valerianov](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/valerianov.md): A character in a story, possibly a tutor or official.
- [Arto](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/arto.md): Arto performs with his companions — an old organ-grinder and a young boy — in the courtyards of summer cottages, balancing on a barrel and pulling a toy pistol from his master's pocket. He is the household's livelihood a
- [Arseny](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/arseny.md): A servant or attendant in a story.
- [Lieutenant Lapshine](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/lieutenant_lapshine.md): A young officer in a story.
- [Menotti](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/menotti.md): An Italian fisherman or boatman in Balaklava.
- [Bouton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/bouton.md): A servant or valet in a story.
- [Yura Paratino](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/yura_paratino.md): A young man, a character in a story.
- [Eliab](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/eliab.md): A biblical figure, a character in 'Sulamith'.
- [Blan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/blan.md): A character in a story, possibly a sailor or fisherman.
- [Yani Lipiadi](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/yani_lipiadi.md): A young Greek in Balaklava.
- [Katerina Andreevna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/katerina_andreevna.md): A woman in a story, possibly a relative or acquaintance.
- [Kharitonenko](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/kharitonenko.md): A character in a story, possibly a merchant or official.
- [Lieutenant Tchijhevich](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/lieutenant_tchijhevich.md): A young officer in a story.
- [Nadya](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/nadya.md): A young woman, a character in a story.
- [Madame Ivanova](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/madame_ivanova.md): A woman in a story, possibly a landlady or neighbor.
- [M. Lara-Larsky](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/lara_larsky.md): A character in a story, possibly a musician or performer.
- [Alychka](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/alychka.md): A young girl, a character in a story.
- [Adka](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/adka.md): A character in a story, possibly a servant or child.
- [Alexandra Ivanovna Gratcheva](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/alexandra_gratcheva.md): A woman in a story, possibly a landlady or neighbor.
- [Romka](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/romka.md): A young boy, a character in a story.
- [Clotilde](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/clotilde.md): A woman in a story, possibly a dancer or performer.
- [Bielotchka](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters/bielotchka.md): A young woman, a character in a story.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_se/characters