Character guide

Anna Andreyevna

major

Also known as Anna, Anna Andreyevna

The governor's wife, giddy for big-city manners and young men, who reads every glance from the supposed inspector as a conquest.

Marya Antonovna

major

Also known as Marya, Marya Antonovna

The governor's marriageable daughter, caught between her mother's rivalry and her own certainty that the visiting dignitary keeps looking at her.

Piotr Ivanovich Dobchinsky

supporting

Also known as Dobchinsky, Piotr Ivanovich Dobchinsky

Dobchinsky is one half of the town's most excitable pair of landowners, bursting into drawing rooms to announce that a terrifying personage has arrived from St. Petersburg. He is a man of frayed nerves and borrowed courage, forever seconding Bobchinsky's guesses about rank and importance while privately fearing he will be ruined. His rush to spread the news sets the whole machinery of mistaken identity in motion, making him the spark that ignites the town's hysteria.

Artemy Filippovich Zemlianika

supporting

Also known as Artemy Filippovich, Artemy, Zemlianika

Zemlianika runs the town's charitable institutions and presents himself as a model of enlightened administration, though his hospitals are as dubious as his morals. His instinct when threatened is to ingratiate and inform, denouncing the judge's affair and the schoolmaster's freethinking in the same breath. He shows how the town's officials will devour one another to survive a scare, and his eagerness to lend Khlestakov money reveals the bribe beneath the courtesy.

Ivan Kuzmich Shpekin

supporting

Also known as Postmaster, Ivan Kuzmich, Shpekin, Ivan Kuzmich Shpekin

Shpekin oversees the mail and treats every letter as his personal reading material, a small tyranny he confesses with disarming cheerfulness. He is less malicious than compulsively curious, and his snooping gives him a quiet advantage over colleagues who think their secrets are safe. His habit of opening correspondence makes him a walking threat to the town's already shaky discretion, and the letters he cannot leave sealed will eventually matter enormously.

Luka Lukich Khlopov

supporting

Also known as Luka Lukich, Luka

Luka Lukich is nominally in charge of the town's schools, but his real occupation is managing his own terror of anyone above him in rank. Pushed onto the stage by unseen hands and trembling with his hand on his sword, he cannot answer a simple question about brunettes or blondes without fearing he has ruined himself. His comic collapse before Khlestakov shows how thoroughly fear has replaced competence in this town, and his relief at escaping inspection is the play's purest portrait of a man who has given up.

Ammos Fiodorovich Liapkin-Tiapkin

supporting

Also known as Ammos Fiodorovich, Liapkin-Tiapkin, Ammos, Liapkin, Tiapkin

Ammos Fiodorovich administers justice with a pack of borzois under his desk and a shrug about the occasional bribe, considering himself a man of the world. He is the town's most senior official after the Governor, and his easy cynicism makes him the natural leader of the panic when the supposed inspector arrives. His bluster and his hunting stories cannot hide the fact that he has as much to fear as anyone, and his scramble to appear respectable exposes the rot beneath the town's official dignity.

Ivan Kuzmich Shpekin

supporting

Also known as Ivan Kuzmich, Shpekin

Shpekin runs the post office with a smile and a pair of scissors, opening letters less from malice than from an insatiable itch to know what everyone is doing. He is a gossip's gossip, the man who knows which official is writing to whom and what they are foolish enough to put on paper. His casual violation of privacy makes him a quiet menace to the town's already fragile discretion, and the letters he cannot resist reading will prove more dangerous than any inspector.

Ivan Aleksandrovich Khlestakov

major

Also known as Khlestakov, Ivan Aleksandrovich, Ivan

A penniless Petersburg copying clerk whose empty pockets and grand fibs get him mistaken for the Inspector General, and who happily plays along.

Anton Antonovich Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky

major

Also known as Anton Antonovich, Governor, Anton, Anton Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky

The town's veteran, sticky-fingered governor, who greets the rumored inspector with bribes and flattery while privately sweating ruination.

Osip

supporting

Also known as Osip Entering, Osip Higher

Khlestakov's hungry, sardonic serf, who lies to the officials for extra rubles while quietly urging his master to flee before the truth lands.

Piotr Ivanovich Bobchinsky

supporting

Also known as Bobchinsky, Piotr Ivanovich, Piotr

A landowner-gossip who races through town breathlessly inflating a stranger at the inn into a generalissimo, igniting the whole panic.

Stepan Ivanovich Korobkin

minor

Also known as Korobkin, Stepan Ivanovich

A local landowner and retired official, part of the town's social circle.

Ivan Lazarevich Rastakovsky

minor

Also known as Rastakovsky, Ivan Lazarevich

A retired official and local notable, one of the town's elder figures.

Derzhimorda

minor

A police officer under the governor's command, known for rough handling of civilians.

Svistunov

minor

Also known as Sergeant Svistunov, Svistunov Sir

A police officer in the town, one of the governor's underlings.

Pugovichyn

minor

Also known as Sergeant Pugovichyn

A police officer mentioned among the governor's men.

Stepan Ilyich Ukhovertov

minor

Also known as Stepan Ilyich

A police officer, one of the governor's subordinates.

Mishka

minor

Also known as Mishka Gee

The governor's servant, who runs errands and delivers messages.

Abdulin

minor

A merchant who complains to Khlestakov about the governor's extortions.

Locksmith

minor

A woman, the wife of a locksmith, who petitions Khlestakov about the governor's abuses.

The Officer's Widow

minor

Also known as the officer's widow

A widow who complains to Khlestakov that she was flogged by mistake.

Ivanova

minor

Also known as Widow Ivanova, Widow

A widow mentioned in the town's complaints against the governor.

Prokhorov

minor

A doctor's assistant, mentioned in passing.

Christian Ivanovich Hübner

minor

Also known as Christian Ivanovich, Dr. Hübner

The town doctor, of German origin, who appears mostly silent.

Triapichkin

minor

Also known as Mr. Ivan Vasilyevich Triapichkin

Khlestakov's friend in St. Petersburg, to whom he writes a letter describing the town's folly.

Mashenka

minor

A servant in the governor's household.

Avdotya

minor

A servant mentioned in the governor's household.

Vlas

minor

A local peasant mentioned in passing.

Sidor

minor

A local peasant mentioned in passing.

Lukanchik

minor

A minor character mentioned in the play.

Liuliukov

minor

A local landowner, part of the town's social circle.

Antosha

minor

A nickname used by Anna Andreyevna for her husband.

Andrey Ivanovich

minor

A minor character mentioned in the play.

Panteleyeva

minor

A minor character mentioned in the play.

Sister Anna Krillovna

minor

A relative mentioned by Anna Andreyevna.

Labardan

minor

A fish dish mentioned in the play, not a character.