According to Il'ya L'vovich Tolstoy, arkhiteror vinovat (the architect is to blame) was a proverbial phrase in Tolstoy's family. It reminds one of David van Veen, a Flemish architect who built one hundred floramors (palatial brothels) in memory of his grandson Eric Veen, the author of the essay 'Villa Venus: an Organized Dream.' Eric's project "derived from reading too many erotic works found in a furnished house his grandfather had bought near Vence from Count Tolstoy, a Russian or Pole."(Ada, 2.3)

Net v mire vinovatykh ("There are no Guilty People in the World") is the title of Tolstoy's last unfinished novella. In his memoirs Ocherki bylogo ("The Sketches of the Past", 1949) Sergey L'vovich Tolstoy says that, in the last ten years of his life, Leo Tolstoy believed that all humans were more or less innocent and that poor conditions and environment (sreda) were alone to blame:

А я думаю, что в нём в то время уже зарождалась та мысль, которую он высказал позднее, в последний год своей жизни: «Нет в мире виноватых», считая, что настоящими виновниками являются условия и среда, их породившие, и набросал рассказ под этим заглавием. (L. N. Tolstoy in the Crimea in 1901-02. Meetings with Chekhov and Gorky)

The farcical 'influence of environment' was endorsed by Marx père, the popular author of 'historical' plays (2.5). Marx père may hint at Shakespeare (Shaxpere), the author of history plays.

According to Sergey L'vovich Tolstoy, his father admired Chekhov's stories but disliked his plays: Он высоко ценил некоторые рассказы Чехова, но его драматические произведения не одобрял и говорил: «Ваши, пьесы, Антон Павлович, слабее даже шекспировских». ("Your plays, Anton Pavlovich, are even weaker than Shakespeare's." ibid.)

Like her mother, Ada is an actress. While Marina played Varvara, Ada played Irina in Four Sisters (as Chekhov's play The Three Sisters is known on Antiterra). Telling Van about her 'dramatic career,' Ada mentions Shakespeare along with Chekhov:

In "real" life we are creatures of chance in an absolute void - unless we be artists ourselves, naturally; but in a good play I feel authored, I feel passed by the board of censors, I feel secure, with only a breathing blackness before me (instead of our Fourth-Wall Time), I feel cuddled in the embrace of puzzled Will (he thought I was you) or in that of the much more normal Anton Pavlovich, who was always passionately fond of long dark hair.' (2.9)

After the unexpected success of his play Ivanov Chekhov signed a letter to his brother (father of Mikhail Chekhov, an actor of genius who played Hamlet) Schiller Shekspirovich Goethe.

Adolf Marx was Chekhov's publisher. When he sold his works to Marx, Chekhov wrote to a friend: "I am now a Marxist."

According to Sergey L'vovich Tolstoy, Chekhov once said to him that Russian history will be rewritten one day:

— Со временем русскую историю совсем иначе напишут, совсем не так, как её писали. (ibid.)

After the October Revolution Russian history was ideed rewritten (many times), but not in a way Chekhov would expect.