The Elusive Mr. Chekhov

It seems Anton Chekhov is a hard man to pin down. No one has yet to write a definitive account in the English language. I've been reading Irene Nemirovsky's A Life of Chekhov, published after her death in 1950. It is a personal story about Chekhov, rather than a study of his work. The narrative has been made into a BBC radio play.

A book that does receive much praise is Anton Chekhov's Life and Thought, edited and annotated by Simon Karlinsky and translated by Michael Henry Heim. It is a collection of Chekhov's letters spread throughout his literary career with a lengthy introduction by Karlinsky putting his work into perspective. Here is a copy of the 1997 reprint by Northwestern University. It appears to be an expanded copy of the original 1975 edition. Nemirovsky drew on Chekhov's letters to a large degree in writing her personal account.

Henri Troyat has also written a biography of Chekhov that is generally well regarded. He is most famous for his magisterial biography of Tolstoy. Heim also translated this book to English.

The portrait is by Issac Levitan, painted in 1886. Here's a nice essay, Crossed Destinies: Anton Chekhov and Isaac Levitan

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Ward No. 6

Ward No. 6 is a short story written by Chekhov in 1892. It has appeared in various collections of Chekhov short stories, including The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories translated by Constance Garnett in 1921. In this story, Chekhov explores the inner working of a run-down lunatic asylum in a provincial town. He introduces the readers to a coarse porter who speaks mostly with his fists, various patients, a doctor who presides over this ward, and expresses his thoughts with a local postmaster. It was recently made into a movie , featuring Vladimir Ilyin. Here's a clip . There's also this very recent short film (30 min.) by Suzana Purkovic, with English subtitles.

Light and Dark

I'm still trying to sort out the ending. The story had to end tragically but was surprised that Rogozhin actually sought forgiveness in Myshkin after what he had done to Nastya, although I think that Dostoevsky intended the two to be read as one, along similar lines as The Double . He kept Rogozhin a shadowy figure throughout the novel, ever lurking in the dark of the Prince's soul. Try as he might, Prince Myshkin could not alter events and thus the fantasy world he had lived in upon returning to Russia crumbled before his eyes, leaving him at a total loss as how to reconcile himself with it. Once again, Dostoevsky plumbs great depths of the human soul. This is a psychological drama told in theatrical terms, perfectly suited for the stage. Characters appear and disappear as if moving from the shadows of the stage. I can see the "green bench" as the central stage piece. In the final part, one gets the sense that Lebedev is orchestrating event...

The Morning of Our Motherland

I was watching a History channel special on Socialist Realism art of the Soviet Union and this was one of the grand canvases that is now stuffed away in the Tretyakov State Gallery . The painter was Fyodor Shurpin and he had a wonderful eye for detail, right down to the secret service black car on the road to Stalin's right. To the left, one sees a row of combines turning over the field of golden wheat, which became symbolic of Stalin's Soviet Union. Утро нашей Родины is from 1949, with Stalin radiating a post-war confidence. It is also known as Dawn of our Fatherland and other titles. Shurpin was one of the better artists to carry over from the pre-war years. The narrator pointed out how socialist realist art changed dramatically as a result of the war, becoming much more static and propagandist in appearance. He pointed to two stops along the Moscow subway as an example of this divide. Here, Shurpin essentially transposes Stalin fo...

Chekhov's Gun

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