1985 and 1995, has been a great stimulus. I want to thank Dmitri Konovalov of Ufa for lending me his manuscript notes on the Andreev sanatorium, as well as for his hospitality. (None of these experts, or anybody else I have consulted, bears any responsibility for my judgments or approach.)
I also thank the doctor in charge of the hospital that was once Bogimovo and the staff at the Andreev sanatorium at Aksionovo. Apart from Siberia, Sakhalin and Hong Kong, I feel I have stood and sat, and have been a minor or major nuisance, in almost every place that bears Chekhov's imprint. Descendants of Chekhov's friends, for instance M. Patrice Bijon, have been most tolerant of my search for material. Countless people will be grateful that the work is finished. Thanks and acknowledgements for illustrations to the Bakhrushin Theatre Museum (Moscow), to the Chekhov Museums in Melikhovo, Moscow, Sumy, Taganrog and Yalta, to the Pushkinski Dom (St Petersburg), and to the Russian State Library.
This book owes much to British Academy support: notably a three-month humanities research fellowship, which extended my sabbatical leave long enough to make headway. To my colleagues at Queen Mary and Westfield College, who had to put up with frequent dereliction of duty, I proffer my apologies. xviii m
ABBREVIATIONS AND REFERENCES
This book is meant for the general reader, but for specialists I have given sources for quotations and new information. References are given to archive sources and less accessible publications: Chekhov's letters and the best-known memoirs (see Select Bibliography) are well indexed, and the reader can check these sources without additional reference. All translations into English are my own. In footnotes I have used a few abbreviations (the place of publication is Moscow, unless otherwise indicated): MXaT OR
RGALI PSSP
Gitovich Letopis Pis ma 1939 Pis ma 1954 Perepiska 1934, 1936 Knipper-Chekhova 1972 Levitan Pis ma 1956 Moscow Arts Theatre Museum Archive Manuscript Department of Russian State Library (otdel rukopiset) Russian State Archives for Literature and Art A. P. Chekhov Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem: 1 -18, works (referred to as I-XVUI); 1-12 (+ indices), letters (referred to as 1I2 I973'83N. I. Gitovich Letopis' zhizni i tvorcbestva A. P. Chekhov a, 1955 I. S. Ezhov Pis'ma A. P. Chekhovu ego brata Aleksandra Pavlovicha, 1939 M. P. Chekhova Pis'ma k bratu A. P. Chekhovu, 1954 A. P. Derman, Perepiska A. P. Chekhova i 0. L. Knipper, 1934, 1936 V. la. Vilenkin, Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, 1972 A. Fiodorov-Davydov, A. Shapiro /. /. Levitan: Pis'ma, dokumenty, vospominaniia, 1956
XXI
ANION (II I h IK IV Perepiska I, II, 1984 Letopisets I semie 1970 Vokrug Chekbova V vospominaniiakh LN68
LN87
M. P. Gmniovsi el;il. I'rrrpiska A. P. Chekbova, 10H4, 1 vols. (F.xpanded 1996, 3 vols.) A. P. Kuzicheva, E. M. Sakharova Melikhovskii letopisets: Dnevnik P. E. Chekbova, 1995 Sergei Mikhailovich Chekhov, I semie Iaroslavl, 1970 Vokrug Chekbova (nio?. A. M. Sakharova),
1990
Chekhov v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov (nio?. N. I. Gitovich), 1986 Literaturnoe nasledstvo 68: Chekhov (ed. V. V. Vinogradov), i960 Literaturnoe nasledstvo 87: Iz istorii russkoi literatury… (ed V. R. Shcherbina), 1977
A NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION
Transliteration from Russian is standard British, except that I use / for both e and E. I also transcribe Russian e as e, although initially and after a vowel it is pronounced ye. Russian surnames of transparently French or German origin are given in more familiar forms, thus Aiiua, Oaooaiu are rendered Beaunier, Schechtel, not Bonie, ShekbteP. Tchaikovsky is spelt traditionally; so is Chaliapin. Russian female names are given feminine form: Chekhova, Ternovskaia. Crimean Tatar names are given Turkish spellings. I have taken liberties with Russian first names. Patronymics (the middle names ending in -ovich, -ovna, etc.) have been omitted except where needed; I have reduced the varied forms of Christian names, whose choice depends on degree of acquaintance, intimacy, mood, to the minimum: for example, it may not be clear to an English reader that Maria, Mariushka, Marusia, Mania, Mosia and Masha are all the same person. In the case of Chekhov's siblings, I hope I may be forgiven for referring to Maria Pavlovna Chekhova as Masha, Nikolai Pavlovich as Kolia, Ivan Pavlovich as Vania, Mikhail Pavlovich as Misha; as there are other Sashas in Chekhov's life, Aleksandr Pavlovich Chekhov remains Aleksandr. In the interests of clarity, I use the better known pseudonyms of some persons (Gruzinsky for Lazarev, Andreeva for Andreeva- Zheliabuzhskaia, etc.). The index should resolve any ambiguities. Dates are given by the Russian (Julian) calendar, twelve days behind Europe until 12 March 1900, then thirteen days behind. All dates are Russian, except when the action takes place abroad when both dates are given. Russian temperatures in Reaumur have been converted to centigrade.
XXII
I
Father to the Man We could hear screams coming from the dining room… and knew that poor Ernest was being beaten. 'I have sent him up to bed,' said Theobald, as he returned to the drawing room, 'and now, Christina, I think we will have the servants in to prayers.' Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh
ONE
O
Forefathers
1762-1860
E^i would have thought that such genius could come from an earth closet! ANTON CHEKHOV and his eldest brother Aleksandr were bewildered: in two generations the Chekhovs had risen from peasantry to metropolitan intelligentsia. Little in Anton Chekhov's forebears hints at his gifts for language, or foretells the artistic talents of his brother Nikolai or the polymath versatility of his eldest brother Aleksandr. The key to Chekhov's character, his gentleness and his toughness, his eloquence and his laconicism, his stoical resolution, is hidden in the genes he inherited as well as in his upbringing.
Chekhov's great-grandfather, Mikhail Chekhov (1762-1849), was a serf all his life. He ruled five sons sternly: even as adults, they called him Panochi, Lord Father. The first Chekhov of whom we know more is Mikhail's second son and Anton Chekhov's paternal grandfather, Kgor Mikhailovich Chekhov. As a child Chekhov met him on a few summer holidays. There was no affection between them.1 Grandfather Kgor fought his way out of bondage. He was born in 1798, a serf of Count Chertkov at Olkhovatka in Voronezh province, the heart of Russia, where forests meet steppes, half way between Moscow and the Black Sea. (Chekhovs are traceable in this region to the sixteenth century.) Egor, alone of his kin, could read and write.
Kgor made sugar from beet and fattened cattle on the pulp. Driving Count Chertkov's cattle to market, he shared the profits. Through luck, ruthlessness and thirty years' hard work, Egor accumulated 875 roubles.2 In 1841 he offered his money to Chertkov to buy himself, his wife and his three sons out of serfdom into the next class of Russian citizens, the petit-bourgeoisie (meshchane). Chertkov was generous; he deed Kgor's daughter Aleksandra too. Egor's parents and brothers remained serfs.
3
FATHKK I «» I III* MAN
Egor took his family 300 miles south to ilir nrw steppe lands, tamed after centuries of occupation by nomadic Turkic tribes. Land was being sold to veterans of the Napoleonic wars and to German immigrants. Here Egor became estate manager to Count Platov at Krepkaia (Strong-point), forty miles north of Taganrog on the Sea of Azov. He pushed his three sons onto the next rung in Russia's social ladder, the merchant class, by apprenticing them. The eldest, Mikhail (born 1821) went to Kaluga, 150 miles southwest of Moscow, to be a bookbinder. The second, Anton Chekhov's father, Pavel, born 1825 and now sixteen, worked in a sugar-beet factory, then for a cattle drover, and finally as a merchant's shop boy in Taganrog. The youngest son, Mitrofan, became a shop boy to another merchant in Rostov on the Don. Egor's daughter Aleksandra, her father's favourite child, married a Vasili Kozhevnikov at Tverdokhliobovo near the steppe town of Boguchar.3
Egor remained on the Platov estates until he died, aged eighty-one. He was ruthless and eccentric. Like many managers of peasant stock, he was cruel to the peasantry: they called him the 'viper'. He also earned the dislike of his employers: Countess Platov banished him six miles away to a ranch. Egor could have lived there in a manorial house, but preferred a peasant's wooden cottage.
Chekhov's paternal grandmother Efrosinia Emelianovna, whom her grandchildren saw even less, for she rarely
