definitely dream about the banks of the Neva, Senate Square and massive pedestals . . .3
Chekhov was a writer who was profoundly sensitive to his environment. If it is difficult for us to penetrate Chekhov's character through his relationships with people because of his inscrutability and reserve, perhaps our emphasis should be shifted to his relationship with the places in which he lived?
This biography therefore takes as its point of departure Chekhov's physical environment: the provincial town of Taganrog among the steppes in which he grew up, the burgeoning city of Moscow where he trained as a doctor and made his home as an adult, the more formal St Petersburg where most of his literary work was based, the rural summer retreats where he was able to enjoy being idle (which he regarded as an essential ingredient of happiness), the empty wastes of Siberia which enabled him to fulfil his lust for adventure and also put into practice the ideals that he cherished, the country estate of Melikhovo where he planted trees and roses and enjoyed living on the land, the beautiful but alien French Riviera, where he spent lonely winter months trying to get well, and the Crimean resort of Yalta where he had the excruciating experience of seeing his life slowly ebb away. The aim of each chapter is to convey the texture of Chekhov's life in each of the places in which he lived or spent significant amounts of time, and in so doing shed light on different aspects of his character. This book is a biography of Chekhov, and more specifically his creative spirit, but it is also a biography of the places in which he lived and worked, and an exploration of how they relate to his short stories and plays.
As the subtitle of this book suggests, this biography takes an impressionistic approach: it is deliberately not intended to be comprehensive. Numerous events and people from the vast cast of characters in Chekhov's life are not discussed at all, while others are explored at length, and certain small details examined closely. Not all the places that he went to are included: the trips Chekhov made to the Caucasus, and his honeymoon in a remote provincial sanatorium are not covered, for example, because of their relative brevity and paucity of documentation. The length of each chapter does not necessarily correspond to time-span, furthermore: chapter eight explores Chekhov's time in the South of France, where he spent just a few months, while chapter seven describes his life at Melikhovo in the Russian countryside, where he spent several years. Although they have been put together in a roughly chronological manner, the chapters
themselves do not always adhere to a strict chronological framework, but sometimes look both forwards and backwards in time, and it is for this reason that a simple chronology of Chekhov's life and works has been included.
CHRONOLOGY
1860 Anton Chekhov is born on 17 January in Taganrog, a town on the Azov Sea in southern Russia, the third son of the merchant Pavel Egorovich Chekhov (1825-1898) and Evgenia Yakovlevna Chekhova (1835-1919). Chekhov's parents married in 1854: of their seven children, five sons and two daughters, only the youngest, Evgenia (1869-71), did not live to survive infancy
1868 Chekhov accepted as a pupil at the Taganrog classical gymnasium, following an unsuccessful first year at the Greek Parish school.
1873 Attends the theatre for the first time
1876 Father is declared bankrupt and flees with his family to Moscow, leaving Anton behind in Taganrog to finish school
Moves to Moscow and becomes a student in the Medical Faculty of Moscow University
First story published in a St Petersburg comic journal; meets the artist Levitan, who becomes a close friend
1882 Invited to contribute to the leading Petersburg comic journal, Fragments, by its editor Nikolai Leikin
Graduates from medical school; first signs of tuberculosis; writes seventy-six stories over the course of the year; publication of first book of stories, Tales of Melpomene; serialization of only novel, Drama at a Shooting Party, in a Moscow newspaper
Invited to write for The Petersburg Newspaper; summer at Babkino; first visit to St Petersburg
Invited to write for New Times by its owner Alexei Suvorin, who becomes a close friend; first story published in Suvorin's newspaper is also under his own name; letter from Dmitri Grigorovich exhorting Chekhov to take his writing more seriously; second summer at Babkino
Travels back to Taganrog and the steppe landscapes of his childhood; third summer at Babkino; first performance of Ivanov in Moscow
Publication of 'The Steppe' in The Northern Messenger - the first story to appear in a serious literary journal; awarded the Pushkin Prize by the Imperial Academy of Sciences; first summer at Luka; first visit to the Crimea (Feodosia)
Second summer at Luka; death of brother Nikolai from tuberculosis there; first visit to Yalta
Travels across Siberia to the island of Sakhalin, where over a period of three months and three days completes a census of its prison population; returns by sea via Hong Kong, Singapore, Ceylon and Odessa
First trip to Western Europe with Suvorin: six-week tour to Vienna, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Rome, Naples, Nice and Paris; summer at Bogimovo; assists with famine relief
Purchases small country estate at Melikhovo, fifty miles south of Moscow, and moves there with his parents. Works as doctor to prevent cholera epidemic; publishes 'Ward No. 6'
Second visit to Yalta
First meeting with Tolstoy; The Island of Sakhalin published as a book
Builds the first of three schools in the Melikhovo area, and starts sending books to the Taganrog library. Disastrous first performance of The Seagull at the Imperial Alexandrinsky Theatre in St Petersburg
Falls seriously ill; publishes The Peasants, whose unvarnished depiction of rural life causes a furore; spends winter in Nice and takes serious interest in the Dreyfus case
Meets Olga Knipper; death of father; successful first performance of The Seagull at the Moscow Art Theatre; spends first winter in Yalta
Moves into house built for him in Yalta; first performance of Uncle Vanya at the Moscow Art Theatre; publishes 'The Lady with the Little Dog'; spends summer in Moscow; last visit to Taganrog
