money to go to Siberia. In 1911 he reappeared: 'I wept, because I was sorry for him,' Masha told Olga. In the revolution Kolia returned to the Crimea, married a woman twenty-four years older, and ran a smallholding with chickens and even a cow. Always a sailor, he kept a logbook.97 He welcomed the Bolsheviks and may have been shot in 1921 by the White Army as it fled the Reds. Kolia's brother Anton, the typesetter, was conscripted in 1908 and was dead by 1921.98
Mikhail, Aleksandr's youngest son, suffered nervous breakdowns and alcoholism. He told friends that he had been seduced by his mother, Natalia. In 1919 she died: Mikhail forgot where he buried her. Mikhail's theatrical talent made him a star in the Moscow Arts Theatre. In 1915 he eloped with another Olga Knipper, the niece of Anton's widow. The marriage broke up, just after a child, Olga Chek-hova, was born. In the 1920s, Mikhail, his wife and daughter all ended up in Germany. Mikhail Chekhov eventually taught Stanislavskian acting to Hollywood. His ex-wife, now Olga Tschechowa, became an actress, was photographed with Adolf Hitler, and, allegedly, spied for Stalin. Thanks to her, the Nazis protected Chekhov's Yalta house.99
Olga Knipper-Chekhova, like Masha, died in her nineties. She was the linchpin of the Moscow Arts Theatre. Even when Stalin in 1935 made it his official theatre, Olga adapted.
Suvorin had power wrenched from him by the Dauphin, who was irascible to the point of madness. In 1912 he died of throat cancer,
I904-1959
with the same stoicism as Aleksandr Chekhov. The letters Suvorin had written to Anton have not been seen since 1919. Suvorin's sons fled Russia and lived in Yugoslavia and France, where in 1937 the Dauphin, following his mother's and younger brother's example, gassed himself.
Dunia Efros, Anton's first fiancee, left Russia for France. In 1943, aged eighty-two, she was seized by the Vichy police and gassed by the Germans. Olga Kundasova stayed in Russia, living until 1947: she burnt her archive. Lika Mizinova remained faithful to Sanin-Schoenberg: when he became psychotic, she nursed him to sanity. Lika died in Paris of cancer in 1937. Elena Shavrova-Iust, destitute after her husband was executed, sold her Chekhoviana to live. Lidia Iavorskaia divorced Prince Bariatinsky in 1915; in 1919 she escaped arrest in revolutionary Petrograd and fled to England, dying in 1921.10° Tania Shchepkina-Kupernik obliterated her Bohemian image and became a Soviet children's writer. Lidia Avilova, first abroad and then in Russia, persuaded herself that she had been Anton's only love. Just before dying in 1942, she met Aleksandr Smagin, Masha's faithful admirer. The two victims of unrequited passion commiserated. Lidia Avilova was just one of a scattered congregation who mourned Anton Chekhov all their lives.
602
603
NOTES
PART i Father to the Man i However, it is interesting how often Chekhov uses the name Egor (die native Russian form of George) for characters in his work who are associated, however ironically, with die warrior St George. 2?3000 at today's prices, a rouble being 2/3 ounce of silver. 3 Anton never mentioned Aleksandra, his last surviving aunt by blood. Among Pavel's papers (331 33 iv, 54a) is a scrap with die names of her children and sons- in-law. 4 Efrosinia was influential: in 1902 Chekhov claimed to have spoken Ukrainian in his infancy. 5 To Olga Knipper 2 Feb. 1903. 6 See OR, 331 81 1: Egor's letters to Pavel 1859-78. 7 Pavel Chekhov's first placement had been with the late Iakov Morozov, who would have been his father-in-law, in Rostov in 1841. The link between the Morozovs and Chekhovs was renewed in Rostov six years later: Ivan Morozov and Pavel Chekhov found they bodi had siblings in Taganrog. 8 See Zhizn' P. E. Chekbova in Krasnyi Arkbiv, 1939, 6. 9 Family letters to Mitrofan up to i860 were stitched togedier into a book: OR, 331 34 1. 10 His name day, St Antony's, was the 17th. 11 SeeLN68, 531-7. 12 See Aleksandr's letter to Anton 17 Jan. 1886 in Pis'ma, 1939, 131-2. 13 The Jewish boys called him 'Sashinkoch'. He acquired a smattering of Yiddish and never forgot the Jewish boys' panic call: Ferkatse di huzen, loifaheim, Roll up your trousers, run home. 14 See RGALI, 2540 531: Aleksandr's memoirs (extracts in Vokrug Chekhova, 1990). 15 See I. Bondarenko, Biografia eshchio ne okonchena in I. M. Sel'vaniuk, V. D. Sedegov, Sbornik statei i materialov 3, Rostov, 1963, 309-30. 16 See OR, 331 82 4: Aleksandr's letters to Masha, 1890-8. 17 Our main source for information about Chekhov's teachers is P. P. Filevskii, Ocherki iz prosblogo Taganrogskoi Gimnazii, Taganrog, 1906. 18 See RGALI, 540 1 382: Zelenenko, Vospominaniia 0 Taganrogskoi gimnazii, typescript. 19 Many teachers recalled Chekhov, but Aleksei Markevich, a history teacher, proudly proclaimed at die end of the century, 'I am not in the habit of reading stories like Chekhov's.' 20 A third boy, Misha Cheremis, remembered as the Pederast, also worked for a rime in the Chekhov shop: the children remembered only his phrase, 'Let's not be sensible.' 21 Chekhov drank Santurini most of his life, though he admitted it tasted like 'bad Marsala'. 2 2 As the knout was soaked in tar and fish oil, the effect on the boys' clothes was devastating. The one occasion when the knout struck him, Anton desperately soaked his trousers in chemicals, only to find
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NOTES ANTON
that he had destroyed the fabric. A school friend's mother took pity and bought him a new pair, so that the damage was never discovered by Pavel. 23 See memoir by A. A. Dolzhenko (Anton's cousin) in Iz shkol'nykh let…, 1962, 14-19. 24 See M. Semanova, Teatral'nye vpecbatleniia… in Sbornik materialov, Rostov, i960, 157-84. 25 See OR, 331 31 1: Aleksandr's letters to his parents, 1874-96. 26 See her memoirs in LN68, 538-41. 27 To Pavel 10 Aug. 1875. See OR,
331 31 1.
28 See OR, 331 82 14; Nikolai Chekhov's letters to his parents,
1875-89.
29 See OR, 331 33 12a: Evgenia's letters to Aleksandr and Nikolai include this note (2 Jan. 1875). 30 See OR, 331 33 12a: Evgenia's letter to Aleksandr and Nikolai Chekhov. 31 Vrondy in his old age remembered Anton as an adept and favourite pupil with whom he would often play loto, a demure form of bingo, after class. 32 See OR, 331 81 11: Pavel's letters to his wife and children, 1876-90. 33 See OR, 331 33 125: Evgenia's letters to Pavel Chekhov, 1876-90. 34 See OR, 331 81 12: Pavel's letters to Evgenia, 1876, 1884 and 1891. 35 See OR, 331 81 38: Pavel Chekhov to G. P. Selivanov. 36 Mitrofan deferred to his 'spiritual adviser', the elderly Father Vasili Bandakov, whose volumes of 'Short Teachings for the Simple Folk' were used by the lazier priests of southern Russia. One of Bandakov's sermons is subtitled 'composed in the house of the Chekhovs'. In 1890, at Mitrofan's request, Anton wrote an obituary: 'He preached at :il 1. e 11 i v every opportunity, never bothered about time or place… Bad harvests, epidemics, conscription… he was passionate, bold and often cutting.' 37 See RGALI, 860 1 576: M. I. H'kov typescript memoir. 38 See OR, 331 58 29: G. P. Selivanov's letters to Anton. 39 To Aleksei Suvorin junior. See 331 59 71a: A. A. Suvorin's letter to Anton 8 Nov. 1888. 40 Anton was to encounter old Taganrogians all his life: Drs Eremeev, Saveliev, Shamkovich, Tarabrin, Valter, Zembulatov; lawyers (Kolomnin, Konovitser, Kramariov, the Volkenshteins, one of whom Anton saved from expulsion from school after an anti-Semitic incident); performing artists (Vishnev[ets]ky); writers (Sergeenko); academics, civil servants, even revolutionaries. 41 To V. A. Tikhonov in February 1892. The brothel was run by N. Pototsky, who left Taganrog gimnazia with a silver medal in 1862. Years later Aleksandr Chekhov still asked after Pototsky. 42 See OR, 331 32 3, Aleksandr's letters to Anton, 1876: 27 Sept. 1876, printed in Pis'ma, 1939, 33-543 See OR, 331 33 126: Evgenia's 20 letters to Anton, 1876-1904. 44 In Russia this title has been reassigned to the Chekhov play once known as Platonov, but Platonov has nothing to do with 'fatherlessness' and has references that point to the 1880s. 45 Chekhov's books were plundered by family and 'friends', lost in peregrinations, or given away to school, prison and city libraries. See Balukhaty and Khanilo in bibliography.
46 See OR, 331 81 19: Pavel's letters to Anton, 1878. 47 See RGALI, 331 81 25: Pavel's letters to Mitrofan and Liudmila Chekhov, 1876-93: 2 Feb. 1878. 48 See OR, 331 82 15: Nikolai's letters to Pavel Chekhov, 1879-84. 49 See RGALI, 2540 1 158: Pavel's letters to Ivan Chekhov, 1879-98. 50 See OR, 331 81 20: Pavel's letters to Anton, 1879. PART e Doctor Chekhov 1 See M. P. Chekhov's memoirs in Vokrug Cbekhova, 184-5. 2 See OR, 331 58 29: Gavriil Parfentievich Selivanov's letters to Anton, 1879-80: 5 Sept. 1879. 3 The Dragonfly had chequered prospects; not until 1906, when Russian censorship collapsed, was it transformed into Satirikon, one of Europe's sharpest humorous weeklies. 4 See OR, 331 81 20: Pavel's letters to Anton, 1879-85: 18 June 1880. 5 See OR, 331 81 16: Pavel's letter to Nikolai, 23 Aug. 1880. 6 See OR, 331 35 9: O. and P. Agali's letters to Anton, 1880-1. 7 See OR, 331 55 21: Anisim [Onisim] Petrov's letters to Anton. Chekhov used the name Anisim once, for a corrupt, demented and semiliterate policeman in a story, 'In the Ravine' (1899). 8 See OR, 331 48 49: Solomon Kramariov's letters to Anton, 1881, 1904. 9 Anastasia's husband, Putiata shared the editorship of Chiaroscuro with Pushkariov. 10 Despite
