St Petersburg, but the prestige was no longer what it was (or later would be in the Soviet period). As a member of the parvenu younger generation who had only recently joined the ranks of the intelligentsia, Chekhov attached far less importance to literary journals than did his crustier older contemporaries. As he wrote to the poet Polonsky just before 'The Steppe' was published:
Isn't it the same whether a nightingale sings in a big tree or a bush? The requirement that talented people should only publish in thick journals is small-minded, smacks of servility and is harmful like all prejudices. This prejudice is stupid and ridiculous. There was a point to it when the publications were headed by people with clearly defined outlooks, such as Belinsky, Herzen and so on, who not only paid a fee, but drew people to them, taught and educated them, but now when we have some very grey kind of people with stiff collars running these publications,
allegiance to thick journals won't stand up to criticism, and the difference between a thick journal and a cheap newspaper is only quantitive, that is to say, from the point of view of an artist, it is not worthy of respect or attention. There is one convenient aspect to writing for a thick journal, though: a long piece won't get chopped up and is printed whole. When I write a long story, I will send it to a thick journal, and the small ones I will publish wherever the wind and my will want to take them.32
This is exactly what Chekhov did. Over the course of his career, he deftly tailored each piece according to the publication in which he placed it, continuing to write in a wide range of styles for a variety of different audiences.33
With the publication of 'The Steppe' in The Northern Messenger in February 1888, Chekhov became a star in Russia's literary world. The seal of approval from a fat journal meant a great deal to him, despite his professions of nonchalance: witness the unusually long period of writer's block he suffered before sitting down to write the story. And his star began to burn even more brightly when he was awarded the Imperial Academy of Science's Pushkin Prize for Literature that year. Writing to his brother Alexander who had been talking to Suvorin, Chekhov was incredulous to hear the news as early as the previous October that he might be awarded the prize, thinking that his colleague Korolenko was more deserving; he also reckoned his association with New Times was sufficient to rule him out of the contest.34 But Suvorin had a hand in the affair and was rightly confident about the outcome. The price of all the fame, of course, was criticism. After his first forays to the capital, Chekhov began making regular visits to Petersburg during the winter months, and the adulation he now received was both bemusing and intoxicating. His collection, Motley Tales, had made him famous. He was the most fashionable writer in Petersburg, he boasted to his uncle in January 1887 following his most recent visit; his stories were read out at soirees, people pointed him out to each other wherever he went, everyone wanted to make his acquaintance, and critics were writing about his work.35
The first few reviews of his stories were a major event, not only for Chekhov but his whole family, particularly when they praised him to the skies. With the publication of Motley Tales in May 1886, however, began a rising tide of critical opinion in the capital's press which was
less favourable. Chekhov had to learn to deal with a particular phalanx of Petersburg critics who were confounded by the absence of any kind of ideological freight in his work, and were offended by the unorthodox trajectory of his literary career. In a country where the word 'writer' had often been synonymous with the word 'martyr', there was something almost indecent to the older generation about the rise of a young Turk via the pages of cheap comic journals, particularly when he was clearly not prepared to pay obeisance to the usual shibboleths and put his literary talent to the service of fighting moral causes. Motley Tales was the first collection by Chekhov to receive serious attention in the national press. It was also reviewed in the serious literary journals, and the anonymous critic for The Northern Messenger spared no punches. Alexander Skabichevsky (for it was he, a former associate of National Annals) characterized Chekhov as a clown, who would wither away in complete oblivion under a fence like a squeezed lemon. His book, meanwhile, represented the 'tragic spectacle of a young talent committing suicide'.36 Chekhov was so wounded by this review that he could never quite forget it, but the Populist critics like Skabichevsky became so predictable in their attacks on his work for its apparent lack of ideals, that the only sane response was to laugh.
Critics were also disconcerted by Chekhov's reluctance to align himself with any particular group. The formation of factions and opposing splinter groups, and the ensuing passionate debate over differing principles, has always been a characteristic phenomenon in Russian society – not only in the literary sphere, but across the board. You could almost say it was an inbuilt part of national cultural identity. Engagement was expected a priori. But Chekhov refused to play the game; in fact he confounded everybody, as he did in almost every area of his life. The compassionate, liberal-minded young writer aligned himself (if he aligned himself with anyone at all) not with a group, but with one person – a right-wing newspaper tycoon twice his age. He loathed partiinost, the idea of being a member of a group or a party ('partiinost', which also means 'party spirit', later became a byword in Communist vocabulary), as he made abundantly clear, and perhaps just a touch tactlessly, to the literary editor of The Northern Messenger in January 1888:
Our fat journals are all dominated by dull groups and cliques. It's suffocating! I don't like the fat journals because of that, and it does not make me want to write for them. Being a member of a group, especially if it's arid and lacking in talent, is incompatible with freedom and the grand scale.37
This was the nomadic, southern Chekhov speaking, the Chekhov who had spent the previous summer roaming the steppe. He did not want to be pinned down.
Notwithstanding the occasional friction caused by inhospitable reviews, Chekhov loved going to St Petersburg. His visits to the capital meant leaving his duties and responsibilities behind in Moscow, and travelling to a sophisticated and cosmopolitan city where he was wined and dined and could devote his time completely to literary business. It was like going on holiday. 'Piter is magnificent,' he wrote to his family from the capital in December 1887; T feel like I'm in seventh heaven. The streets, the cabbies, the food – everything is excellent, and there are so many clever and decent people, you can just take your pick.'38 Sometimes there were outings to the Mariinsky to hear the occasional opera or concert, and there were also visits to the latest exhibitions and to artists' studios, and frequent trips to the theatre. In March 1891 Chekhov and Suvorin went to see the great Italian actress Eleonora Duse perform in Antony and Cleopatra at the Maly Theatre on the Fontanka during her Russian tour. This was the new independent theatre which Suvorin would take over in 1895 ('Maly' – small – was a misnomer; it had over a thousand seats). The fact that Chekhov wrote so few letters during his Petersburg visits says a lot about the frenetic social life he led there; it also means we actually know comparatively little about what he actually got up to.
While Chekhov looked forward particularly to spending time with Suvorin during his visits to Petersburg, he also enjoyed his meetings with the numerous friends he made in the city. He initiated annual dinners for writers at the Maly Yaroslavets on Bolshaya Morskaya Street (another restaurant which specialized in Russian cuisine), but after the rowdy nightlife of Moscow dining establishments, the more sedate socializing that Petersburg writers generally engaged in at home in their drawing rooms provided an agreeable change. And from the end of 1886, he even had family in the city: his elder brother Alexander had
moved to the capital with his family and taken up employment with Suvorin as a journalist on New Times. Alexander was able to write and tell Anton what was going on the city, particularly with regard to his brother's affairs (as in June 1887, when he let him know that his story 'Fortune' was still being read in cafes along Nevsky Prospekt a week after publication).39 He was also able to carry out useful errands for his brother from time to time. In return, Chekhov provided occasional medical care, on one occasion jumping on the first train to Petersburg when
