Rosamund Bartlett - Chekhov : scenes from a life

SCENES FROM A LIFE

ROSAMUND BARTLETT

First published in Great Britain by The Free Press in 2004 An imprint of Simon 8c Schuster UK Ltd A Viacom Company

Copyright © 2004 by Rosamund Bartlett

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission All rights reserved

The Free Press and colophon are trademarks of Simon 8c Schuster, Inc.

The right of Rosamund Bartlett to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 0 7432 3074 4

Typeset by M Rules Printed and bound in Great Britain by Mackays of Chatham pic

FOR A.P. AND R.P.

CONTENTS

List of illustrations xi

Note on abbreviations, transliteration and dates xiii

Preface xv

Chronology xix

Maps xxiii

Prologue: Chekhov the Wanderer xxix

Pre-history: A Port on the Azov Sea 1

I Greeks and Scythians 1

II Venetians, Turks and Russian Tsars 8

III The British 15

Taganrog and the Steppe 22

I A Southern Childhood 22

II The Merchant Background 32

III The Don Steppe 42

Moscow 54

Nomads in the City 54

Dr Chekhov's Casebook 75 III The Expanding Chest of Drawers 82

Summers at the Dacha 96

New Jerusalem 96

Luka 112 III Aleksin 123

St Petersburg 128

I Fragments of Fame 128

Messengers from the North 139

Chekhov and the Imperial Theatres 150

Siberia and the West 159

Sakhalin 159

Europe 185

Melikhovo 193

A Place in the Country 193

Paterfamilias 201

The Muzhiks 213

Croquet on the Lawn 221

A Season on the Cote d'Azur 230

Nostalgia in Nice 230

The Pension Russe 239

The Russian Riviera 255

Yalta and the Romanovs 255

Chekhov and the Tatars 270

The White Dacha 276

Marx and the Meadow 288

A Dream of Moscow 293

Part-Time Resident 293

The Art Theatre 296

Part-Time Husband 300

Exile in the Crimea 308

The Gentleman with the Little Dog 308

Pushkin, the Old Oak of Taganrog, and Three Sisters 311 III The Actress and the Bishop 31912 White Death in the Black Forest 329

Badenweiler 329

The Russian Aftermath 338

Epilogue: Chekhov Street 340

Acknowledgements 353

Notes 354

Bibliography 376

Index 383

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The port at Taganrog 3

Petrovskaya Street, Taganrog 4

Taganrog's Stone Steps 6

The statue of Peter the Great in Taganrog by Antokolsky (1898) 12

Chekhov's birthplace, Taganrog 23

Pavel and Mitrofan Chekhov and their families, 1874 25

Pavel Chekhov's store, Taganrog 26

Uspensky Cathedral, Taganrog, where Chekhov was christened 39

Trubnaya Square, Moscow 58

Stretenka Street, Moscow 62

Chekhov and his brother, Nikok ij February 1882 66 The Church of St John the Warrior, Moscow, opposite which

the Chekhovs lived in 1885 70

The New Catherine Hospital in Moscow 80

The Korsh Theatre, Moscow, where Ivanov premiered in 188/ 91

The New Jerusalem Monastery, Moscow 100

Zvenigorod, near Moscow 102 Illustrations of the fish Chekhov used to catch,

from Sabaneev's Fishes of Russia 104 Nikolaevsky Station, Moscow, where Chekhov

boarded trains for St Petersburg 129

Nevsky Prospekt, St Petersburg 136

Suvorin's bookshop, Nevsky Prospekt, St Petersburg 143 The Imperial Alexandrinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, wnere

The Seagull premiered in 1896 151

Ykaterinburg 168

Krasnoyarsk and the Yenirey River 170

The city of Irkutsk 172

An Amur River steamer similar to the one Chekhov travelled on 174

The famous Sakhalin convict Sofya Blyuvshtein 179

Gilyak storehouses for dried fish, Sakhalin 181

Chekhov's house and garden at Melikhovo 194 The guest annexe at Melikhovo, where Chekhov wrote

The Seagull 226 The Hermitage restaurant, Moscow, where Chekhov suffered a

haemorrhage in 1897 231 The Grand Moscow Hotel, Chekhov's favourite place to stay

during his visits from Melikhovo 232 Prof. Ostroumov's clinic, Moscow, where Chekhov was a

patient in 1897 234

The view from the bench by the church at Oreanda 263 The seafront in Yalta, which the Lady with the little dog

walks along 277

The Hotel Marino, Yalta, where Chekhov stayed in 1899 279 The town park, where Gurov makes the acaua.ntance of Anna

Sergey evna 280 The harbour in Yalta, where Gurov and Anna Sergeyevna