Rosamund Bartlett - Chekhov : scenes from a life

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; .t is deliberately not intended to be comprehensive. Numerous events and people from the vast cast of characters .n 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 countrys le, 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 ncluded.

CHRONOLOGY

1860 Anton Chekhov is born on 17 January in Taganrog, a town on the Azov Sea in southern Rass'a, the third son of the meichant Pavel Egorovich Chekhov (1825-1898) and Evgenia Yakovlevna Chekhova (1835-1919). Chekhov's parents married in 1854: of theii 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 Gieek Pa^sh 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 ardst Lev^; an, 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 almost 300 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 visu to St Petersburg

Invited to write for New Times by its owner Alexei Suvorin, who becomes a close friend; first story puolished in Suvonn's newspaper is also under his own name; letter from Dmitri Grigorovich exhor,mg Chekhov to take his wilting 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 n.s 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 Bogi.novo; assists with famine relief Purchases small country estate at Mel'Khovo, fifty miles south of Moscow, and moves there with his parents. Works as doctor to prevent cholera ep demic; publishes "Ward No. 6' Second v si>: to Yalta

First meeting with Tolstoy; The Island of Sakhalin published as a book

Builds the %st of three schools in the Melikhovo area, and starts sending books to the Taganrog library Disastrous first performance of The Seagull at the Imperial Alexandrinskv 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 n the Dreyfus case

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1887

1888

1889

1890

1891

1892

1894

1895

1896

1897

1898

1899

1900

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 h^;m n 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 Elected an honorary member of the literary section of the Imperial Academy of Sciences; the first volumes of the Marx edition of his collected works are published; spends part of autumn in Moscow; second long stay in Nice

First performance of Three Sisters at the Moscow Art Theatre; marries Olga Knipper later in the year in Moscow

Spends summer in Moscow, partly at Lyubimovka

Spends part of spring and summer in Moscow, partly in Nara; returns to Moscow to attend rehearsals of The Cherry Orchard

Attends first performance of The Cherry Orchard at the Moscow Art Theatre; worsening condition of his health leads to decision to seek treatment in Germany; dies in Badenweiler on 15 July (2 July according to Russian calendar)

О 100 200 300 miles

о ^— юо ^—2 'оо зко 400 sbo km.

Chekhov was the kind of poet who sings like a bird - sings and rejoices.

Alexei Suvorin, 15 July 1904

PROLOGUE: CHEKHOV THE WANDERER

In the last montns of his lite, Chekhov pondered the subject of a new play he wanted to write. He told his wife, Olga Knipper, that the hero of the play would be a sc entist who either suffers from unrequited love or who is betrayed by the woman he loves. Chekhc^ had set his previous plays in provincial Russia. As the Moscow Art Theatre director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko rightly pointed out, this gave \ m more potent il for lyr cism. Chekhov was most

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