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From Susanna to Sarra: Chekhov in 1886-1887
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2017
Extract
"Ivanov," a drama with a tendency, devoid of the "immediate and carefree objectivity" of the earlier works of Anton Chekhov, has seemed to at least one critic a turning point in the author's production. VI. Korolenko has suggested that "this first drama … might provide valuable material for the thoughtful biographer who will trace the history of a crisis of the soul, which had led Chekhov away from Novoe Vremia to Russkie Zapiski. Zhizri and Russkaia My si'."
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References
1. V. Korolenko, “A.P. Chekhov v vospominaniiakh” in the book Chekhov v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov (Moscow: “Khudozhestvennaia literatura,” 1952), 71-83. Chekhov was invited to contribute to Novoe vremia, Russia's most popular daily, early in 1886. The intellectual public scorned Novoe vremia for its populist attitudes, particularly its anti-Semitism, but it often disagreed with the government. It was lively and vulgar: “Everybody reads the newspaper, but it's not proper to speak about it” (Zinaida Gippius, Zhivye litsa, 2 vols. (Prague: Plamia, 1925), vol. 2.
2. The deepest analysis of the change seen as a search for an aesthetic integrity gradually taking over the whole of Chekhov's personality is to be found in A. Derman's Tvorcheskii poriret Chekhova (Moscow: Mir, 1929).
3. Lev Shestov, “Tvorchestvo iz nichego.” in Nachala i kontsy (St. Petersburg: Stasiulevich, 1908), 7-8.
4. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem v 30 tomakh (Moscow: Nauk. 1972-1982). All the references are to that edition, which has separate numeration of volumes for works and letters. Citations will be indicated in parentheses in the text, with “P” denoting the letters.
5. For example, Henri Troyat, Chekhov (New York: Dutton, 1986), 74; Ronald Hingley, A New Life of Chekhov (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), 73-74.
6. In this period Chekhov would lightheartedly ask his Roman Catholic friend Franz Shekhtel if he were not thinking of converting to Orthodoxy (PI: 237).
7. A paraphrase of I Corinthians VII: 32-33.
8. Frug expressed this disapproval in his review of Chekhov's “Jewish” stories of 1886-1888. See S.G. [Frug] “V korchme i v buduare,” Voskhod, October 1889: 21-37, second pagination. (I owe this reference to S. Markish.) He, however, thought Chekhov's Jewish heroine was atypical. Simon Karlinsky made this comparison in his Chekhov's Life and Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 55.
9. In his insightful book, Donald Rayfield compared this feature of Susanna's with the image of Efros in the letters. See Chekhov: The Evolution of His Art (London: Paul Elek, 1975), 54. Rayfield's article on “Chekhov and the Jews” in Judaism Today, no. 2: 3036 is probably the best review of the problem to date.
10. Susanna as a name of a modern Jewish character has a precedent in Russian literature: Turgenev gave it to the strange, abject heroine of his 1869 story “Neschastnaia. “
11. “Nikolai u menia” Chekhov wrote on 30 July, and at the end of July his sister went to Moscow for some time to look for a new apartment.
12. See, for example: “Ma-pa [Chekhova] vidaetsia s dlinnonosoi Efros,” to Kiseleva, 21 September 1886 (PI: 262).
13. Chekhov wrote to his brother Aleksandr (P2: 136): “Shekhtel’ zhenilsia. Odna iz Efrosov [this was a relative, Zinaida Efros] vy khodit zamazh” 21 October 1887. In September Efros visited the Chekhovs and Mariia Chekhova visited Efros in turn, obviously in connection with the latter's forthcoming marriage.
14. “29 April 1896. Levitan, Masha and Dunia in Melikhovo. 1 May. Levitan left with Dunia.” The hypodiary of Chekhov's father, published in Literaturnoe nasledstvo, no. 68. In 1890 Levitan presented Evdokia Konovitser with a watercolor, “A Canal in Venice. “
15. Literaturnoe nasledstvo, no. 68: 275-276.
16. Ibid.
17. For example, Troyat and Hingley in their biographies; Aimee Alexandre, A la recherche de Tchekov. Essai de biographie interieure (Paris: Buchet-Chastel, 1971), 70-71; Irene Nemirovsky, La vie de Tchekov (Paris: Albin Michel, 1946), 136-137 (on Aleksandr Chekhov as a prototype for Ivanov). On Chekhov's brothers and their Jewish marriages, see Rayfield, “Chekhov and the Jews. “
18. An early comparison: D. Zaslavskii, “Evrei v russkoi literature,” Evreiskaia Letopis, no. 1, (Petrograd, 1923): 83-84. Karlinsky also connects “Tina” to “Ivanov.” Karlinsky, Chekhov's Life and Thought, 55.
19. See Hans Rogger, “Russian Ministers and the Jewish Question,” California Slavic Studies 81 (1975): 15-76.
20. Mordovtsev, Daniil, “Letter of a Christian on the Jewish Question,” Rassvet, 1882, no. 19 Google Scholar; Solov'ev, Vladimir, Evreistvo i khristianskii vopros (Moscow: Katkov, 1884 Google Scholar; Uvarova (nee Gorchakova), Evrei i khristiane (Moscow: Barbei, 1888); Demidov, Kn'iaz San-Donato, Evreiskii vopros v Rossii (St. Petersburg: Stasiulevicha, 1883).
21. See Harold K. Shefsky, “Tolstoy and the Jews,” Russian Review 41: 4. (Nikolai S. Leskov), Evrei v Rossii, Neskol'ko zamechanii po evreiskomu voprosu (St. Petersburg: n.p., 1884).
22. See, for example, Hugh McLean: “Theodore the Christian looks at Abraham the Hebrew: Leskov and the Jews,” California Slavic Studies 7 (1973): 65-98.