Shrines to Chekhov continue to appear, and not only in Russia. The most recent Chekhov museum opened on the anniversary of his death in 1999 in the Grand Oriental Hotel n Colombo, where the writer had stayed during his journey back from Sakhalin (Sri Lankan actors staged a production of The Cherry Orchard in Singhalese the following year).18 The pxevious year, a Cnekhov museum opened in Badenweiler, to join the bronze bust, granite memoral and discreet plaque fixed to one of the first-floor balconies of the former Hotel Sommer which commemorate 1 us connection w+h the resort. The bust of Chekhov unveiled on the wooded hill below the castle ruins in Badenweiler in 1908 appears to have been the first statue of the writer to be erected anywhere in the world, and probably the frst of a Russian w iter abroad. The idea of commissioning it had come from Stanislavsky, who visited Badenwe:ler in 1906 during a Moscow Art Theatre tour. Public commemoration of a foreign writer in Wilhelmine Germany was a political matter, however, necessitating the diplomatic assistance of the Russian consul and the official approval of Grand Duke Friedrich I and his government in Karlsruhe, capital of the state of Baden. After an additional delay caused by the official mourning following Friedrich I's death in 1907, funds were finally allocated, and the Russian deputy consul, a sculptor in his spare time, produced a bust showing Chekhov as if out for a walk in hat and overcoat. The unveiling ceremony was attended by several hundred people, and included a service of blessing led by the Russian Orthodox priest in Karlsruhe. Olga Knipper and others came from Russia to lay wreaths, and the festivities were marked by concerts and a performance of Chekhov's perennially popular one- act farce The Bear. During the First World War, however, the bust was melted down for munitions, and when Stanislavsky came to consult Dr Schwoerer in 1929 about his heart problems, not even the memorial plaque on the balcony outside Chekhov's room at the Hotel Sommer had been replaced.
In 1963 a simple rectangular granite memorial to Chekhov was unveiled under one of the giant sequoias in the park near to the Hotel Sommer. Political factors again delayed the execution of an idea first raised at the time of the fiftieth anniversary of Chekhov's death in 1954, although inevitably this time of a different kind, given postwar German-Soviet relations. The question of jeopardizing Badenweiler's reputation as a health resort by drawing attention to someone who had died there, furthermore, was still an issue for the town's local authorities, who were adamant that the new memorial should not in any way resemble a gravestone, although that is precisely what it looks like. When the plinth of the original bust of Chekhov was found under thick undergrowth in 1985, the energetic director of the Sakhalin Chekhov Museum commissioned a local sculptor to produce a replacement bust (this time Chekhov without a hat), and brought it all the way from Siberia in the back of his van.19
The 'Tschechow Salon' Literary Museum, which opened in 1998, prides itself on being the first dedicated to Chekhov 'in the western world1. It is located ..n the cultural centre built on the site of the original pump-room, where in former times gentlemen could repair to smoke cigars and play cards, or dance with the ladies (if they had removed their hats). One of the prize exhibits is a pair of Chekhov's pince-nez, an art cle the wr-ter ? associated with, although he only wore them ш the last years of his 1ife. The visitors' book in the museum is also something of an exhibi in itself. As well as heartfelt comments from numerous Russian Chekhov admirers who have made the pilgrimage to Badenwe'ler ('I am touched, to the depths of my soul'), and the signatures of contemporary writers like Viktor Erofeev paying homage on the actual anniversary of Chekhov's death, the book contams the scrawls of several German teenagers ('I was here and found it dead boring'; 'I love you all!!!'), and some furious invective from a prim professor doctor from Moscow State Universi y, outraged at the low cultural level of such people, 'who in my opinion should not be allowed to visit museums at all'. Clearly this high-minded Russian scholar had forgotten a humorous early pubheation by Chekhov, 'The Complaints Book' (1884), containing the following imaginative entries:
Your excellency', just trying my ben!?
White approaching this station and looking at the countryside through the
window, my hat flew away. I. Yarmonkin
Don't know who wrote this, but I am an idiot to read it.
Nikandrov is a socialistI
Kati tka, I love you madly!
Since I am be mg sacked for supposed drunkenness, may I declare that you are all scoundrels and th: wes. Kozmodemyansky the telegraphist.20
The complaints books at provincial ran way stat ons used to make Chekhov laugh out loud,21 and he would probably have chortled with delight to read the visitors' book at his own museum here.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The writing of this book has been informed throughout by the experience of translating Chekhov's stories and letters, and amongst the many people who have helped me both directly and indirectly, I should particularly liice to thank:
Rebecca Abrams, Jonathan Aves, Laura Barber, Hilary and Paul Bartlett, Rachel Beckles-Willson, Erica Benner, Martin Bryant, Dmitry and Yaroslav Bykov, James Campbell, Peter Carson, Robert Chandler, Catherine Clarke, Richard Collins, Victoria Cooper, Gina Cowen, Mark Curtis, Yulia Dolgopolova, Jane Eagan, Nina Gerasimova-Persidskaya, Alia Golovacheva, Andrew Gordon, Barbara Graziosi, Alexandra Griffiths, Branka Grundy, Alex Harrington, Mariana Haseldine, Johannes Haubo'd, Alexander Hoare, Regula Hohl, Brook Horowitz, Robyn Karney, Vladimir Kataev, Laurence Kelly, Alevtina Kuzicheva, Andrew Lambert, Klaus Lauer, Nina Lobanov-Rostovsky, Andrew Louth, Stephen Lovell, Judith Luna, Alexei Pavlenko, Anthony Phillips, Cecily, Hannah, Marc, Naomi and Rachel Polonsky, Georgy Putnikov, Avril Pyman, Donald Rayfield, Irina Snitkova, Nicholas Stargardt, Elizabeth Stratford, Natasha Sutta, Marianna Taimanova, Vladimir Tarnopolsky, Tanya Tsaregradskaya, Lucy and Tom Walker, Elizabeth Zeschin, the staff of the Taylorian Slavonic Library in Oxford, and Russian National Library in Moscow. Thanks also to Mikhai* Zolotaryov for supplying many of the photographs from Moscow.