Chapter Two
Isaac Ilych Levitan (1860-1900), one of Russia's finest landscape painters, was a close friend of Chekhov's and shared the writer's nuanced eye for color, atmosphere, and understatement.
[L.L.]
Prince Andrei, Natasha, and Sonya are characters in Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace, set in the time of the Napoleonic Wars. [L.L.]
As cited in F. Malcovati, "Introduzione" in Anton Cechov, Racconti (Milan: Garzanti, 1996), vol. 1, p. xxv.
Denis Vasilevich Davydov (1784-1839), a gifted lyrical poet, member of the Pushkin Pleaide, and hero of the War of 1812, is known especially for his verses in praise of wine, women, and song. [L.L.]
See "General Questions," n. 5.
Writer Osip Konstantinovich Notovich (1849-1914), a fellow alumnus of the Taganrog Boys' Gymnasium, was briefly the publisher of New Times (Novoye Vremya) and the author of plays and quasi-philosophical tracts for the mass market. The journalist Grigory Konstantinovich Gradovsky (1842-1915) wrote popular feuilletons under the pseudonym Gamma and a number of weak plays. Neither was distinguished by high principles. [L.L.]
Alexander Zhirkevich, though a discriminating consumer of cultural artifacts, was a plodding writer who nonetheless managed to publish a respectable number of stories. Chekhov never turned down a request for advice; consequently, his writing desk was always piled high with the manuscripts of aspiring writers. [L.L.]
This is indeed one of Gorky's strongest and most anthologized stories about desperate men in desperate places. [L.L.]
Chekhov is referring to characters in the "problem" novels of Ivan Turgenev (1818-83): Lavretsky and Liza from A Nest of Gentlefolk (1859); Elena from On the Eve (1860); Bazarov, Odintsova, and Kukshina from Fathers and Sons (1862); and Irina from Smoke (1867). Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina appeared in installments in the Russian Messenger between 1873 and 1877. [L.L.]
A zemstvo, or elective district council, was a local administrative unit established in 1864 as part of the reforms associated with the emancipation of the serfs in 1861; it remained in place until 1917. Membership was restricted to members of the nobility and the bourgeoisie. [L.L.]
"Sakhalin Fugitive" ("Sokolinets") is one of a cycle of stories in which the author, Vladimir Korolenko, drew on his own experiences of exile in Siberia. Published in 1885, the piece played a seminal role in Chekhov's evolution, inspiring the musical construction of "Steppe" and providing an impetus for undertaking his own Sakhalin project. [L.L.]
Syphilis. [L.L.]
Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky (1866-1941), poet, novelist, critic, philosopher, and translator, was one of the key figures of the Russian Silver Age of modernism. He was only twenty-two when he reviewed Chekhov's story "On Easter Eve" ("Svyatoyu Noch'yu") (1886), in which the monk Ieronim appears. [L.L.]
Suvorin's servant. [L.L.]
Kulakov is the pen name of a minor contributor to Leykin's humorous magazine Fragments (Oskol'ki). [L.L.]
"Fires" ("Ogni") (1888) is a story that touches on the predicament of women in a society that limits their options for self-determination. It closes with the line "You can't make sense of anything in this world." [L.L.]
Chekhov is punning on his correspondent's surname, which is derived from the Russian word shchegol, meaning "goldfinch." [L.L.]
The Fontanka is a small river in St. Petersburg. [L.L.]
Vukol Lavrov was the owner, publisher, and editor of the Moscow left-liberal literary journal Russian Thought (Russkaya Mysl'). [L.L.]
Chekhov is responding to Lavrov's swipe at him in Russian Thought: "Only yesterday the high priests of unprincipled writing, like Messrs. Yasinsky and Chekhov.." For the preceding four years, Chekhov had been subjected to a barrage of criticism for his "indifference," "lack of engagement," and "absence of principles." He finally decided to put a stop to this chronic objection to his work—stemming from a particularly Russian insistence that writers solve the problems of the world—on the eve of his departure for Sakhalin. [L.L.]
Grigory Aleksandrovich Machtet (1852-1901), who began his literary career in San Francisco and published a number of sketches about life in the United States, was a contributor to Russian Thought. [L.L.]
This letter of resignation was quoted in a letter to Vladimir Korolenko, Yalta, August 25, 1902. [L.L.]
In 1900 Chekhov, along with Tolstoy and Korolenko, was among the ten writers selected by the Academy of Sciences for full membership in the newly formed Pushkin Section of Belles Let- tres. In December 1901, he learned that A. M. Peshkov, who wrote under the pen name Maxim Gorky, had been elected to the Academy. Two weeks later, the honor was withdrawn in light of Gorky's prison record for illegal political activities. Pressed by friends and Korolenko, Chekhov resigned his own membership in protest. [L.L.]
The surgeon Ivan Orlov was an exceptionally idealistic and effective organizer of rural medicine, especially in the environs of Moscow. His exemplary clinic was recognized as a mecca by rural physicians. Orlov treated a number of prominent Russian writers and intellectuals, among them the Symbolist poet Alexander Blok, and was a close friend and associate of Chekhov, with whom he corresponded intensely from 1889 to 1899. Chekhov's entire letter is written in a solemn, ecclesiastical style, prompted by Orlov's letter, which draws on a scriptural passage to condemn local authorities for their mishandling of medical service in rural areas. [L.L.]
As cited in Malcovati, "Introduzione" vol. 1, p. xxv.
Chekhov and Suvorin had a serious disagreement leading to a rupture that lasted several months over the notorious case of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the French army officer who had been court-martialed and condemned to life imprisonment in 1894 for allegedly spying in the interests of Germany. Chekhov followed the case avidly and was especially moved by the open letter of Йmile Zola, "J'accuse," in which the French novelist charged the government and the War Office with suppressing key evidence that demonstrated Dreyfus's innocence. Suvorin had written a column in New Times accusing Zola of publicity mongering. [L.L.]
S. I. Erber and Mikhail Mikhailovich Chemodanov contributed drawings and caricatures to the St. Petersburg journal Oskol'ki (Fragments). Chemodanov (1856-1908), like Chekhov, was a physician with a second career.
The reference is to a wave of student unrest that swept Russian universities in February and March 1899. The unrest began in response to a university anniversary celebration in St. Petersburg that was brutally put down by mounted police. Sympathy strikes were called in other universities. A blackout on press coverage of the disturbances was imposed early in March, and by the middle of that month both Moscow and St. Petersburg universities were temporarily closed. Suvorin's paper, New Times, took an anti-strike position. [L.L.]
Chapter Three
Friedrich Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), German scientist and traveler, explored the far eastern reaches of the Russian Empire in 1829 at the request of the czarist government, while the American journalist George Kennan (1845-1924) visited Siberian prisons in 1886 and wrote about them in Siberia and the Exile System (1891). [L.L.]