Scan barcode
erinbottger's review
5.0
I've been a big fan of Anton Chekhov, the man and the writer, for some time. This excellent book brought me even closer to knowing and appreciating him. Rosamund Bartlett, who has translated his stories and copious letters, in this volume has taken us on a physical/literary journey through his life. From the outset, she stresses how restless a man Checkhov was, a seeker of exotic climes and cultures and eager for new challenges and experiences. With his brilliant mind and deep humanity, he easily becomes bored when stuck in an uninteresting locale. And it is location, location, location, that this biography of Chekhov centers on.
Bartlett begins with his birthplace, Taganrog and the Azov Sea. Her historical background to the region in Southern Russia was fascinating, as was his early family life. Anton was the third son of 7 children of a merchant family; his father is deeply religious and runs a goods shop. Their social position was between the rural peasant masses and the educated elite noble class. Chekhov's paternal grandfather in 1841 had bought his family's freedom out of serfdom and moved them to the southern steppe. His mother's family, from a rural background, had also freed his family, but earlier, in 1817.
When the family business collapsed, Anton's Father and family flee to Moscow in 1876. Anton is left behind to finish school and begins writing short pieces to supplement his scanty financial resources. He moves to Moscow three years later, after thoroughly enjoying free time exploring the steppe and, since he returns to this setting for much of his fiction, we can conclude he loved it very much. In Moscow, Anton enters Moscow University in medicine and continues writing, publishing his first story in a St. Petersburg comic journal in 1880.
Before long, Anton's family becomes economically dependent on him and relocates to different rented flats around Moscow many times. He graduates in 1884 and his first TB symptoms appear. His beloved brother Nikolai dies of TB in 1889 which really shakes him up. In his Moscow period, Chekhov practices medicine, writes for St. Pete journals, and enjoys theater and many friends.
n the hot summer months, the family escapes their crowded Moscow quarters for the countryside and rent dachas in various locales in Ukraine and Russia. Here we discover how much Chekhov loves fishing and revels in nature, and begins gathering Russian intelligensia figures around him. The most significant were the wealthy artist Nikolai Leikin and publisher/mentor Alexi Suvorin in St. Petersburg. He spent little time in the northern city, mostly because the weather there worsened his health.
Once his writing career was up and running and his family somewhat secure, Anton Chekhov was able to unleash his wanderlust, combining it with a mission of mercy to the Far Eastern penal colony of Sakhalin on the Pacific. On April 21, 1890 he set out from Moscow for a trying three-month overland journey by rail, horse-drawn tarantas and boat to reach the remote island in order to make a study and take a census. This challenging trek brought him into contact with many ordinary Siberians and exiles and completely new terrain and flora. He went, partly out of escape from the smothering literary and social scene in the West, partly as an escape following a failure of his first play, "Uncle Vanya", and partly to achieve something extraordinary with his life before it was too late. I read his book, "The Island of Sakhalin" and James McConkey's "To a Distant Island" which tell in greater detail the amazing feat this journey and accomplishment was.
Chekhov returned to Moscow at the end of the summer via a more comfortable sea route, with his mind broadened, his social awareness heightened and his faith in Russian governance badly shaken.
He buys a small, rundown estate 50 miles south of Moscow in Melikhovo and relocates there with his family to write, garden, doctor and improve the education of rural children. This is the first real home of his own and, with his schoolteacher sister Masha playing hostess to their many guests, his mother and later father join them. Melikhovo proves to be a productive 5-year period of his life. When I was living in Moscow, I was able to go on a day trip to Melikhovo and was very impressed, especially, with the school he opened there for peasant children.
As his strength declines, Chekhov seeks out warmer winters in France and Yalta, and then is forced to relocate to Yalta year-round. He's begun a love relationship with the Moscow Art Theater actress Olga Knipper, so their separations are painful for him. Chekhov buys two Yalta-area homes: one at Aurka in a Tatar village ("the White Dacha") and the other for more privacy from family and visitors, in Gurazuf, also in a Tatar village. In this period he writes some of his best fiction and is inspired to craft his most famous plays, while enjoying a number of pet dogs and landscaping with trees and flowers.
Finally, Checkhov's declining health allows him one brief visit back to Moscow to see friends, then he and Olga (now his wife) take the train to a spa town, Badenweiler in Germany for his final three weeks of life in 1904. His body is returned in reverence to Russia and he was buried in Novodevichy Convent Cemetery amidst great ceremony and adoration.
Barlett fleshes out the history and details in this book through newspapers, Chekhov's stories and plays but most of all, his personal letters. She offers notes as well as an extensive bibliography. In many ways, I think Chekhov would have despaired for his country and countrymen if he'd lived to witness the February and October Revolutions. He was certainly a great writer and human who gave world-class literature to us all and provided a living example of a fine human being.
I highly recommend this book.
Bartlett begins with his birthplace, Taganrog and the Azov Sea. Her historical background to the region in Southern Russia was fascinating, as was his early family life. Anton was the third son of 7 children of a merchant family; his father is deeply religious and runs a goods shop. Their social position was between the rural peasant masses and the educated elite noble class. Chekhov's paternal grandfather in 1841 had bought his family's freedom out of serfdom and moved them to the southern steppe. His mother's family, from a rural background, had also freed his family, but earlier, in 1817.
When the family business collapsed, Anton's Father and family flee to Moscow in 1876. Anton is left behind to finish school and begins writing short pieces to supplement his scanty financial resources. He moves to Moscow three years later, after thoroughly enjoying free time exploring the steppe and, since he returns to this setting for much of his fiction, we can conclude he loved it very much. In Moscow, Anton enters Moscow University in medicine and continues writing, publishing his first story in a St. Petersburg comic journal in 1880.
Before long, Anton's family becomes economically dependent on him and relocates to different rented flats around Moscow many times. He graduates in 1884 and his first TB symptoms appear. His beloved brother Nikolai dies of TB in 1889 which really shakes him up. In his Moscow period, Chekhov practices medicine, writes for St. Pete journals, and enjoys theater and many friends.
n the hot summer months, the family escapes their crowded Moscow quarters for the countryside and rent dachas in various locales in Ukraine and Russia. Here we discover how much Chekhov loves fishing and revels in nature, and begins gathering Russian intelligensia figures around him. The most significant were the wealthy artist Nikolai Leikin and publisher/mentor Alexi Suvorin in St. Petersburg. He spent little time in the northern city, mostly because the weather there worsened his health.
Once his writing career was up and running and his family somewhat secure, Anton Chekhov was able to unleash his wanderlust, combining it with a mission of mercy to the Far Eastern penal colony of Sakhalin on the Pacific. On April 21, 1890 he set out from Moscow for a trying three-month overland journey by rail, horse-drawn tarantas and boat to reach the remote island in order to make a study and take a census. This challenging trek brought him into contact with many ordinary Siberians and exiles and completely new terrain and flora. He went, partly out of escape from the smothering literary and social scene in the West, partly as an escape following a failure of his first play, "Uncle Vanya", and partly to achieve something extraordinary with his life before it was too late. I read his book, "The Island of Sakhalin" and James McConkey's "To a Distant Island" which tell in greater detail the amazing feat this journey and accomplishment was.
Chekhov returned to Moscow at the end of the summer via a more comfortable sea route, with his mind broadened, his social awareness heightened and his faith in Russian governance badly shaken.
He buys a small, rundown estate 50 miles south of Moscow in Melikhovo and relocates there with his family to write, garden, doctor and improve the education of rural children. This is the first real home of his own and, with his schoolteacher sister Masha playing hostess to their many guests, his mother and later father join them. Melikhovo proves to be a productive 5-year period of his life. When I was living in Moscow, I was able to go on a day trip to Melikhovo and was very impressed, especially, with the school he opened there for peasant children.
As his strength declines, Chekhov seeks out warmer winters in France and Yalta, and then is forced to relocate to Yalta year-round. He's begun a love relationship with the Moscow Art Theater actress Olga Knipper, so their separations are painful for him. Chekhov buys two Yalta-area homes: one at Aurka in a Tatar village ("the White Dacha") and the other for more privacy from family and visitors, in Gurazuf, also in a Tatar village. In this period he writes some of his best fiction and is inspired to craft his most famous plays, while enjoying a number of pet dogs and landscaping with trees and flowers.
Finally, Checkhov's declining health allows him one brief visit back to Moscow to see friends, then he and Olga (now his wife) take the train to a spa town, Badenweiler in Germany for his final three weeks of life in 1904. His body is returned in reverence to Russia and he was buried in Novodevichy Convent Cemetery amidst great ceremony and adoration.
Barlett fleshes out the history and details in this book through newspapers, Chekhov's stories and plays but most of all, his personal letters. She offers notes as well as an extensive bibliography. In many ways, I think Chekhov would have despaired for his country and countrymen if he'd lived to witness the February and October Revolutions. He was certainly a great writer and human who gave world-class literature to us all and provided a living example of a fine human being.
I highly recommend this book.
More...