historical references in chekhov's later stories

Historical References in Chekhov's Later StoriesAuthor(s): D. W. MartinSource: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 71, No. 3 (Jul., 1976), pp. 595-606Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3725751 .

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HISTORICAL REFERENCES IN CHEKHOV'S LATER STORIES

In his treatment of characters' ideas and moods Chekhov often introduces themes or describes episodes drawn from history. He compares a given scene with another typical of a bygone age - the Stone Age, possibly, or Mongol times - or one of his heroes makes a remark which refers to, perhaps, the lack of progress towards a better life in Russia over the past few centuries.

Chekhov does not, on the whole, put his stories in non-contemporary settings. Bez zaglaviya (1888), the events of which take place in the fifth century, is the only one of the later works which actually depicts the past. Rather, historical passages are included in the stories with an eye to the present: the writer draws upon past ages in order to heighten the portrayal of present-day events. Bygone centuries appear as sources of drama and vigour, in sharp contrast to the 'drab' or 'grey' depiction of the Russia of the I88os and I89os so often referred to in Chekhov criticism.' At times, however, earlier ages are seen in a less pleasant light. N. Berkovsky points out a likeness often described in the stories between the evil ways of the distant past and the equally evil (in his view) structure of modern bourgeois society.2 Similarly unpleasant associations between present and past are noted by W. Gareth Jones. He discusses Chekhov's depiction of modern industrial ugliness as suggestive of primordial chaos and concludes: 'This is one sort of time then which is present in Chekhov's work; brooding, cold millennia, which, like the past conveyed by Thomas Hardy's harsh heathland, Stonehenge and barrows, are an outer darkness of time in which men must move.'3

Apart from their philosophic content as such, however, the historical passages and references constitute a stylistic device of no less importance to characterization; and this discussion of them, therefore, takes into account not only their objective meaning, but also the subjective conditions under which they come into the mind of the philosophic hero or narrator. For this reason my remarks on Chekhov's use of historical references may be seen as a general comment on his treatment of the philosophic idea as an aspect of characterization, based upon a theme which recurs to this end in the stories with particular frequency and consistency.

In Ogni the depiction of the night scene at the railway line is executed with great effect simply through the use of a comparison taken from the realms of 'historical' religious imagery: 'The high, half-finished embankment, heaps of sand, clay and broken stone, the huts, the hollows, the wheelbarrows left here and there, the flat areas raised up above the dug-outs where the workers lived - all this mess, given a single shade by the darkness, lent the earth a strange, wild aspect, reminiscent of the time of chaos' (vII, 434).4

1 I offer no references here: the number of critics who have - quite justifiably - described Chekhov's general depiction of the negative sides of Russian life is so large that it would be pointless to refer to any of them in particular.

2 N. Berkovsky, 'Chekhov: Ot rasskazov i povestey k dramaturgii', Russkaya literatura, 4 (X965), 21-63 (p. 34).

3 W. Gareth Jones, 'Chekhov's Undercurrent of Time', MLR, 64 (1969), 1I I-2I (p. 113). 4 References to Chekhov's works and letters in this essay are given according to: Polnoye sobraniye

sochineniy i pisem A. P. Chekhova, 20 vols (Moscow, I944-51). The abbreviation 'PSSP' is used to refer to this edition. The translations are mine.



596 Chekhov's Later Stories

A similar image is found in Duel', except that the historical association is with sound rather than with the visual scene: 'A wave broke, the Deacon counted eight steps and another wave broke, after six steps another. In just the same way nothing could be seen but in the darkness was heard the lazy, sleepy noise of the sea, in that endlessly distant, unimaginable time when God moved over the face of chaos' (vII, 414). Apart from being an effective comparison, the thought serves towards the characterization of the Deacon, who naturally thinks of God at such a moment.

In Ogni Chekhov continues after the passage quoted to draw upon historical fact, this time taken from the ancient history of man, in further describing the same scene. We are given a long comparison of the construction work to a Phili- stine camp and the narrator remarks: 'I seemed indeed to see before me something long dead and even to hear sentries speaking in an unknown tongue. My imagina- tion quickly sketched in tents, strange people, their clothes, their armour...' (vII, 435). The bold and vivid representation of an ancient encampment brings to life what might have otherwise been an uninteresting description of a scene familiar enough to nineteenth-century eyes. The unexpected comparison of a modern phenomenon to past events is forceful; and Chekhov also manages by this means to provide the student with an illustration of his pessimistic philosophy, which is examined in the story as a whole. Past events are seen as a source of excitement and vigour, but for the student the passage of time which sweeps them away is a reason for pessimism.

Sometimes the emotional force of a reference to past ages is implicit. Chekhov relies upon the reader's own knowledge of history and in this way avoids describing in detail the heroes' experiences and the relevance of the historical comparison. Thus, to take a short example, Shamokhin in Ariadna says of the heroine, 'The fact that I was in her power and under her charms was turned into a perfect nonentity gave her the very same pleasure which once was felt by victors at tournaments' (ix, 81). In Nevesta Chekhov describes Nadya's thoughts as she leaves in the train for St Petersburg like this: 'She remembered that she was going away to freedom, going to study, just as very long ago they would talk of people going off to the Cossacks' (Ix, 445). Nadya's bold action in leaving the 'grey', Philistine conditions of life in modern Russia is compared to a manner of life in the past, before those conditions came about.

In Tri goda the spirit of the past is again recalled, this time in a scene which is sustained for considerably longer and which does not have any specific bearing upon the present. The past is not evoked in order to compare it directly with the present, except inasmuch as the wildness and dramatic action of the scene contrast well with the lack of them in the actual events of the context. I refer to the vision that Yartsev experiences on his way home late at night after spending the evening with Yuliya Sergeevna. Yartsev sees what he takes to be Polovtsian tribesmen sacking a Russian village. This is the beginning of Chekhov's description: He suddenly imagined a terrible noise, clanking, cries in a foreign, Kalmyk-sounding language; a village, entirely in flames, and the near-by forest, covered in hoar-frost and tinted with pink by the fire, can be seen far around and so clearly that you can make out every fir; wild people, on horseback and on foot, are rushing about the village, their horses and they themselves as crimson as the glow in the sky. (vIII, 453) This example is typical of Chekhov's description of the past, which frequently shows a lively interest in Russia's history, so that one wonders if there is not much of



D. W. MARTIN 597

Chekhov's own thought behind Yartsev's remarks on the subject of a proposed historical play, given one or two lines before the above passage and leading into it: 'It is true, it would be good to write a historical play', said Yartsev, 'but, you know, without Lyapunovs and Godunovs, something from the time of Yaroslav or Monomakh ... I hate all Russian historical plays except for Pimen's monologue. When you come into contact with some historical source or even when you read a textbook on Russian history, everything in Russian seems extraordinarily talented, gifted and interesting, but when I see a historical play in the theatre, Russian life begins to seem dull, unwholesome, unoriginal.' (vIII, 452-3)

Although Yartsev's vision does not contain a direct comment on contemporary life, its inclusion is, nevertheless, well motivated in the events of the story. Not only do we have the remarks just quoted, themselves occasioned by Yuliya Sergeevna's suggestion that Yartsev write a historical play, but the fact that he is capable at all of any such hallucination is caused by alcohol and tiredness after a long walk home. In the same place in the text we read, as an introductory remark to the hero's reverie: 'He was feeling drowsy, unsteady on his feet and was still thinking of the play' (vIII, 453). We are presented with a similar mental aberration in Moya zhizn', when the hero in a state of exhaustion suddenly imagines himself in the Governor's office, where in fact he had been in reality some time earlier.

Yartsev's imaginary meeting with the Polovtsy clearly prefigures Vershinin's speech in Tri sestry, written five years later: ' "And when my two little girls were standing at the door dressed only in their underclothes and the street was red with the fire, there was a frightening noise and I thought that similar things used to happen many years ago when the enemy would unexpectedly sweep down, looting and burning..."' (xi, 282). Even Vershinin's daughters in this scene remind us of a Russian girl in Yartsev's vision, captured by one of the Polovtsy: 'One of them - old, fearful, with a blooded face, singed all over - is tying to his saddle a young girl with a pale Russian face. The old man is shouting furiously about something, but the girl looks on sadly, wisely. . .' (vIII, 453).

Yet the differences between the passages from the two works are more important than their similarities. Whereas Yartsev reflects upon the excitement and richness of Russian history and experiences no more than a pleasant hallucination, Ver- shinin bases his remarks upon an actual fire which is sweeping through the street; where Yartsev displays interest rather than displeasure in what he sees, Vershinin's thoughts are accompanied by feelings of pessimism and fear, and contrast with hopes that he expresses for a much better future for the world.

The use of historical detail or thoughts about history in dealing with unpleasant feelings is, on the whole, found in Chekhov's works more frequently than their appearance in connexion with pleasant ones. From a wife's remark to her husband (Zhena): 'You are still just a... Scythian!' (vIII, 36), to more lengthy and philosophic discourses on the similarities between present-day Russia and the Russia of earlier times, the country's history is generally seen as wild, uncultured, cruel and inhospitable. Indeed, as some of the above quotations show, the comparisons are not strictly limited to the history of Russia alone. The narrator of Pripadok, for example, compares the brothel area to ancient slave markets: 'In the slave markets of old it must have been just as gay and noisy and people's faces and walk must have expressed just the same indifference' (vii, I76).




There is nothing particularly unpleasant about the feelings described here; and the adaptation of the notion some pages later in accordance with Vasil'ev's newly acquired experience of the brothels is the more pointed for it.'If prostitution', Vasil'ev reflects, 'is really the evil that it is generally thought to be, then these dear friends of mine are just as much slave-owners, tyrants and murderers as the inhabitants of Syria and Cairo that are depicted in Niva' (vii, I87). In Vssylke an alarming image from prehistory is used to describe a barge: 'In the darkness it was as if the people were sitting on some sort of antediluvian animal with long paws and floating away on it to that cold and mournful land which one sometimes sees in a nightmare' (vmII, 85-6).

There is a story of 1897 in which Chekhov describes how a landowner invited a fellow traveller on a train to his home for the night and then selfishly prevented his guest from sleeping by making him listen all night to his boring prattle. Chekhov called the story Pecheneg and, indeed, we are told that a former guest of the same man, having presumably suffered similar treatment, had shouted to his host upon leaving: 'You, sir, are a Pecheneg!' (ix, 223). This association of ill manners with the ways of Middle Age nomads - the Pechenegi - is a humorous instance of what is at base a serious idea expressed in a number of places in Chekhov's work: the idea that, in spite of the growth in society of humanitarian ideals, in spite of progress in the arts, science and politics, there are still many people among the educated classes upon whom progress and civilization have had no visible ennobling effect, who are still living under, even as it were imposing, the Mongol yoke.

This is the idea which Misail Poloznev in Moya zhizn' puts forward in argument with Blagovo: '"Serfdom no longer exists, so capitalism is growing in its place. And in the midst of ideas about emancipation, just as in Baty's day, the majority feeds, clothes and protects the minority, itself remaining hungry, unclothed and unprotected"' (ix, 132).

In the first edition of the story Tri goda,1 published before Moya zhizn' (I896), Kostya Kochevoy had made a remark which brings Misail's comparison to mind. Chekhov later omitted the remark whilst preparing the story for the Collected Works (I9OI).2 Before quoting it I give some lines which were included in the editions of I895 and 19go, in which Kostya comments upon Laptev: And what sense is there in his kindness or in his intelligence ? He will deal out as much money as you like, that he is able to do, but where you need to show some character, to rebuff a scoundrel or a rogue, then he becomes embarrassed and loses heart. Such people as your dear Alexis are fine people but for the fight they are totally unsuitable. (vmI, 449-50)

In the first edition of the story Kostya continued after this: ' "And there are many like that, if you please, thanks to which in our society alongside a broad development of humane ideas, alongside a rapid movement forward, you meet Tatar barbarity (tatarshchinu) and all sorts of disgraceful goings-on" ' (vIII, 573). Kostya's comment is very conversational in tone. The term tatarshchina in this connexion is a cliche. In writing Moya zhizn', a matter of but a few months after the completion of Tri goda, Chekhov returned to the idea expressed in Kostya's words

1 Russkaya mysl', No. I (January), No. 2 (February), 1895. Information concerning original publica- tions of works is reproduced from PSSP.

2 The term 'Collected Works' is used to denote: A. P. Chekhov, Sobranie sochineniy v desyati tomakh (St Petersburg, 1899-1901), published by A. F. Marks. References to this edition are made according to information contained in PSSP.



D. W. MARTIN 599

but removed its idiomatic, conversational tone, developing the thought into the intellectual statement made by Misail Poloznev. Yet the gist of both their remarks seems to be identical.

Here, however, I stress 'seems', for the passages in question form one example of a phenomenon found not infrequently in Chekhov, where what appears to be at base the same opinion may be given by various people for different reasons and with different meaning. One has the impression that in such cases the opinion or intellectual remark lives a life of its own, independent of the basic ideas and motives which lie behind it and which are changeable, but which often determine the value and significance of the opinion itself. Poloznev, as we know from Moya zhizn' as a whole, attacks the notion of progress in any sense other than the moral. For example, he says to Blagovo: '"Progress consists in acts of love, in following the moral law. If you are not enslaving anyone, not a burden to anyone, what more progress do you want?" ' (ix, 13I). Kostya (Tri goda) defends the idea of a 'rapid movement forward', he talks in terms of a 'fight' and criticizes Laptev's kindness and moral goodness in a manner totally unlike Poloznev, who believes in moral law alone. Yet the same basic comparison between Mongol times and the inefficacy of the intellectual and spiritual movements of modern Russia is used by both.

This instance reveals much of Chekhov's creative process, where a single narrative idea, having appeal for the writer, has been moulded and adjusted to suit the demands of character and situation. Certainly, the idea is put more effectively in Moya zhizn', and perhaps this explains Chekhov's removal of it from Tri goda before publication of the story in the Collected Works.

In a similar manner, a comparison reminiscent of the one made by Poloznev is drawn in the same story by Blagovo himself. He, the champion of progress, in his remarks on the lack of cultural life in Russia, seems to take a leaf out of Misail's book. Poloznev had pointed out a similarity between modern society and life under the Tatars and Blagovo apparently falls in with this idea in his impassioned refutation of Masha's notion of the existence of a 'deep social current': ' "We have no deep social currents and never have had... Cultural life has not yet begun with us. The same wildness, the same unmitigated vulgarity, the same pettiness as five hundred years ago" ' (ix, 140-41). Yet, again, the likeness between Blagovo's remarks here and Misail's is purely external; and the basic idea still suits the person voicing it. For Blagovo, progress is hindered by the growth of the very ideas which, to Misail's understanding, help it, that is, moral precepts of a Tolstoyan kind. Where Misail sees a serious deficiency of moral effort in the country, Blagovo sees one of science and knowledge - the very opposite, in his view; but both deficiencies lead to the comparison with Mongol times.

It is well recognized that Chekhov's works present more than the usual difficulty for those who would see in them a general, consistent philosophy. They cannot be reduced to an essence. One of the first to comment upon Chekhov's lack of a 'point of view' in any clearly defined sense was Maxim Gorky, when he wrote at the turn of the century in connexion with the appearance of Chekhov's V ovrage: 'This point of view is elusive and does not lend itself to definition - perhaps, because it is lofty.'1

1 M. Gor'ky, 'Po povodu novogo rasskaza A. P. Chekova V ovrage', in M. Gor'ky, Sobranvye sochinen(y, 30 vols (Moscow, I949-55), xxIm, 3I6. (Article first published in Nizhegorodskiy listok, 30 January 900o.)



6oo Chekhov's Later Stories

Views of any sort expressed in Chekhov's works remain stubbornly the property of the character to whom they are first given. The writer's letter of 17 October 1889, written to Suvorin on the subject of Skuchnaya istoriya, talks of this: If they serve you coffee, do not try looking for beer in it. If I offer you a professor's thoughts, then believe me and do not look for Chekhov's thoughts in them ... Do you really so value opinions in general, of whatever sort, that you see the centre of gravity only in them, and not in the manner in which they are expressed, or in their origin and so forth ? ... For me as an author all these opinions have no value in themselves. The point is not in the opinions themselves, they are changeable and not new. The crux of the matter is in the nature of these opinions, in their dependence upon external influences and so forth. One must regard them as things, as symptoms, completely objectively, trying neither to agree with them nor to dispute them. (xIv, 417)

Opinions, then, are to be seen as subjective to the hero who expresses them (or thinks them) and not as in any way part of the author's own ideas. Chekhov gives texture to his stories, indeed, by contrasting opinions on the same theme, by showing in what ways different views exist side by side and how dependent they are on the personal circumstances, general character, and temporary mood of a given hero, and it will be of use to illustrate this further in relation to the concrete topic under discussion.

In Zhena the local doctor, Sobol', says that the Russian village and countryside where he has his practice have not changed in any way since the days of Ryurik1: 'Excellency', said Sobol' solemnly, 'look at the surrounding countryside: poke your nose or an ear out of your collar and it will be bitten off; stay in the open for an hour and you will be buried in snow. And village life is the same as it was in Ryurik's day, the same Pechenegs and Polovtsians. All we do is burn, starve and fight all-out with nature. Now what was I saying ? Oh, yes! If, you understand, one thinks hard about it, takes a good look and sorts out this, if I may say so, mess, well, it's not life, but hell on earth! Anyone who falls or cries out with fear and rushes about is the first enemy of order.' (vIII, 44)

Sobol' has been drinking when he makes this speech at dinner with Ivan Ivanych. He admits that he is allowing his tongue too much rein. When he is first introduced in person, in Chapter II, he begins by asking for a drink. Chekhov throughout uses the adjective 'naive' of him. He eats greedily and afterwards retires to sleep. In general, we have a picture of an unpleasant, indolent character; even the smallest details of his appearance the narrator finds annoying: 'I look with bewilderment at Sobol 's wide back, at his waistcoat buckle and fat heels' (vIII, 45). Yet this is a man who wars with nature! Evidently, his dramatic discourse on the Russian village was the result not so much of objective experience as of his passing mood, the reference to Ryurik fulfilling a desire for vivid words and images. Only later, when the heroes have left Ivan Ivanych and are confronted with a real village (Chapter VII), do we see that the struggle in which Sobol' is engaged bears little resemblance to the bloody and fiery feuds of an earlier age, but is a straightforward financial problem of modern life.

Sobol 's image of the Russian village is given, moreover, in direct contrast to the writer's own experience, which is very much coloured by the circumstances in which he finds himself. Where it pleases Sobol' to imagine himself as a valiant warrior fighting to the death against the backward and ferocious Polovtsy and Pechenegi on the one hand, and against the natural elements on the other, the

1 A similar reference to Ryurik is made by the artist in Dom s mezoninom (see PSSP, Ix, 98).



D. W. MARTIN 6oi

narrator, who is in flight from an unsuccessful marriage and very much dissatisfied with his personal affairs, sees himself as totally spiritless and useless. His life lacks a quality which he feels to be present in the people of the village: Looking at the smiling peasant, at the boy with the huge mittens, at the houses, remembering my wife, I understood now that no calamity could defeat these people; the air seemed to smell of victory, I felt proud and was on the point of shouting to them that I, too, was with them; but the horses bore me out of the village into the open, the snow began to whirl about, the wind howled, and I was left alone with my thoughts. Out of a throng of a million, working together as one people, I was being rejected by life itself as an unnecessary and bad person. I am a hindrance, a part of the people's strife, and, defeated, rejected, am hurrying to the station in order to go off and hide in St. Petersburg, in a hotel in Bol'shaya Morskaya Street. (vIII, 37)

Unlike Sobol', the narrator feels that the ordinary Russian people are strong in character. In each case, the description of the village serves primarily to charac. terize the person who gives it, both of the heroes presenting us with a subjective picture of Russian peasant life. What the real state of this life is, whether or not its nature has genuinely remained unchanged over the centuries, is not a question of first importance here.

Whereas Zhena takes as one of its main themes life in the Russian village, Moya zhizn' deals not only with peasant life but also with urban society. Misail's comments on the inhabitants of his home town include a historical assessment:

I could not understand how these sixty thousand inhabitants lived, why they read the Gospels, why they prayed, why they read books and journals. What good was done them by all that up to now had been written and said, if the same spiritual darkness was within them and the same aversion to freedom as a hundred and three hundred years ago? (Ix, 179)

Poloznev's purpose as narrator of the story throughout is to depict a provincial town where the inhabitants are corrupt and spiritless, where Philistinism is rife, a town whose stagnation and lack of talent has come to be symbolized in its miserable

architecture, the work of Misail's father. The remark that life in the town is just as

spiritually poor now as it was a hundred and three hundred years ago serves, therefore, to add a further dimension to this characterization. There is no attempt to suggest that the comment refers to urban life in Russia generally, or that the town is representative of all towns in Russia. Rather, it is contrasted with Misail's

knowledge of them, which is itself, admittedly, only superficial: 'I did not understand why and how all these sixty-five thousand people lived. I knew that Kimry made a living with boots, that Tula produced samovars and guns, that Odessa was a port, but what our town was and what it did - that I did not know' (ix,

1 6). Poloznev gives us evidence for his assertions about life in his town and we are,

therefore, more prepared to believe them; they take on an air of objectivity, however subjective they may remain in reality. We have pictures presented to us of

dogs driven mad through torture, of birds plucked of their feathers whilst still

alive, of officials who accepted bribes which they thought were given as a sign of respect, and so forth. We feel, therefore, that Misail's general conclusions are to some extent objectively justified, even though, for all we know, he might have been unfairly selective in choosing his evidence.1

1 For a valiant attempt by a contemporary to show that Chekhov's depiction of the Russia of his day was, indeed, over-pessimistic and selective, see L. E. Obolensky, 'Ne pora-li ochnut'sya? (Po povodu Troykh sestyor A. Chekhova)', Rossiya, 9 March (I April) I901).




Misail's remarks are founded on at least the semblance of firm ground, but Chekhov was also interested in depicting a practice adopted by many of his characters, that of voicing abstract, universal, and permanent philosophic truths which seem objective but which, as he demonstrates, are clearly conditioned by the most temporary and unstable factors: their speaker's mood, his state of health, the weather. Any discussion of such 'truths' -and here we are concerned with those which bear upon the relationship between past history and the present day- should take into account this human weakness of mistaking subjective impressions for objective truth.

We have seen in Zhena how the opinion, expressed by Sobol', that Russian life was as culturally barren in his time as it had been centuries earlier, is contrasted with the idea that the peasant, in spite of everything, has a moral quality, totally unassociated with Polovtsy and Pechenegi, which makes him spiritually stronger than the representative of the educated classes - the narrator himself. A similar contrast, although in different form, is brought out in the course of Student: at the beginning of the story the theological student is depressed, cold and hungry. His temporary personal circumstances cause him to reflect upon the unchanging horror of Russian peasant life over the centuries. He later recounts the story of Peter's denial of Christ, and Vasilisa, one of the two peasant women who are listening to the story, bursts into tears. The student sees that she has been capable of appre- ciating the spiritual and philosophic content of his account. His pessimistic reflections at the start of the work have given way to the realization, stimulated by virtually nothing more than an old woman's tears, of the permanence in life of the ideals of truth and beauty.

The subjectively based alternation of contrasting ideas on the nature of peasant life is further developed in Moya zhizn'. A reference to prehistoric times is included in one of Misail's descriptions of the peasant: Nature I loved dearly, I loved the fields and the meadows and the kitchen-gardens, but the peasant, lifting the earth with his plough, urging on his pitiful horse, ragged, wet, with outstretched neck, was for me the expression of a vulgar, wild, unbeautiful force and, looking at his ungainly movements, I always began automatically to think of the long-gone, legendary life, when people still did not know the use of fire. (Ix, I 55)

The idea that the peasant represents a vulgar, wild, unbeautiful force invests him with a disturbing, metaphysical quality. He is not even depicted as physically human. The outstretched neck remind one of some possibly long-extinct animal and his ungainly movements bring to mind not Man's life before the discovery of fire, but that of the apes. A strange combination, indeed, of an evil metaphysical soul with a subhuman body!

The depiction of the peasants in Moya zhizn' as vile, pathetic and deceitful creatures is sustained over a number of pages. Masha at one point calls them: 'Savages! Pechenegs!' (ix, I63). In fact, it is in Masha's remarks about them that the disheartening effect of trying to work with them is ever more strongly felt. She is supported in her disgust by Stepan, who lives at the mill and who calls his fellow peasants 'beasts' (zver'yo).

Yet how deep is the likeness of the 'muzhik' to the primeval animal? Is it not purely external? Ten or so pages after the passage quoted above, we read: Indeed, there were dirt and drunkenness, stupidity and deceit, but along with this, however, there was a feeling that peasant life, on the whole, kept itself on a firm, sound pivot.



D. W. MARTIN

However ungainly an animal the peasant seemed as he followed his plough, however much he stupefied himself with vodka, nevertheless, taking a closer look at him, you feel that there is in him a certain necessary and important quality which is not present, for example, in Masha and the doctor, namely, he believes that the main thing on earth is truth and that his salvation and the salvation of all the people is in truth alone, and for this reason more than anything in the world he loves justice. (ix, I66-7)

So, again, in Misail's view, the peasant is in some way morally superior to the educated Masha and Blagovo.

When Masha and Misail first started to live together in the country, the peasant had been little more than a nuisance to their idyllic existence. Masha, just like her

husband, had been a 'hero of the spirit' in abandoning the comforts to which she had been accustomed and entering upon the rough life at Dubechnya. When her

spirit begins to fail her and she starts cursing the peasant at every opportunity, Misail, no longer at one with Masha in a number of ways, is disinclined to agree with her. He looks for something to redress the balance, something in favour of the

peasant which will remind him, moreover, of his original reasons for rejecting mental in order to devote himself to physical work. Hence his repudiation of the idea of the peasant as some kind of prehistoric animal, its replacement with a

Tolstoyan faith in his moral qualities and the assertion that Masha and her father are really no better: as the hero says, how could she forget that Dolzhikov also drank and deceived people in order to further his own interests?

Poloznev's changing attitude towards the peasants is, therefore, the result of a

change of experience. He has become used to them and he sees what his philosophy prompts him to look for in them. He begins by comparison to realize more about his

wife, Blagovo, and Dolzhikov.

Korolyov in Sluchay iz praktiki recognizes the presence of a force which remains outside human life but guides it, forcing all, strong and weak, to follow its will.

Contemplating a factory during a nocturnal walk, he seems to feel this force near

him, watching him. His thoughts contain a historical comparison: 'Somehow he

kept thinking of pile-dwellings, of the Stone Age, he felt the presence of a vulgar, unconscious force . . .' (Ix, 311).

Of note are the similarities between Korolyov's thoughts on the factory and Misail's first description of the peasant in Moya zhizn'. In spite of the difference between the two subjects of the comparison, Chekhov uses the same devices in each case: the reference to prehistoric times and the presence of an unwholesome force. The instance illustrates a phenomenon discussed above, where devices comparable in content are used to different ends.

A similar comparison figured in the story Ariadna, the first edition1 of which contained a long passage where the hero, Shamokhin, discourses upon his hatred of women. In it we read his comment on Ariadna: 'And in this gluttony, in this desire always to please I saw - forgive me for another learned word - a sad instance of atavism. Before me was a cunning slave-girl, engaged in an underground struggle with her oppressor the male, this was a woman of the Stone Age or a

pile-dweller' (ix, 550). Shamokhin's tirade is comical in its impassioned singlemindedness, and the

obviously forced comparison of Ariadna to a prehistoric pile-dweller adds to the

1 Russkaya mysl', No. I2 (December) 1895. Chekhov did not include the passage in the Collected Works (190I).

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effect: his hatred for her has made him lose his sense of measure in choosing words to describe her. His hatred of women is, in fact, brought out in another speech of his in the story, included in the Collected Works, when he makes a similar remark. With a turn of phrase later to be echoed by Blagovo in his discussion of Poloznev's moral convictions in Moya zhizn', Shamokhin asserts that the uncultured, primordial nature of woman threatens culture with serious danger.

Ariadna (1895) was published three years before Sluchay iz praktiki, and it is quite possible to surmise that, with the reappearance in the latter story of the phrase about the Stone Age and the pile-dwellings, where it seems better to suit the context, Chekhov felt it was no longer necessary to keep it in Ariadna, and for this reason it was not included in the I9I0 edition of that story, a conclusion similar to that reached in connexion with the removal of Kostya Kochevoy's comment on 'tatarshchina' from the Collected Works edition of Tri goda.

Clearly, Chekhov is attracted by the dramatic possibilities of drawing in various ways upon the reader's own impressions of the Stone Age and one feels that, because of his use of it in different contexts, it is the device itself which is important, not only the ideas which it expresses. One should, therefore, in the case of Korolyov's likening of the factory to prehistoric conditions, see not so much philosophic or metaphysical truth, as a figurative comparison which, like all such comparisons, gains its effect through the presence of an apparent similarity between the persons or objects compared, but not of a real and deep one. Korolyov's factory is no more in reality a prehistoric dwelling than the Russian peasant is like a primeval being, a coquette like a woman of the Stone Age.

What in fact calls forth Korolyov's thoughts ? Is it really the factory ? How can it be, when we are told that, in order to make the comparison possible, Korolyov has to forget that he is looking at a factory at all: 'It completely went out of his mind that inside here were steam engines, electricity, telephones' (ix, 3II)? It is not the factory that he is comparing to prehistoric conditions, but merely the chance form that it takes on at night. Such a comparison would be unthinkable during the day, even though that is the time when the factory would be most in evidence as such. Ogni presents a similar case. The comparison of the construction site to an ancient encampment is only possible at night when, of course, the site has temporarily ceased to function. In Sluchay iz praktiki this totally temporary, nocturnal appearance is stressed: 'The five blocks and the chimneys against the

grey background of the dawn, with not a soul about, as if everything had been left desolate, had a particular look about them, not the same as during the day' (ix, 3 I).

The comparison, moreover, stems mainly from Korolyov's loneliness. Liza, his patient, seems to explain not only her own, but also the doctor's experience when she says: ' "I am lonely... Lonely people read a great deal, but speak and hear little, life for them is a mystery; they are mystics and frequently see the devil when he is not there"' (Ix, 312). Korolyov had also seen the devil - the crimson windows of the factory had resembled a pair of eyes. This, as well as, one may assume, the force which comes from prehistory, is the result of loneliness. Chekhov under- lines the hero's loneliness from the start of the story. The people he meets at the factory, apart from Liza, are unable to establish a normal relationship with him; he feels out of place in the vulgarly ornate surroundings; he is obliged to spend the night there in spite of his desire to leave quickly. Metallic sounds made by

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the watchman set his nerves on edge and prepare the way for his unpleasant thoughts.

During his conversation with Liza, however, the tone of his thoughts begins to change. With the growth of friendship and warmheartedness reflections of a more optimistic kind begin to appear, which would have been impossible whilst he was contemplating the red-eyed devil and the Stone Age. In about fifty years time, he says, life will be different and the problems that prevent us from sleeping will be solved. Korolyov is put at ease by the human contact he has felt with Liza. He returns to his room and is able to sleep.

The next day his mood is even more optimistic. It is sunny, the birds are singing. A nice point is Chekhov's mention of the factory windows which 'shone gaily' (Ix, 314). These are the same windows which had watched Korolyov the previous night with the eyes of a devil. Yet he is no longer interested in this idea. He wants to have pleasant thoughts. Prehistoric fear gives way to hope for the future: 'Korolyov no longer remembered the workers, nor pile-dwellings, nor the devil, but thought about the time, perhaps soon to come about, when life would be just as bright and joyful as this quiet Sunday morning' (Ix, 314).

In discussing Zhena, Student, and Moya zhizn', I drew attention to questions of a historical nature, raised by the stories mentioned either in dialogue or in the heroes' private reflections, which have been basically of two types. One type asks: 'Are the seemingly constant, evil sides of life not balanced by an equally constant force for the good, albeit below the surface?' The other asks: 'Is history, especially Russian social history, standing still, or is there such a thing as progress ?' The heroes might pose and, indeed, as I have tried to show, answer these questions on less than objective grounds, yet the questions themselves remain very real.

Do, after all, any of the heroes' views approximate to Chekhov's own? The following extract from a letter of Chekhov's to Suvorin of 27 March 1894 gives his views on the moral qualities of the peasant and contains a witty defence of progress: Peasant blood flows in me, and you will not surprise me with peasant virtues. I came to believe in progress after childhood and could not but come to such a belief, for the difference between the time when they thrashed me and the time when they stopped thrashing was enormous. I loved intelligent people, sensitivity, politeness, wit, and I was just as indifferent to the fact that people picked at their corns and that the cloths on their feet gave out a choking smell as I am to young ladies walking about in the mornings in curl-papers. (xvI, I32)

The letter rejects the view of the peasant as the morally superior being that he appears as in the eyes of the narrator of Zhena. It also admits nothing of the sensitivity attributed to the peasantry and 'all people' by Ivan Velikopol'sky at one point in Student.' The views expressed are, though, reflected in some speeches by Blagovo in Moya zhizn'. It is interesting that Chekhov chose to put some of his own ideas into the mouth of an unsympathetic, if 'progressive' character. He appears to be putting his views to the test by giving them to the person likely to show them up in the worst possible light, a device designed, perhaps, to deflate fanaticism. We see the same process at work with regard to the scientific method, to which Chekhov was dedicated, in the portrayal of the contemptible von Koren in Duel'.

1 See PSSP, vIII, 348. The letter was, actually, written less than a month before the publication of Student.

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The letter to Suvorin continues: 'Prudence and justice tell me that in electricity and steam there is more love for mankind than in chastity and abstinence from meat' (xvI, I32-3). Against Tolstoyan morality- which is here clearly implied - against the view of the peasant as being basically good and just, Chekhov puts industrialism, for, in Chekhov's time, electricity and steam were, of course, the two basic requirements for industrial progress.

It is surely no coincidence that it is precisely these two commodities, electricity and steam (apart from the telephones) that Korolyov forgets about whilst making his historically based assessment of the night scene in Sluchay iz praktiki. Indeed, how are all these ideas reflected in that story? Korolyov appears at the start to look upon things from the first, 'moral' point of view. He becomes acutely conscious of what seems to be a permanent evil force existing throughout history. Yet he juxtaposes no force for the good with it. In the light of day he reverts to a less metaphysical understanding of the problem and accepts the alternative idea, that of progress as the genuinely good force in life. This means constant changes in social conditions and is the opposite of the moral quality felt to be always present among the lower classes by Misail Poloznev and Ivan Velikopol'sky. Further, what disturbs Korolyov is not industrialism as such, but - apart from the nocturnal aspect of the factory - private ownership, the absurd notion that the factory should make bad chintz to be sold in eastern markets so that Khristina Dmitrievna might eat sterlet and drink madeira, whilst the workers themselves live abominably.

The purpose of this investigation has been twofold. By examining Chekhov's use of the historical reference in his stories, I have been able to present aspects of one of the most colourful elements of his prose. The views and remarks on historical themes given by hero or narrator form an invigorating contrast to the contemporary life which the writer depicts.

The investigation has also, however, demonstrated Chekhov's treatment of the philosophic idea in general. His treatment of it is plastic; the idea is moulded and adjusted according to the demands of context. Philosophic content as such gives way to a technique of characterization. A hero's inner life and feelings are revealed to us through variations, contrasts, and even inconsistencies in the views presented.

Korolyov's idea that life will be good in fifty years time - even industrial life, and the shining factory windows seem to foresee this - introduces us to a new range of references in Chekhov's works, those made to the future. These references are outside the field of the present discussion, but could be the subject of comments and conclusions similar to those which I make in relation to the historical theme: that the heroes' thoughts about history and the passage of time are not based upon an objective, abstract, and specific philosophy, but derive from a far wider network of experience, where reality and subjective reaction become mixed. For this reason the explanation of Chekhov's historical references draws not only upon the passages in the stories which contain them, but relates to general problems of narrative structure.

~~~~~structure. ~D. W. MARTIN SWANSEA



historical references in chekhov's later stories

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