Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with Biographical Sketch

by Anton Chekhov, Constance Garnett (Translator)

The book ""Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with Biographical Sketch"" is a collection of personal letters written by the renowned Russian author Anton Chekhov to his family and close friends. These letters provide a unique insight into the life and thoughts of Chekhov, as well as his relationships with those closest to him. The book also includes a biographical sketch of Chekhov, detailing his life and career as a writer, as well as his personal struggles and triumphs. This sketch provides context for the letters and helps readers to better understand the man behind the words.Overall, ""Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with Biographical Sketch"" offers a fascinating glimpse into the life and mind of one of the most celebrated writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is a must-read for fans of Chekhov's work, as well as anyone interested in the history of literature and the lives of great artists.1920. The Russian writer Chekhov was noted for his masterful short stories and lyrical dramas. The Translator�������s Of the eighteen hundred and ninety letters published by Chekhov�������s family I have chosen for translation these letters and passages from letters which best to illustrate Chekhov�������s life, character and opinions. The brief memoir is abridged and adapted from the biographical sketch by his brother Mihail. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.

Genres: Biography

424 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1920

About the author

Dramas, such as The Seagull (1896, revised 1898), and including "A Dreary Story" (1889) of Russian writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, also Chekov, concern the inability of humans to communicate.

Born ( Антон Павлович Чехов ) in the small southern seaport of Taganrog, the son of a grocer. His grandfather, a serf, bought his own freedom and that of his three sons in 1841. He also taught to read. A cloth merchant fathered Yevgenia Morozova, his mother.

"When I think back on my childhood," Chekhov recalled, "it all seems quite gloomy to me." Tyranny of his father, religious fanaticism, and long nights in the store, open from five in the morning till midnight, shadowed his early years. He attended a school for Greek boys in Taganrog from 1867 to 1868 and then Taganrog grammar school. Bankruptcy of his father compelled the family to move to Moscow. At the age of 16 years in 1876, independent Chekhov for some time alone in his native town supported through private tutoring.

In 1879, Chekhov left grammar school and entered the university medical school at Moscow. In the school, he began to publish hundreds of short comics to support his mother, sisters and brothers. Nicholas Leikin published him at this period and owned Oskolki (splinters), the journal of Saint Petersburg. His subjected silly social situations, marital problems, and farcical encounters among husbands, wives, mistresses, and lust; even after his marriage, Chekhov, the shy author, knew not much of whims of young women.

Nenunzhaya pobeda , first novel of Chekhov, set in 1882 in Hungary, parodied the novels of the popular Mór Jókai. People also mocked ideological optimism of Jókai as a politician.

Chekhov graduated in 1884 and practiced medicine. He worked from 1885 in Peterburskaia gazeta.

In 1886, Chekhov met H.S. Suvorin, who invited him, a regular contributor, to work for Novoe vremya, the daily paper of Saint Petersburg. He gained a wide fame before 1886. He authored The Shooting Party , his second full-length novel, later translated into English. Agatha Christie used its characters and atmosphere in later her mystery novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd . First book of Chekhov in 1886 succeeded, and he gradually committed full time. The refusal of the author to join the ranks of social critics arose the wrath of liberal and radical intelligentsia, who criticized him for dealing with serious social and moral questions but avoiding giving answers. Such leaders as Leo Tolstoy and Nikolai Leskov, however, defended him. "I'm not a liberal, or a conservative, or a gradualist, or a monk, or an indifferentist. I should like to be a free artist and that's all..." Chekhov said in 1888.

The failure of The Wood Demon , play in 1889, and problems with novel made Chekhov to withdraw from literature for a period. In 1890, he traveled across Siberia to Sakhalin, remote prison island. He conducted a detailed census of ten thousand convicts and settlers, condemned to live on that harsh island. Chekhov expected to use the results of his research for his doctoral dissertation. Hard conditions on the island probably also weakened his own physical condition. From this journey came his famous travel book.

Chekhov practiced medicine until 1892. During these years, Chechov developed his concept of the dispassionate, non-judgmental author. He outlined his program in a letter to his brother Aleksandr: "1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of political-social-economic nature; 2. total objectivity; 3. truthful descriptions of persons and objects; 4. extreme brevity; 5. audacity and originality; flee the stereotype; 6. compassion." Because he objected that the paper conducted against Alfred Dreyfus, his friendship with Suvorin ended

Reviews

[MihaElla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alas and alack! My literary feelings are wounded :D but I am deeply convinced that I will feel wonderfully uplifted by the end of this book. In truth I am already beginning to reap laurels (inner core-wise I mean) and am awfully delighted by the presence of this book in my hands (errata: it’s actually an e-book) that I feel this is the right moment to sketch the review (of course a lie because I am not qualified to write a review when reading Chekhov, and not only). So, I am posting here the Decalogue of The Cultured Man as established by Chekhov – though it’s not quite 10 commandments but only 8 of them. So maybe in the remainder of his Letters to be read I will find out whether he declares the rest too or let us understand what those would be like. I am still at the beginning with my reading and I don’t feel like I am in an haste to finish this beautiful piece of work (I recall I did the same when I was reading The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to his brother, which by the way I have not finished to this day…)

Letter of Anton Chekhov To his Brother Nikolay.
Moscow, 1886

… You have often complained to me that people "don't understand you"! Goethe and Newton did not complain of that…. Only Christ complained of it, but He was speaking of His doctrine and not of Himself…. People understand you perfectly well. And if you do not understand yourself, it is not their fault. I assure you as a brother and as a friend I understand you and feel for you with all my heart. I know your good qualities as I know my five fingers; I value and deeply respect them. If you like, to prove that I understand you, I can enumerate those qualities. I think you are kind to the point of softness, magnanimous, unselfish, ready to share your last farthing; you have no envy nor hatred; you are simple-hearted, you pity men and beasts; you are trustful, without spite or guile, and do not remember evil….
You have a gift from above such as other people have not: you have talent. This talent places you above millions of men, for on earth only one out of two millions is an artist. Your talent sets you apart: if you were a toad or a tarantula, even then, people would respect you, for to talent all things are forgiven. You have only one failing, and the falseness of your position, and your unhappiness and your catarrh of the bowels are all due to it. That is your utter lack of culture. Forgive me, please, but veritas magis amicitiae…. You see, life has its conditions. In order to feel comfortable among educated people, to be at home and happy with them, one must be cultured to a certain extent. Talent has brought you into such a circle, you belong to it, but … you are drawn away from it, and you vacillate between cultured people and the lodgers vis-a-vis.

Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions:

1. They respect human personality, and therefore they are always kind, gentle, polite, and ready to give in to others. They do not make a row because of a hammer or a lost piece of india-rubber; if they live with anyone they do not regard it as a favour and, going away, they do not say "nobody can live with you." They forgive noise and cold and dried-up meat and witticisms and the presence of strangers in their homes.

2. They have sympathy not for beggars and cats alone. Their heart aches for what the eye does not see…. They sit up at night in order to help P…., to pay for brothers at the University, and to buy clothes for their mother.

3. They respect the property of others, and therefor pay their debts.

4. They are sincere, and dread lying like fire. They don't lie even in small things. A lie is insulting to the listener and puts him in a lower position in the eyes of the speaker. They do not pose, they behave in the street as they do at home, they do not show off before their humbler comrades. They are not given to babbling and forcing their uninvited confidences on others. Out of respect for other people's ears they more often keep silent than talk.

5. They do not disparage themselves to rouse compassion. They do not play on the strings of other people's hearts so that they may sigh and make much of them. They do not say "I am misunderstood," or "I have become second-rate," because all this is striving after cheap effect, is vulgar, stale, false….

6. They have no shallow vanity. They do not care for such false diamonds as knowing celebrities, shaking hands with the drunken P.,[4] listening to the raptures of a stray spectator in a picture show, being renowned in the taverns…. If they do a pennyworth they do not strut about as though they had done a hundred roubles' worth, and do not brag of having the entry where others are not admitted…. The truly talented always keep in obscurity among the crowd, as far as possible from advertisement…. Even Krylov has said that an empty barrel echoes more loudly than a full one.

7. If they have a talent they respect it. They sacrifice to it rest, women, wine, vanity…. They are proud of their talent…. Besides, they are fastidious.

8. They develop the aesthetic feeling in themselves. They cannot go to sleep in their clothes, see cracks full of bugs on the walls, breathe bad air, walk on a floor that has been spat upon, cook their meals over an oil stove. They seek as far as possible to restrain and ennoble the sexual instinct…. What they want in a woman is not a bed-fellow … They do not ask for the cleverness which shows itself in continual lying. They want especially, if they are artists, freshness, elegance, humanity, the capacity for motherhood…. They do not swill vodka at all hours of the day and night, do not sniff at cupboards, for they are not pigs and know they are not. They drink only when they are free, on occasion…. For they want mens sana in corpore sano.

And so on. This is what cultured people are like. In order to be cultured and not to stand below the level of your surroundings it is not enough to have read "The Pickwick Papers" and learnt a monologue from "Faust." … What is needed is constant work, day and night, constant reading, study, will…. Every hour is precious for it…. Come to us, smash the vodka bottle, lie down and read…. Turgenev, if you like, whom you have not read. You must drop your vanity, you are not a child … you will soon be thirty. It is time!
I expect you….
We all expect you.
* * * * *

…to be continued :D

Wow! This whole piece of text is of a remarkable artistic production. I have read it with a throbbing heart – it is so good! For me, only and especially, surely! His talent is unmistakable and it is a real, great talent. Everything in these letters is expressed with an extraordinary stamina, and I have actually felt a pang of envy that it was not I who had written them. Poor me! To fancy that is like quickly losing shape and slipping away in thoughts of eternal bliss…
Anyways, there is definitely something worth while to remember from Chekhov, and that is one of his mostly used expressions, at least during his thirty years of life - I have liked the life and wanted to live…, even if or more so because, life itself when it is not a psychological invention is a difficult business…
He made a complete and delightful impression upon me and I felt as much at ease as though I were at home – which in fact it’s a perfectly valid truth, as I have been home all this time – and we have had some talks together…His nearness was awesome. I had a wonderful feeling such as I have not had for a long time, as though I had come back from a moonlight tryst. Oh, poor me! (again)

[Erisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a delight! If you like Checkov, you'll enjoy reading this.

[Alex]

nu toata + alte lecturi