Russian Views of Anton Chekhov

Abstract

SEER, Vol. 86,No. 3, July 2008 Review Article Russian Views ofAnton Chekhov GORDON McVAY Stepanov, A. D. Problemy kommunikatsii u Chekhova. Studia philologica. Iazyki slavianskoi kul'tury, Moscow, 2005. 396 pp. Notes. Indexes. Bibliography. 1000 copies. No price available. Kapustin, N. V. 'Chuzhoe slovo' vproze A. P. Chekhova: zhanrovye transfor matsii. Ivanovskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, Ivanovo, 2003. 261 pp. Notes. Indexes. 500 copies. No price available. Polotskaia, E. 0 Chekhove i ne toVko0 nem. Stat'i raznykh let. Moscow, 2006. 284 pp. Notes. 500 copies. No price available. Kataev, V. B. Chekhov plius ... Predshestvenniki, sovremenniki,preemniki. Studia philologica. Iazyki slavianskoi kul'tury, Moscow, 2004. 391 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Indexes. 800 copies. No price available. Domanskii, Iu. V. Variativnost' dramaturgii A. P. Chekhova.Monografiia. Liliia Print, Tver', 2005. 159 pp. Notes. 300 copies. No price available. Golovacheva, A. G. Pushkin, Chekhov i drugie:poetika literaturnogo dialoga. Doha, Simferopol', 2005. 303 pp. Notes. Bibliography. 1000 copies. No price available. Dmitrieva, N. A. Poslanie Chekhova. Edited by T. K. Shakh-Azizova. Compiled by S. F. Chlenova. Progress-Traditsiia, Moscow, 2007. 367 pp. Notes. Bibliography. 1000 copies. No price available. Melkova, A. S. (comp.). Anton Chekhov i ego kritik Mikhail Men'shikov: Perepiska. Dnevniki. Vospominaniia. Stat'i. Russkii put', Moscow, 2005. 476 pp. Notes. Illustrations. Indexes. 3000 copies. No price available. Konopleva, E. P. and Kozhevnikova, E. A. (eds). Taganrogskii vestnik. Materialy Mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii Molodoi Chekhov:problemy biografii,tvorchestva, retseptsii,izucheniia \ Taganrogskii Gosudarstvennyi literaturnyi i istoriko-arkhitekturnyi muzei-zapovednik, Taganrog, 2004. ii + 248 pp. Notes. 500 copies. No price available. Tamarli, G. I. (ed.). Tvorchestvo A. P. Chekhova. Sbornik materialov Mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii(zaochnoi) ? XXIII Chekhovskikh chtenii v Taganroge. Izdatel'stvo Taganrogskogo gosudarstvennogo pedagogicheskogo instituta, Taganrog, 2007. 167 pp. Notes. 100 copies. No price available. Gordon McVay is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bristol. 502 RUSSIAN VIEWS OF ANTON CHEKHOV It has long been perceived that Chekhov presents many of his characters as essentially lonely, frustrated, yearning, dreaming. They may seem to exist in littleworlds of their own, deaf to the words and needs of others. Rarely, and sometimes painfully, is real contact fleet ingly achieved. Such a perceptive portrayal of the 'human condition' may appear compassionate, ironic, or predominantly sober. Among recent books about Chekhov published in Russia Andrei Stepanov's Problemy kommunikatsii u Chekhova is perhaps the most demanding and the most rigorously methodical. Dr Stepanov sets himself a formidable task ? to define and examine all the forms of communication represented in Chekhov's works, and to evaluate the writer's attitude to the possibilities and limitations of human language, self-expression and mutual understanding. Stepanov is an extremely intelligent and well-informed scholar, who appears equally adept in the labyrinth of literary and linguistic theory and in the intricacies of detailed textual analysis. In a massively serious opening chapter Stepanov explains his aim ? to apply and adapt Bakhtin's theory of speech genres to a study of the entire range of Chekhov's literary texts. Identifying 'five kinds of discourse: informative, affective, imperative, expressive and phatic' (p. 392, see also p. 81), Stepanov then studies in chapters 2-6 each of these classes in relation to genres such as information {informatsiia), dispute {spor), sermon (propoved'), demand / request / plea (pros'ba), command (prikaz), complaint / lament {zhalobd), confession {ispoved'), and small talk {boltovnid).To illustrate his wider general points con cerning Chekhov's 'transformations of everyday speech genres' (p. 392), Stepanov analyses specific stories belonging to each category, such as 'Dom smezoninom' (spor) and 'Duel" {propoved'). Other stories which receive particular attention include 'Ariadna', 'Arkhierei', 'Moia zhizn", 'Na sviatkakh', 'Palata No. 6', 'Skuchnaia istoriia' and 'Vragi'. As Stepanov's book progresses, the difficulties of human communi cation in Chekhov's works become increasingly clear. Everything and everybody seem inadequate: words fail, the intended message is conveyed and received imperfectly (ifat all), people are self-absorbed, self-deceiving, self-justifying, and thus unresponsive to the demands, requests, complaints, etc., of others. Confessions are rarely sincere, sermonizing and preaching lack moral and intellectual authority, arguments are devoid of logic and marred by irritation. Stepanov deduces that the 'objective' and reticent Chekhov (pp. 11, 244) ? despite his belief in science, reason and...