CHEKHOV, THE GOOD DOCTOR

It is important to take special note of the significant influence his medical training had on his literary work. He certainly saw the world with a doctor's eye. He asserted time and again his concern for accuracy in recording the observable details of life. In a letter dated October 1899 to an old school chum, Dr. Rossolimo, Chekhov wrote,

Here are clear echoes to Zola's call for naturalism in the theatre.

Chekhov's art was more balanced, more complete than that of the Naturalists. There are indeed maggots under rocks, as the rosserie school of Naturalists would have it, but there are also roses in perfectly "natural" gardens as well. Chekhov's truly clinical powers of observing nature could see both the maggots and the roses, the tragedy and the humor. One has the impression that he preferred the roses. Moreover, violence almost always takes place offstage in his plays. He seems to have had a genuine affection for his characters-even the more unpleasant ones. Eva La Gallienne observed that there are no "villains" in his plays. Neither are there flawless heroes and heroines. Instead there are flesh and blood, real-dare I say, "natural" human beings that we can recognize precisely because Chekhov saw them so clearly and drew them so completely.
This completeness leads me to comment on another element in Chekhov's writing that transcends the "scientific" method of observing natural phenomena. It is related to that aspect of the doctor's work that renders that work an art of sorts-that part of healing that demands a certain sensitivity and compassion for humankind. Like other truly "good doctors" who took up the pen from Saint Luke onward, Chekhov had these qualities in ample measure. And something more, something I might call a poet's eye, perhaps more accurately a poet's ear, though they are aspects of the same thing. For all their classical precision (Chekhov was the only major 19th Century Russian writer to complete the gymnaziya-grammar school-courses in Greek and Latin), Chekhov's writing has a rhythm and an unforced imagery that make many critics far more learned than I discuss them in purely poetic terms. Indeed, the predominant method of staging Chekhov in Russia after the initial runs at the Moscow Art Theatre came to be known as the "Chekhovian" method, by which was meant an emphasis on the poetry of the language to the exclusion of the other "production values." Chekhov himself had often complained that MAT was too concerned with extra-textual elements of production. And perhaps with reason. Stanislavski's productions of Chekhov were painstakingly naturalistic being preoccupied with the exact reproduction of everything from cricket sounds to the tiny fireflies dotting the night sky. The "poetic" staging may have been what Chekhov intended. He once told publisher/friend Leontiev-Shchegov,

Here in this statement, it seems to me, is the whole charm and paradox of Chekhov in a nutshell: the good doctor clearly, precisely, scientifically observes a truth and articulates it as only a poet can.

PROVINCIALISM AND POSHLOST
Following the custom of most Nineteenth Century Russian literature, the specific locale of Chekhov's plays are never mentioned in the plays themselves, however in a letter to noted Russian writer Maxim Gorki dated October 16, 1900, Chekhov revealed that the action in The Three Sisters "takes place in a provincial town such as Perm." Perm is one of a seemingly endless supply of provincial towns of one hundred thousand souls or so that led Chekhov to sigh in another letter, this one to his sister, "In Russia, all towns are identical." This is hardly surprising since many of them had been created by Imperial fiat rather than growing up in a particular place due to some commercial need or geographic necessity. Catherine the Great had created over two hundred such towns in a period of just over twenty years in an attempt to create a European style bourgeoisie. The result was a spate of rather pointless cities like the nameless one in which the Prozorov sisters are trapped. Imagine two hundred Brasilias…

More important than the specific geographic locale is the Russian mode of life or byt portrayed in Chekhov's plays. One's byt was largely determined by the official class or "estate" in which one found oneself. Originally set up by Peter the Great in 1722, the fourteen official grades in the "table of ranks" ranged from the lowly Collegiate Registrar to the civilian equivalent of Field Marshall (General), Chancellor. Some of these estates were hereditary, while others were economic or political. One could change estate through force of circumstance or hard work. Chekhov's grandfather, a serf, had purchased his freedom and thus elevated himself into the merchant estate. The borders between the various estates were in practice quite flexible, especially toward the end of the Nineteenth Century. The old estates of gentry, clergy and peasantry had been complicated by the rise of the bourgeoisie so that "town dwellers" developed their own classes of honorary citizens, merchants, craftsmen and burghers. The towns also contained a great number from the peasant class. It was also common, though not technically official, to speak of the military as an estate, though officers, as often as not, were members of the gentry and the military ranks had parallel civilian ranks from Sub-Lieutenant to Field Marshall. In provincial towns such as the one which serves as the setting for The Three Sisters, the military was often the most cosmopolitan, best educated and most widely traveled "estate" in residence. Chekhov was sympathetic to this military estate. During rehearsals for the Moscow Art production of The Three Sisters, Stanislavski tells us that Chekhov sent his own military representative to the rehearsals so that his officers would be seen as "charming, decent people," not caricatured, spit-polished, fighting boors. Chekhov himself waxed eloquent about the cultural mission of the Russian army which took "knowledge, art, happiness and joy" to the remote provinces it served, an attitude that is manifestly clear in his play.

Education in Chekhov's Russia, and especially in the provinces, had a special character, much of which is reflected in The Three Sisters. Gymnaziya, or "high schools," were first founded during the reign of Alexander I (1801-1825). By the end of the century, there were over two hundred gymnaziya usually offering an eight year course in Greek and Latin. Officials of education at the time believed that the study of the complicated grammar and syntax of the ancients would tend to quell revolutionary thinking among the student population. Thus the curriculum of the gymnaziya was a clumsy (and ineffective) political tool. On successful completion of the course of study, a graduate of a gymnaziya was assured admission to a University and preferential placement in the civil service. There were separate girl's gymnaziya offering a seven year course with less classical training. Girls wishing to become schoolmistresses were required to take an eighth year. So-called "modern" schools emphasized mathematics, science and modern languages, leading to entry into technical colleges. Chekhov himself had considerable distaste for his experiences in the gymnaziya and wrote about them often. Kulygin's rather clumsy use of Latin phrases in conversation in TheThree Sisters, for example, undoubtedly apes characters Chekhov encountered in real life. Though Chekhov himself never became a firebrand, the schools and universities became centers of revolutionary thought and action. Chekhov clearly understood the importance of education for the peasantry, even founding schools for them while he lived in Milikhovo, a village south of Moscow. One of his short stories, "My Life," depicts the problems of founding such a provincial school with typical Chekhovian objectivity and good humor.

The cultural life of Chekhov's Russia was "provincial" in every sense of the word. Even the population centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg were culturally backward, albeit hungry. The arts flourished primarily in imitation of European models. When European artists visited Russia, they were greeted with the enthusiasm that is reserved today for the rock star du jour. The great Nineteenth Century star Tommaso Salvini left us a vivid portrait of the cultural life of one such city, Kharkov, in his memoirs. His Russian hosts were not only ill prepared to support his performance in ways that he deemed worthy and professional, his Russian audiences reacted with such enthusiasm to his presence-let alone his performance-that he feared for his life.
While the hoi-polloi lacked a certain cultured reserve, it is hardly surprising that they tried to ape the manners of their cultural role models, especially the French. In fact, the official cultural bent toward the French had been established by Prince Alexander Shakhovsky, director of the repertory section of the Imperial Theatres beginning in 1801. Educated in Paris, he established rules and regulations governing the Imperial Theatres which were approved by the Tsar himself in 1825. These rules remained in effect until the Revolution in 1917. Moreover, truly upper class tsarist Russians could afford an education in Europe, so sprinkling one's conversation with French was (in theory) a sign of breeding and gentility. Chekhov saw through such pretension to its root. In a letter to a friend, he attacked French translators of Russian literature, advising that they be shipped to Siberia. As he said, "They only staged [Ostrovsky's The Storm] so that the French may once again gossip authoritatively about those things which for them are insufferable boring and incomprehensible." In The Three Sisters, Natasha tries hard to give a cultured impression, frequently peppering her conversation with fractured French as, "Il parait, que mon Bobik deja ne dort pas el il est…wide awake." (It seems my Bobik is no longer asleep and is … wide awake." Natasha's word order here is perfect if she were speaking Russian, but it is nearly unintelligible in French.

There is a special Russian word, poshlost, which conveys better than any English equivalent, this particular Russian brand of "provincialism." It refers directly to a sort of taste that we might regard today as "tacky" or "trashy." But the subtle distinction that these rough synonyms miss is that genuine poshlost, in the words of Vladiir Nabokov, "is beautifully timeless and so cleverly pointed all over with protective tints that its presence (in a book, in a soul, in an institution, in a thousand other places) escapes detection." He goes on to cite well known examples of poshlyaki including Polonius, Claudius and Gertrude, from Hamlet; Flaubert's Rudolphe; Anna Karenina's husband. We might add several examples Chekhov has given us.

But if the provinces were poshlostish, Moscow was the cultural center of the Universe. The two Imperial Theatres, Bolshoi and Maly, were home to the best Russian actors and the best available plays. Moscow was home to the Mamontov Ballet as well as orchestras playing the works of such world-renowned composers as Rimski-Korsakov and Tschaikovski. Russian novelists like Dostoevski and Tolstoi centered their activities in Moscow where the publishers were. Anybody who was anybody was in Moscow. Writing from medical exile in Yalta, Chekhov must have felt very much like his three sisters.