Though Chekhov knew most of the masterpieces of Russian nineteenth-century fiction and the works of certain foreign novelists, his own literary beginnings were singularly uninfluenced by his reading. The initial efforts of no artist of Chekhov's future eminence ever so completely and directly emerged from the very stuff of life. Dostoevsky's shrill morbidity and involved psychological analysis were distasteful to Chekhov, who was not above poking gentle fun at the devious mental and emotional divagations of Dostoevsky's saints and sinners. It is possible, however, that Chekhov may have learned something from the quality of Gogol's humor, the satirical example of Saltykov-Shchedrin, and the stylistic polish and thematic compactness of a few of the best short stories of Turgenev. In actuality, the great preceding age of realism had run its course: Dostoevsky died in 1881, Turgenev two years later, and Tolstoy, though he lived on to 1910, had already turned his back on art. Chekhov was much less an imitator of anything that had gone before than a brilliant innovator, in form and content initiating a new development in Russian literature.
When he started to contribute to humorous magazines, Chekhov moved into a literary atmosphere and social milieu quite different from those which had nurtured the creative talents of his great predecessors. "The reign of mediocrity has started," Turgenev wrote in a letter in 1874; and by the beginning of the Eighties a period of extreme social and political stagnation had set in which became deeply reactionary after the assassination of Alexander II. Under the blighting influence of Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Procurator of the Holy Synod and principal adviser of Alexander III — a man who could "stop further decay like frost but could never help a living thing to grow" — all the vital intellectual and artistic forces of the country were plunged into apathetic gloom. At his urging progressive public opinion was either severely limited or brutally suppressed. Under these conditions the growing urban middle class, divorced from the leadership of the intellectuals, developed readers for whom the literature of the landed gentry, with its concern for the great questions of the day, had become irrelevant. A new kind of reading matter which would reflect the values, interests, and way of life of the "little people" of the city was needed, and the humorous magazines sprang up in abundance as one of the responses to this demand.
These cheap, showy little publications were run by clever and sometimes unscrupulous men whose main endeavor was to entertain and amuse the varied strata among the city's inhabitants. "Whenever I think of the editor of Daily News," declared Chekhov, "I have the feeling that I've swallowed a woodlouse." Since the rigid censorship could and did put magazines out of business overnight, most editors tried to avoid dangerous themes. In general their political and social approach, if they could be said to have had any, emphasized a form of Russian nationalism that garishly reflected the official patriotism of government pronouncements. Fun was poked at all foreign types and there was frequently a patent anti-Semitism. Every effort was made to reflect the tastes of the city's petty-bourgeoisie; but during the period of their thriving, the humorous magazines quite clearly helped to form the tastes of their readers.
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Unlike many great literary artists at the beginning of their careers, Chekhov, did not experience any compelling inner urge to express himself. He had no new word to say to a disturbed and expectant world, nor did moral and social problems agitate his mind and cry out for solution in artistic form. Chekhov began quite simply because he had to earn mon^y. The humorous magazines offered an obvious market for the vein of fun in him which he had begun to exploit as a schoolboy. There was no question of making literature his profession. But deep within him lodged an inherent artistic sense, which would insistently demand fulfillment in any exposure to writing.
"I attempted everything except novels, poetry, and denunciations" Chekhov said of his start in the humorous magazines. (September 14, 1889.) Apart from miniature tales, he contributed dramatic sketches, amusing notes for calendars, articles on various themes, reviews, imaginary letters and telegrams, aphorisms and anecdotes, captions for caricatures, and he often supplied verbal suggestions for illustrations. He searched nearly every corner of Moscow life, every profession for the incidents and heroes and heroines of his stories — clerks, lower government officials and their wives and daughters, the clergy, army officers, writers, actors, musicians, doctors, lawyers, merchants, artisans, coachmen, janitors, apothecaries, and schoolboys. And to these he added landowners and peasants. At the outset it was "humor, nothing more," that he stressed in all these genres and characters, the primary ingredient demanded by his medium.
During the first and most of the second year Chekhov probably wrote many more tales than were accepted. Inexperience, a lack of contacts, and the fact that he was unknown to the editors stood in his way. Apart from his favorite pseudonym, Antosha Chekhonte, he used others, such as The Quick-tempered Man, Brother of My Brother, A Physician without Patients, A Man without Spleen. They were a kind of wardrobe from which he selected the attire that best suited the circumstances of his appearances before the public.
Jokingly Chekhov called his miniature tales "smelts," for the cost of a meal of the tiny fish would just about equal what he was paid for a story at the rate of a quarter of a cent a word. And at the beginning the difficulties he experienced in collecting his pittance wore out his patience. Sometimes he was paid with the copper coins just turned in from sales of an issue on the street. Or, after hours of waiting in the magazine's office, he would be told that the editor had gone out. In his dual role of medical student and author, Chekhov could ill afford to waste so much time, and he prevailed upon young Misha to go the rounds of the editorial offices and collect his money — ultimately he "formalized" this connection by providing his brother with a half-serious, half-farcial "Medical Certificate," in which Misha was solemnly "empowered to receive from editorial offices for which I work as much money as he deems necessary." Misha recalls his tours of duty on this degrading assignment, and the endless waiting. When he had finally cornered an editor, he would be brusquely asked: "What are you hanging around for?"
"For the three roubles, of course."
"Well, I don't have them. Perhaps you'd like a ticket for the theater, or perhaps a new pair of pants. Then go to my tailor Arontrikher and order a pair of pants on my account."
Even as a novice, however, Chekhov's pride and firmness saved him from being exploited by editors of the more vulgar and salacious sheets. Because of its reprehensible practices, he turned against the Daily News — Chekhov nicknamed it "Filth of the Day" — and, though he was in financial need at the time, he rejected the attractive offer of Moscow Leaflet's editor because he disapproved of the pornographical emphasis in that publication.
Necessity dictated quantity, and anyway the Moscow humorous magazines were not especially interested in quality. Chekhov had to learn to write swiftly in the cramped setting of an "open house." There he would perch at the edge of a table or on a window sill at his work, while the room often resounded to the conversation, songs, piano playing, and card games of the family and their guests. The din and jollity, curiously enough, seemed to stimulate him, though when protracted — and if his writing went badly — the noise might get on his nerves. He would quickly cross out a story that failed to come easily and immediately start another on a different theme on the back of the same sheet. So lightly and impersonally did he regard these early contributions that on one occasion, at least, he allowed a fellow writer the use of his pseudonym, Antosha Chekhonte, to help him place his pieces, and agreed to turn over the payments to him.