On page 147 in the book review section of the March edition of Russian Thought, I came across the following phrase: 'As recently as yesterday, even the High Priests of unprincipled writing such as Messrs Yasinsky and Chekhov, whose names . . .' etc., etc. I appreciate that it is not usually done to respond to criticism, but this is not criticism, t is lifeel, pure and simple. I might have been inclined to pass over even libel, but since I shall be leaving Russia in a few days' t me, perhaps never to return, I could not leave this calumny unanswered.
I have never been an unprincipled writer, nor - what amounts to the same thing - a scoundrel.
It is true that my entire literary career has consisted of an unbroken series of mistakes, sometimes grievous ones, but the explanation for this lies in the limitations of my talent and has nothing whatsoever to do with whether I am a good or a bad person. I have never blackmailed anyone, nor have I ever libelled or denounced anyone. I have eschewed flattery,
lies and insults. In short, while there are many of my stories and leading articles I should be happy to throw out as worthless, I am not now ashamed of a single line. I must assume that by 'unprincipled' you are referring to the sad fact that I, an educated man whose work is often seen in print, have done noth^ig for those I love; my activities have left no trace on, for example, the zemstvo, the new law courts, the freedom of the press, freedom i general, and so on. If such is indeed the case, then I can only say that Russian Thought ought to regard me as a comrade in arms rather than the butt of its accusations, since in these respects it has done no more than I have. And that s the fault of neither of us.
Even when judged objectively as a writer, I do not deserve to be accused pubhcly of lack of principle. Hitherto I have led a sheltered life within four walls; you and I meet one another no more than once every two years or so, and I have never in my life come across Mr Machtet. You may judge from this how seldom I leave my house; I studiously avoid literary soirees, parties, conferences and so on. I have never visaed anv editorial office uninvited, and have made efforts for my friends to see me more as a doctor than as a wrter. In short, I have always conducted myself with discret;on in wiring circles, and my present letter is the first piece of immodesty I have ever perpetrated '.n ten years of writing activity. I am on excellent terms with my colleagues; I have never presumed to sit in judgement either on them or on the magazines and newspapers for which they write, since I do not consider myself competent to do so. Moreover, I believe that in the present subservient position of the press, any word uttered against a journal or a writer can be seen not only as an unkind and nsens.rive attack but as actually criminal. Up till now, the only magazines and newspapers to which I decline to contribute have been those whose manifestly inferior quality is obvious to all, but when I have been obuged to choose between one publication or another, my custom has been to favour those who most needed my services for material or other reasons. This is the reason I have always worked for the Northern Herald rather than for your paper or for the Herald of Europe, and it is also why I have earned no more than half what I could have had I taken a different view of my obligations.
The accusation you have levelled at me s nothing short of libellous. There is no point in asking you to retract it, since it has already been exposed in all its malign force and cannot now be simply chopped out
with an axe. Neither can I excuse it as a careless or irresponsible lapse, because I am quite aware that your editorial office consists of unimpeachably decent and civilized people who, I trust, do not simply write and read articles but take responsibility for every word in them. The only recourse I have is to ensure you are not left in ignorance of the error, and at the same time to ask you to believe in the genuinely heavy heart with which I am writing this letter. It is self-evident that your attack on me makes it impossible to contemplate even conventional social intercourse between us, still less any professional relations.
A. Chekhov46
Thus ended the second period of Cheknov's Moscow life.
Chapter 4 SUMMERS AT THE DACHA
I
New Jerusalem
With the countryside all around looking so meek and pensive, Ivan Ivanych and Burkin were filled with love for the landscape ;n this subdued weather, and both were thinking how magnificent and beautiful their country was.
'Gooseberries'
At the beginning of May, the weather in Moscow can suddenly change. Fur coats have to be hurriedly exchanged for short-sleeved shirts and people start coming out on the streets again, blinking in the bright sunshine. Central Russia's continental climate means that the transition from winter to spring can be extremely abrupt. As soon as it becomes warm, Muscovites start longing to go to their dachas. On cue, Russian newspapers begin publishing advice columns on gardening matters, and the main arteries into Moscow become clogged on Sunday evenings with big jeeps creating new lanes on the hard shoulders in order to circumnavigate the tailbacks, terrorizing into submission the uninsured little Soviet-made cars with their trays of eggs on the back ledge. During the six months of the 'dacha season' all the big Russian cities empty at weekends, and virtually shut down for the whole of July and August as everyone heads for the country to escape the sultry heat of the metropolis. Since most dachas still have no central heating, the dacha season is brought to a natural end with the first snowfalls.
The rhythms of Russian life have not changed much since Chekhov's lifetime. He too was an enthusiastic 'dachnik', and no study of his life and work can really be complete without an appreciation of the role played by the summers he spent with his family at dachas in the Russian and Ukrainian countryside; references to dachas and dachniks fill his stories and plays from beginning to end, and the wistful green landscapes he looked out on from his dacha (he always placed his desk in front of a window) inspired some of his finest writing.
Deeply enshrined in the Russian psyche, the concept of the dacha is a phenomenon that really has no equal in any other culture. In The Cherry Orchard, the nouveau riche businessman Lopakhin implores the old-world landowner Madame Ranevskaya that she should forgo the pleasures of fragrant white blossom every spring and let out her land as dacha plots so that she can pay off the debts that threaten to engulf her. 'Dachas and dachniks - forgive me but that's so vulgar,' Ranevskaya replies, encapsulating the Russian nobility's traditional feelings of contempt for middle-class aspirations to country liv ng. Exactly a hundred years later, the last mohicans of the intelligentsia (the modern- day equivalent of the pre-revolutionary aristocracy) are similarly scornful of the pretensions of today's nouveau liche Russian who prefers to call his dacha a kottedzh (cottage), even though it will probably be a vast marble-clad gothic pile protected by security fences and leather-jacketed heavies at the gate. The Cherry Orchard is set in early twentieth-century Russia, but it is also entirely prophetic of early twenty-first-century Russia. Ranevskaya's beloved cherry orchard is unequivocally beautiful but it no longer fulfils any useful function; the artistic and intellectual heritage of the intelligentsia is similarly a thing of great beauty, but one that no longer seems to be needed by anybody in the fast new commercial world of contemporary Russia where the buoinessman is king. This ;s just one of the many ways in which Chekhov's work proves its timelessness.