The Russian country cottage has certainly undergone a significant evolution since its begi anings as a simple gift of land bestowed by the state (the word 'dacha' comes from the verb 'to give').1 Anxious to consolidate St Petersburg as a conurbation, Peter the Great forced his nobles to build second houses on the plots of land he gave them just outside the city. Throughout the eighteenth century the dacha was thus the preserve of Russia's social elite - a fashionable villa used for socializing in the summer months, and quite distinct from one's city mansion or hereditary manorial estate deep in the Russian heartlands. As the urban populations of St Petersburg and Moscow giew, however, Russian subjects of all backgrounds began to yearn for pastoral holiday retreats, and the nineteenth century saw a proliferation of residences of all shapes and sizes outside the city, often in purpose-built dacha colonies (which are still popular today). With the belated expansion of Russia's railways at the end of the nineteenth century, it became possible to venture further afield, and the burgeoning middle class began to ape the fabled lifestyle of Russian aristocratic landowners (such as Chekhov's Ranevskaya) whose fortunes were then going into terminal decline. Chekhov was part of this burgeoning middle class, as he himself was only too well aware.,;It was while mingling with well-to-do dachniks in the Moscow countryside during his final years as a medical student that he first successfully effected the transition from meshchanin to intelligent.
If the southern Russ tan steppe takes pride of place in the hierarchy of Chekhov's sources of lyrical inspiration, the countryside around Moscow comes a close second. It is well known that he pined for Russia during his long years of exile in the Crimea, where he was surrounded by sea and mountains and lush sub-tropical vegetation: the walls of his Yalta home are pointedly lined with pictures of homely plains, green meadows and quiet rivers, most of them painted by his sister Maria or his friend the landscape painter Isaak Levitan. In a prominent position in the alcove in Chekhov's study, above the sofa he used to recline on when friends came to visit, is Levitan's canvas of a tranquil river winding through meadows with a forest in the distance. 'The River Istra' was painted in 1885, and undoubtedly served as the source of many nostalgic memories of the happy times Chekhov had spent with Levitan that summer when they were both staying at dachas nearby. When Levitan learned during his visit in December 1899 that Chekhov missed the gently undulating landscape of Central Russia, he immediately got out his palette and painted a nocturnal scene of haystacks in a field on a piece of card, which was then fitted into the recess in the fireplace across from his friend's desk.
As a young man, Chekhov spent many summers near the banks of the Istra, a tributary of the Moscow River. In 1880, when he was in his second year as a medical student, his brother Ivan obtained a job as the teacher at the village school in Voskresensk, a small town about thirty-five miles west of Moscow.2 Tsurikov, the wealthy factory owner who was the school's governor, generously provided Ivan with spacious living quarters, which meant that the impoverished Chekhov family suddenly had a dacha со go to in the
summer months. According to Misha, the youngest
member of the family, it was 'earthly paradise' after the cramped and squalid accommodation they had in Moscow.3 Chekhov came for visits in the early 1880s, and made useful contacts in the local medical fraternity, who gave him some useful work experience before he graduated, but he was initially kept busy during the summer vacation by writing for Moscow journals, which provided his family with some badly needed income. It was only in 1884, the year that he graduated, that Chejtchov started coming to Voskresensk for several months at a time. He went fishing for hours in the mornings and cut a dash in his black cape and broad- brimmed hat in the evenings during leisurely walks with other local doctors, the friendly officers of a battalion stationed nearby, and other interesting representatives of the Moscow intelligentsia on vacation.4
Just as the identikit nineteenth-century Russian country estate always contained certain key ingredients - a classical-style house with columns and a mezzan'ne, an annexe (always known by the German word Fltigel), a path lined with linden trees, a landscaped 'English' park and a lake - there were also certain requirements for the ideal dacha. Apart from beautiful scenery, dachniks like Chekhov sougnt forests to hunt for mushrooms, and a river or a pond in which to fish and contemplate nature. Voskresensk provided ample opportunity for Chekhov to indulge these enthusiasms. It also boasted a magnificent monastery, located high on the banks of the Istra. He went there often, and particularly revelled in what he called the 'velvety' sound of its bells, which carried for m.les across the fields.5
The New Jerusalem Monastery was founded in the mid-seventeenth century by the controversial Patriarch of Moscow, NiKon, whose liturgical reforms were to lead to the far-reaching schism of the Russian church. To save Russi n pilgrims the bother of having to travel all the way to Palestine, Nikon created an exact replica of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in the monastery's cavernous Cathedral of the Resurrection, the Voskresenski, sobor, but it burned down in 1726. The cathedral that Chekhov > sited was the Baroque replacement, designed by Rastrelli and built in the 1750s with funds provided by a munificent ancestor of Ivan Chekhov's employer Tsurikov.6 'I'm residing in New Jerusalem and visirng the monks,' Chekhov wrote to his publisher and main correspondent Nikolai Leikin in May 1883.7 The following summer he went back to visit the monks and spent over two months in Voskresensk. He clearly found attending the ornate Easter
The Mew Jerusalem Monastery, Moscow region
services the monastery held on Sundays an inspiring experience. I am liviug in New Jerusalem now', he wrote to Leikin in June 1884; 'and I'm living with aplomb because I can feel my doctor's licence in my pocket. The countryside around here is gorgeous. Open spaces and a complete absence of dachniks. Mushrooms, fishing and the local infirmarv. The monastery is poetic. I've been thinking of subjects for "sweet sounds" while standing through Vespers n the shadows of the galleries and arches. I've got lots of ideas but I am really not in the right frame of mind to write .. .'8 A year later Chekhov was still inspired:
I have put traps in the river and keep taking them out of the water because I am so impatient... I don't have words to describe the landscape around here. If you are in Moscow in the summer and come to New Jerusalem on a pilgrimage, J can promise you something the likes
of which you have never seen an/where else ... The. landscape is luxurious! I could pick it up and eat it. . ?