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&hekhov's only full-length work of nonfiction, presented for the first time in an English translation

Translated by Luha and Michael Terpak, Introduction by Kobert Payne

The

Island:

A Journey to Sakhalin

Anton Chekhov

$6.95

Sakhalin Island in the North Pacific was the site of five principal penal colonies inhabited by thie\es, murderers, political exiles, their families, and an unenlightened bureaucracy. Prisoners were condemned to hard labor, often in the coal mines, and on release were confined to the island as colonists. Treatment was often harsh; flogging was frequent. The climate was execrable: foggy, cold, and rainy in the summer, with snow the remaining eight months. Escape was often plotted, and infrequently successful.

In 1890 Chekhov arrived at Sakhalin, "the only place left where it is possible to study colonization by criminals." Surprised to see prisoners and exiles walking the streets freely, he soon became accustomed to the mores of this strange land where "the local ladies think nothing of permitting their children to go out and play in the care of nursemaids sentenced to exile for life."

From the experiences of this journey, Chekhov produced The Island, "an important historical document," according to D. S. Mirsky, "remarkable for its thoroughness, objectivity, and impartiality." Yet The Island is more than a work of ethnological and sociological significance-a lucid documentation of the need lor penal reform throughout Russia. It is a telling and compassionate portrait of the people of Sakhalin, and a demonstration of the senselessness of brutality.

Everywhere evincing the skill, the perception, and selection of the master craftsman, The Island is a mirror in which we see briKiantly illuminated the humanistic sympathies and sensitivity of Anton Chekhov.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Asked for his autobiography by a magazine editor, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov wrote:

"You want my autobiography? Here it is. I was born in Taganrog in 1860. I graduated fror the gymnasium. I got an M.D. from i\loscow University. I received the Pushkin Prize. I began to write in 1879. I took a trip to Sakhalin in 1890. I took a trip to Europe, where I drank excellent wine and ate oyster: .. .I sinned a little in the drama, but moderately. My works were translated into all

languages, except foreign

"With my colleagues, the doctors, as well as my fellow writers, I have excellent relations... I would love to get a pension. But it is all nonsense. Write whatever you wish ...if you run out of facts, replace them with lyrics."

ABOUT TIIE TRANSLATORS

Luba and Michael Terpak received their training in Slavonic languages at Columbia University. They have translated poetry from the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian, have written articles about travel in the USSR and on the Soviet theater, and have extensive experience in simultaneous translations from the Russian and the Ukrainian.

tue russian library presents masterpieces of singular spiritual energy and freshly penetrating style characteristic of the renaissance of Russian literature during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The series includes the works of both the giants anc their most noted contemporaries, all in new and definitive translations-prime materials ft the understanding of Russia, its culture, and its people.

THE RUSSIAN LIBRARY General Editor robert payne

TITLES IN PRINT, FALL, 1967

sister my LIFE

by Boris Pasternak. Translated, by Pbillip C. Flayderman. The Island: A Journey to Sakhalin

by Anton Chekhov. Tramlated by Luba and Micbael Terpak.

The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon

and other stories

by Boris Pilnyak. Tramlated by Beatrice Scott. Love and Other Stories

by Yuri Olyesha. Translated by Robert Payne. The Complete Plays of Vladimir Mayakovsky Tramlated by Guy Daniels.

IN PREPARATION

Selected Poems of Anna Akhmatova

Translated by Carole W. Bartlett. correspondence with friends

by Nikolai Gogo!. Tramlated by Artbur Hudgins. Selected Poems of Osip Mandelshtam

Tramlated by Peter Russell. The Apocalypse of our Time

by v. v. Rozanov. Translated by Janet Romanoff. AN anthology of GEORGIAN poetry

Tramlated by George NakaJbidze. AN anthology of russian poetry Tramlated by Guy Daniels.

The Island

A Journey to Sakhalin

ANTON CHEKHOV

The Island

A Journey to Sakhalin

Translated by luba and michael terpak With an Introduction by robert payne

wsp

FSJ

WASHINGTON PRESS, INC., New York, 1967

COPYRIGHT, ©, 1967, BY WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS MAY BE

REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN A R.EVIEW TO BE PRINTED IN A MAGAZINE OR NEWSPAPER.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 67-10299

PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA BY WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS, INC.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Contents

introduction xi

I Nikolayevsk-on-the-Amur - The Steamship Baikal - Cape Pronge and the Estuary Inlet - The Sakhalin Peninmla - LA Pĉrouse, Broughton, Krusenstern and Nevelskoy - Japanese Explorers - Cape Dzhaore - The Tatar Coast - De Kastri I

II A Short Geography - Arrival in Northern Sakhalin - Fire - The Pier - ln the Village - Dinner with Mr. L. - Acquaintances - GeiiC1"al Kononovich - The Arrit al of thc Governor-General - Ditmer and the Illmnination 15

The Census - Contents of the Statistical Form - My Questions and the Answers Received - The Huts aiid Their Inhabitants - The Exiles' Opiniom of the Census 30

The Duyka River - The Alexandrovsk Valley - The Alexandrovka Slobodka - Vagrant Krasivy - The Alexandrovsk Post - Its Past - Yurts -

The Sakhalin Paris 41

The Alexandrovsk Penal Servitude Prison - The Prisoti Wards - Convicts in Chaim - The Goldeti Hand - The lAtrines - The Maidan -

Convict Labor in Alexandrovsk - Servants - Workshops 53

VI Yegor's Story 68

VII The Lighthouse - Korsakovskoye - The Collection of Dr. P. I. Suprunenko - The Meteorological Station - The Climate of the Alexandrovsk Region - Novo-Mikhaylovka - Potemkin - Ex-executioner Tersky - Krasny Yar - Butakovo 75

VIII The Arkay Stream - Arkovsky Cordon - First, Second and Third Arkovo - The Arkovo Valley - The Western Bank Settlements, Mgachi, Tangi, Khoe, Trambaus, Viakhty and Vangi - The Tunnel - The Cable House - Due - Barracks for Families - The Dhc Prison - Coal Mines - Voyevodsk Prison - Prisoners in Balls and Chains 91