Reifield Chekhov Biography

On February, my gratitude is the hottest gratitude is addressed to Alevtina Pavlovna Kuzicheva - the help provided by her greatly facilitated my work in the manuscripts of the Russian National Library, and through it I met all the largest Czechvedos of Russia and Ukraine. I am also grateful to the employees of the RST, and especially the manuscripts department, who, despite the almost impossible working conditions in the destructive building and joyless prospects, were able to provide me with almost all the necessary material - for this assistance, I thank the employees and rgali.

I am grateful to the employee of the Moscow Museum of A. Chekhova Galina Shcheboleva and the employee of the A. Chekhov museum in Sumy Igor Skvortsov for the opportunity to widely use archives. I also feel like a special debtor in front of the Taganrozh residents Lisa cap and her husband Vladislav Protasov - for their hospitality and advice. Olga Makarova from the Publishing House of Voronezh University helped me, providing Chekhovsky local history material.

Of my western colleagues, I am primarily grateful for the support of the tireless professor Rolf Dieter Klyuga, organizer of the Chekhov conferences in Badenweiler in and GG. I also express my gratitude to Ufimtsa Dmitry Konovalov, not only for the opportunity to use the materials of the St. Andrew's sanatorium in Aksenov, but also for the warm welcome provided to me.

None of the colleagues I mentioned is responsible for the judgments I have expressed and the realized approach to the biography of Chekhov as a whole.

I am also grateful to the chief physician of the district hospital of the former Bogimov and the staff of the Andreevsky sanatorium. With the exception of Siberia, Sakhalin and Hong Kong, I visited, perhaps, all the places where the Chekhov’s leg went, and possibly caused a fairly concern to their inhabitants. I appreciate the patience shown in communication with me with descendants of Chekhov’s friends, and above all, Patris Bizhon.

A lot of people will breathe a sigh of relief, having learned that work on the book has been completed. For the illustrations provided, I thank the Moscow Theater Museum. I owe the financial support of the British Academy: thanks to the three -month grant provided to me, I was able to extend my creative vacation and significantly advance in the creation of the book. To my colleagues in the university, who were forced to put up with my frequent absences, I bring gratitude and apologies.

The postscript of G. Author and translator express the appreciation of S. Shinskaya, as well as to all readers who, having paid attention to the Russian text of the book, proposed a number of amendments we took into account in this publication. Pursuing this translation, we and Nadin Duburvy Nadine Dubourvieux and Agatha Peltero-Villenov Agathe Peltereau-Villeneuve carefully checked the English original with a Russian translation, checked all the names and dates for archival sources, and also turned on new and better deciphered materials.

Thanks to the bona fide and insightful study of the text, two translators in cooperation with the author has improved significantly. The new edition of G. I owe much to the archivists of the Belgrade Medical Faculty, the Zhupsky Museum of Local Lore and the St. Petersburg Historical Archive. I thank Anu Dollado from the “Nisiones raft” for amendments to the Spanish translation, which I am introducing to this Russian edition.

In recent years, several Russian publications have appeared that allow the reader to study archival materials at home. Among them I highlight: A. Alferiev and others. Materials for the biography of A. Taganrog, Gromova-Pulskaya, A. Kuzicheva and other ed. The annals of life and work A. Gushanskaya, I. Alexander and Anton Chekhov. Olga Knipper, M. Correspondence with Chekhov. " Part I we heard screams coming from the dining room ...

and guessed that it was the poor man Ernest. The path of all flesh Chapter 1 - years who could expect that such a genius would come out of the need! Anton was always surprised at how quickly - in just two generations - a family of Chekhovs from the serfs to the metropolitan intelligentsia rose. And hardly from his ancestors he inherited his literary gift, like brother Nikolai - artistic talents, and brother Alexander is multifaceted intelligence.

However, the beginning of his character - that which explains his tactful rigidity, his expressive lapliness, his stoicism, - the genes and in the resulting education are inherited. The great -grandfather of the writer, Mikhail Chekhov -, all his life was serf. He kept his five sons in severity - even adults they called him panels. The first Chekhov, about which a little more was known, was the second son of Mikhail - Anton’s grandfather from his father, Yegor Mikhailovich.

Grandfather Yegor managed to break out of the slave ties. The fortress count D. Chertkov, he was born in the year in the Sloboda of the Olkhovatka of the Bogucharsky district of the Voronezh province, in the very heart of Russia, halfway from Moscow to the Black Sea, where the forest goes into the steppe. The surname of the Chekhov in these parts can be traced until the sixteenth century.

He was the only one in the family who knew how to read and write.Yegor Mikhailovich cooked sugar from sugar beets, and scolded the cattle of Count Chertkov with a coil. By selling cattle in the market, he received his share of profit. For thirty years of hard work, he was sometimes lucky, and sometimes Egor Mikhailovich had to blame rubles. In the year, he offered this money to Chertkov, so that, having bought himself from serfs, his wife and his three sons, go to the philistine class.

Chertkov showed generosity - he released the daughter of Yegor Mikhailovich, Alexander. Parents and his brothers remained in the slaves. Having received freedom, Yegor Mikhailovich went with his family for more than four hundred miles to the south, to the steppe region. Here he began to control the estate of Count Platov in the settlement of a strong one, sixty miles north of Taganrog.

Having determined their sons in the apprentice, Yegor Mikhailovich helped them overcome another step of the estate ladder - to break into the merchants. The eldest of them, Mikhail r. Second, Paul r. The youngest son, Mitrofan, walked in the clerks at the merchant in Rostov-on-Don. The father of his father, the daughter of Alexander, was married to Vasily Kozhevnikov from the village of Tverdokhlibovo of the Bogucharsky district of the Voronezh province 1 2.

Yegor Mikhailovich Chekhov lived in the Platovsk estate all his century - he died eighty -one years old. He was known as an eccentric and was a cool temper. Having received power over the peasants, he treated them with cruelty, for which he earned the nickname of Aspid. However, he did not come to the court and the gentlemen - Countess Platov sent him away from herself, for ten miles, to the prince’s settlement.

Yegor Mikhailovich, who was relied on by the Barlian mansion, preferred to settle in a peasant hut. Babka Chekhova on the part of her father, Efrosinya Emelyanovna Shimko, with whom the grandchildren almost did not see, was a Ukrainian 3. Everything that Chekhov associated with the Ukrainian character was funnyness, singing gift, daring, cheerfulness - was knocked out of her by her husband.

She was gloomy and harsh, to match Yegor Mikhailovich, with whom she lived fifty -eight years, until her death in the year. Twice a year, Yegor Mikhailovich was detached to escort the barbagnice to Taganrog, and at the same time buy Proviant and various butt in the city. He was rumor about his quirks - from the Sarzheva Rob he built a front -line clothing in which he acted as a “mobile bronze statue”.

He poured his sons for any sins - if they had to steal apples or fall from the roof, albeit accidentally. After the paternal reprisal, Paul had a hernia, and all his life he had to wear a garter. Later, Chekhov admitted: “By nature, my character is sharp, I am hot -tempered and so on. Yegor Mikhailovich possessed a feather well, and his words reached us: "I deeply envied the bars, not only their freedom, but also that they can read." Leaving Olkhovatka, he took with him two boxes of books - hardly in the year this act was typical of a peasant.

However, 35 years later, grandchildren, who visited his grandfather on the estate of Platov, did not notice a single book in the house. Although Yegor Mikhailovich took care of the children, he was stingy with paternal love. However, on paper he fell into sentimentality and pompous verbosity. In his letter to his son and daughter -in -law we read: “My dear, quiet Pavel Egorovich.

I have no time, our dearest kids, through this dead paper, continue their conversation for my underwear. I am busy with the cleaning of bread, which was dried and fraught with solar fryers. Like the rest of the Chekhovs, Yegor Mikhailovich congratulated his relatives on the names and twelve holidays, however, in these cases he was short. Anton’s relatives on the maternal line were similar roots and originated from the Tambov province, which was not much different from the neighboring Voronezh regions.

Natural ingenuity and zeal, and here they paved the serf in a bourgeois. In the year, fifty -three years old, he bought himself and the son of Jacob from the annual scorch, which serfs paid to the owners. On July of July, Yakov married Alexander Ivanovna Kokhmakova. The wife’s family was wealthy and masterful - their beautiful wooden crafts and icon painting were in demand among the laity and the clergy.

However, the blood of the frost was spoiled: the grandchildren of Gerasim Morozov - uncle and aunt Anton - died of tuberculosis. Jacob Gerasimovich Morozov was smaller than that of Yegor Mikhailovich Chekhov - in the year, ruining, he found patronage with General Papkov in Taganrog; His wife Alexander with two daughters found in Shua. The son of Ivan was given to the employees to the merchant in Rostov-on-Don.

On August on August, a strong fire in Shua destroyed eighty -eight houses, and all the property of the Morozov died. Soon in Novocherkassk, Yakov Gerasimovich died of cholera. Alexandra Ivanovna, having folded a miserable belongings in the cart and putting her daughters Fenichka and Eugene there, went four hundred miles to Novocherkassk, making short stops in a deserted steppe.

Having reached the place, she could not find either her husband’s grave or his hits. And again she set off, moved to Taganrog and also gave herself to the mercy of General Papkov.