MELODRAMATIC SCENARIOS AND MODES OF MARGINALITY:

THE POETICS OF ANTON CHEKHOVS EARLY DRAMA AND OF

FIN-DE-SICLE RUSSIAN POPULAR DRAMA

by

Mila B. Shevchenko

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Slavic Languages and Literatures)
in The University of Michigan
2008

Doctoral Committee:
Associate Professor Michael Makin, Chair
Professor Bogdana Carpenter
Associate Professor Alina M. Clej
Associate Professor Herbert J. Eagle

Mila B. Shevchenko

All Rights Reserved

2008

DEDICATION

To my mother Stefanka,
my sister Maya,
and in loving memory of my father,
Boris Alekseevich Shevchenko.

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have been blessed with an incredible support system: my family, my teachers

and mentors, my fellow graduate students and colleagues, my friends. Every one of
them supported me and inspired me in his/her own unique way for which I am eternally
grateful and indebted.
I express my profound gratitude to my dissertation committee: Professor
Michael Makin, Professor Bogdana Carpenter, Professor Herbert Eagle, and Professor
Alina Clej. Michael Makin stepped in as my thesis advisor and chair at a crucial
moment of my graduate tenure. His patience, support, encouragement, and great ideas
were invaluable, but more importantly, he believed in me and my project and that was
the driving force behind my writing and my success in my debut on the job market.
Michael has one of the most generous and kind hearts I know. Herbert Eagle, with all
his busy schedule of a Department Chair, was more than generous with his time,
comments, insights, and encouragement. Professor Carpenter was that member of
committee who was with me from the very inception of my project. She has been my
female role model in academia. We share a passion for close reading and theater and
her course in Slavic Drama taught me a great deal about analysis of dramatic writing
and teaching drama. Alina Clejs course in Fin-de-Sicle: Representations of Women

iii

was my great inspiration in my choosing the topic of my dissertation. I was fascinated

by her style of teaching you do not see that often such ease, elegance and
sophistication all together.
My second round of applause goes to the institutions which supported me
throughout the years. My home Slavic Department was more than generous with all
kind of support: funding, logistics, encouragement. For my summer teaching, the
regular trips to conferences, the research trip to Russia and many, many more, I owe
thanks to the incredible help of the Department. I feel there at home and hope to stay
this way. Horace. H. Rachkam School of Graduate Studies and the Center for Russian
and East European Studies also supported immensely my research and my professional
development. The Center for the Education of Womens 2004-2005 CEW Margaret
Dow Towsley Scholarship was my main resource to fund my research trip to Moscow
thank you! Here is the place to extend my gratitude to Sheri Sytsema-Geiger, Amanda
Apostol, Sara Hallum, and Rachell Grubb for their time, attention and support.
A heartfelt thank you to all the amazing teachers and mentors in my life who
breathed in me the love and passion for teaching that became my calling. In particular,
I owe a debt of gratitude to my teachers, friends and colleagues from the National
Lyceum of Ancient Languages and Cultures, Sofia; Bulgaria, my professors from
University of Sofia, Bulgaria, and my professors in the Department of Slavic Language
sand Literatures, University of Michigan.
Let me reiterate that I have been blessed with the most incredible, generous,
loving and supportive friends. I was accepted to the program with other four fellow
gentlemen who challenged me, stimulated me, listen to me, comforted me: Brad,

iv

Christopher, Sergei and Vadim thank you! Christopher has been one of my first
readers and his attention, time, help and generosity were amazing. The same thing goes
to Brad without whom the last year would be unbearable in every possible way. He
helped and supported me intellectually, psychologically, logistically you name it!
Ewa, Rachel, Margarita, Kelly, Minjin, Annie, Elek, and Masha touched me in so
many ways thank you! Svitlana Rogovyk, Ewa Pasek and Sylvia Meloche in
countless ways and on numerous occasions were there for me: you helped, helped,
helped, and you listened! With Marina, well, where should I start with: you fed me,
took care of me, you challenged me, you supported me, you loved me and I love you
too thank you!
Snejana Tempest and Andreas Schnle (my first advisor and with whom this
journey started) were the professors who welcomed me to the department, who became
my mentors and friends. This is a privilege which I cherish dearly. Adelina and Galin
cheered for me in England and not for a moment allowed me to have any hesitations
about the final outcome. Their intellectual and academic insights were my guiding
light. Daniela and Ivan cheered for me from Sweden a 39-year friendship, I think it
says it all. Maia and Valeri (let he rest in peace) cheered for me in Bulgaria as Albena
did. Ani and Asen, Margaret (my best friend and my soul mate), her husband Liubomir
and their daughter Ivana (the daughter I never had) loved me unconditionally,
supported me immensely and never let me quit. My dear aunt Vesselina, my uncle
Liuben and my cousin Liudmila were a precious support and presence. My brother-inlaws, Nikolay, sense of humor and endless optimism navigated me through tough
times.

My mother taught me to love literature, arts and music. Her great passion for
Russian literature and culture was my major inspiration. She taught me love,
friendship, generosity, grace, and humbleness. My sister is my best friend, my first
reader, my alter ego, my everything. My late father, to whom I owe my Russian
language, my profession, my theatrical nature and whose last name I proudly hold,
taught to me never to quit and that honor and decency are the most important things in
life.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION...................................................................................................................ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.............................................................................................iii
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 1
CHAPTER
I. Forgotten Estates, Forgotten Virtues: The Familial Narratives of the Popular
Drama of the 1880s-1890s........................................................................................... 12
Melodrama of Adultery, Melodrama of Narcissism: Luka Antropovs
Wandering Lights ..................................................................................................... 14
The Idyllic Myopia of The Garden of Eden: Ippolit Shpazhinskiis
On a Forgotten Estate .............................................................................................. 28
The Quest for the Positive Hero: Piotr Boborykins Doctor Moshkov ........... 54
The Advent of the New People: Aleksandr Sumbatov-Iuzhins
The Arkazanovs ........................................................................................................ 63
II. Paradigms of Marginality in Chekhovs Early Drama ...................................... 76
Between Holy Foolishness and Jestership: Platonov....................................... 77
Katabasis and Misplacement as Poetic Stratagems: On the High Road........... 107
III. The Dialectics of Internal and External Space in Chekhovs Prose .............. 125
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................. 155
BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................... 159

vii

INTRODUCTION

It has long been a tradition in the scholarship of Russian drama to refer to the last
two decades of the nineteenth century as a theatrical interregnum. This term roughly
qualifies the period between Aleksandr Ostrovsky and Anton Chekhov. Unquestionably,
both playwrights are the ultimate expression of the dramaturgical genius of the time.
Nonetheless, during the period marked by Ostrovskys late works and Chekhovs
theatrical debut, the Russian stage continued to draw big and appreciative audiences.
Ostracized and stigmatized by theoreticians and critics, persistently typecast as artistic
pariahs (dramatic carpenters /dramodely), the popular playwrights of the 1880s and
1890s only recently attracted closer attention. The dramatic output of this period has been
discussed only in passing, predominantly as part of the general history of Russian drama.
Likewise, Chekhovs early oeuvre has been considered mainly as a stepping stone to his
major plays. This study offers a new reading of the early dramaturgical legacy of Anton
Chekhov in light of fin-de-sicle popular (also known as mass) drama, foregrounding
their treatment of social and cultural marginality. The dissertation also reconsiders the
popular drama as a valuable cultural phenomenon in itself. It analyzes Chekhovs work
and mass dramatists production in the context of the institutional and aesthetic changes
that took place in fin-de-sicle Russian drama and focuses on the ways melodrama serves
in their works as a vehicle for the discussion of socio-cultural marginality. Approaching

the material as a cultural representation of the intellectual and spiritual anxieties of

Russian society, I examine how the melodramatic mode facilitates the expression of
ideological crisis and psychological trauma.
The 1880s and 1890s are one of the most complex and controversial eras in the
Russian social and intellectual history. As a transitional period, they were marked by a
multiplicity of discrepancies in the socio-political and cultural domains. The severe
political suppression and the ideological vacuum that followed the assassination of
Alexander II in 1881 (this era was known as the period of timelessness/bezvremenie)
were taking place simultaneously with the countrys industrialization and modernization,
which generated social mobility and fluidity of cultural identity. The collapse of populist
ideology, the painful quest for common idea (obshchaia idea), the overall
disappointment and disorientation of society, coupled with repression and harsh
censorship (counter-reforms), justify to some extent the label of timelessness. On the
other hand, the abolition of the monopoly of the imperial theaters in 1882 resulted in the
rapid development of private entrepreneurship in the theater and the democratization of
the audience. These processes transformed the social and cultural profiles of the
audience, stimulated the enrichment of theatrical repertoire, and, last but not least, due to
the declining authority of the novel as a predominant literary genre, shifted the focus of
the literary scene. As a result, numerous private theatres emerged. They had to face the
challenges of the restrictions of the censorship and, at the same time, to hold the interest
of a much broader theatrical spectatorship, and to customize the topical dramatic
vocabulary and aesthetics according to the taste of the new spectatorship. Consequently,

the relationship between high and popular culture became more porous, which was
reflected in the emergence of melodramatic discourse as a major mode of representation.
The primary sources for this thesis consist of Chekhovs earliest full-length plays
and several prose works and a selected corpus of plays by the most popular, but now
little known dramatists writing concurrently with Chekhov: Luka Antropov, Ippolit
Shpazhinskii, Piotr Boborykin, and Aleksandr Sumbatov-Iuzhin. I consider the process
of self-reflection and self-identification by which the fin-de-sicle individual constructs
an identity somewhere between public and private, center and periphery, fictional and
real, high and low. I concentrate on the period of development of Russian theater, during
which playwrights continue to work within the traditional pattern of nineteenth-century
drama, while beginning to appropriate features of modernity and to create new poetics.
The study examines how the playtexts reflect a society in which social shifts
bring huge disruption into peoples attitudes and relationships. Special attention is paid
to the problems of identity and marginality within the discourse of Russian fin-desicle theatre. The shattering of a traditional hierarchy of values changes drastically the
boundaries of the previously established framework of individual and societal
behavior. I use the concept of marginality as a functional tool to scrutinize the process
of self-reflection and self-identification of the fin-de sicle individual as well as to
conceptualize fundamental shifts in social and cultural forms, such as the hesitation
between high and low, center and periphery, fictional and real, social and private. I
address the position and status of an individual within everyday praxis of the provincial
estate on the one hand, and that of urban life, on the other.

The last two decades of the 19th century witness a new wave of Hamletism in
Russian drama and offer a re-evaluation of the traditional concept of superfluous man
(lishnii chelovek), which dominates nineteenth-century Russian literature. The latter
term encompasses a socio-psychological type in Russian literature, whose main
features are alienation from society, intellectual and spiritual anxiety,
skepticism, and sense of historical guilt (G. Time). Traditionally, it is associated
predominately with the Russian gentry. The theatrical discourse of the 1880s and
1890s, though, introduces a broader social context in representing marginalization
within nobility, intelligentsia, commercial-industrial stratum, etc.
During the period in question the social and cultural implications of lishnii
chelovek are modified. While previously superfluity is interpreted as being nobilitys
key prerogative, the permanent state of hesitation, profound intellectual and spiritual
dissatisfaction, ineffectiveness, and reflection develop into a widespread tendency.
Furthermore, in terms of ideology, the literary process of the last two decades of the
nineteenth century reflects societys disillusionment in populism. Nevertheless, the
ideological vacuum of the post-narodnichestvo (post-populism) period creates a certain
nostalgia for the idealism of pre-reform rhetoric and the enthusiasm of the 1870s as
well. The gesture of the going to the people (khozhdenie v narod) movement and the
imperative of small deeds (malye dela) are still appealing and the dramaturgy of the
period incorporates these ideologemes. Various social groups (upper and middle class,
intelligentsia, entrepreneurs, etc.) display fascination with the aforesaid missions,
which operate exactly on the energy of, or, to be more precise, through the unconscious
inertia of the formulaic values of the previous epochs. Such ambiguity is reflected in

the manner of representation of the phenomena in question. It ranges from sheer

melodramatic expression to biting ironic modus.
While the literature of the first seventy years of the century exploits
superfluity mainly in terms of ideological and social category, fin-de-sicle theatrical
discourse emphasizes the psychological and aesthetic aspects of the phenomenon,
which explains the increasing vogue of the Hamletian theme. The inner conflict of a
character, his incapability of taking any action about anything whether his own life,
or the needs of his society1, develops into a virtually mandatory component of
numerous dramatic works. The interpretation of this now ubiquitous iconic figure
varies parallel to the way melodrama uses the clichd love triangle. Both idioms split
into multiple scenarios which examine paths of ideological, intellectual, or private
dilemmas.
The key questions in which Shakespeares Hamlet is entangled: identity crisis,
triggered by a world, which has been shattered, search for logical counteractions, and
the sense/sensibility conflict, are appropriated as a means of discussing any type of
psychological frustration or intellectual procrastination. Hamletism is evoked
whenever a character finds him/herf in a state of emotional disturbance or dilemmadriven situation. As R. Gilman puts it: Hamlet types are everywhere in nineteenthcentury Russian literature and the name kept popping up in dinner-party conversation,
without, however, anyone showing much understanding of Shakespeare prince, who

A. Smeliansky, Chekhov at the Moscow Art Theatre in The Cambridge Companion to Chekhov, ed.
by V Gotlieb and P. Allain, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) p. 39.

was seen mainly in his aspect of indecision, ineffectuality, and dour introspection, in
other words as the clichd Hamlet of conventional meaning.2
Thus the literature of the 1880s and 1890s and the popular drama, in particular,
approach its two emblematic conceptssuperfluous man and Hamletismwith, to
some extent, hesitant attitude. Both phenomena stand engraved in the literary and
cultural memory of the epoch, but they are now being used as a convenient, readymade device. Superfluity and inwardly conflicting human nature (M. Sokolyansky)
grow into a household name, which is abused considerably. At the same time, the
incorporation and interpretation of the aforesaid notions are not entirely derivative.
Mention also should be made of a newly emerged concept, which gains popularity over
the period. It is the category of izlomannye liudi (broken people)3 that comes into use
and begins to compete with the other two notions. In addition to them, this
psychological group now represents individuals who display discomfort, caused by the
chaotic state of society.
It is exactly the images of chaos, turmoil, vortex, and disruption that saturate
the dramatic texture of the period. The political reaction and economic stagnation
which follow the assassination of Alexander II intensify the sense of disorientation of
the Russian fin-de-sicle society. The changes within social space, patterns of public
behavior, organization of the family life, cultural affairs, etc., and reactions to their

Richard Gilman, Chekhovs Plays. An Opening into Eternity, (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1995) pp. 39-40. V. Gotlieb also considers Hamletism in Russian literature to be a
specifically russified version: This is not Shakespeares Hamlet, but the popular nineteenth-century
Russian idea of Hamlet [].V. Gotlieb, Chekhovs Comedy The Cambridge Companion to Chekhov,
ed by V Gotlieb and P. Allain, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)p. 234.
3
The term soon begins to share the fate of lishnii chelovek and Hamletian theme. Moreover, one of Vl.
Aleksandrovs long curtain raiser bears the same title: Izlomannye liudi (1893).

shifting borders lead to a revision of previously established dominant paradigms. The

sense of bewilderment becomes the dominant dramatic discourse and broken people
stand out as an allegory of a new generation which comes to the forefront of Russian
life and finds its self-expression in the multitude of dramatic production during this
time. Social decay of the gentry continues to be a productive source for the dramatic
plot and country estate is still the focal topos of the dramatic action. It is the range and
the quality of the changes they generate that differs.
As a result, fin-de-sicle drama concentrates on portraying individuals who
inherit certain attributes of the superfluous man from the first half of the century. The
key distinction between the aforesaid concept and that of the new generation of
personages lies in the fact that the class membership ceases to be the major factor,
which defines the limits of the category. The significance of the psychological
parameters is what matters most now. What could possibly have in common an
orphaned illegitimate girl raised on an estate as the princesss plaything, a crippled
wood-demon, a village schoolmaster, and, finally, a prince, returning to his estate in
search of different sights and sounds? All these characters are united either by their
difficulty or failure to adjust to the instability in their world and to respond to the
challenges it brings in.
The state of alienation from ones milieu and the sense of not belonging to any
other are the principal components of the dramatic tension and conflict within the
dramaturgy of the last two decades of the nineteenth century. When discussing the
major tendencies in this discourse, I utilize the concept of marginality. This notion has
been appropriated by different scholarly discourses. Sociology, the social branches of

philosophy and psychology, political theory, let alone cultural and gender studies
incorporate the term according to their specific strategies and concepts. Hence, the
application of marginality by these disciplines fluctuates. At the focal point of all of
these disciplines, though, are the relations between a person and a community or
between a particular group of people and the society as a whole, the analysis of the
numerous (and heterogeneous) manifestations and sources generating the tension
between them. Another principal aspect of the discourses in question is the balance
between

emblematic

oppositions,

such

as:

center/periphery,4

inside/outside,

presence/absence, etc. Whether defining the parameters of certain discourse of power

or developing the study of literary representation of a social/economic/cultural group,
the contemporary theoretical movements identify the marginal as a participating
subject. Whereas superfluous man and new Hamlet continue to linger as a
privileged discourse, the relation of izlomannye liudi to the prevailing paradigms is one
of connectedness but difference.
Fin-de- sicle European literature and art appropriate melodrama as a major mode
of representation. When experiencing, resisting and yet embracing modernity, Russian
culture also articulates fascination with the melodramatic expression, although the
reasons for this are genuinely Russian. As Louise McReynolds and Joan Neuberg point
out: Commercial culture in general and melodrama in particular remain a central, if
underappreciated, force in Russian society. As an alternative to the old intelligentsias
4

Deconstructive literary criticism, for example, within the context of reading practices, considers the
problem of the marginal in terms of the hierarchy of its constituents. As J. Culler specifies: This is an
identification of the exclusions on which hierarchies may depend and by which they might be disrupted
but it is also the beginning of an encounter with previous readings which, in separating a text into the
essential and marginal elements, have created for the text an identity that the text itself, through the
power of its marginal elements, can subvert (p. 215). For further discussion of this deconstructive
practice, see J. Culler, On Deconstruction. Theories and Criticism after Structuralism, (Ithaca, New
York: Cornell University Press, 1982) 206-22.

valorization of reason, propriety, and public and political commitment, melodrama

offered its audiences a world of feeling, sensation, and private moral dilemmas. [] The
Russian cult of the idea and a privileging of political thought and revolutionary ideology
have obscured the genuine diversity of Russian cultural production and consumption.
Just as boundaries separating classes had become more porous by the end of the
nineteenth century and social identity had become more complex, artists of the period
intentionally mixed genres that had previously been associated with specific classes. 5I
examine how Chekhovs dramatic and prose work and different subgenres of the
popular drama situate modern experience and how the incorporation of melodramatic
mode negotiate social shifts, ideological crisis, dramas of identity, psychological
traumas, collapse of family ties, etc.
This study concentrates on the period of development of Russian theater, during
which playwrights continue to work within the traditional pattern of nineteenth-century
drama, while beginning to appropriate features of modernity as a consequence of the
specific economic, social and political changes in the country and as a reflection of the
general development of the European society. Fin-de-sicle implies more than a period in
time: it is a paradigm that defines the configuration of the public scene in Europe. In
turn, stage melodrama was brought into Russia from the West, but was reshaped
according to the national, uniquely Russian concerns. The main genre under scrutiny in
the thesis is the familial drama as a meeting point of the three instrumental concepts of
the study: the modes of marginality as a cultural paradigm of modernity and the ways
they were articulated by the melodramatic form. The dissertation consists of three

Imitations of Life. Two Centuries of Melodrama in Russia, Eds. Louise McReynolds and Joan Neuberg,
(Duke University Press & London, 2002) 3-4.

chapters which analyze these concepts, respectively, within the context of the popular
drama of the late nineteenth century, Chekhovs early drama and Chekhovs prose of the
same period. The goal of each four parts of Chapter I is to highlight particular types of
popular dramas familial narratives (melodrama of adultery, revenge melodrama,
socio-psychological drama), the development of specific character types (necessary
woman the female equivalent of the superfluous man culturologeme and
superfluous man; broken people and new woman; new people and the new
positive hero.) These segments also explore the persistent themes and motifs that
accompany the dramatic narration, such as the modifications of the generation conflict,
the money-love and the sale-trade motifs. All of the abovementioned aspects of the
popular drama are examined against the backdrop of the idiosyncratic conventions of the
melodramatic mode (representations of villainy, victimization, innocence, and
martyrdom) through the prism of the spatial-ethical hierarchy.
Chapters II and III analyze Chekhovs earliest drama and a selected body of
prose works which bring into focus the spatial strategies which the writer employs in
his exploration of social and psychological marginality. With his dramas, I show how
the playwright, although employing one of the most conservative dramatic structures,
subverts and rearranges its constituents in such a way that the readily identifiable
moral teleology is frustrated. I analyze various paradigms of marginality as
manifested in the figures of the holy fool, the jester, the wood demon, and the
New Hamlet, and their appropriation within the Manichean configuration of the
melodramatic mode. Thus characters peripheral to the plot become central to the
dramatic conflict. The focal point of my analysis is the spatial devices which Chekhov

10

utilizes in his discussion of marginality: misplacement, katabasis, claustral space. The

interaction of dramatic and stage space, and that between on- and off-stage domains are
also given a special attention. Although the primary focus of the dissertation is the
dramatic writing, Chekhovs prose works discussed in Chapter III consider the
repertoire of tropes and devices which express the sense of disintegration and marginal
existence discussed in the previous chapters. The problem of space serves as a main
vehicle of meaning and the melodramatic mode permeates the narratives. Interior and
exterior spaces signify not only physical or geographical loci but also existential
conditions and crises. I discuss those texts in which spatiality functions as a central
trope of marginality and, respectively, those spatial strategies which were to crystallize
in his mature plays.

11

CHAPTER I

Forgotten Estates, Forgotten Virtues: The Familial Narratives

of the Popular Drama of the 1880s-1890s.
In the study of popular culture the concept of formula has proved to be
productive. Formula was proposed by John G. Cawelti6 in the late 1960s, just when
different branches of academia registered a growing fascination with this field of study.
In the mid-seventies, the idea was elaborated by Earl F. Bargainnier. Bargainnier7
adopted the term to the specific field of melodrama. Cawelti suggested his concept as a
tool to better approach popular art. The necessity for that, as the scholar explained, was
in the specific nature of the latter, namely its collectiveness: When we are studying
the fine arts, we are essentially interested in the unique achievement of the individual
artist, while in the case of popular culture, we are dealing with a product that is in some
sense collective.8 Cawelti juxtaposes high culture and popular culture and arrives
at the conclusion that methods of the analysis of their artistic product should be neither
universal, nor identical. Further, he singles out a cluster of four supplementary notions
which he considers to be fruitful in the studies of popular culture and cultural studies
(in particular in the examination of literary genres as detective stories, Westerns,
etc.): theme, medium, myth, and formula. For the purposes of our study, of immediate

John G. Cawelti, The Concept of Formula in the Study of Popular Literature, Journal of Popular
Culture, 3 (1969): pp. 381-90.
7
Earl F. Bargainnier, Melodrama as Formula, Journal of Popular Culture, 9 (1975): pp. 726-33.
8
Cawelti, Op. cit., p. 382.

12

interest are the elements of myth and formula analysis although the question of
medium could present a tempting point of research as well.9 Cawelti considers cultural
constructs to be a combination of two basic elements: conventions and inventions.
Conventions rely on the audiences previous familiarity with a certain set of themes,
motifs, plots, characters, imagery, tropes, etc. Inventions are elements which are
uniquely imagined by the creator. Depending on which element is prevalent, literary
works can also be regarded as cultural products which target a large and diverse
audience or creations whose addressee s knowledge and intellectual demands are more
selective. Further, Cawelti distinguishes formula and form as systems for structuring
cultural products. The scholar approaches formulaic and formal products not from the
point of view of their artistic and aesthetic merits. He is interested in the degree of the
conventionality and originality of their components and, more importantly, in the
methods the artists utilize tradition and novelty in order to achieve a new perception
of familiar elements. Works in which formula prevails are historically and culturally
more specific and, thus, limited. Cawelti concludes with the assertion that the first step
in the exploration of formula stories should be examination of their narrative structure
and, the seconda comparative analysis of different formulas and their
implementation by different cultures.
Bargainnier found Caweltis idea of formula a promising method for the
study of nineteenth century melodrama since the traditional approach has always lead
to its marginalization as a plebeian product of low culture. The scholar emphasizes the
fact that nineteenth century produced the first mass audience for the theatre, and the

What we mean here is the simple fact that within the studies of melodrama, especially over the last
decades, stage melodrama has been vastly ignored.

13

melodrama cannot be separated from that audience (p. 728).10 Respectively, the
principal form of dramatic writing became melodramatic. Further, Bargainnier very
briefly discerns the elements in the melodramatic formula and, correspondingly,
outlines the major types of nineteenth century English melodrama. In this chapter by
close reading of a selected set of plays which we find representative for the Russian
stage of the 1880s our intention is to determine the formula of its narrative and poetical
structure.

Melodrama of Adultery, Melodrama of Narcissism:

Luka Antropovs Wandering Lights
Wandering Lights (Bluzhdaiushchie ogni, 1873) belongs to a period that lies
beyond the time framework of the present study. The play, however, is an important
point of departure for the analysis of the mass dramaturgy since it shows signs of
obvious thematic and structural parallels with Chekhovs Platonov. Both plays, albeit
still entrenched in the rhetorical gestures and the stylistic repertoire of the seventies, at
the same time display certain features of transitional quality of the dramaturgical
aesthetics of the 1880s. Luka Antropov (1841(?)/43-1881) left a comparatively small
dramaturgical legacy. Among the literary circles he was known mainly for his
numerous articles on theatre and literature in Biblioteka dlia chteniia, Golos, Zaria,
Moskovskie vedomosti. In particular he discussed the works of I. Goncharov, I.
Turgenev, F. Dostoevskii. Piotr Boborykin, his fellow writer and dramatist, wrote in
10

Although Bargainniers primary object of study in the essay in question is nineteenth century English
drama, his observations, to a greater extent are applicable to the Russian scene of the time. For example,
parallels between the monopoly of Russian Imperial theaters and the status and function of the patent
houses in England can be easily drawn. Similarities are also obvious with regard to the status of the
playwright compared to that of the theatre manager, or to the problem of censorship.

14

his memoirs that Antropovs style was fresh and sophisticated and that he was very
devoted to the idea of the pure art.11
Unlike the rest of Antropovs dramatic oeuvre Wandering Lights enjoyed a very
long stage life. It was performed for more than forty years and was extremely popular
with the audience of the capitals and the province. In a letter to Mitrofan Shchepkin12,
Maria Ermolova13 expresses a great enthusiasm about her chance to play one of the
major female parts in the play I was completely and utterly happy!14 Vladimir
Kataev detected the shared properties of Antropovs and Chekhovs works.15 He
suggested that on account of the plays established reputation Chekhov most probably
had the opportunity to see Wandering Lights already in Taganrog and then in Moscow.
Kataev also calls attention to the presence of a quote from the play in Chekhovs Posle
benefisa (1885) which provides another evidence of how well-known Antropovs play
was.
Since Chekhov begins with Platonov16 and Kholmin, the central character of
Wandering Lights, prefigured the title character of Platonov, it seems reasonable first
to engage in registering the common elements in the aforementioned plays.17 We
assume that both dramatists elaborated on a motif which was often utilized by

11

Petr Boborykin.Za polveka. Vospominaniia. (Moscow: Zakharov, 2003), p. 373.

Mitrofan Shchepkin (1832-1908) was a distant relative of the famous Russian actor Mikhail
Shchepkin. He was a professor and a regular contributor to Russkie vedomosti and Russkaia letopis.
Shchepkin was a great supporter and admirer of Ermolova.
13
Maria Ermolova (1853-1928) was probably the most prominent actress the Russian stage has ever
known. Her career became the epitome of the best years of Maly Theater.
14
Maria Ermolova, Pisma. Iz literaturnogo naslediia. Vospominaniia sovremennikov. (Moscow:
Iskusstvo, 1955), p. 48.
15
Kataev, Literaturnye sviazi Chekhova. pp. 116-19
16
In this context by Chekhov Kataev implies Chekhovs drama. Kataev, Op. cit., p.114
17
We are fully aware that by opening the discussion of this play with a reference to a play which is yet
to be analyzed in the next chapter might create certain achronology. And yet, we are ready to take this
risk since one of our main tasks is to show that Chekhovs early drama emerged from the popular drama
of his time and that he borrowed many themes and strategies from his contemporary fellow playwrights.
12

15

Ostrovskii the motif of sale-trade (pokupko-prodazha) which, on his part,

had drawn on a traditional opposition employed by sentimentalism. The topicality of
this type of conflict is apparent from the fact that in his late works Ostrovsky continued
to use and develop the theme. The close proximity between Platonov (1878) and
Without a Dowry (1879) provides evidence that dramatists exploited the money-love
conflict as a point of departure in constructing dramatic collisions. Along these lines
the talks between Glagolyev and Vengerovich regarding Anna Voinitsev (Platonov)
and the real scene of negotiation between Vozhevatov and Knurov (Without a Dowry)
echo a crucial discussion in Antropovs play which we will discuss later on.
Wandering Lights is set in a dacha in the outskirts of Peterburg and recounts a
story of a highly intelligent, talented and attractive young man, Maksim (Maks)
Kholmin, who finds himself caught up in a moral dilemma similar to the one Chekhov
revises in the character of Platonov five years later. Kholmin is involved with a young
widow, Lidiia Mareva, who lives with her sister (Liolia). Mareva is also mistress of an
affluent entrepreneur, Dikovskii. Dikovskii does not have any illusions in regard to
Marevas real feelings: she needs him for financial support, whereas her real affection
is for Kholmin. Dikovskii, however, owes his wealth to his wife a rich heiress. He is
separated from her and keeps promising Mareva to marry her but soon he finds himself
on the verge of bankruptcy. In order to improve his finances as well as his social
prestige he decides to reunite with his wife. Yet, reluctant to lose Mareva, Dikovskii
comes up with the idea to talk Kholmin into marrying her. He suggests that everyone
would benefit from his business proposal: Mareva will get a husband and her
reputation in the eyes of the society will be restored, Kholmins path to wealth and

16

success will be clear, and Dikovskii will keep his status. After a short hesitation
(during which Liolia declares her love for Kholmin) Kholmin comes to a decision to
accept the offer but discovers that Lidiia intends to chase Liolia away. Kholmin
suddenly regains his sight and chooses to save her. He marries Liolia and five years
and three children later they live in poverty. Kholmin works as a journalist but hates
his job and regrets every major decision he made in the past. He does not recognize
anymore in his wife the pure, innocent girl who, as he hoped, would save his soul.
He is bored with simple and submissive Liolia and is unhappy with his whole life.
Meanwhile Lidiia enjoys great success as an opera diva. Kholmin is aware of her
success which makes him twice as intolerant towards Liolia. Dikovskii reappears with
his next proposition. He offers Kholmin a better job in his enterprise and passes along
Lidiias wish to bring Kholmin to her salon. Kholmin succumbs to the temptation and
stays home less and less often. Lidiia is torn between her long-lived desire for revenge
on Liolia and her feelings for Kholmin. Eventually she visits her sister and after a
heartbreaking scene she asks her sister for forgiveness for seducing Kholmin and for
depriving his children from their father. But the repentance comes too late. At Lidiias
namesake party Kholmin shoots himself.
If we consider the play from the point of view of its genre we might assert that
it possesses traits of domestic drama and of so called problem play as well, although
these dramatic forms are associated more with the Western drama of the period in
question than with the Russian drama. Russian theatre specialists prefer the category of
socio-psychological drama (sotsialno-psikhologicheskaia drama). Nonetheless,
dramatic playtexts like Wandering Lights began to show a shift in the playwrights

17

approach towards the major dramatic collision. In their persistent search for the
positive hero of the epoch, they went deeper into the inner universe of their characters
which led to the prevalence of the psychological and philosophical component of
dramatic texture. Personages like Kholmin paved the way for protagonists like
Platonov, Ivanov, Voinitskii, among many other examples, and, on the whole,
anticipated the advent of the new drama which culminated in Chekhovs plays.18 G.
Time19 emphasizes the fact that the new trends in dramatic writing both in terms of
themes and plots and with regard to poetics should be analyzed always alongside
the mass dramaturgy phenomenon which also demonstrated a keen interest in
psychological changes within the individuals, in dramatizing their inner conflict
instead of merely dramatizing events.20
Platonovs cynicism and arrogance are easily recognizable in Kholmins
general approach to what he calls vanity fair (zhiznenny bazar). Smart, articulate,
well-traveled, Kholmin has almost everything except for purpose and sense of
fulfillment. He hides behind a mask of arrogance and finds in Mareva a soul mate.
They recognize in each other an identical boredom with life, emotional emptiness, and
disappointment with themselves. Kholmin intellectualizes his infatuation with Lidiia in
the following way:
KHOLMIN: The devil has brought us together, as the saying goes. Sometimes, you
know, when I am bored, I reflect on our love and I came to the conclusion that we love
ourselves in each other. Nature cut us from the same cloth with a slight difference in
terms of ligature. You, like me, [] are capable of grasping every minute detail. I
admire your insatiable appetite for pleasures of life, your constant quest for new
things, for the unknown. I love in you the audacity which the crowd find irresistible. I
appreciate your skill at staking everything not because you like winning but because
18

Tolstoys late dramaturgy (The Power of Darkness [Vlast tmy], 1886, in particular) is also considered
to be part of Russian new drama.
19
G. Time, U istokov novoi dramaturgii v Rossii (1880 1890-e gody), (Leningrad: Nauka, 1991). p.9.
20
Ibid., p. 23.

18

you thrive on anticipationBesides, long time ago my artistic instinct had discerned in
you a divine sparkle, a great talent. With this amazing voice of yours, only God knows
why you are still stuck in this swamp rather than swimming in the vast sea of art. []
You would grow; you would experience the genuine delight of inspiration! ... And, just
think, what it would mean in terms of your predatory instincts! []
LIDIIA: Oh, you devil! How broken21 your soul is! You are so confused that you
cannot tell the difference between truth and untruth. You like to go deep into peoples
souls and to torture them. You play with people as if you play with toys!
(pp. 7-8)22

Kholmins and Marevas dynamics reverberate in the Platonov-Anna relationship.

They are equally narcissistic and, without admitting it, to the same degree vulnerable.
Bright and giftedMareva in performing arts, Kholmin in writing they nevertheless
fall victims to their insecurities. As we will see further, in Platonov Chekhov breaks up
Lidiias persona between the characters of Anna and Sophia. Annas financial
uncertainty, the burden of being responsible for her stepsons family, and the problem
of the mortgaged estate23 can be recognized in Marevas complicated situation. She has
not only to support herself but also to take care of her sister who does not have any
skills or talents but her innocence. Both Anna and Lidiia possess femme fatale
qualities. They challenge the men they love with their unconventionality and audacity;
they attract them with their disarming frankness. Mareva appreciates Kholmins caustic
verbal dexterity and sober view of human existence. On the other hand, she gets
annoyed with his proclivity to histrionics since this is where their general approach
toward handling life situations differs. Whereas Kholmin indulges in self-abnegation
camouflaged with exaggerated theatricality, Lidiia chooses to channel her creative
21

The adjective broken becomes used on a regular basis in popular drama. Having been turned into a
constant epithet, (most frequently in combination with words like soul, man, people) the
collocation into which the adjective enters begins to epitomize a whole generation of people who
inherited a lot from the superfluous men of the first half of the century but with an additional, new
meaning.
22
All quotations are from Luka K. Antropov, Bluzhdaiushchie ogni (Sankt Peterburg: Litofgrafskoe
izdanie, 1878). Translation is mine.
23
Mareva expects to face the same problem because Dikovskii rents the dacha she calls her home but
with Dikovskiis decision to return to his wife that would mean that Mareva would loose the house.

19

talent into a career on the real stage. Thus the plot line shifts the center of the real
dramatic clash. Kholmins incapability of taking responsibility for the choices he
makes in the spur of a moment and to cope with their consequences creates an inner
conflict which he self-dramatizes. Thus the development of the characters of Mareva
and Kholmin results in a narrative based on the opposition between theatricality and
metatheatricality24. Kholmins demeanor displays reversed mimesis which Gary S.
Morson considers to be a major attribute of the Chekhovs characters:
[Chekhovs] plays center on histrionic people who imitate theatrical performances and
model themselves on other melodrama genres. They posture, seek grand romance,
imagine that a tragic fatalism governs their lives, and indulge in utopian dreams while
they neglect the ordinary virtues and ignore the daily processes that truly sustain
25
them.

The difference between Platonov and Kholmin is that Antropovs protagonist does not
fail to recognize the ordinary virtues. In contrast, he finds them in Liolia. His drama
begins when his expectations are not realized. They fail since, on the one hand, he sees
his actions as an altruistic gesture, and, on the other hand, because he builds his
decision on the egotistical premise that by rescuing Liolia he would rescue
himself:
KHOLMIN [to Liolia]: I was young my whole life was ahead of me secure,
convenientI had faith, I loved the whole world in the person of a woman who, as I
used to think, was waiting for me in order to give me unknown happiness. In a state of
such blissful self-oblivion I came back home.26 [] For a long time I had stood on the
threshold of real life and reluctantly crossed itI havent found my lady [] I have
loved no one and I love no one. And this is my curse. [] You listen and you hear. I
am not ashamed to be myself with you. In your presence my jesters armor fall off and
I am not afraid to stand in front of you with open heart. I, my child, was born in
24

In Platonov one of the metatheatrical devices used by the dramatists is Sergei Voynitsevs intention to
stage Hamlet and his contemplation on assigning of the main roles. Details like this function as ironic
indicators of characters penchant for self-dramatization. In Wandering Lights the most illustrative
instance of implementation metatheatricality is the moment when Kholmin arrives at the decision to
accept Dikovskiis offer: What is the point in playing Hamlet: to be or not to be? Positively to be
(p.25).
25
Gary S. Morson. Uncle Vanya as Prosaic Metadrama in Reading Chekhov Texts. Ed Robert Louis
Jackson, (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1993) p. 214
26
Here Kholmin refers to a trip to Switzerland.

20

Arcadia. I didnt expect with what life had greeted me. I didnt prepare myself to what
was required from me []. Teach me, Liolia how to live my life.
p. 14

In other words, Kholmins endeavors fall into the paradigm of search for the
necessary woman but Liolia does not succeed in developing into such a heroine. The
latter term I borrow from Jehanne M Gheith who coined the idiom in order to give an
approximate female equivalent of the superfluous man culturologeme.27 Although the
scholar specifies that she applies the term provisionally, we think that it fits perfectly
the context of the nineteenth-century literary development and serves its task very well.
As flexible and historically specific as its male counterpart is, the term encompasses
several groups of characteristics. First and foremost, the very adjective which enters the
collocation necessary points instantly to the major difference between the two
emblematic types. Whereas the superfluous mans most distinctive features are his
social isolation (be it social or psychological) and sense of rejection on the part of
society, the necessary woman stands out with her strong awareness of involvement.
Needless to say, the nature of engagement is predictably different in light of the
womens position in society. Yet heroines psychological strength, capability of loving
and commitment to serve and protect her beloved are remarkable. Compared to the
constant vacillations and ineffectualness of the male protagonist her devotion and
passion compensate for the inevitable limited range of her social activity. Since the
female-protagonists only domain of realization is the domestic sphere, the institutions
of marriage and motherhood become her primary avenues of activity.
The necessary woman is actually either depicted through the heros eyes or is seen
as important insofar as she affects him. She was created as a counterpart to the
superfluous man, both as his ideal (she embodies the values to which he aspires), and
27

Jehanne M Gheith, The Superfluous Man and the Necessary Woman: A Re-Vision, in Russian
Review, Vol. 55, No. 2. (Apr., 1996), pp. 226-44.

21

as the measure of his superfluity (it is when she asks him to make a decision, usually
to marry her, that she must face the fact that she is incapable of action). His drama is
central; his failure necessitates her failure (in the sense that she is unable to save him,
to join him in marriage).28

Kholmin becomes the center of his own dramatic universe and unlike characters like
Platonov whose representativeness is brought up by other dramatis personae, Kholmin
claims such a quality on his own he refers to himself as to the hero of today. With
all her admiration, Mareva finds Kholmins playing roles distasteful. Moreover, she is
convinced that the protagonists passion for histrionics is the reason for his blurred
perception of reality. Even Kholmins infatuation with Lidiia compares to the way
artists work with their models: they put them in various positions and try different
angles until the model finally assumes the desired position and impression.
Consequently, the inner conflict (that of the main protagonist) and the external conflict
(the creative development of Kholmin and Mareva) reveal an intriguing dynamics that
rests on a key gendered opposition: poser (lomaka) / model (naturshchitsa). In his
social interactions, Kholmin thrives not only on his own continuous reincarnations but
also on his efforts to mold the self-/ perception of others according to his own one. The
protagonist characterizes the lifestyle pattern of his milieu as a fancy dress orgy
(kostiumirovannia orgiia) which, as he asserts, justifies his own masquerade. Hence
in Liolia Kholmin discovers an entirely different world. He does not fall in love with
her but he is intrigued by her just in the way he manifests curiosity about any sensation
he has not experienced. Kholmin follows a portentous existential religion which he
vests with epicurean maxims. Here again analogy with Platonov is instantly
recognizable. Platonov summarizes his philosophy in the sententious de omnibus aut

28

Gheith, Op. cit., p. 232

22

nihil, aut veritas, Kholmins equivalent can be traced in his very own first name
Maksim. However, whereas Platonov at the end of his life proclaims his
disillusionment with himself and displays public remorse for the harm he has done, in
the same situation, Kholmin expresses regret for the damage he has inflicted only on
himself:
KHOLMIN [to Lidiia]: Why do you despise me? What wrong have I done? All my
crimes are only mistakes. My life weighs on my conscience. There is only one person
before whom I am deeply guilty and that person is me!
p. 55

Platonovs statement Platonov is wrong with me emphasizes his act of

repentance and his readiness to take responsibility for his actions. Kholmins final
speech in Lidiias salon is an affirmation of a hedonistic credo that ends in itself hidden
under a layer of ostentatious verbiage:
KHOLMIN: We all worship one and the same cult. Some time ago I myself prayed to
the same deities. But I betrayed them and that is why I have to leave. Keep sacred my
bequest; do not renounce your fathers faith. Remember that pleasure is the only
purpose in life and there should be no other. Idleness is a great thing in which we all
indulge, in one way or another, but it wears people out very fast. Do not stay very long
at one place; change everything possible to change wine, women, convictions. Get
rid of your feelings, kill ideas. Be afraid of thinking. There is nothing more harmful
than thinking. Once I pondered over something and because of that I have to leave.
Learn to despise yourselves That would be the price youll pay in order to despise
the whole world and youll become free like Gods.
pp. 55-60

Analyzing Wandering Lights with regular references to Platonov is justifiable

and useful not only because the plays follow comparable plot lines, share, to a certain
degree, similar characters, and dramatize analogous situations. What is of more
significant value is our conviction that the narrative structure of the plays reveals
similar, albeit not identical, features. For this task we find fruitful Stepanovs study of
psychology of melodrama.29 The scholar concentrates on a particular sub-genre of

29

Andrei D. Stepanov, Psikhologiia melodramy in Drama i teatr. Sbornik nauchnykh trudov. (Tver:
Izdatelstvo Tverskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 2001), pp. 38-56.

23

familial melodrama which he labels as melodrama of adultery. It should be pointed

out that there is a certain terminological inconsistency in the past as well as in the
recent scholarship dedicated to the Russian mass dramaturgy. Balukhaty, for example,
places most of the plays written over the period in question under everyday life
melodrama (bytovaia melodrama)30. But his classification belongs to a time when
melodrama was examined only in terms of a genre. Stepanov approaches melodrama as
a complex (transhistorical, transgenre, deep-seated in human psyche)
phenomenon and, following Igor Smirnov, discusses the text of everyday life
melodrama as a text-symptom, that is, using this type of drama as a general pattern
and principle when analyzing other forms of popular drama. As a fundamental theme
of melodrama of adultery Stepanov indicates the destruction of a family. As with the
victims support group and the villains support group which he uses in his
examination of the characters system in melodrama in general, in his study of this
particular form, he introduces another functional dichotomy. Basically, Stepanov
reduces main characters to two major categories: the person who leaves the family and
the one, who is left behind. The former actively pursues his freedom; the latter stays in
an emotional agony and gives her/himself up to suffering. In the cases in which the
abandoner goes through a painful hesitation and qualms of conscience, this character
pushes the development of the plot and becomes the carrier of the main suffering. If the
plot has at its disposal the character of the seducer/seductress (which is the most
common exploited situation) then the abandoned spouse becomes the focal point of the
dramatic narrative since she/he maintains the suffering and hence the line of
victimization. Stepanov selects this particular sub-category of familial drama as a
30

Balukhaty, Voprosy poetiki (Leningrad: Izdatelsstvo Leningradskogo universiteta, 1990), pp. 30-80

24

paradigmatic form of melodrama because the adultery melodrama comprises all

structural constituents representative for the melodramatic narrative: dysfunctionality,
antithesis, and continuous pathos, accompanied by hyperbolic emotionalism. On the
other hand, the disintegration of the family presents a quintessentially modern problem
and melodrama of adultery dramatizes exactly that. Brooks finds the familial
structure to be one of the most exploited patterns by melodrama. Martha Vicinus also
underlines the artistic resourcefulness and productivity of the form:
The topical circumstances and realistic settings of melodrama successfully housed
archetypal conflicts and reassurances. Domestic melodrama was a means for both
minor and major authors to address themselves to the most powerful fantasies of the
times. No other form could express so powerfully familial and social hopes and fears.31

The act of leaving a family the escape is undoubtedly the center of

melodrama of adultery. Stepanov interprets this archetypal motif in Lotmans
fashion a character chooses to leave because the current marriage is eventless and
without an alternative: Melodramatic thinking, similar to mythical thinking is
personified and thus the moment of choice cannot occur prior to the appearance of the
tempter/temptress [who is always presented through contrast, being an epitome of
what the character does not have in his previous life].32 Kholmins reconnecting with
Mareva is, as a matter of fact, not his first adulterous act. Lidiia interprets his marriage
to Liolia as an act of betrayal and her life after that shows clear signs of a firm
determination to take revenge on the cheaters: Kholmin and Liolia. As it has been
previously mentioned, Kholmins first escape is provoked by the protagonists (albeit
reluctant) realization that his social behavior is not much different from that of the
people he harshly criticizes. In Kholmins eyes societys cynical decorum is the reason
31

Martha Vicinus, Helpless and Unfriended: Nineteenth-Century Domestic Melodrama in New

Literary History, Vol. 13. No 1. (Autumn, 1991) p. 141
32
Stepanov, Psikhologiia melodramy, p. 42

25

for his incapability of living the life he longs for. He compares societal conventions to
public houses which demand and guarantee anonymity and this specific rule serves as
a justification of his own masquerade:
KHOLMIN: Life is boring And what is even stranger is that nobody is bored like
people who have a good time. Yes, this is an unbearable cross! Yes, damn it, it is
wrong to live like that. Wasting ones lifeWhat a time we live in you cannot live,
nor dieAnd I begin dying: not me, but something inside me is already rotting and
reeks of decay I dont like myself anymore. Poser, she said. Well, am I supposed
to be the only person not wearing a mask at this fancy dressed orgy? [] There are
certain establishments where it is not appropriate to ask the visitors about their
names, so I also hide my identity within our society. 33But I am so sick and tired of all
this! I am so sick and tired of myself. It is wrong to live like that.
pp. 10-11

In melodrama good and virtue have to stumble upon and overcome two major
threatening forces: a villainous figure or a hostile society as a collective image.
Wandering Lights illustrates cooperation of both forces. In the construction of the
plot Dikovskiis interference and machinations play a crucial role. Dikovskiis
character collaborates with Marevas line. Additionally, the development of the heroine
also bears traits of a character that cannot be easily branded merely as villainous or as
that of a mere temptress. Lidiia exemplifies what a number of scholars consider as one
of the signature marks of melodramatic characters reversibility. With Mareva that
would be her more-than-one- transitions from love into vengeance and back. While
loosely utilizing the skeleton of melodrama of adultery Antropov intertwines a major
theme that gained popularity in the decades ahead: the development of new
socioeconomic reality brought by the rise of capitalism. Dikovskii represents the new
power, the new master, and his conversation with Kholmin, during which he puts
forward his suggestion about Kholmins marrying Mareva, illustrates the aspects of the
new moral protocol:

33

Emphasis mine.

26

DIKOVSKII: [Your marriage to Lidiia Grigorevna] is going to be a decisive step for

you. It will make both of us stronger and will bring our interests together. You will get
yourself a smart, energetic wife who will be useful for both of us. She will open for
you the road to wealth. And wealth becomes you like no one else. [] The
contentment of the rich and the covetousness of the pauper these are the two forces
of nature that created everything that existed, exists and will exist. [] Money is
everything. It is the material of which is made everything that is considered to be good
and sublime in this worldThere is no other God but money.
KHOLMIN: And you are his prophet?
DIKOVSKII: Yes, I am. Is it really that difficult to choose between the bright road to
wealth, success and poverty with its sour virtues?34 You should adopt a much
simpler approachconsider the problem as if it is an enterprise, a deal. If you dont
make up your mind right away, you will never come up with a decision.
pp. 20-21

Dikovskiis philosophy and his dramatic function evoke strong parallels with
Ostrovskiis late dramaturgy signature motif the invasion of the modern
European market cynicism.35 On the other hand, the hero supports his argument by
prompting that Kholmins marriage to Lidiia would reestablish her reputation in the
eyes of society and in her own eyes. He does this with a cynical twist, mocking a
populist gesture of rescuing fallen women: From you liberal viewpoint it would be
very noble to land a helping hand to a lost woman, to show her the right path Would
you say it isnt so? Your act [] would be little short of a heroic deed (p. 22)
Whereas Dikovskiis first attempt at orchestrating Kholmins life fails, his
second one succeeds. The real reason behind Kholmins leaving his family, however, is
neither Dikovskiis Mephistophelean plotting, nor Marevas power over Kholmin.
Although he admits the challenge of the sensual temptations in the fashion of Goethes
famous character, the protagonist reveals a more powerful drive:
KHOLMIN: [to Mareva] You made me recollect all of those things I thought I had
forgotten and buried forever in my memory; you awoke in me the old Adam, whom I
renounced a long time ago. You gave me back my previous life. [] I love you
because you are you, I love myself in you, but not the way I am now, crushed, but my
34

As will see further, sour virtues (kislye dobrodeteli) re-appear as already an idiomatic expression in
On a Forgotten Estate.
35
Iulia Babicheva, Ostrovskii v predverii novoi dramy, in A. N .Ostrovskii, A. P. Chekhov i
literaturny process XIX-XX vv. (Moscow: Intrada, 2003) p. 179

27

previous self: reckless, licentious, and yet full of bold hopes and valor. All of this, as
preposterous and senseless as it seems, it is such a free and exciting life that I love in
you! I have never loved anyone as I have loved you!
p. 42

In reality, Kholmins rekindled passion for Mareva voices the heros revived hope of
reconnecting with his own genuine self. However Kholmins last quest for identity
arrives at nowhere but at the initial point of departure: There is only one person before
whom I am deeply guilty and that person is me! In Kholmins existential pilgrimage
all roads end where they begin. Unlike personages, who are driven by a search for
new faces, Kholmins narcissistic motivation can create only one possible image
the reflection in the mirror.

The Idyllic Myopia of The Garden of Eden: Ippolit Shpazhinskiis On a

Forgotten Estate
Ippolit Shpazhinskii (1848-1917) was probably the most prolific and the most
notorious Russian dramatist of the last quarter of the 19th century. Along with Viktor
Krylov36 (1838-1906), who himself also established a rather infamous reputation
among the theatrical circles, Shpazhinskii had the talent to write for the stage as fast
as the supply system, that demanded the theatrical repertoire of the time, requested.
They also enjoyed the similar, albeit quite ambiguous, celebrity status of being
dramodely (dramatic carpenters). The dramatists earned this less than flattering
label due to their enormous productivity37. Yet, the amount of their output was not the
main issue. Shpazhinskii and Krylov mastered the art of dramaturgical recycling.
Both playwrights knew theatre enterprise inside and out and once having established
their own successful formula they continued reproducing clich-ridden plots, identical
36
37

Krylov published also under the pseudonym Victor Aleksandrov.

Krylov wrote yearly no less than three-four plays.

28

conflicts and predictable situations. Whereas in his early works, Krylov strived to
camouflage the mediocrity of his writing with the heightened topicality of the
progressive ideas of the 1870s, in his mature plays he strived to compensate for the
quotidian dramaturgical value with vaudevillian exuberance which became known as
krylovshchina, a synonym of bad taste and an epitome of hack-work. If Krylovs
celebrated presentism reigned over the Russian stage for more than good thirty years,
so did Shpazhinskiis flamboyant theatricality. Shpazhinskii was the master of
extravagance and dazzling effects. He was fascinated with the striking contrasts of
melodramatic form. The playwright explored its numerous manifestations by
populating his dramatic universe with evil forces and hapless innocence, whose clash
and consequent resolution would have fit much more successfully into a gothic miseen-scene, than into a Russian play.
Although Shpazhinskiis popularity rested mainly on his propensity for
spectacle and shock, for the purposes of this study we have selected a play that stands
somewhat apart from the dramatists familiar dramaturgical pattern. On a Forgotten
Estate (V zabytoi usadbe, 1880) has been very rarely discussed by critics and if so, it
has been done in order to provide another example of a dramatic work that drew
heavily on the heritage of the big figures of Russian classics. The plays intriguing and
unexpected feature that calls attention to it is Shpazhinskiis work with structure.
Another characteristic of the play is the way the dramatist organizes the elements of
melodramatic form and how he recasts the master narrative of superfluity.
Respectively, we will analyze the prominence of the plays ring structure, its title, the

29

acts loci; the interpretation of the principles of contrast and dynamics38, and, last
but not least, the importance of the various hypostases of marginality in the play.
Shpazhinskii builds the plotting on a triad of unrealized love, thwarted intrigue,
and averted tragedy. All of these three components are familiar melodramatic
techniques but the first one deserves special attention. It rests on several love triangles
whose presence is almost reminiscent of Chekhovs deployment of intertwined
mismatched or unrequited love stories in his early as well as in his mature dramaturgy.
One might say that Shpazhinskii gives almost a sentimentalized treatment of the central
relationship. In a quest for different sounds, Prince Krasavin, the plays main
protagonist, returns to his provincial estate from the glitter of the capitals salons, away
from the crowd, far from the railroad. He falls in love with Tania, a girl from the
village, an orphan, raised and educated by his late mother. The plot disentanglement
follows a predictable melodramatic situation: the relationship between Krasavin and
Tania is doomed and its failure is conditioned on several reasons. The obvious one
would be the class gap between them, although the social inequality does not play the
key role in the play. Rather it is a cluster of other devices characteristic for the
melodramatic form that maintains the plots rising action: the principle of contrast and
the principle of dynamics. The plays compelling quality is the way the playwright
interweaves the rhetoric of modality with the rhetoric of ideology: namely how he
subjects the political topicality of the early 1880s to the melodramatic mode. The
prince and the orphan occupy opposite sides of the social ladder. Such a contrast,
however, does not take a principal place within the internal hierarchy of conflicts in the

38

These formulations belong to Sergei Balukhaty. See, Sergei Balukhaty, Poetika melodramy in
Voprosy poetiki. (Leningrad: Izdatelstvo Leningradskogo universiteta, 1990)

30

play. The obstacles the couple is fated to stumble upon are embedded, on the one hand,
in the young girls roots, and, on the other, in the hands of evil machinator, Glafira, the
major villainous character. The contrast between goodness and evil assumes here a
major role and the social implications of the Krasavin-Tania inequality are a
circumstance of secondary importance. The clash of moral values the principal
conflict of the play is somewhat overshadowed by an exterior layer of motifs close
to the mythic and folklore tradition, and this layer exactly will serve for us as a point of
departure in the plays analysis.
The mythic and folkloric references are introduced in the opening act which is
situated in a forest. As previously mentioned, the function of the structural framework
is central since it brings together the two key themes of the drama: the ideological void
in the years of timelessness and the forgotten virtues of the national character. The
composition follows a topographical39 pattern: the first act takes place in a forest, the
second act moves to the great hall of Krasavins estate, the third one goes out to the
garden, the fourth act shifts to another part of the garden, and finally, the last act
concludes yet again in the forest. Such a topography/ topology not only naturally
accompanies the formal intrigue, but also highlights the connotation of the sites in
question as cultural loci. The forest encompasses the entanglement and the resolution,
the great hall takes in the rising action, the garden houses the climax, and a different
area of the garden dramatizes the falling action. Thus Shpazhinskii establishes
congruence between the plots progression and the interior and exterior locales which
accommodate the respective formal divisions of the playtext. Basically, the dramatic
intrigue unfolds against the backdrop of three main topoi: the forest, the manor and the
39

The adjective topological might be a more precise term.

31

garden. As we will establish, these topoi designate clearly delineated sites of sociocultural entities which, on their part, can be reduced to the domain of the estate and the
domain of the village, respectivelythe world of the landowning nobility and the
world of the peasants. The garden functions as a bridge between the two worlds, as a
mediator between their main representatives Krasavin and Tania. The events that
occur in the garden coincide with the midpoint of the play which is why this locus is
not only central from the compositional point of view. More importantly, the dramatist
splits the garden in two separate sections and spreads out the episodes that take place
there over two consecutive acts as if probing two possible scenarios: Krasavin-Tanias
blossoming romance as a social experiment with some traces of the expressive quality
of Karamzins Poor Lisa and then, in a typical melodramatic fashion, a stock situation
as is the intrigue of a vicious character, namely Glafiras fateful intervention. But
before we delve into the estates and gardens narratives let us return to the forest and
the connotations it suggests.
The plays spatial configuration is a crucial poetical device which reflects
disparate internal and external loci. And yet these sites: the forest, the manor, and the
garden, allude to encasement and protection. Forest is that space that in reality and on
allegorical level suggests additional, one might say oxymoronic connotations. The
folklore tradition provides us with multitude of narratives which represent forest as the
realm of wild animals, dangerous creatures and supernatural powers. The forest usually
symbolizes the unknown and, similarly to the katabatic journey, entrance into such a
space is charged with peril and unpredictability. The forest in On a Forgotten Estate
comprises both major attributes of the topos it demarcates the characters that are

32

treated as marginal in Krasavino and on the estate, and simultaneously it is a space of

protection. The forest is Kasians home. His physique intimidates peasants due to their
ignorance and superstitions: Kasian is a hunchbacked, crippled forester who once was
the estates most skilled blacksmith. Now he is known as Crook or the wood demon
and these nicknames are not evoked simply by the folks meanness. Kasian is different
and his otherness is in his independent spirit, fearlessness and, most of all, in his openmindedness. Villagers do not remember that once he used to teach peasants children to
read and this is one of the reasons for his friendship with Golorubov, the village
schoolmaster. What distinguishes Kasian is his autonomous existence. His status in the
hierarchy of the estate and the village is ambiguous. In the past, as a house servant
Kasian was admired for his dexterity and he is also respected for his fair judgment and
wisdom. The peasants envy and superstitions, however, endow him with mystical
power: Whatever he forges with his hammer, it is always a bad omen, it bodes nothing
good. (p. 151). Thus the villagers interpret Kasians bad premonition before the
tragedy strikes Tanias parents as witchcraft and soon after the disaster they chase him
away from the estate to the forest. They hunted me down like a wild wolf, he tells
Golorubov later. Kasian and Golorubov share passion not only for knowledge. They
love children and they connect with them through reading and nature. It is the forest
where we meet Golorubov for the first time when he brings his pupils for mushroom
hunting and it will be the forest again where in the final act the teacher and the students
will hectically search for Tania.
In the same way as Kasian fits neither in the village nor on the estate,
Golorubov bears the marks of marginal existence. His overwhelming virtuousness and

33

militant straightforwardness will later echo in Chekhovs characters like Khrushchov

(The Wood Demon) and Astrov (Uncle Vania) or Sumbatov-Iuzhins Grubelnikov
(Listia shelestiat [ The Rustle of Leaves]), to name only a handful of heroes. Golorubov
could be a member of the lesser, landless nobility, but most probably he belongs to the
class of raznochitsy (people of various ranks)40. Plausible evidence of Golorubovs
identity is his last name. In On Forgotten Estate Shpazhinskii takes full advantage of a
long-standing Russian theatrical tradition of using speaking names.41 Thus, for
instance, the schoolmasters last name reveals his financial and social status, Tanias
proper name resounds of Pushkins Tatiana and the virtues of her heroine; the princes
character, in accordance with his last name, Krasavin, points to the importance of his
aestheticized gestures. There are two more speaking names which, as prompted by
Stepanov, deserve our attention. With regard to ethical subtext Kasian is less
evocative (albeit stylistically a peasant) name. But such neutralization is compensated
by his nicknames (Crook and wood demon.) Glafira, as is the case with Kasian, is
an ordinary peasant female name but compared to Tanias name it becomes clear that
Shpazhinskii from the outset aimed at drawing a distinction between the heroines since,

40

For more on the category of raznochintsy, see, for example, Elise Kimerling Wirtschafter, Social
Identity in Imperial Russia (DeKalb: Northern Illinois UP, 1997), chapter 3 Middle Groups.
41
Andrei Stepanov emphasizes the value of the names in stage melodrama of the period. He contends
that names semantics forms a system whish falls into two main categories of svoi (insider) and
chuzhoi (outsider, stranger) which, further, can be distributed under several rubrics in order to affiliate
characters with particular national identity, social status, class belonging, moral standing, personal traits
of character, etc. In other words, villainy and virtuousness might become apparent with the very
announcement of a heros/heroines name or last name. Each name [s connotation] is finalized when
contrasted with the name of the antagonist, who establishes the thematic opposition of a play,
Stepanov elaborates, and among the examples he provides is the opposition Golorubov-Krasavin. More
on this topic, see Andrei Dm. Stepanov, Dramaturgiia A.P. Chekhova 1880 godov i poetika melodramy.
Avtoreferat. Diss. Sankt-Peterburgskii gosudarstvenny universitet, 1996; pp. 7-8

34

to quote Mirsky, the calm self-command and resignation of Tatiana give her that
unquestionable halo of moral greatness which is for ever associated with her name.42
The use of speaking names is one of the earliest and easily recognizable
devices of melodrama to categorize its dramatis personae. Another fundamental
technique, which evolves from the underlying manichaeism of melodrama43, and is
frequently deployed by the playwrights of the period, is grouping the characters into
two major camps. Stepanov refers to this type of polarization as to the victims
support group and the villains support group.44 Such groups are obligatory in the
characters system since melodrama rests on intentionally simplified polarization (be it
social, economic, moral, gendered, or else). In addition, the centrality of pathos in
melodrama45 intensifies the binarity of its disposition and struggles. In compliance with
these requirements, Shpazhinskii introduces an additional dimension to the support
groups. In a way this dimension could be associated with what Stepanov calls
spatial-ethical hierarchy. He finds that the characters loci of origin, inhabitance, or
main sphere of activity are significant touchstones of their moral position. Thus spatial
oppositions like city/village, city/estate, capital/ province, abroad (overseas) /Russia,
among many others, facilitate the process of a characters identification. The first
component of the oppositions is always associated with the figures of the villain, the
intruder, or the stranger. The second component, correspondingly, identifies the

42

D. S. Mirsky, A History of Russian literature. From Its Beginning to 1900. Ed.Fr. J. Whitfield.
(Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern UP, 1999), p.92.
43
Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination. (New Haven: Yale UP, 1995) p. 4.
44
The scholar insists that none of the dramatis personae can stay neutral.
45
Ben Singer, one of the major contributors in the field of theory of melodrama after Brooks, places
pathos at the head of his cluster concept of melodrama which consists of five key constitutive
elements. Pathos is followed by heightened emotionality, moral polarization, nonclassical narrative
mechanics, and spectacular effects. See the argumentation of his concept in Ben Singer, Melodrama
and Modernity. Early Sensational Cinema and Its Contexts. (New York: Columbia UP, 2001) pp.6-10

35

victimized. Melodrama borrows numerous motifs from Romantic literary tradition,

which in turn draws heavily on folklore and mythology. These three rich sources
supply other paradigmatic sites that signify peril, evil forces, and destructive power. As
we have already seen, such is the case with the subterranean dimension and claustral
space. We are about to find out how Shpazhinskii deals with the enclosed space of the
garden. But now let us finally see what we find fascinating in his approach to the
forest.
In his analysis of symbolic space and the notion of boundary46 Lotman includes
forest in several spatial oppositions inner/outer world, cosmos/chaos, normal
space/anti-space, home/anti-home, and home/forest:
Among the universal themes of world folklore and important opposition is that of home
to forest (home being the place which is ones own, a place of safety, culture and divine
protection, while forest is somewhere alien, where the Devil dwells, a place of temporary
death and to go there is equivalent to a journey to the afterlife). Archaic models of this
opposition have persistent and been productive even in the modern period.
p. 185

On a Forgotten Estates forest, however, differs significantly from the afore-mentioned

semiotic patterns. Notwithstanding the general features of a demarcation site, this locus
shows signs of a space that protects rather than threatens. Moreover, the forest shields
Kasian from the prejudice of the village and the manor. It is his dwelling place and it is
Tanias and Golorubov favorite spot for walks and contemplation. On the other hand,
the forest is the place which leads back to Tanias exotic, dark roots. It is exactly
where Tanias father, Piotr, kills her mother in a fit of jealousy. The man is sent to
Siberia and the little girl is left an orphan. Kasian remembers Varvara, Tanias mother,
as a challenging, free-spirited woman. The villagers consider her striking beauty sinful.
46

In this concrete instances boundary is spatial in the literary sense. Iurii Lotman, Universe of the
Mind. A Semiotic Theory of Culture. Introd. Umberto Eko. Trans. Ann Shukman. (Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000 ,pp. 140-42; 185-5)

36

Their envy increases her husbands suspicion and eventually unleashes his violence.
The orphaned child becomes the princess protge: she receives a good education,
learns foreign languages. But after her mistresss death Tania falls from favor and, first
she is adopted by Tolbukhin the manors manager and Glafiras father and later
she moves in with the family of the tailor. Now she is treated just as a house servant
and she frequently takes abuse from the tailors wife. Like Kasian and Golorubov,
Tania is a misfit both in the world of her late benefactor and in her newly adopted
family. But Tania accepts her new situation with dignity and humility. Her physical
and inner beauty, her intelligence and spirituality evoke primitive suspicions of the
malign community she is part of. The shadow of her parents never ceases to haunt her.
Hence the plays female protagonist connects two major melodramatic concerns: the
crisis of patriarchal society (through the intrafamilial disaster of Tania parents) and the
crisis of identity (through Tanias inconsistent status within the communal hierarchy).
The centrality of the heroine in these narratives is an essential tool in the value system
of the melodramatic world. As a rule, to quote Gabrielle Hyslop, the image of women
in melodrama is [] clearly of excessive virtue.47 In the popular drama of the 1880s
this image is additionally charged with a strong social subtext. The dominance of the
superfluous man and necessary woman discourses are still very tangible in
literature, and melodrama absorbs many of their motifs. With Krasavins arrival, it
would be entirely normal to anticipate that the plot would unfold following a
conventional pattern and that the playwright would recourse to the motif of the poor47

Gabrielle Hyslop, Deviant and Dangerous Behavior: Women in Melodrama, in Journal of Popular
Culture, 19, no. 3 (1985), p 69. Although Hyslops essay examines Pixercourts melodrama in
particular, her analysis of the female characters and their function can be applied to Russian nineteenthcentury popular drama since Pixercourt s plots and techniques were one of the main sources of
inspiration and emulation for the Russian stage at the time.

37

but-virtuous heroine seduced and abandoned by an aristocratic villain. And indeed, the
entanglement of the plotline begins with the growing attraction between Tania and the
prince. Shpazhinskii uses romance as a framework and love triangles as important
propellers of the action, but in terms of the main collision they are less important
factors. In the play the real destructive power is society whose hostility is split between
personified evil, Glafira, and public prejudice48.
Thus the forest functions as a site of delineation and a site of asylum. It brings
together personages that share common values and it shields them from the societal
antagonism. With the demise of her mother and her fathers exile, in the person of
Kasian Tania gains a father figure. Golorubov is in love with Tania and yet his attitude
is rather platonic than sensual, more of admiration rather than of passion. For him the
young woman is the embodiment of purity and his primary concern is to save her from
harm. Tanias first on-stage encounter with Glafira and the reactions of the characters
(that are present in the scene) outlines the victims support group and presents two of
the plots love triangles: Golorubov loves Tania, Tania does not reciprocate, Glafira
loves Golorubov. The jealous Glafira does not miss any opportunity to pester Tania
and to make sure that the orphan would never forget about her vulnerable status. The
Tolbukhins think of themselves as Tanias adoptive family and they expect her to be
grateful and submissive. Golorubov expresses Tanias composure best: She has
reasons to respect herself [Tania] does not accept your kind-hearted intentions with a

48

Although with Glafiras personage the playwright indulges the audiences insatiable appetite for a
clear-cut bifurcation of good and evil, Krasavins character is not vilified. And, as we will see, the
evilness is relocated through the emphasis on the detrimental potential of the society.

38

servants fidelity, wagging her tail (p. 146)49, he confronts Glafira. His explanation of
Glafiras resentment and incessant nagging at Tania is also a signal of the entanglement
of the intrigue: You have an enemy! This is outrageous Its your fault: why are you
better than Glafira Nikanorovna? Nobody forgives something like that. Tanias
superiority over Glafira lies in her uncorrupted soul, genuine goodness and moral fiber.
These are the qualities which Glafira does not possess and does not comprehend which
is why she is even more and more aggressive with Tania. But Golorubov does
appreciate these qualities and when Tania does not return his affection the teacher
suppresses his disappointment since he sees Tania to be predestined for something
much greater:
You have suffered a great deal but you do not betray a trace of resentment, a drop of
bile. But I do. So it appears that we are not meant to be... No, no, do not try to console
me, dont! You were not born to wheedle; you crave heroic deeds, you need range.
You either have to deal with the same scope as yours, or to take up a cross: the
heavier, the better!
p.14850

In the way Golorubov sees Tania one can detect the tradition established by the great
realists of the nineteenth century in portraying strong, spirited women as the main
adherents of the hesitant, fragile and ineffective male characters. This tradition, as
Mirsky specifies, goes back to Pushkin, but is the most prominent trademark of
Turgenev:
The strong, pure, passionate, and virtuous woman, opposed to the weak, potentially
generous, but ineffective and ultimately shallow man, was introduced by Pushkin []
but nowhere more insistently than Turgenevs. His heroines are famous all the world
over and have done much to spread a high reputation of Russias womanhood. Moral
force and courage are the keynote to Turgenevs heroine the power to sacrifice all
worldly considerations to passion [], or all happiness to duty. But what goes home to
the general reader in these women is not so much the height of their moral beauty as
49

All citations are from Ippolit V. Shpazhinskii, V zabytoi usadbe, Delo, No. 12, 1880, pp. 141-202
Translations from the play are my own.
50
The reference to the scope brings to mind the discussion of developing ones inner potential in
Platonov and On the High Road. Shpazhinskiis emphasis here is on the inner spiritual and moral
qualities which are equaled to intellectual abilities.

39

the extraordinary poetical beauty woven round them by delicate and perfect art of their
begetter.
p. 20251

In order to show how Shpazhinskii approaches such a tradition we have to turn now to
the main protagonist, Prince Krasavin, and to examine his place within the system of
characters and then (and more importantly) to situate him within the two key plotlines:
the love intrigue and the reflection of the standing of the early post-reform landholding
nobility.
Krasavin retreats to his family estate entertaining the idea of reconnecting with
his childhood roots. He is fed up with the fuss of the life in the capital, weary of le
grand monde. His hope is to regain his inner tranquility through the enticement of the
utopian bliss of his provincial estate. Krasavino is located in a remote part of the
country. In Russian a secluded area is frequently referred to as a bear corner
(medvezhii ugol), that is, a godforsaken place. Bear (medved), respectively, becomes
an epithet for people who live in such desolate places. Gradually, however, medvezhii
ugol and medved obtain an additional, positive undertone. In Modest Chaikovskys
A Day in Petersburg (1893), for example, such a label does not only describe a person
who prefers the provincial estate to the big city and who looks and acts clumsy among
high society. Medved becomes a sign of recognition of a lifestyle and values that
appreciate Russian traditional culture and morals rather than those imported from the
West. The princes nostalgia for serenity and authenticity that estate offers, a common
gesture of the Russian aristocracy, is juxtaposed with the skepticism of Iurasov.
Iurasov, a distant impoverished relative of Krasavin, is one of the ubiquitous figures of
nakhlebnik, the hanger-on, who could be observed almost on every estate of the time
51

D. S. Mirsky, A History of Russian Literature from its Beginning to 1900. Ed. Fr. J. Whitfield.
(Evanston , Illinois: Northwestern UP, 1996)

40

and would be present in various literary sources. Priscilla Roosevelt gives interesting
spin to the role of the parasite on Russia estate:
The pages of Russian novels and memoirs are sprinkled with the figures of
superannuated tutors and governesses who customarily lived out their lives with the
family of their pupils. [] Such elderly individuals joined with others in the
household from a large indeterminate category of persons who were neither family
members nor properly speaking, household staff. This plethora of unaccounted
household members imparted a medieval quality to the aristocratic estate. Nobles
down on their luck simply moved in with a wealthy neighbor. [] This accurately
describes the financial dependency of such individuals but not their actual status in a
wealthy household, regardless of how they came into it.52

One possible way to construe the medieval quality of the nakhlebniks presence is to
read it along the lines of his/her entertaining function. Among numerous instances we
could provide from Chekhovs dramatic oeuvre, for example, count Shabelskii
(Ivanov) and Charlotta Ivanovna (The Cherry Orchard) come to mind immediately as
the quintessential hangers-on.
The character of Iurasov also belongs to the long line of character doubles53
(dvoiniki). Iurasov shares the princes social background and, to some extent, his
modus vivendi. But above all, he is the princes companion out of economic necessity.
He does not comprehend Krasavins existential hesitations and labels them as sour
virtues and mawkish idealism54. Iurasov recognizes in Krasavins sensitiveness a

52

P. Roosevelt, Life on the Russian Country Estate. A Social and Cultural History. New Haven and
London: Yale UP, 1995, p. 110
53
Leading back to mythological narratives, the literary tradition is peppered with doubles. Further on,
Shakespeare is may be the most referred to writer who uses this trope. In nineteenth-century Russian
literature that would be Dostoevsky and Chekhov. Among the scholars who have written on the
technique of doubles, Lotmans approach to character doubling seems most fitting here since he
directly links the implementation of characters like these in modern literature with mythological patterns
and we consider the plot-text, or to be more precise, the plot-playtext of the drama to combine both
patterns. Character doubling, which resulted from dividing up a cluster of mutually equivalent names,
later turned into a plot-language which lent itself to many different interpretations in all sorts of artideologies: doubles could be material for an intrigue, or for pointing up contrasts between characters, or,
as in the works of Dostoevsky, for the modeling of the internal complexity of the human personality.
Lotman, Op. cit., p.154.
54
Yet Iurasovs attitude is expressed from the point of view of an insider, from the perspective of the
class and ideology both noblemen belong to.

41

fashionable pose: Lassitude, spleen [The prince] is a kind, meek soul, very
sensitive. People like him get tired very quickly and they become unhappy, poor
thing But Ill cure him both of his spleen and of his conservative guts.(p.159). The
princes escapism Iurasov qualifies as squeamishness of a replete aristocrat. This
particular point in Iurasovs criticism strikes a chord with the notion of idyllic
myopia55, to borrow the idiom coined by Priscilla Roosevelt (which we will utilize
with the opposite sign in mind). Although the primary focus of her study of the Russian
country estate is on the pre-reform period, the scholars conceptualization of estate as a
unique socio-economic and cultural institution can be almost fully applied to the postreform era. Roosevelt uses the term of idyllic myopia when she discusses the
creation of European surroundings in the Russian countryside, namely the
concomitance of two disparate cultural phenomena, of two major tendencies of the
Russian post-Petrine culture and, correspondingly, the utopian visions of the nobility
they produced. In other words, Roosevelt refers to the unavoidable gap between
traditional rural life and that of the Westernized outlook that co-existed on the
provincial estate. It was this sort of myopia [] that allowed the Slavophile of the
1830s to feel at one with rural Russia and its inhabitants, while, in fact, observing them
from a safe distance. (p. 101). Roosevelt asserts that Pushkins generation felt more
comfortable in the isolated, often theatrical, and ultimately foreign English garden of
the grandee than in Russian village. In the time of Krasavins, the idea of the
immersion in the elegiac rural Eden as a means of spiritual resurrection was as utopian
as the quixotic small deeds of the populists.

55

Op. cit., p. 101

42

Krasavin and Iurasov represent not only different generations but different
approaches to reality. Krasavins withdrawal is an act of conscious choice; Iurasov
follows the prince only because he financially is forced to. Krasavin is the quintessence
of superfluous melancholy; Iurasov is full of energy and epicurean optimism.
Krasavin intends to reconnect with his roots and to continue the educational
undertakings of his mother. The latter he considers being his duty. In a conversation
with Golorubov he discovers that the village has a school only for boys and he
entertains the idea to open a school for girls. Iurasovs perception of enlightening
activity is rather hedonistic and theatrical. Thus his intention to enlighten Krasavin,
that is, to encourage Krasavin in aristocratic debauchery, or to use Roosevelts
wording, to celebrate the estate as an aristocrats playground, a luxurious area of
delight and fantasy (xii) provokes Golorubovs caustic irony:
GOLORUBOV: So you are enlightening the masses. Good for you, good You
renounced your principles, you dont give a damn about your past, you dont care
about anything what else you could be possibly doing but educating, enlightening.
Lo and behold! Someone might give you a pat on the back This probably gives you
great sense of fulfillment. Even just this kind of pleasure is worth cursing ones own
home. Since man is such a selfish swine. He would clown around only to hear: What
a fool, what a fool!
p. 163

Obviously Golorubovs mockery alludes to quite dissimilar forms of educating

activities. In Iurasov the teacher ridicules the old mans status of a parasite, his cheap
theatricality and his potential corrupting influence on Krasavin, whereas with the
prince Golorubov makes fun of his chimerical enlightening ambitions.
Let us reiterate that previously we outlined three major dramatic topoi: a forest,
a manor house and a garden. We showed that the forest introduces and brings together
the marginal figures (but not peripheral characters in terms of their relation to the
dramatic action) of the play that also happen to form the victims support group. The

43

manor house serves as a topos which presents Krasavin and Iurasov and some minor
characters, such as Tolbukhin, Nikolashka, the tailor, and (off-stage) his wife,
Maksimikha. The last three personages live in the closest proximity to Tania and they
have immediate impact on the quality of her life. After the death of her patron, princess
Krasavina, Tania becomes part of Tolbukhins household. From various conversations
it becomes apparent that the orphan is treated more as a house help than an adopted
daughter. Tolbukhin and Glafira (who is also raised without a mother, a fact which
later will serve as an excuse for Tolbukhin in his attempt to justify his daughters
wickedness) are Tanias antagonists. Glafiras resentment against Tania is stirred up by
the latters evident otherness: she is cultured, sophisticated, and gracious. Tolbukhins
attitude, on the other hand, holds up against Tanias shameful descent she is just a
daughter of a fallen woman (guliaiushchaia zhenshchina) and a convict
(katorzhnik). Thus when Krasavin discovers in indignation that Tania does not live in
the manor house any longer, Tolbukhin dryly responds: Shes got a roof over her
head; she has food, clothes What more do you expect?
Krasavins arrival gives Glafira an additional serious reason for agitation. Her
jealousy builds up after she notices that Krasavin displays lively interest in Tania. Now
Glafira is intimidated not only by Tanias rivalry in love, but also by the latters
superiority over her as a human being, as an individual whom the prince treats as his
equal. Tania is offered to share the masters table, an honor which is not granted to
Glafira, although Glafira is the managers daughter and her entire demeanor suggests
privileged status. She is bossy and rude with the servants; she is inappropriately flirty
with Krasavin. Glafira explains her explosiveness with her passion for thunderstorms

44

and severe weather. She is fascinated by the natures unpredictability and might: What
a power! It takes my breath away. The same storm, the same tempest is ranging in my
bosom (p.161). It should be noted here that Shpazhinskii uses a device which, yet
again, is characteristic for the folklore poetics parallelism. In folklore and in folk
songs in particular the symbolic image of the storm connotes a human condition or
signifies a situation or an event. In the case of Glafira, the implementation of the storm
image is aimed at projecting her turbulent character and (self) destructiveness, at
anticipating her plotting against Tania, and, finally, the image is contrasted to another
metaphor used by Iurasov to describe Tania. He compares her to a morning in May,
fresh and pure. Both heroines reveal different connection with nature and the essence
of the connection is an important clue to the direction of the relationship they will
establish with Krasavin. Whereas Tania achieves a complete harmony with nature and
this is a key to her inner state of mind, Glafiras fascination with cloudbursts is an
indication of her future damaging impact on the major characters. Her insinuations
affect Golorubov so strongly that he physically falls physically ill. Her intrigues
terminate the relationship between Tania and Krasavin. The greatest damage caused by
Glafira, however, turns out to be not her attempts at destroying so many lives but the
broken trust and the poisoned souls. Shpazhinskii dramatizes the loss of trust as the
loss of innocence.
The concept of innocence in the play is not presented in the vein that countless
melodramas (those modeled upon Western paradigm in particular) utilize: a man
desires her; a man dishonors her56 The notion of innocence scales up to a higher

56

I borrow this definition from a longer formula proposed by Lon Metayer when discussing the image
of woman in melodrama in general. For more details, see Lon Metayer, What the Heroine Taught,

45

dimension which seeks to portray purity of human nature as purity of nature itself.
Thus, we consider the topos of garden which accommodates the third and the fourth
acts to be central not only in terms of the composition but also with regard to the way
Shpazhinskii uses this archetypal biblical trope as a framework and fills it with a new
content. The first entrance of the garden in Krasavins manor is off-stage in Act Two:
Glafira, without delay, grasps Krasavins attention to Tania and volunteers to show him
the estates garden. This act serves as a transition to the real, on-stage site of the garden
that in Act Three functions as a garden of Eden and in Act Four as a Garden of Evil.
Let us remind that the two acts are in different parts of the garden, a stage remark
which we find essential. Act Three is separated both spatially and temporally: it is set
in a particular area of the garden and a month has passed since the beginning of the
dramatic time. The playwright chooses the garden as a locus where develops the
relationship between Tania and Krasavin. Garden is an integral cultural and aesthetic
element of estate. In On Forgotten Estate the garden illustrates a confluence of two
paradigmatic motifs: a quest for identity and a quest for union with nature. These
quests can be considered as part of what Roosevelt defines as forms or visions of
estate life:
[That] seemingly ordered the world of the Russian landowner. The first, []
celebrated the estate as an aristocrats playground, a luxurious area of delight and
fantasy. The second enshrined the estate as a patriarchal, self-contained world of
ritualized tradition and festival. The third transformed the estate into the pastoral
arcadia of poets and artists. 57

As we will see further, Krasavin himself considers his retreat as a cleansing

experience, as an escape from the train whistles and from the societal hypocrisy and

1830-1870, in Melodrama. The Cultural Emergence of a Genre. Ed. Michael Hays and Anastasia
Nikolopoulou. (New York: St. Martins Press, 1996) pp. 235-45.
57
Roosevelt, Op. cit., xii

46

emptiness. In Tania he finds all the necessary features he himself does not possess and
she, plausibly, becomes the necessary woman. What we find fascinating is how the
playwright subjugates the Arcadian longing and superfluous impetus to the
melodramatic conventions. The key stratagem he employs is the gardens archetypal
status and the connotation it suggests. The garden, as an estate in miniature, mirrors the
estates fundamental functions. It is an entrance to immediate interaction with nature
but in the same time gardens enclosed space implies intimacy and separateness. It is a
collaboration of the creations of the natural world and the artistry of the human
activity. The most intimate thoughts Krasavin shares with Tania are uttered on this
particular site. Tania epitomizes the authenticity and sincerity which the prince
considers vanished in the city and the salons. Yet her sophistication and erudition are
the qualities which for Krasavin are as vital as her genuineness. In the conversation we
will quote below there is a key detail which might be overlooked were it not a stage
direction that not only literally accompanies the dialogue but elaborates the discussion
of authenticity. 58 Furthermore, a modified version of the remark and the lines referring
to it spread out to the next act (Act Four).
KRASAVIN: The world you dont know, Tania, is full of artificial flowers. They put
real flowers only on peoples graves.

58

Chekhov uses a similar technique in the scene with the dead seagull in The Seagull. In this case the
stage direction anticipates a statement, not immediately, as it could be expected, but through space.
Treplevs movement is ahead of a line and as a result there is a case of dramaturgical pleonasm. If we
conditionally label by A a gesture and by B a line, then they might remind us of a rhythmical chain
of the following pattern: ABAB:
TREPLEV: [enters without a hat, carrying a gun and a dead seagull]:
A
Are you alone?
NINA: Yes, alone.
[Treplev lays the seagull at her feet.]
B
What does this mean?
TREPLEV: I was a brute and killed this seagull today.
A
I lay it at your feet.
B

47

TANIA: You are always like this as soon as something from your previous life
comes to your mind, you become sad and gloomy As if the winds of past make you
shiver.
KRASAVIN: It is worst than cold. Everything good I had is now squeezed out of me
or wasted in the most stupid and banal way. There exists one new word. The new
people coined it. This word is nervousness. (With bitter irony.) A wonderful title for
the novel of my life. [] I am tired. If there is still something living in me this is my
capability to enjoy nature. I feel good here, I feel good with you, my dear.

TANIA: You should be looked after, you should be protected. Someone has to have
compassion on you.
KRASAVIN: Looked after! Arent you going to get tired, Tania? [] You are
energetic, strong. And now imagine next to yourself a tired, bitter and on top of that a
skeptical, paranoid man like me. [] So what do you think will come out of this
everything but happiness.
TANIA: I dont think so. (Enthusiastically.) I think, happiness means to light the soul
of your beloved, to make him strong during hard times, to make him spirited in
moments of weakness, to be as needed as the air and light.
p. 168-69

The dialogue takes place while the characters take strolls in the garden and
Tania picks up flowers and makes a small wreath out of them. The gestural stage
direction lays emphasis on the discussion of lost authenticity in the garden of Eden
which in Act Four transforms into the garden of Evil, and the discourse respectively
changes into that of lost innocence. The symbolism of the garden is multidimensional.
The first level sustains the love theme and the flowers are the transparent metaphor of
Tanias innocence and purity. The second level is the societal constraints from which
Krasavin seeks refuge. The third level is built on the love theme which this time is
presented and pursued as an agency of salvation, to use Gilmans phrasing.59
Krasavin and Tania articulate different ideas of love. For the prince love, like any
significant life experience, is demanding and ultimately disappointing since he is
trapped in his intellectual and ethical skepticism and he interprets any type of
relationship he enters as analogous to his social role-play. Tanias impetus is portrayed

59

R. Gilman, Chekhovs Plays. An Opening into Etetrnity. ( New Haven and London: Yale University
Press, 1995), p. 115

48

somewhere in between the instinctive sensitivity of the Sentimental tradition heroines

and the models found in the necessary woman discourse. By supplementing and
reconceptualizing the superfluous-man theme the necessary woman also reveals
traits of superfluity. Compared to Krasavin, as we have already seen, Tania displays
much more palpable marginality and yet her character is considerably stronger as is her
emotional stamina. Thus, when Glafira casts suspicion on Tanias honesty in her
relationship with Krasavin and their romance is put to a test, the prince does not rise to
the challenge as Tania does. Krasavins insecurities are contrasted to Tanias resilience
because their vision of love is quite different. Tania pictures herself as a caretaker and
soother of Krasavin and loving him means serving him, whereas Krasavin still sees in
the young girl, as Golorubov successfully defines, the late princess toy
(pobriakushka kniagini). In his romantic encounter with Tania Krasavin valorizes the
aesthetics of the experience in the same vein he anticipates to receive aesthetic pleasure
from his encounters with nature. Golorubovs displeasure with Krasavin is incurred not
only by their rivalry with regard to Tania, but also by his mistrust towards Krasavins
intentions:
GOLORUBOV: I am very surprised that you tag after these gentlemen.60 What could
you possibly look for there?
TANIA: I am looking for nothing. I am neither capable of tagging after, nor looking for.
GOLORUBOV: Of course, you wouldnt notice Everything there is patched up and
painted over. They will charm you and then insult you.
TANIA: Please, do not get upset with me. I appreciate your concern very much, but as
far as I am concerned I am going to follow my heart and my mind.

GOLORUBOV: But he [Krasavin] will poison your soul very skillfully. Yes, this is
better. So there are the traces of that damn time when you were the princesss toy,
when they made everything possible in order to cultivate the decadence of their milieu.
And now you are drawn to that direction again where your demise is.
pp. 173-174

60

Here Golorubov refers to Krasavin and Iurasov.

49

Krasavins rhetoric about his disgust with the artificial flowers of the society
ironically echoes in Golorubovs metaphoricity (patched up [zaloshcheno], painted
over [zakrasheno]). Krasavins quest for authenticity is doomed. Despite Tanias
efforts he is unable to overcome his own prejudice and anxieties. He falls victim to
Glafiras plotting and Iurasovs collaboration. When Glafira casts suspicion on Tanias
honor by insinuating that the latter is interested in Krasavin only because she expects to
be provided with a dowry, Krasavin does not rise to the challenge. He instantly takes
the rumor in good faith. For Krasavin the Garden of Eden loses its appeal. He
tramples the flower wreath just as hastily as he puts an end to his relationship with
Tania. In her machinations, Glafira succeeds in making Iurasov to believe that with a
possible union between Krasavin and Tania he might end up losing his comfortable
position. This factor also builds up the princes increasing paranoia. Finally,
Golorubov, torn by his own drama, unconsciously contributes to the atmosphere of
suspicion and distrust.
The intimate Edenic serenity and sublimity of Act Three gives way to the
plotting and eavesdropping in Act Four which decelerate the main action. What is
under immediate threat is not the loss of innocence but the failure to recognize virtue
and from this moment on the plot line is directed towards rehabilitation of virtue. Once
again, the locus of the garden is instrumental in foregrounding the ideological
discussions through the prism of the melodramatic techniques. In Act Three at the
center of the action is Tania, the lady of the Garden who shares Krasavins most
intimate and sincere moments. In Act Four, set in a different part of the garden, there is
a shift of the dominant mode of narration. Now Glafira reigns over the garden. Like the

50

biblical serpent, she intrudes into the Garden of Eden. Glafira epitomizes the evil force
that poisons everything pure and genuine; she is the temptress who does not seduce by
lust but by challenging trust. Although Glafira succeeds in ruining the relationship
between Krasavin and Tania, she herself recognizes Krasavins weakness and his
susceptibly to suggestion:
Had I wanted I would get out of His Highness all of this nonsense out of his
systemBut I love strength, such strength in which I could find everything to my
hearts and minds content. As to the princeHad I had to deal with such a softy, I
would think for him, I would do everything for him and thus would do anything I want
to.
p. 190

An atmosphere of imminent disaster falls over the estate. Krasavin decides to

leave the estate and gives Tania a packet announcing that her future is secured.
Disgusted, insulted and not given the chance to explain herself Tania throws the money
away and then runs into Glafira who in order to avoid further complication suddenly
decides to avouch her machinations. But the prince does not admit her also to the
house. Golorubov is desperate and Kasian reappears full of bad premonition. Act Five
resolves the crisis back in the forest. Alarmed by Tanias disappearance the entire
village rushes to the forest. The villagers find her kerchief by the swamp and decide
that Tania threw herself into the water. Meanwhile, Tania and Kasian discuss their
future. Kasian supports Tanias decision to leave the village and tells her that he will
follow her and will be able to help her since he has been saving money to start a new
life: For the late Varvaras sake, for your sake, I have lived my whole life as a wood
demon and scared the fools (p.197). After the villagers find Tania and Kasian
everyone gathers around them and a sequence of litanies and penitent speeches
finalize the dramatic events. In a typical melodramatic fashion the workings of divine

51

vengeance through a grand scene of forgiveness resolves the tension.61 Virtue is

recognized and redeemed. Krasavin admits his mistakes and offers his life in exchange
for forgiveness. Golorubov delivers a pompous speech about the moral strength of
Tania which modifies into a panegyric of the greatness of Russian woman. He
passionately dispels the common fear that Tania might have committed suicide, all the
more that the site of the action happens to be the exact spot of Varvaras tragic demise:
GOLORUBOV: Your panic is ungrounded Nothing can crush Tatiana Petrovnas
spirit! Her love is a heroic deed, a sacred thing do you hear me? This is that type of
love which makes the Russian woman strong and heroic; this is the power that
breathes life into everything and everyone around, and which, fate, paradoxically,
brings together with weak-kneed people like you!
p. 200

Shpazhinskii completely exhausts the melodramatic momentum of heightened

emotionalism by incorporating one of the basic principles of classical melodrama
the providential and coincidental motifs. Having admitted her guilt and asking for
forgiveness, Glafira finds a knife and kills herself. The moral order is restored: the
villainess is punished and Tanias tribulations come to an end her virtuousness is
recognized, her reputation is reestablished. Such a development is accompanied by
another transformation regularly found in melodramatic structure. Balukhaty qualifies
this type of change as a change of phase for one and the same character (from vicious
to virtuous, for example) and places it under the principle of contrast.62 Such internal
change undergoes the character of Glafira. The importance of this process is stressed
by the site of its occurrence. Her public pronouncement of repentance is executed, once
again, exactly on Varvaras place of death. The spot projects a special meaning and this
is the reason for it serving as a meeting point of the closing act. What seems to be
predestined for Tania strikes Glafira.
61
62

Metayer, Op. cit., p.239.

Balukhaty, Poetika melodramy.

52

The dramatic finale disentangles all the plot lines in the initial external stage
space the forest. Despite the pathos-laden discourse of the last act the dramatic action
is brought back to the forest. The dynamics between the forest, the garden, the second
external space, and the manor house, the interior spatial site reveals two foci. On
compositional level, the garden accommodates the structural center of the play. The
ideological discussions are also placed within the two acts that are situated in the
garden. The garden, being a spatial reduction of the estate, reproduces all four
ideological worlds to be found in the latter: the world of fantasy and caprice, the
world of medieval melancholy, the world of political beliefs, and the world of poetic
aspirations.63 The locus of the forest, however, by shaping the envelope pattern of the
play, appropriates the major ethical message of the drama. The finale of a conventional
narrative of a victimized heroine alludes to an unconventional epilogue. Thus I part
company with scholars like Time, for instance, who argues that Shpazhinskiis plays
most interesting feature is the way the playwright work with the main protagonist,
namely the psychological portraiture of the Hamletian nobleman of the time64. I argue
that in addition to the plays structural originality On a Forgotten Estate pushes
forward the conception of the melodramatic heroine. Krasavin fails to appreciate the
genuineness of Tanias wreath just as his superfluity is upstaged by Tanias
marginality. The heroine conscious decision to leave the estate hints at a shift in the
discourse of the necessary woman and its possible orientation towards the fin-de-

63

The concept of the four worlds was suggested by Roosevelt in her analysis of the architectural
design of Tsarskoe selo. Op. cit.,. p. 37-9
64
G. A. Time. U istokov novoi dramaturgii v Rossii. 1880-1890-e gody. (Leningrad: Leningradskoe
izdatelstvo, 1991)

53

sicle fascination with the new woman and revision of the social meanings of
womanhood.

The Quest for the Positive Hero: Piotr Boborykins65 Doctor Moshkov
When Chekhovs Ivanov was first staged the overall assessment of the merits of the
play was more unenthusiastic than laudatory. Most of the critics read the title character
as if the playwright claimed to have discovered the formula of the new positive hero
and that was the common point of their disagreement and disappointment. However,
one thing about the play was unquestionable the novelty of the title character. Or, to
paraphrase Chekhov himself, the most important quality of Ivanov was giving an
accurate formulation of a problem rather than resolving it.66 Popular drama has already
witnessed such a tendency. Dramatists persisted in their quest for a new generation of
bright, conscientious and sensitive people who would lead the nation out of
bezdorozhe and put and end to the timeless era. The directions of the quest were
disparate but on the whole they can be summarized under two major tendencies: a
continuous analysis of superfluity which now, as a concept, gradually modified into
a discourse of broken people, and a quest for a new positive hero. The latter
search was conducted in different strata of society: in the village, in the provincial
town, on the factory (especially with the fast pace of industrialization and
modernization of the country), on the estate. The process of the revision of the status of
65

Piotr Boborykin (1836-1921) was equally famous for his prose work and his plays. His was extremely
respected by literati, he had close ties to Moguchaia kuchka (The Mighty Five), especially to M
Balakirev, he was familiar with the intellectual elite of Western Europe and was on friendly terms with
many Western writers, such as A. Dumas fils, G. Lewis, G. Eliot, etc. He left a significant theoretical
legacy on the theory of stage art and extensive memoirs. His novels Deltsy, Kitai-gorod, and Vasilii
Terkin were among his bestsellers.
66
In this particular case the important question was the emergence of a new literary type, not a new
positive hero.

54

women was also already in progress since the 1880s marked a special interest to the so
called womens question (zhenskii vopros). This segment of the current chapter
examines a play which represents a search for a different dramatic hero.
Doctor Moshkovs (1884) plot spins around the title character, a doctor who
practices medicine in a provincial town whose inhabitants seem to appreciate his
professional dedication and charitable work three times a week he treats the poor
free of charge. But with all his nobleness and dignity Pavel Moshkov hides dark
secrets. On the one hand, two mysterious women stay with him and stir the curiosity of
the local gossipers. On the other hand, rumors begin to circle around and to cast dark
shadow on his relationship with a dying patients wife. Elena Osudina is a respected
lady in the towns society. Her husband is terminally ill and for a long time Moshkov
does his best to prolong his life. But Osudins health takes a turn for the worst and
witnesses are called to Osudins residence to sign his will. The towns suspicions
proves justifiable as a scene between Moshkov and Osudina reveal that they have
feelings for each other and they regret the fact that they have to hide them.
But there are much more serious hurdles ahead of them and they appear in the
face of Litovtsev and Temliakova. Litovtsev is Osudins closest friend and executor of
his will. He likes Osudina and intuitively dislikes Moshkov. Temliakova is one of
Moshkovs grateful patients who does everything possible to show up at the places he
attends because she is in love with him. Besides being a thankful patient she is also a
jealous woman since the doctor does not reciprocate her feelings and she also, like
Litovtsev regarding Moshkov, instinctively discerns in Osudina competition.
Moreover, she is intrigued by his anonymous female visitors and is determined to solve

55

the riddle. The mysterious guests turn out to be Moshkovs illegitimate daughter,
Mania and her mother-Anisia. During the difficult years in medical school Moshkov
owes his survival to Anisia a simple seamstress with a golden heart who is so
devoted to her beloved that she decides to sacrifice herself and their daughter in order
not to hamper his future career. She believes that he has already done his share of
sacrifices by giving up the opportunity to continue his education abroad in order to take
care of his common law wife and daughter. Despite Moshkovs insistence over the
years to officially recognize Mania, Anisia turns down his suggestions. She stays in
Moscow with their daughter and Moshkov starts his career in a provincial town. For
society Mania is his adopted daughter and she herself finds out about Moshkovs
paternity not before she confronts her mother during their visit. A touching scene
between the father and the daughter follows Anisias revelation. But their joy does not
last long. Osudin dies and Litovtsev decides to take full advantage of the situation:
under the pretext that he wants to save her honor Litovtsev almost blackmails
Osudina to marry him. But in reality he and Temliakova are responsible for the rumors
about Moshkovs involvement in Osudins death. Osudina, on her part, wishing to
protect Moshkov, suggests that they end their romance. Moshkov insists on keeping the
relationship: a public scandal or graver consequences do not scare him. But Osudina is
intimidated too much by Litovtsev, all the more that she thinks that the doctor has to
reunite with Anisia and Mania who, meanwhile, have left town. The final curtain falls
leaving Moshkov devastated and lamenting his existential solitude.
In constructing the play Boborykin chooses to build the dramatic narrative on
anagnorisis. The moment of recognition is an essential component of dramatic

56

structure. The playwright utilizes recognition by bringing in the figure of an

illegitimate child a successful melodramatic formula. Moshkovs newly revealed
paternity functions as a stratagem that contrary to the expected effect elevates rather
than compromises his moral status. Within the external plot there are two narratives
that develop simultaneously. The first one fleshes out the familiar motif of female
martyrdom (the line of Anisia). The second line follows the conflict between doctor
Moshkov and the hostile, scheming society personified by Litovtsev and Temliakova.
Both lines compete in revealing the focal point of victimization. The result of such
competition is uncommon the dnouement scene portrays Moshkov as a marginal
individual, abandoned and misunderstood by the people he loves and rejected by a
society whose hypocrisy he is incapable to tolerate and with whose rules he refuses to
comply.
The drama examines the social value and personal price of decency and
integrity in individuals like Moshkov. The doctors story chronicles that of the
numerous representatives of nobility of the late seventies and the eighties who
(consciously or not) embrace the ideology of the small deeds and do their best to live
a meaningful life. Moshkov shares lineage with the title characters of Platonov and
Ivanov in terms of the idealism of their youthful aspirations which clashes with the
actuality of adulthood. During his university years Platonov saves fallen women, later
settles in a marriage to an unpretentious girl, becomes a father, and starts working as a
village schoolmaster. Ivanov invests all his energy into provincial self-administration
(zemstvo), agriculture, peasant education, and many other worthy activities. In his
romantic life he decides to follow his heart and marries a Jewish woman which

57

alienates him from his milieu. Antropovs Kholmin, to a certain degree, may also be
added to the afore-mentioned line of personages: his marriage to Liolia and his first
years in journalism attest to the protagonists determination to break up with a futile
lifestyle and to channel his talents into something meaningful. Although Moshkov
bears certain resemblance to the characters of Platonov, Ivanov, and Kholmin,
nonetheless he belongs to a different category. Unlike the aforesaid characters
Moshkov lacks their exaggerated Hamletism, nervousness, excitability, and everpresent fatigue. The character does not indulge in self-dramatization, nor does he suffer
from social apathy or emotional inertia. On the contrary, instead of continuously
coquetting with the concepts of boredom and alienation he lives a modest and
accomplished life. In other words, in Moshkov almost all major components of
superfluity are missing and a crucial one in particularthe tragic discrepancy
between potentialities and performance67. Yet the protagonist can be classified as a
misfit in terms of his disconnection from society which, interestingly enough, becomes
palpable only when analyzed parallel with and through the characters of Anisia and
Mania.
Within the plays plot Anisia and Mania function as guest artists. In the
dramatic construction, however, they occupy an important place. We trace a spatial
dimension to the nature of their dramatic presence. The relationship of the heroines
with Moshkov reflects the protagonists ambiguous situation both in regard to his
private life and in terms of his position within the public domain. The mother-daughter
duo illustrates two extremes in the way melodrama perceives female characters. Anisia

67

Frank Seeley, From the Heyday of the Superfluous Man to Chekhov. Essays on the 19th-century
Russian Literature. (Nottingham: Astra Press, 1994), p. 17.

58

is the epitome of what Lon Metayer defines as fidelity and submission to the male68.
In constructing her character Boborykin amalgamates two established patterns. The
first one follows a recognizable scenario based on a relationship which is doomed due
to social inequality. Thus the playwright adheres to what is, according to Balukhaty,
one of the major, according to Balukhaty, technical principles of melodrama the
principle of contrast (in this particular case a social one). What Boborykin does next,
shows that he departs from the pattern and channels the conflict into a different
direction. Anisia is not abandoned by Moshkov, neither does he refuse to take
responsibility for her and for their daughter after the birth of the child. The protagonist
does not come into conflict with his prejudice or with the prejudice of society but with
the prejudice of Anisia. The conflict becomes internal and the discourse of
victimization transforms into a discourse of voluntary martyrdom which, in turn, lead
to a paradoxical outcome: martyrdom, self-inflicted or not, still belongs to the domain
of victimization. Whereas Anisias character is rather one-dimensional, her function is
not. Hence Moshkovs character should not be quickly labeled as well.
At first sight Moshkovs and Anisias bond evokes some of the components
that constitute the connection of the superfluous man and the necessary woman.
Without giving a specific name to female characters in such discourses, Ellen Chances
defines their meaning as follows: Often [.] weak misfit man was juxtaposed to a
strong woman who did fit into society, who could act, and who could become involved
in the life around her.69 Needless to say, such a distribution of functions refers to

68

Metayer, Op. cit., p.241

Ellen Chances, The Superfluous Man in Russian Literature, in The Routledge Companion to
Russian Literature, Ed. Neil Cornwell (Routledge: London and New York, 2001), p. 112
69

59

narratives in which a heros superfluity is determined by his ineffectiveness,

uselessness, and inactivity. Moshkov does not qualify as such: he does not show signs
of neuroses, lack of perseverance or purpose. Anisias line is brought into the dramatic
plot in order to highlight different aspect of superfluity which is actually more
appropriate to qualify as dysfunctionality of the main hero. Where Moshkov resembles
the literary type in question is in being dysfunctional on the level of personal relations.
The nature of his incapacity is dissimilar. His predicament is not rooted in an inability
to commit to a relationship, but is instigated by a society which does not sanction his
relationship with Anisia, Mania, and, ultimately, with Osudina. In all of the cases in
which he strives to establish a domestic relationship, society sabotages them. By
society here we do not imply a direct interference but the pressure of the unwritten
rules of public morals. These are the rules that make Anisia to convince first herself
and then Moshkov that their union is doomed; these are the rules of decorum which
intimidate Osudina to openly admit her love for the doctor.
Manias character is representative of another type of heroine who starts to
emerge on the stage as a response to the new vision of womens societal status. Bright
and independent, she inherits Moshkovs love for knowledge. Following in her fathers
steps she studies medicine at Petersburg. Unlike her mother, Mania is uncomfortable
with their position in Moshkovs life. Although Anisia insists on their discrete presence
in the doctors household, Mania feels that such a status is humiliating. Anisia and
Mania come for a visit while the latter is on a break from her studies and even during
their short stay Mania feels that they have been hidden from the society. Their
seclusion in Moshkovs apartment she compares to a life under lock and key as if

60

[they are] leprous [] so that no one would know about [their] existence. Her
mothers position she sees even in a more undignified light: Dont I see that you
completely have disappeared. You dont exist! You are like an object! (p. 34)70.
Confronting her father and appealing to his convictions of a new, progressive man,
Mania eventually equates Anisias anonymous presence with contraband. And
indeed, a telling detail in a later episode echoes the image of contraband which
Mania creates in her indignation. The visit which Mania pays to Osudina in order to
reveal her and her mothers true identity and to ask her to break up with Moshkov, is
followed by Anisias call while trying to smooth out her daughters hostile behavior.
Anisia uses the back door when she enters the house and again while leaving Osudins
residence as if she smuggles herself into that house. Anisias awareness of herself as
being out of place in Osudins house is reiterated and eventually verbalized in her
statement that she knows her place. The latter is her response to Manias attempts to
persuade her mother to claim the place she deserves.71 Anisias conviction is that both
Moshkov and she once had made the right decision by going their separate ways. Her
instinct prompted that they belong to different worlds and had she stayed with
Moshkov, sooner or later, he would have regretted such a choice. She knew that
although the doctor had swallowed his pride, nonetheless she would not have been able
to live up to his expectations. Besides, she is confident that he has done his share of
sacrifice and to ask for more would be too much. The perception of both characters by
the people who surround them is highly idealized. Mania describes her mother as a
saint. Temliakova refers to the doctor as angel in flesh. Such canonization
70

All citations form the play are from Piotr Boborykin; Doctor Moshkov, (Moscow: Litografiia
Moskovskoi Teatralnoi biblioteki, 1884). Translation is mine.
71
Emphasis mine.

61

intensifies the inner struggle in Moshkov and Anisias frustration. Appreciating each
others merits they also respect their dignity. Anisia strives not to burden Moshkov by
imposing a sense of guilt and Moshkov treats Anisia as his equal. But with all the
mutual respect and understanding the characters find themselves in a quandary which
they cannot resolve. Manias insistence on their reunion is complicated by Moshkovs
feelings for Osudina. Now his holiness is challenged by the hash criticism of his
daughter. Pressured by her chastisement, Moshkov yet has to deal with Osudinas
growing hesitations.
Manias disappointment with her father grows into a generational conflict. But
instead of the traditional father-son conflict, this one takes place between a father and
a daughter. What makes the confrontation all the more intriguing is that both dramatis
personae are recognized as individuals of advanced views. In her crusade for her
mother Mania appeals to Moshkovs new, progressive convictions. Anisia excuses
Manias uncompromising attitudes, by referring to her modern free spirit. However
both sides, Moshkov and Mania, clash exactly over the different way they see the
expression of the new times and the new attitudes. For Mania, womens position in
society and in family should not any longer be associated with submissiveness and
ultimate sacrifices, whereas Moshkov insists on a mans right to pursue personal
happiness despite societal decorum. The paradox with Mania lies in the fact that while
referring to progressive views she resorts to traditional argumentation. Or, to put it
differently, she enters the stage space as representing an intellectual individual, but
exits as a melodramatic heroine.

62

Thus the play demonstrates several types of reversals: ideological, gender, and
spatial. The last one can be detected in the structural significance of the peripheral offstage space whose structural significance is presented both on- and off-stage. While a
student in Moscow Moshkov, inhabits a basement. This is not only a consequence of
his financial circumstances but an illustration of the protagonists secretive,
underground common-law wife and illegitimate child. Anisia and Mania come for a
visit to Moshkovs provincial town the periphery, from the capitals the cultural
center (Anisia lives in Moscow, Mania studies in Petersburg). Their episodic and offstage presence in the protagonists life develops into one of the central plot lines of the
playtext. Ultimately, by exiting the stage and leaving Moshkov they display signs of,
albeit taciturn and still indistinct, shift in agency.

The Advent of the New People: Aleksandr Sumbatov-Iuzhins

The Arkazanovs
In the history of the Russian theatre, the last two decades of the nineteenth
century are often referred to as the era of the actors. The period gave the audience a
constellation of stars whose originality and accomplishments have been an
indispensable part of the legacy of Russian dramatic art. M. Ermolova, P. Strepetova,
M. Savina, A. Lenskii, V. Davydov, among many others, have achieved iconic status
and courses on their artistry have been part of the basic core of academic curricula of
the drama schools. Actors achieved such a distinguished position not only because of
their talent but also because of the specificity of the hierarchy the entire theatrical
enterprise. The restrictions of the censorship were still very powerful and the

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prerogatives of the playwright to have their say during the staging period of their plays
were very limited. The function of directors can be interpreted in the same vein.
Konstantin Stanislavsky changed this practice. Thus the actors interpretation became a
compensatory mechanism for such limitations.
Prior to achieving fame as playwright, director of the Maly theater and as a
professor of dramatic art, Aleksandr Sumbatov-Iuzhin (1857-1927) established
reputation of a leading actor. His style is associated with the Romantic school of the
Russian tradition. This label referred to actors and actresses whose stage characters
belonged predominantly to Romantic drama and that is why their entire method of
acting was perceived as romantic implying monumental gestures, exaggerated
histrionics, and, most importantly, heightened interest in the psychology of the
characters. Unsurprisingly, the playwrights plays were influenced by his acting style.
The Arkazanovs (1886) does not belong to his most theatrical plays. However the
underlying melodramatism of the drama and the authors approach towards the
antagonist (Navarygin), the embodiment of the new people on the Russian scene
the newly emerging class of parvenus money-grubbers makes this works stand
out in Sumbatov-Iuzhins dramatic oeuvre.
Moreover, Navarygins character we read as an example of a marginal
situation. This notion has been elaborated by H. B. Dickie-Clark as a development of
the marginality theory whose theoretical fundament was laid by Robert E. Park and
Everett V Stonequist.72 Dickie-Clark expands the sociological framework of the

72

See Robert E. Park, Human Migration and the Marginal Man, American Journals of Sociology, 33
(May 1928), pp 881-93; Everett V. Stonequist, The Marginal Man. A Study in Personality and Culture
Conflict. (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1937). Their concept of marginality was further

64

Park/Stonequist theory by calling attention to the psychological elements in the

theory73. Although he recognizes the necessity of such attention, nonetheless, he
insists on separating the biological psychological, and cultural elements within
the social concept of marginal situation and places at the center the structural elements
of hierarchy and ranking. And yet, among the numerous types of marginal situation
(which he basically defines as [a] result of any departure from complete consistency
or congruence among the rankings of an individual or stratum in the various matters
regulated by the hierarchy74, the scholar recognizes the situation of the parvenu.
Even less structured marginal situations, such as those of the adolescent, the parvenu,
and the career woman, involve evaluation and ranking and are, therefore, susceptible to
hierarchical arrangement (p. 366). The dramatic conflict in The Arkazanovs presents an
interesting case of interweaving of social, psychological and melodramatic hierarchies.
The plays knot entangles around a familiar motif a ruination of a
gentlefolks nest. The Arkazanovs: Dmitrii, a landowner, his wife Varvara, and their
children, Olga (19) and Boria (16), are facing bankruptcy and loss of their estate. The
underlying reasons for the approaching financial crisis Arkazanova sees in the zealous
public activism (podvizhnichestvo) in which Dmitrii has been engaged as far back as
the early 1860s: involvement in post-reform agricultural enterprises and campaign
committees, establishing Sunday schools, sponsoring cheap literary editions. In other
words, the protagonists social passion, as described by Varvara, portrays a typical
narodnik figure. She considers Arkazanovs public endeavors honorable but his
developed and refined by scholars like Alan C. Kerckhoff, Thomas C. McCormick, Aaron Antonovsky,
etc.
73
H. F. Dickie-Clark, The marginal Situation: A Contribution to Marginality Theory, Social Forces,
Vol. 44, No. 3 (March 1966), p. 363-370.
74
Dickie-Clark, Ibid., p. 367.

65

financial ventures impractical and reckless. Varvara discusses the familys

predicament with Timiriazev, Arkazanovs old friend from the university and
Arkazanovas secret devotee for twenty years. Both Arkazanova and Timiriazev think
that Arkazanovs only option is to sell everything and to move the family abroad.
Arkazanov hopes that there is one person that might help him avoid public scandal and
prison Navarygin. Navarygin is an affluent industrialist and entrepreneur.
Arkazanov asks Navarygin to vouch for him. Navarygin declines to do so and yet he
theatrically tears a bill of debt. Timiriazev feels humiliated for Arkazanov and almost
challenges Navarygin to a duel but the latter succeeds in persuading idealistic
Arkazanov of his genuine concern and good intentions.
Navarygin is married to Virineia, a prosperous merchants daughter, through
whom he gains his wealth and power. Under the pretext that she is mentally
challenged, Navarygin keeps Virineia confined. The truth is that he is disgusted by her
because she is a constant reminder of the humiliating compromise he made in his
youth. By marrying an older, rich woman Navarygin sells his soul and acquires the
means to save his mother and sister from poverty and sickness. Nonetheless they both
ultimately die of consumption and he blames Virineia for his ultimate sacrifice.
Though he keeps a mistress, who is in charge of his household, he falls in love with
Olga who, as the time progresses, also develops signs of affection for him: Navarygin
is a handsome man and he exudes confidence and empathy. But he is aware that Olga
would never agree to become his lover, nor can he even contemplate a divorce, because
that would mean that he would lose his millions. The chance appears in the person of
a penniless distant relative of Virineia, Fufin, whom Navarygin allows to stay in the

66

estate under the condition that the latter will serve him unconditionally. Fufin combines
attractive appearance and corrupt conscience and he looks like the ideal tool for
executing the plan, hinted by Navarygins mistress, Veronika. Under the pretense of
being a wealthy manufacturer, Fufin is supposed to court Olga and, hopefully, she
would accept his proposal. On their wedding day Fufin has to disappear and in that
way Olga, dishonored and without any alternative, would eventually become
available to Navarygin, who would act as her savior.
Two months pass and Arkazanovs affairs have worsened. Arkazanov is facing
an imminent threat of imprisonment for his debts. Navarygin, still pretending to be his
caring, loving brother, promises to delay the due date. Fufin asks Olga to marry him
but she turns down the proposal. Navarygin decides to play his last card and tells her
that it is her duty to save her father and her family. Meanwhile Timiriazev again
suggests selling the rest of the assets, invites the Arkazanovs to his estate and offers a
position to Dmitrii. Confused and desperate, Olga confides in her mother her feelings
for Navarygin. Still believing in Navarygins goodness, on the eve of the last auction
she visits him to bid farewell but he admits his real intentions. He tells her about his
unhappy marriage and confesses his feelings for Olga. Olga leaves in repulsion. Back
on the Arkazanovs estate preparations for departure are under way. Arkazanov has
been offered a position at some doctors estate and the family is hopeful about the
future. But their enjoyment is interrupted by an arrival of the police who come with a
warrant for Arkazanovs arrest. Parallel to these events an auction is also in progress.
Navarygin arrives finally offering to vouch for Arkazanov but the Varvara rejects his
charity with dignity and a pompous speech. Curtain.

67

By charting two life paths through the characters of Arkazanov and Navarygin,
Sumbatov-Iuzhin problematizes the clash between two ideological and philosophical
positions. The problem of the rapid industrialization and modernization of the country
and the socio-economic transformations these processes unleash become one of the
topical themes discussed by the dramaturgy of the period. The newly emerged class of
nouveaux riches was examined through a range of characters that embodied the new
business elite, such as: burzhua-millionshchik (bourgeois-millionaire), kulak (petty
rural capitalist), kupechestvo (rich merchantry), etc. The growing significance of the
new power and privilege within the socio-economic landscape brought also changes
onto the theatrical stage, all the more as the relationships they established in and
outside of their environment supplied intriguing dramatic material. With all the
supremacy and arrogance they were entitled to, the new masters of the situation
brought also a great deal of personal hesitation and anxiety. Characters who broke out
from their milieu (geri, vylamyvaiushchiesia iz svoei sredy), as they often were
referred to, offered new aspects to the psychological insights of the melodramatic form.
The inner struggles that accompanied their entry onto the Russian scene complicated
the otherwise one-dimensional melodramatic paradigm.75
Structurally, the progression of the dramatic conflict in The Arkazanovs is
traced through the alternation of the action between the two estates and, respectively,
between the five acts. Within the formal units (acts) which encompass the two camps
of dramatis personae, however, there are knots of additional psychological tension
which need to be highlighted since they contribute to the plays overall configuration

75

Needless to say, characters like these served as ancestors of the famous Lopakhin from Chekhovs The
Cherry Orchard.

68

of conflicts. In Dmitrii Arkazanovs character, easily recognizable is the clash between

an individuals efforts and results in his public and private lives. Arkazanov is not torn
in a painful self-analysis. His frustration does not stem from regrets about his social
inertia. In contrast, his past endeavors attest to passionate commitment to public causes
which consume all of his energy and attention. The outcome, however, is predictable:
the familys business affairs are in disarray.
The playwright delays the moment of main confrontation between the
protagonist (Arkazanov) and antagonist (Navarygin) by probing it first within the level
of victims supporting group, to use the term which we introduced earlier in this
chapter. The relationship of the two friends Arkazanov and Timiriazev somewhat
resembles that of Oblomov and Stolz from Goncharovs novel. Arkazanovs
impracticality and meekness is juxtaposed with Timiriazevs determination and
efficiency. Almost twenty years after Oblomov had been published the dynamics these
two characters represented was still very relevant because, as Prince Mirsky, who
otherwise was quite critical of Goncharovs artistic objectivity and stylistic talent, put
it:
Oblomov is more than a character; he is a symbol. The fact that he is drawn with the
aid of none but purely and modestly realistic methods only enhances the symbolism.
He obviously was, and was immediately recognized to be, the embodiment of a whole
side of the Russian soul, or rather of a side of the soul of the Russian gentryits sloth
and ineffectiveness. He has a high sense of values. He is open to generous aspirations
but incapable of effort or discipline.76

With Timiriazevs response to Arkazanovs predicament Sumbatov-Iuzhin articulates

one of the major contradictions of the gentrys ethos: between ideas and actions,
intentions and results. Arkazanovs navet and unconscious stubbornness in his
unwillingness to recognize the seriousness of his situation is a consequence of what G.
76

Mirsky, Op, cit., p. 191.

69

S. Morson calls a lack of prosaic habits and prosaic vision.77 Timiriazev, in

contrast, is an individual who seems to possess everyday virtues. In his behavior,
however, we do not discern the aggressiveness and criticism which characterize famous
Chekhov doubles like Astrov, Lvov, Voinitsev, etc. Timiriazev appreciates his
friends sense of social responsibility and does not allow Arkazanova, though very
sympathetic to her situation, to question Arkazanovs past activities: No, [] this is
not rubbish, not recklessness. These are the tiny drops which fill the great cup of the
progress. All the things he did were because that was his duty (p.10).

78

On the other

hand, Timiriazev expresses indignation at Arkazanovs inflexibility which puts him in

a state of dependence on Navarygins mercy. He challenges Dmitriis voluntary
martyrdom and passivity with the prospect of Olga taking up a job in order to
contribute to the family finances:
TIMIRIAZEV: You are a tiger, you are not a father. You are a crocodile devouring his
own hatchlings I will not let this happen!
ARKAZANOV: What should I do?
TIMIRIAZEV: Sell all of these feudal castles79 and lands, pay your debts, leave this
damn place. Go abroad and start a careful, German life.
ARKAZANOV: I am paying a high price for my profligacy and my delusions. Every
time a take a look at Olia or Boria my heart sinks. I would prefer the jail cell than
Varias silent reproach. Oh, God!
p. 21

Timiriazev does not question Arkazanovs principles and beliefs. What he is critical
about is the latters indulgence in excessive commitment to sublime ideas and public
projects and hence his negligence about everyday virtues. Two capacious metaphors
that of feudal castles and that of a predatory animal gulping down his little ones
emerge from the dialogue as some of the crucial questions of the time. The feudal
castles signify a social system whose practical value has proved to be dysfunctional
77

Morson, Op. cit., p.226.

All quotations are from Al. I. Sumbatov-Iuzhin, Arkazanovy, in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, Vol.
III, (Moscow, 1901). Translation is mine.
79
Emphasis mine.
78

70

and obsolete. The castles now present only an economic burden which is not only an
obstacle for their owners but also an obstacle for their successors. In the play the everpresent generational conflict modifies into the question of ones responsibility before
the next generations. Interestingly, Timiriazev, who is not a parent himself,
demonstrates stronger parental instincts than Arkazanov.
On the other hand, Arkazanovs children are portrayed to be in a complete
unison with their parents. They share their views and support their decisions
unconditionally. It is exactly what makes Olga and Boria to stand out among the long
line of children who question and rebel against their fathers. Olgas filial devotion
is unshakable even when she is confronted with the dilemma to marry Fufin in order to
save her fathers honor. Prior to the proposal her converastion with her mother reveals
the latters philosophy of a womans purpose in the life of her loved ones. She
perceives it as a discipleship and podvizhnichestvo:
ARKAZANOVA: We owe to give up our own lives and to live only through their [the
ones we love] lives. When their battles drain the strength of them we are obliged to
give them everything we have in our poor souls in order to lift their high spirits, to
boost up their energy. This is our sacred calling.
p. 77

Nonetheless, Olgas readiness to marry Fufin in order to protect the family from
destitution and disgrace terrifies Arkazanova since exactly her own sense of honor is in
conflict with such ultimate sacrifice. The playwright utilizes the motif of sale-trade
as a main device through which he demonstrates how the protagonist (Arkazanov) and
the antagonist (Navarygin) behave in identical situations. Two types of sale-trade are
negotiated and contested in the play. On the one hand, the sale of Arkazanovs estate
and Navarygins acquiring his wealth document factual economic procedures. On the
other hand, the corollaries which accompany the processes, their moral cost, are the

71

key point of divergence between them. The development of the characters is

constructed by the juxtaposition of the processes of Navarygins rise to power and
wealth and of, conversely, Arkazanovs downfall. In both cases a female character
plays a substantial role: Navarygins passage from rags to riches lies through his
marriage to Virineia; Arkazanovs ruin climaxes not in the actual moment of the
auction and of the arrest but coincides with his daughters critical moment of making a
difficult choice as a direct consequence of his actions.
What we most retain from any consideration of melodramatic structures,
states Brooks is the sense of fundamental bipolar contrast or clash. He further
elaborates:
[] Melodramatic dilemmas and choices are constructed on the either/or in its
extreme form as the all-or-nothing. [] Polarization is both horizontal and vertical:
characters represent extremes, and they undergo extremes, passing from heights to
depths, or the reverse, almost instantaneously. The middle ground and the middle
condition are excluded. [] Polarizations not only a dramatic principle but the very
mean by which integral ethical conditions are identified and shaped, made clear and
operative. 80

Although the moral rhetoric invested in Arkazanov and Navarygin might seem mapped
out clearly, a more complex melodramatic configuration emerges when the heroes are
analyzed within the context of their groups of supporters. The intricacy lies in the
alternation of the ascending/descending movements in their development. These
fluctuations nuance their portrayal, especially in the case of Navarygin. On the surface,
Navarygins villainy is unquestionable. The predatory instincts and unscrupulousness
with which he goes after Arkazanov are generically reminiscent of the figure of the
villain revenger the main protagonist of revenge drama. Naturally, in this context
we are referring to a revenge element, not to the entire poetics of the genre of the

80

Brooks, Op. cit., p. 36.

72

revenge tragedy, whose bloody sensationalism here is modified into the cold and
perfidious machinations of Navarygin. Navarygins actions are driven by his desire for
money and power. The fierceness with which he goes after Arkazanov, however, has
much deeper roots.
The sale-trade theme re-emerges in Navarygins confession about the
undignified choice he has to make by marrying into the family of a wealthy merchant.
Having lost his freedom, discredited his integrity and, most importantly, his selfrespect Navarygin vents his anger on Virineia whom he perceives as a constant
reminder of his moral degradation. Virineia is Navarygins dark secret, his shame, and
his verdict. A peripheral character otherwise, she is the key to Navarygins core. Their
relationship follows several types of reversals: social, psychological and spatial. The
poor, starving university student transforms into a powerful industrialist. Virineia is
locked in her/their manor (khoromy) leading almost an animal existence since the
only thing she is allowed to enjoy is food. Navarygin is abusive towards his wife both
verbally and physically and she is terrified by him. The characters are also contrasted
in terms of their appearance. Navarygin is attractive and enigmatic; Virineia is a much
older, obese woman who evokes in him nothing but revulsion and contempt.
Embittered and cynical, Navarygin feels entitled to treat Virineia in this way, but her
cloistered existence, in reality, is a mirror-image of the heros own entrapment of
which he becomes fully aware only when he meets Olga and falls in love with her.
Olga is not only the object of Navarygins desire; she epitomizes his
unconscious psychological motivation: his fascination with power and money is driven
by his constant need for validation. He strives to prove to himself and to the world that

73

his social status and prestige justify all of his choices and actions. Olgas purity is
contrasted with Navarygins own loss of innocence:
NAVARYGIN: She [Olga] is my misery and my punishment this is what this girl
means for me [] Hungry childhood, beggarly adolescence, a marriage to a gold
mine, a whole life dedicated to speculation and, lets be honest, a life with a one and
only goal profit at the price of ruining othershoping that all of this would
suppress all noble ideas. And what? It took this girl, this child, only one glance, one
appearance and she turned everything upside down.81
p. 46

Olgas character shifts the initial, external conflict between the protagonist and the
antagonist to Navarygins inner conflict. He interprets Olgas rejection not only as his
failure to break Arkazanovs will, but as a moral fiasco. The ideological clash between
Arkazanov and Navarygin, as Arkazanov defines it, between the yesterdays lackeys
who become money-lenders and the salt of the earth, the people who always put
the common welfare above their private interests, ends with a catastrophe for
Arkazanov.
NAVARYGIN: We have struggled against each other all our lives. We represent two
antagonistic forces. I climbed up the ladder the way you despised and at each step you
did not miss to treat me with contempt. It was the force of the era, not me, that took
avenged me on you.
ARKAZANOVA: There is nothing horrible about that: even with all our hardship and
homelessness we are stronger and happier that you. [] Yes, there had been a struggle
between us, but not the type you spoke about. Deep down you know that because there
are still some remnants of conscience in you. There was a struggle because we didnt
know how to succeed by foul means. There was a struggle between an honest man and a
money-lender. Go home, go to your palace. He [Arkazanov] will go to Siberia and we
will follow him. But the trial, the exile, the ruin all of them are less shameful than your
handshake.
p. 114-115

The ethical clash, however, resolves with a moral victory for the latter. On the other
hand, the finale concludes in a typical melodramatic fashion: villainy is punished,
virtue is recognized, and innocence is saved. Paradoxically, victimization is celebrated
as victory. Last but not least, Arkazanovs moral superiority is validated by his
children: Boria thanks his mother for not accepting Navarygins final offer for help;
81

Emphasis mine.

74

Olga rejects Navarygin because her sense of dignity and honor is much stronger that
her feelings for him. Thus the ubiquitous generational conflict is modified and elevated
to a generational continuity.
The vitality of a convention is in its joyous capacity for being inflicted or
subverted, writes J.L. Styan.82 The focus of this chapter was four plays which
demonstrated different stylistic approaches within one and the same dramatic mode.
Although still faithful to the poetic conventions of previous theatrical tradition, turn-ofthe-century popular dramatists demonstrate a shift in the balance between formula
and form in their dramatic production. They show artistry and originality in their
work within the melodramatic framework, new trends in the examination of the nature
of the conflict. Of special interest is their innovativeness when working with spatialethical dimensions within the melodramatic hierarchy. The ideological fluctuations of
the time are reflected in the poetic structure of the plays. Familial drama was very
sensitive to shifts in the ideological discussions which were a direct result from the
uncertainties in the social and domestic realms. The malfunctions of the former were
portrayed through the dysfunctionality of the latter. By accommodating and
reconceptualizing a major discourse of the previous epochs the discourse of
superfluity into discourses of marginality, the popular dramatists made towards
modern dramatic writing a further step, albeit a shy one.

82

J.L. Styan, Drama, Stage, and Audience. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1975), p. 12.

75

CHAPTER II

Paradigms of Marginality in Chekhovs Early Drama

In his latest complete edition of Chekhovs dramaturgical heritage in English
Laurence Senelick places Platonov and On the High Road under the rubric Early
Experiments. Indeed, the experimental quality of both plays is first to be found in the
simple fact that they were the playwrights earliest attempts at dramatic form.
However, even in these early plays there emerges a distinctive dramaturgical technique
already of significant artistic value. These two dramatic pieces, albeit quite different in
social setting and stylistic quality, reveal common features with regard to modes of
narration and the organization of dramatic space as a poetic stratagem. The dramatist
exploits misplacement, one of the major motifs in his later plays, as a reflection of the
spiritual anxieties of fin-de-sicle Russia. On the thematic level, misplacement
highlights the modern uncertainty and incompleteness of early 1880s society,
while as a poetic device it both organizes the dramatic space and propels the dramatic
action.
Already in the mid-nineteen-fifties, analyzing the sources of ontological
solitude in Chekhovian drama, Robert W. Corrigan pointed out that the playwright
preferred situating the dramatic narrative in restricted areas. The interiors are

76

always closely confined rooms; the exteriors are usually attached to the house or are
nearby.83 At the center of Platonov and On the High Road Chekhov places two
disparate, and yet emblematic, entities of the Russian scene: a provincial estate and a
wayside tavern. The nature of the dramatic space and its appropriation in the plays are
constructed through different poetic resources. Nonetheless, the encapsulation of the
Voynitsev estate, on the one hand, and the tight, cramped space of the inn, on the other,
are instrumental in revealing dramatic conflicts and furthering the plot. A closer
analysis of this constituent of the plays dramatic structure shows how encasement and
misplacement serve as mechanisms for creating modes of marginality.

Between Holy Foolishness and Jestership: Platonov

Platonov occupies a special position within the dramaturgical legacy of Anton
Chekhov. The very fact of its paradoxically late and incidental discovery as a
manuscript of a play in four acts without a title raises simultaneously several groups of
issues with respect to its dramatic poetics, which later, in the playwrights mature
plays, will develop into the renowned Chekhovian canon. Platonov is only the
beginning of all beginnings. In spite of the obvious deficiencies of the play (the
unusual length, the multitude of dramatis personae, the melodramatic excess), which
probably were the main reasons the author never returned to the manuscript and
rewrote it, let alone pursued its staging, Platonov demonstrates striking novelty as
regards the dramatic conflict, construction of characters, the work with rhythm and

83

Robert W. Corrigan, The Drama of Anton Chekhov, in Modern Drama. Essays in Criticism, ed.
Travis Bogard and William I. Oliver (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965) p. 82

77

with space and, last but not least, the synthesis of the tragic and the comic, the dramatic
and the lyric, high and low.
Chekhov writes Platonov when he is not even twenty. Yet the work
demonstrates amazing maturity in observing a society in which social shifts bring huge
disruption into the entire pattern of attitudes displayed on the Russian country estate in
the 1880s. Voynitsevka and Platonovka, the two major topoi of the drama, reflect the
confusion within the hierarchy of values of the provincial gentry. The boundaries of the
previously established framework of individual and societal behavior are softened and
dissolved, producing a bizarre pattern of relationships within an encapsulated group of
people. They suffocate because of the triviality of their existence, because of their
inability to work, act, love, or even to make efforts to face the challenges in their
changing lives. In spite of their complicated relations, fictitious and obvious
antagonism, rivalry and misunderstandings, they need each other desperately and, day
after day, they are driven to meet, talk, communicate, argue, hate, and love. This need
is manifested through the characters attempts to invent and re-invent themselves in the
course of the dramatic action, sometimes being unaware of the very process and
sometimes intentionally.
Platonov is overcrowded with characters. The overpopulation, however, has a
special function. This swarm of individuals inhabits a micro-universe, which constantly
hesitates between the center and the periphery. Voynitsevs estate strives to overcome
the limits of the usual model of conduct, its inhabitants dream about a change in their
modus vivendi. The attempts, though, fruitless and vain, are ultimately channeled into
ambiguous actions. They do not provide the desired change, neither in the private

78

sphere, nor on the larger scale of social representation. On the contrary, they generate
further confusion and disturbance within the encapsulated community and cause
irreversible turmoil. The direction of the efforts and deeds of the major characters can
be considered in terms of two major tendencies one of them is aimed at the structural
center of the play, the title character. The second one vacillates on the verge of
mockery, ridicule, eccentricity and the absurd. Thus, crucial discussions of life,
personal choices, work, finance, friendship and love are modified into a bizarre
amalgamation of poetic techniques from a drawing room comedy, melodrama,
buffoonery and tragifarce.
Questions about the position, status, and responsibilities of an individual within
a society, and the consequences of private decisions, are interwoven with the
exploration of the everyday praxis and cultural patterns of the provincial estate.
Platonov can be regarded as a drama of a lost identity, which through theatricalisation
and self-dramatisation strives to restore the troubled inner balance. The more the title
character attempts to depart from recognizable patterns of relationship and social
conduct through the big sweeping amplitudes of shutnichestvo, iurodstvo, selfparody and mockery of the others, the wider the gap between the fictional and the real.
84

As a result, on the one hand, the purest and the most fragile people are hurt

(Platonovs son and wife) and on the other hand, Platonov pays with his own life.
Beyond this, other numerous events accompany the main plot line and contribute to the
tragic and yet heterogeneous overtone of the plays dnouement.

84

This type of dramatic technique Igor Sukhikh defines as pulling apart (raskhozhdenie) of the
informational and emotional meaning of the dialogue. More on the system of dialogue in Platonov, see
Igor Sukhikh, Problemy poetiki A.P. Chekhova, (Leningrad: Izdatelstvo Leningradskogo universiteta,
1987) 10-33; Gilman, Op. cit., pp. 47-48

79

The problem of marginal and centrifugal energies regulating Voiynitsevs estate

can be traced as early as in the very opening scene of the play. Bored, trying to kill
some time over a game of chess, Anna Voynitsev and Nikolai Triletsky are engaged in
one of those endless conversations about daily routines, hot weather, the upcoming
lunch, and, finally, Triletskys courting of Maria Grekov. Once having headed in a
certain direction, the conversation never arrives at its intended destination as a topic. It
lingers and constantly crumbles into an insignificant exchange of remarks, which
rhythmically, in between, generates the main dramatic narrative. With regard to this,
Triletskys passing comment on his relationship with Maria is quite revealing. 85
TRILETSKY: Actually, I see her every second day, sometimes every day even. We go
for walks in leafy country lanes. I talk about things that interest me, she talks to me
about things that interest her, holding me by this button and removing some fluff from
my collar. Im always covered in fluff, you know.
p.19

Meetings and talks at the Voynitsev estate are desired and waited for. Members
of its circle need to see and communicate with each other on a daily basis. Like doctor
Triletsky and Maria Grekov, though, they do not pay serious attention to what they
hear or observe. What they really aspire to is determined by the inner urge to live in
and be part of an environment, which, although incapable of giving answers or
resolving dilemmas, at least, can provide a certain setting for bringing up problems.
While waiting for lunch or another meal, the residents of Voynitsevka discuss the most
vital and delicate issues with the same amount of energy and enthusiasm as they do
local rumors and petty issues. The intrinsic idea of intimacy is constantly broken.
Every character is driven by the demand to share and confess, to contemplate and
ponder. A person from outside is needed to confirm choices and concepts, perceptions
85

All citations from the play are from Anton Chekhov, Platonov: A Play in Four Acts and Five Scenes,
Trans. David Magarshack, (New York: Hill and Wang, 1965). Transliteration of the characters names is
also consistent with this edition.

80

and feelings. The social and the private fuse and produce an ambiguous mode of
behavior. This mode is adopted to facilitate the conventionally enacted patterns of
social and cultural behavior, which turn out to be already inadequate.
Voynitsevs estate represents a diverse body, which at the same time stands out
as an encapsulated society. Voynitsevkas seclusion is determined not only by being
located on a remote estate in a southern province but also and mainly by the essence of
the attitudes of its members, by the monotony of its rituals, by the quality of
established relationships. These types of manifestation are indicated in different ways.
Anna Voynitsev introduces Pavel Shcherbuk a landowner and neighbor of the
Voynitsevs as their friend, neighbor, guest and creditor. In a similar fashion,
Glagolyev Sr. and Petrin can be portrayed. Close friends to Voynitsevas late husband,
they are not only guests at the estate but also full members of the manors life. At first
glance, the estate reveals complex interconnected financial relationships, which
primarily spin around the imminent threat of bankruptcy, losing the estate, and the
futile efforts to avoid the inevitable. On the other hand, economic forces are revealed
and examined through characters, whose awareness of the very essence of the bonds is
unveiled:
TRILETSKY [to Sophia]: Didnt you know I was getting board and lodgings from her
ladyship [Anna] for being her jester? And pocket money, too. When they tire of me,
theyll kick me out of here in disgrace. Its true what Im saying, isnt it. However, Im
not the only one who says it. You said it too at dinner at Glagolyev, didnt you?
p. 100

The significance which Chekhov attaches to the economic interdependence in

Voynitsevka, can be detected in minute details as well as in expressive artistic
summations. Triletskys petty parasitism is demonstrated also in his repetitive
borrowing of small amounts of cash from different benefactors, as Anna defines the

81

latter once, followed by the immediate irrational giveaways of the same money. The
beneficiaries, on their part, accept the gesture instinctively without any comment or
even slight puzzlement. An illustration of the playwrights artistry with tropes is
articulated through a witty pun on an abbreviation, which is elevated to a capacious
metaphor:
TRILETSKY: () Incidentally, what does that monogram S.V. mean? Sophia
Voynitsev, or Sergey Voynitsev? To whom did our philologist wish to pay his respects
by these letters: his wife or himself?
PLATONOV: It seems to me that these letters must mean Salute to Vengerovich. Its
his money we are making merry on.
p. 87

Thus, the dimensions of the impending economic catastrophe range from explicit
statements to emblematic articulation. Voynitsevkas inhabitants and guests are
entangled in intricate relations whose suffocating nature is reinforced by the stifling
summer heat, which functions as a background to the dramatic action throughout the
play. Almost every dramatis persona entering the stage for the first time refers to the
devilishly hot weather. The weather conditions are considered rather inappropriate
for discussing serious matters. The southern leisurely setting serves as an excuse or
justification for the lack of characters motivation to be active and responsive. Similar
remarks are present as continuous accompaniment to the discourse of boredom and
melancholy. Moreover, even a courtship sometimes can be lined up in the same order
of daily routines as mealtime. Triletsky interprets his wooing of Maria Grekov as
killing time together rather than as a love or passion:
TRILETSKY: Im afraid I cant say what I find so attractive about her. (Boredom,
love, or something else? I dont know.) After dinner Im terribly bored with her Ive
found outby the sheerest accident, mind youthat shes bored with me too.
p. 19

In concordance with the way in which Voynitsevka comments on and reacts to

the social fabric of the relationships involved, the psychological and intellectual

82

aspects of the estates encapsulation are displayed. Day after day, the same faces, and
no promise of diversity, challenge or change:
GLAGOLYEV SR.: Im bored. These people say things Ive heard years ago. They
think what I thought as a child. Its all old stuff, nothing newIm cursing myself for
being unwanted here.
ANNA: Because youre not like us? People learn to live with cockroaches, why dont
you learn to live with our sort of people?
p.93

The same sense of encapsulation and predictability can be detected even in the
visiting card of the villages horse-thiefs, Osip, as composed by Platonov: Born in
Voynitsevka, committed all his robberies and murders in Voynitsevka, and always to
be found in and around Voynitsevka.
The habitual daily rhythm of Voynitsevka is shaped by meals and small talk,
low-key discussions, arrivals and departures, which create a misleading impression of
dynamism. The organizational principle of the estates existence is presented as an
alternation of these components, which is reminiscent of the pattern of the seasons
natural cycle. The formal entanglement of the dramatic plot begins with the arrival of
the Voynitsev family from the city. This major impulse, though, pushes along the plot
development not only in Voynitsevka, but also in Platonovka. The ostensible energy of
Voynitsevka is juxtaposed to languid Platonovka. Whereas Voynitsevkas mealtimes
and visits regulate the manors dynamics, the express and goods trains passing by
measure Platonovkas life. It is also naturally determined by the academic schedule in
light of Platonov being a schoolmaster.
An additional model of interaction between both topoi will be established
throughout the play. In it another illustration of marginality can be recognized.
Recurring shifts of the dramatic progression are launched between Platonovka and
Voynitsev manor. They reflect the striving of the former entity to overcome its own

83

isolation, emotional hibernation and despondency only to discover a level of identical

apathy in the latter. In terms of phases within the dramatic development, analogous
fluctuations are tangible. On the surface, most of the events occur in Voynitsevka. The
real center of dramatic tension though, the rising action and part of the climatic point in
particular, is situated in Platonovka. Consequently, the concentration of dramatic
activity correlates with the main protagonists shifts between the two entities. The
center and periphery in Platonov both in terms of qualitative components of the
drama and in relation to the development of the main protagonist of the play,
demonstrate discernible instability, which will be discussed below.
Mikhail Platonov himself, serves as the focal point of the action and functions
as a hub of communication, in a similar way to the Voynitsevka estate. Equally hated
and admired, he is that enigmatic figure who serves as the man in the mirror for the
others. Playing, teasing, mocking, arrogant, aggressive, the provincial schoolmaster is
the most interesting interlocutor and the most attractive gentleman for the ladies. He is
the epitome of modern indeterminacy and incompleteness. Glagolyev Sr. says about
him:
GLAGOLYEV SR.: () He [Platonov] is the hero of the best, though, unfortunately,
still unwritten, modern novel. By uncertainty I mean the present condition of our
society: the Russian novelist feels this uncertainty. He finds himself in a quandary, he
is at a loss, doesnt know what to concentrate on. He doesnt understand () these
people. His novels are abominably bad, everything in them is forced and cheap, and,
well, no wonder! Everything is so uncertain, so unintelligible Everything is so
terribly confused. Everything is in such a hopeless muddle. And our highly intelligent
Platonov, in my opinion, expresses this uncertainty admirably.
p. 26

The vagueness and incompleteness Glagolyev Sr. refers to can be recognized even in
Annas salon furniture, which is a mixture of modern and antique units. Tradition
meets modernity and their interaction produces an ambiguous result.

84

If we try to enumerate the epithets and qualifications Platonovs

acquaintances and friends give him, we will have a long list of labels which portray a
complex individual. He stands out, on the one hand, as an emblematic representative of
Voynitsevka and, on the other hand, as an unattached constituent of its micro-cosmos.
Anna Voynitseva is the first one who asks the question of his status. () What kind
of person do you think he is? Is he a hero or not a hero? (p.26) she asks Triletsky and
Glagolyev Sr. For only a hero like Platonov is capable of stirring the lethargic
atmosphere of the estate, of provoking and demanding reactions and of searching for
responses. This ability, though, is revived in him only when Platonov deeply immerses
himself in the setting of high ceilings and parquet. Platonovs trips to Voynitsev
estate function as a means of awakening from his hibernation. There is an armchair
in the home of Voynitseva, considered his own one, waiting for him whenever
Platonov wishes to appear. Domesticity is not appealing to him. He needs an audience
to preach and ridicule, and Annas drawing room serves as a perfect stage. The
smell of human flesh, as Platonov himself defines, electrifies his hunting nature. He
pursues me from morning till night, keeps staring at me, doesnt give me a moments
peace with those understanding eyes of his, complains Sophia (p.75). Triletsky, in his
turn, compares Platonovs indulgence in harsh mockery and his zeal for sermonizing
with predatory instincts: There he sits, our great sage and philosopher. Always on the
look out. Waiting impatiently for his prey: whom to regale with a lecture before
bedtime. (p.89).
Platonov attracts with his typicality and unpredictability. His companions can
watch in him a reflected image of themselves. These reflections are quite often

85

distorted and ugly, banal and devastating. Yet Mikhail Platonov sends real challenges
because among the frequenters of Voynitsevas drawing-room he is the only hero.
By hero, as we have already noted, is meant his capability to render best their
common indeterminateness. With regard to this, Cyril Glagolyevs comment is very
articulate:
GLAGOLYEV JR.: What a rabble! What specimens! The airs they give themselves! Such ugly
faces, such crooked noses! And the women?Good Lord! In such company I invariably prefer
the refreshment bar to dancingHow stale the air in Russia! So damp, so close. I cant bear
Russia. The ignorance, the stench horrible! Its quite different abroad.
p. 88

Specimens (tipy in the original text) here evoke the concept of frozen empty
masks. Within the model of their routine behavior, Voynitsevkas inhabitants are
comfortable behind them. They do not trouble to try to overcome the habitual pattern.
Platonov is the one who constantly attempts to cross the framework of the status quo.
In most cases, the effect of troubled water he creates is cleansing. Whether he plays
with his own transformations or enjoys the role of the raisonneur, sardonically
merciless or surprisingly considerate and understanding, he always triggers a reaction.
Platonovs character permanently hesitates between two major cultural agenda:
that of the court jester and of the holy fool. To produce an effect of behavioral and
cultural marginality the dramatist elaborately amalgamates these two patterns. In the
first place, this has to do with Chekhovs efforts to track down the nature of the jester
who is entitled to tell the truth without decorations and euphemisms. In addition, the
jesters mission is also to provide, even for a while, an emotional asylum in a
traditional societal unit.
In considering the holy foolishness (iurodstvo), the ideological and cultural
value of the concept in Russian mentality and history is crucial, since the behavioral

86

equivalent of the phenomenon is demonstrated in the cultural space of Platonov. We

will trace its manifestations in the person of the title character of the play as well as in
Osip (to whom we will pay special attention later on) since there are, as we see it, two
major reasons for its use. The first one has to do with the very nature of the social
representation and public reputation of both individuals. The second rationale for
placing Platonov and Osip within the discourse of holy fool figures stems from their
link to the notion of marginality. We need to establish the aspects of their behavior as
markers of the phenomenon in question because representations of iurodstvo in
Platonov, reasonably, are not demonstrated in the literal sense of the term. They rather
emerge as deep-seated patterns within the cultural memory of Voynitsevkas society.
Needless to say, as a social phenomenon, iurodstvo represents marginality par
excellence. In terms of public status, involvement in social order and relationship with
authorities, the institution of the church in particular, holy fools unquestionably occupy
the margins of society. Vladimir Dal gives the following definition of iurodivy86 :[]
people consider holy fools to be Gods people, often discerning in [their] unconscious
acts deep meaning, even intuition or premonition; [] the ecclesiastical connotation at
times implies [someone] foolish, unreasonable, irrational. Under the same entry, we
find the following specification: [] iurodstvo (to adopt/embrace iurodstvo),
iuroditsia, iurodstvovat, [means] to play the fool the way jesters in olden times
did.87 The last segment suggests that the phenomenon in question can be classified
under two main categories the first one referring to people with a physical disability
or mental disorder towards which the society cultivates an attitude of both total
86
87

Vladimir Dal, Tolkovy slovar zhivogo velikorusskogo iazyka, (Tokyo: Tachibana Shotem, 1934).
Translations from all cited Russian sources are my own, unless stated otherwise.

87

rejection and marginalization or that of sympathy and mercy. The second group
includes individuals who adopt the holy fool figure as a conscious manifestation of
criticism of or confrontation with the societal norms and outlook.
Tracing the roots of iurodstvo back to the times of Medieval Rus, A.
Panchenko identifies these two major types as natural and voluntary and
differentiates within them another two subcategories passive and active.88 In our
case, as we have already mentioned, we are interested exclusively in those indications
which are representative of the phenomenon as an essential component of Russian
cultural, spiritual, and last but not least literary heritage. Intelligent iurodstvo this is
neither an oxymoron, nor a paradox. Indeed, it was a form of intellectual criticism
[], specifies Panchenko.89 The prevailing aspect of iurodstvo in Platonov is
displayed through intellectual resistance, severe ridicule of decorum, hypocrisy and
total uselessness of Voynitsevka. In Osip, the phenomenon is demonstrated through a
psychological confrontation with the villagers.
The public status of the holy fool figure in Russian culture is unstable. On the
one hand iurodivye are treated as outcasts of society and depending on their physical
condition and public behavior, they are either approached with compassion or regarded
as dangerous deviations. The latter attitude has to do also with the fact that there were
many cases of behavior, which imitated iurodstvo. Russian cultural history evidences
numerous examples of imitators of holy fools (lzheiurodtsy). As a result an individual
who showed any symptoms of iurodivost was approached with caution.

88

For more details, see A. M. Panchenko, O russkoi istorii i kulture, (St. Peterburg: Azbuka, 2000),
section Iurodivye na Rusi, pp. 337-355
89
Ibid., 338.

88

The second main role of the holy fools relates to their performative attributes.
In this function, they share certain features with the figure of jesters. In spite of some
differences in Western and Eastern cultures towards them, both traditions endow
jesters with special privileges. In the entertaining quality of jesters and holy fools,
society finds a balance between rejection and tolerance, and an opportunity to justify a
mechanism for protecting marginal people. The jesters practice of public mockery of
human weaknesses and societal vices correlates with the holy fools protest and
criticism. Furthermore, both figures are granted the license to speak their minds
freely since their performance is not considered to pose a threat towards the
established order. In rare cases, a jester would pay with his life for his arrogance, while
church authorities would ostracize holy fools, depending on the particular case.
Namely, their access to the church would be limited or totally denied.90
As an institution both the figure of the jester and that of the holy fool, assume
incongruous position within society. On the one hand, they belong to the periphery.
They are loners and rarely form any type of common societal grouping. On the other
hand, the essence of their pursuit needs an audience and, as a result, they become a
center of public attention. Their activity is for the crowd and it is executed in the street,
on the town square, or in the royal court.91 The country estate inherits some properties

90

More on this subject, see M.P. Pyliaev, Staroe zhyte: Ocherki i rasskazy o byvshikh v otshedshee
vremia obriadakh, obychaiakh, i poriadkakh v ustroistve domashnei zhizni, (Sankt-Peterburg: zhurnal
Neva; Letnii sad, 2000), section Starodavnie starchiki, pustosviaty i iurodtsy, 321-425.
91
On fools and jesters in Russian court see Ivan Zabelin, Domashnii byt ruskikh tsarei v XVI i XVII
stoletiiakh, (Moscow: Iazyki russkoi kultury, 2000): 257-275.

89

and rituals from court life, which, in its turn, in certain aspects are witnessed later in
the praxis of the dacha.92
In terms of theatricality of the Russian country estate and its cultural routines,
Voynitsev estate does not make an exception. It finds its jester figure in the person of
Mikhail Platonov. He identifies Annas salon with a pulpit from which to preach,
with a stage on which to perform, and in Voynitsevkas frequenters the spectators he
needs: What is so remarkable is the revolting fact that you never quarrel with my
father when youre alone with him. You choose a drawing room for your diversions,
for there the fools can see you in all your glory. Oh, you theatrical fellow! (p. 61). A
certain hierarchy within the capacity to entertain is established. Triletsky endeavors
to try on the role of Platonov to see if it fits him. However, his attempts immediately
get discouraged. Anna is the first character to bring up the question of eligibility for
being a jester. She denies Triletsky the privilege: I do believe youre about to deliver
yourself of some witticism. Dont, my dear fellow, Im sick of your jokes. Besides, the
role of jester doesnt suit you. Have you noticed that I never laugh at your jokes? You
ought to have noticed it ages ago, I should have thought. (p. 18) Sophia elaborates the
notion by downgrading Triletskys to a buffoon and a clown, most probably
because the quality of his jestership is rather one-dimensional.
In contrast, Platonovs iurodstvo and buffoonery are manifested as a means to
face his own demons, to suppress his bitter sense of self-dissatisfaction and deep
intellectual and spiritual anxiety. Platonovs personal charisma, sharp wit and
cynicism, though, exasperate his audience. His challenging faculty for what in our time
92

On the paradigm of country retreat and the relationship between dacha and country estate, see Stephen
Lovell, Between Arcadia and Suburbia: Dachas in Late Imperial Russia., Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No.
1. Spring, (2002): 66-87.

90

would be labeled as showmanship is, in fact, a manifestation of self-inflicted bad

publicity. What prompts this is the fact that in his role of a court jester Platonov
violates an important rule, which regulates the relationship between a court and a
jester. A jesters performance implies a temporary suspension of the established
hierarchy. Eventually the exchange of places is expected to be reversed and the order
restored. Platonov does not seem to believe in that. In addition, mocking Voynitsevkas
royalty and, therefore demarcating himself from them, he at the same time is an
indispensable part of this royalty. Hence, Platonovs status is somewhat paradoxical
and incongruous.
His main critic and antagonist--Isaak Vengerovich Jr., discern this aspect of
Platonovs theatricality. These two characters have several serious encounters. They
reflect the hostility between Platonov and the rich Jewish businessman Abram
Vengerovich, Isaaks father, based on the firm certainty of the latter about Platonovs
total uselessness, financial incompetence, irresponsibility, and repulsive arrogance. The
conflict between Vengerovich Jr. and Platonov is also rooted in their ongoing dispute
about the most vital philosophical and ideological issues of the time.93 In the context of
the quality and connotations of the plays theatricality, it is Isaak Vengerovich who
grasps the dark tonality and not the innocent side of Platonovs buffoonery.
VENGEROVICH JR.: Dont think that Im angry with you because you dont let my
father alone. Not in the least. Im merely interested in finding out what people are
really like. Im not angry at all. By making study of you, Im trying to find out what
our modern Chatskys are like. I understand you only too well. If you had been happy,
if you hadnt been so bored with doing nothing, it would never have occurred to you to

93

I. Sukhikh believes that the literary projection of Vengerovich Jr. is Dr. Lvov from Ivanov.
Moreover, the scholar sees in this character reflection of the Fathers and Children rhetoric. Mikhail
Gromov in his analysis of the play also underlines the significance of the critical tradition of the
sixties. For more on that topic, see Mikhail Gromov, Chekhov, (Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1993),
chapter Bezotsovshchina.

91

worry my father. You, Mr. Chatsky, are not looking for justice, youre merely amusing
yourselves, enjoying yourselves. Now that you have no longer any menials (dvornia)
you have to abuse someone. So you abuse everybody who happens to cross your path.
p. 61

This statement alludes to the legacy of Russian estate attitudes from pre-reform times
and their, at times, grim practices of leisure and entertainment. Platonovs behavior
Vengerovich Jr. sees as a refined transformation of physical brutality into verbal abuse.
Despite the fact that the main protagonist is the center of theatricalisation of the
everyday existence, he does not stand as an exception in this respect. Selfdramatisation or quite the reverse intentional conduct on the verge of the farcical
tempts other characters. In this connection, the extraordinary literariness and
referentiality of the whole play should be emphasized. Vladimir Kataev considers this
as a factor, which creates an intensified literary background for the play.94 Igor
Sukhikh attaches a special aesthetic significance to the literary layer of Platonov.
This is a reality, completely saturated with literature, in which the roles are blended,
where the boundaries between play (igra) and real life are almost indistinguishable,
where for a genuine sensation it is extremely difficult to squeeze through theatrical
clichs. [] Almost all of the dramatis personae of Chekhovs play are characters from
novels and dramas already written, often from several works simultaneously, which is
highlighted through literary parallels and reminiscences.95 M. Gromovs interpretation
of the presence and meaning of multiple literary allusions in the drama is the most
adequate in terms of theatricality. He discerns in Platonovs excessive referentiality
the emergence of one of the most distinguished techniques within the playwrights

94

Vladimir Kataev. Literaturnye sviazi Chekhova, (Moscow: Izdatelstvo Moskovskogko universiteta,

1989) 115.
95
Igor Sukhikh, Op. cit., 22.

92

poetics: in the new context the high literary or novel (romanicheskii) discourse was
reduced to a parody, [and thus] was dethroned and given a new meaning.96
It is precisely the intense presence of the above-mentioned discourse and the
dramaturgical vocabulary in particular, that is central to our understanding of the plays
use of marginality and theatricality. In the characters imagination reality is pushed to
the periphery and they live and act with the idea of other, different dimensions that of
art and literature. This proximity, however, gradually diminishes when the play
approaches its climax. The artificiality of performance and identification with
literary heroes is recognized and rejected. The impending catastrophe serves as the
alarming signal that brings to an end the buffoonery, which is literally indicated in
characters lexis. Here are several illustrations:
SASHA: Let me go. Im done for. Youre joking97 while Im suffering [] Dont you
realize that its no joke?
p. 160
PLATONOV: Is this the epilogue or is the comedy still continuing?

p. 160

GLAGOLYEV SR.: Lets go and look for happiness somewhere else. Enough! Its
high time I stopped performing a comedy for my own benefit, going on fooling myself
with ideals! Theres no more faith, no more love! There are no more human beings!
p. 163
TRILETSKY JR.: This is terribleThe tragedy is almost at an end, tragedian! p. 183
PLATONOV: [] Must kill myself [] (He picks up a revolver.) Hamlet was afraid
of dreams. Im afraid of--life. Whats going to happen to me if I go on living? I shall
be ashamed to face people. (He puts revolver to his temple.) Finita la comedia.
p. 190
COL. TRILETSKY: The Lord has forsaken us. For our sins. For my sins. Why did you
sin, you old clown.
p. 195

Platonovs hesitation between high and low projections of public behavior and
theatricalisation of everyday life is additionally elaborated by the vacillation of the
plays stylistics between light comic playfulness, gloomy grotesque and genuine
96
97

Mikhail Gromov, Op. cit., 96-97.

Emphasis mine.

93

tragedy. Within the afore-mentioned stylistics, along with the interpretation of literary
patterns of high discourse, equally important is the representation of the traditional
icon of the holy fool. This image creates an unanticipated counterpart Osip. Osips
character is one of the major creations and accomplishments of Chekhov with regard to
the system of characters and in relation to the dramatic conflict of the play. Osip is a
horse-thief and a bandit. Platonov and Osip belong to completely different worlds.
What unites them is their similar lingering on the border of right and wrong, moral and
immoral, high and low. Both of them follow and believe in eccentric ethics, yet one
that operates within the framework of the fundamental principles of Christian
paradigm. Platonov greets Osip on his first appearance in Act One:
PLATONOV: Who do I see? The devils bosom friend. The terror of the countryside. The most
fearsome of the mortalsIt is you who in the darkness of the night and the light of the day fill
the hearts of men with terror? Its a long time since I clapped eyes on you, murderer, No. 666!
[] I have the honor, ladies and gentlemen, to present a most interesting specimen to you. One
of the most interesting bloodthirsty animals of our modern zoological museum [] Horsethief,
parasite, murderer, and burglar.
p. 50

In a comparable way, an accumulation of various qualifications of Platonov can

be traced throughout the drama. They reveal an identical status. Platonov is the local
celebrity whose charisma preoccupies the minds of Voynitsevka. Dear windbag,
our great sage and philosopher, half-baked sageempty and hollow, interesting,
original fellow, splutterer to mention but a few of Platonovs characteristics
scattered along the entire body of the dramatic text. Osips character serves as the
second focal point within the plays network of dramatis personae. The presence and
the development of his part elaborate the poetic unconventionality of Platonov and
contribute to the progression of the idea of social and psychological marginality and its
ethical dimensions.

94

Osip is a peasant but he does not feel himself a member of his community. The
village ostracizes him not only because of his criminal record. Osip does not fit into the
peasants life because of his exotic arrogance and bizarre proud loneliness. What
repels the peasants catches the attention of bored Voynitsevka. Osip does not fully fit
into the folkloric, Romantic paradigm of the noble outlaw, nor does Platonov
completely correspond to the model established by the rich literary tradition of
superfluous man. Both of them follow the strange, meandering path of ups and
downs, revelations and iurodstvo. That is why they are attracted to each other. They
watch each other from the side and this observation is one of their ways of selfknowledge. Osips attitude of superiority towards common people echoes Platonovs
unmitigated contempt for the people of his circle. It is the same arrogance and the same
sense of extraordinariness:
OSIP: You see, sir, the common people have no guts today. Theyre stupidAfraid of
proving anything against me. They could have sent me to Siberia, but they dont know
the law. Theyre terrified of everything. Yes, sir, the common people is an ass, sir.
Theyre always trying to do things behind your back, in a crowd. Theyre an ignorant,
beggarly, scurvy lot, sir. It serves them right if they get hurt.
p. 52

Chekhov uses Osips character as a dramaturgical tool to nuance and enrich

Platonovs personality. Moreover, the playwright endows Osip with compositional
value. His first appearance coincides with the accumulating tension between
Vengerovich Sr. and Platonov. The clash between the two of them will take place later,
however the encounter at that point is postponed by Osips intrusion and the focus is
diverged. This intentional retardation alters the rhythm and inaugurates Osips
paradoxical task to be a peacemaker and, at the same time, to serve as Platonovs
executioner. Vengerovich Sr. pays Osip to cripple Platonov in order to punish him
for his abuse and disdain. However, Osip will not be able to do it. The financial award

95

is tempting but what is crucial for his decision to tear up Vengerovichs twenty-five
rouble note is the inner conviction that money should not be the motivation behind the
punishment. Platonov should be penalized for being a bad man. Osip, however, is
aware of his own sins. When the scene reaches its climax, Sasha enters the house and
saves Platonovs life just as previously Osip prevents her first attempt to commit a
suicide.
Osip reminds Platonov of what he himself could have been and what he never
had become. It is exactly Osip who brings up the bitter realization that youth and good
intentions have been wasted.
PLATONOV: [] What a smile! And his face! [] Theres a ton of brass in that face.
You wouldnt break it on a stone easily. [] Look at yourself, monster! See? Arent
you surprised?
OSIP: A most ordinary man, sir. Less, even
PLATONOV: Oh? Are you sure youre not one of the mythical Russian giants? Not an
Ilya Murometz [] Oh, gallant, victorious Russian, what are we compared to thee?
Little men, rushing to and fro, parasites, ignorant of our proper places. Why, you and I
should be fighting giants with heads as big as mountains, whistling as we perform
deeds of derring-do. You would have made short work of legendary Solovey the
Brigand, wouldnt you?
p. 51

Platonovs fascination with the villages horse-thief is due not only to Osips
impressive physique. It is Osips social autonomy and psychological self-sufficiency
that he admires most. The rhetorical questions he asks Osip are rather an expression of
sincere respect: You dont belong to this world, do you? Youre beyond space and
time. Youre beyond customs and above the law, arent you? (p. 52). Both characters
feel the pressure of not being capable to integrate fully in their communities. This
awareness of marginalization merges into another vital theme of the play that of
unrealized productive energy. The persistent leitmotif of undeveloped potential can be
detected not only in Platonov and Osip but also in several minor characters. Whereas in
his youth Platonov sees himself as as a future Cabinet Minister and Sophia, looks on

96

him as a second Byron, Colonel Triletsky envision his son, doctor Triletsky, as
future Pirogov. As to his own military career, Triletsky Sr. is not less modest:
COL. TRILETSKY: Another five years in the army, and Id be a general. You dont
think so? [] A man like me and not to be a general? With my education? You
dont understand a damn thing if you think that. You dont understand a damn thing.
p. 69

The discrepancy between ambition and illusion is another manifestation of the

authors exploration of the incongruities between Voynitsevkas representations and its
true nature. We can observe numerous examples revealing a characters sensitivity
towards others person false pretenses and illusions, and, naturally, the inability to
identify such symptoms in oneself. Platonov-Osip juxtaposition is built on this
principle of mirroring of the characters. There are, of course, numerous other
illustrations of this construct. We have already seen how Sophia proves false
Triletskys efforts to play the second jester in Voynitsevkas court. In his turn,
Triletsky reveals Sophias superficiality. Triletsky portrays her pompous verbiage,
caricaturing her obsession with the common idea and going to the people. He
discerns Sophias false pretenses and shallowness prior to Platonov himself:
TRILETSKY: [] The other day I was examining the portraits of our contemporary
public figures [] and reading their biographies. And what do you think my dear
chap? You and I are not among them. No, sir. I couldnt find either you or myself,
however much I tried. [] and - can you imagine it? Im perfectly happy. Now,
Sophia is different. She is not happy.
PLATONOV: What has Sophia has to do with it?
TRILETSKY: She feels hurt not to be among our contemporary public figures. She
imagines she has only to move her little finger and the whole world will gape in
astonishment at her and the mankind will fling up its cap for sheer joy. She imagines well Im afraid you wont find so much fatuous nonsense in any of our clever
modern novels as youll find in herA clever dollLooks on me with contempt,
thinks Im just blot on the landscape. But in what way her darling Sergey better than
me? Is it because he drinks no vodka, thinks elevated thoughts, and unblushingly
describes himself as the man of the future?
p.86

Ironically, Colonel Triletskys great plans for the medical career of his son echo a
similar discrepancy. The more a character exposes his/her emptiness and

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inarticulateness, the higher s/he positions him/herself in the hierarchy of values. The
toxic search for perfection crumbles into preposterous pretensions.
Osip and Platonov share not only a similar approach towards reality, but also
common female objects of admiration. Osip adores Anna Voynitseva as a goddess. Her
sophistication and inaccessibility make her an enigmatic person for him. Thus the idea
of the pilgrimage to Kiev and New Jerusalem, hinted at by Anna, is Osips most
cherished experience. Regardless of its failure, Osip considers the very idea to attempt
to take the trip as a sacred mission. The concept of repentance brings in some relief. It
is significant that Osip shares the story of his pilgrimage with Sasha Platonova. His
attitude towards her is another aspect of his personality, which is interrelated, with that
of Platonov. Osips compassion to Sasha is rather unexpected and touching, and it is he
who prevents her first attempt to commit a suicide.
The symbolism of the railway track on which Sasha throws herself is crucial.
Its connotation does not only imply the archetypal metaphor of disrupting modernity.
Osip never accomplishes the voyage to Kiev. However, saving Sasha is his own way of
showing genuine repentance for his sins. This scene is reminiscent of Platonovs later
fit of anger pushing Nickolay Triletsky to visit a dying patient. The very fact that the
doctor considers seeing the sick shopkeeper worthless and that he prefers to go to sleep
this outrageous indifference unleashes in the title character the long-awaited
devastating realization: What kind of creature are you? he asks Triletsky in terror.
PLATONOV: [] What do you live for? Why dont you study? Why dont you keep
up with medical studies? Why arent you doing anything about it you animal? []
What God are you worshipping, you strange creature? What kind of man are you/ No,
we98 shall never be of any use. Never!.. Nothing will come of us, the lichens of the
earth. Were done for, were utterly worthlessTheres not a single man on whom I

98

Emphasis mine.

98

could look and be comforted. How vulgar, filthy, shabby, everything is! Go away,
Nickolas! Go!
p. 127

It is impossible for Platonov to live in self-deception anymore. His habitual role of

Chatsky is appropriated by Cyril Glagolyev. Chekhov uses Chatskys image, as well
as numerous other literary references, which are abundant in the play, to shift and
lower the familiar literary clich. The image splits between Glagolyev and Platonov in
order to show the inability of both characters to perform the function of the famous
literary hero. Glagolyev possesses only one formal criterion- that of an outsider.
However, his arrival does not generate any disruption in Voynitsevkas routines.
Platonov continuously disturbs the estates realm but he is neither an intruder, nor a
stranger. He belongs to Voynitsevka. In spite of his intellectual and emotional
resistance, Platonov is one of them. That is why the Romantic Byronic pose, which he
sometimes strives to try on, becomes a self-parody.
The hesitation between high and low projections of the main protagonist of
Platonov, his unremitting shifts from the center towards periphery and back, can be
also observed on the level of love affairs. The dramatic plot is peppered with multiple
romances, which are portrayed as a melodramatic caricature of the prevailing turn-ofthe-century literary formulae. Platonovs preposterous provincial Don Juanism is
forestalled by Shcherbuks story about his malicious wife and her red-haired Don
Juan. The farcical essence of this story is elaborated in the romantic puzzle in which
Platonov ultimately finds himself to be entrapped. Four ladies vie for his affection:
Sasha his wife, Anna-- his soul mate, Sophia--Platonovs first love, and, finally-Maria Grekov a neighbor and an enigma. Paradoxically, for a long time Sasha, Anna,
Maria, and Sophia are not aware of this hidden rivalry.

99

Sasha is the epitome of unconditional love. Dressed in Russian national

clothing, deeply religious, all forgiving, she is rather more a mother figure for Platonov
than a wife. Having a family of his own is probably the only feeling of
accomplishment, which Platonov has to his credit. The concept of pater familias gives
him certain stability, and Sasha and his little son fill in some part of the huge gap
within him. Pure and nave, Sasha is very devoted to her husband. She loves him
enormously in spite of his numerous shortcomings. She shuts her eyes to his obvious
flirtation with the young widow, Anna, taking the fact as not dangerous. Only when
Sasha discovers Platonovs romance with Sophia through Osip is her moral code
shattered. Sophia is a married woman and this means that another family would be
destroyed. The pain and humiliation are so excruciating that she twice attempts suicide.
Annas arrogance and cynicism fascinate Platonov. Fully aware of her feminine
appeal, educated and sophisticated, spoilt and manipulative, Anna is his perfect match
for the drawing-room discussions. Her carefully constructed image of a fin-de-sicle,
emancipated woman combined with the eccentricity of a young widow who smokes,
drinks, whistles like a peasant, and enjoys hunting, creates a mysterious persona.
Divine Diana and Alexander the Great are among of her nicknames.
COL. TRILETSKY: [] I like high-spirited women like you, damme! Cant stand
timid creatures! [] Smell her lovely shoulder and you get a whiff of gunpowder. She
reeks of Hannibals and Hamilcars! A field-marshal, a regular field-marshal! Give her a
pair of epaulettes and shell conquer the world.
p. 33

In the person of Mikhail Platonov, this fiery, European lady meets her only equal
partner who is capable of mocking the meaningless existence of Voynitsevka and of
laughing at his own flaws. Anna and Platonov are partners in crime in terms of their
mutual interest in any idea or experience, which could be possibly qualified as spicy

100

(chto-nibud kislenkoe). Platonov is the only person to be able to decipher Anna. He

can recognize the despair even in those moments when she apparently enjoys a good
time. He is able to discern in her desire to camouflage inner anxiety identical to his
own.
PLATONOV: [To Triletsky] Dont believe her laughter. Its impossible to believe the
laughter of an intelligent woman who never cries. She laughs when she wants to cry.
And our Anna doesnt want to cry, she wants to shoot herself. You can see it in her eyes.
p.87

What lies beneath the mask of a society lady is an abyss of loneliness and
vulnerability. Anna shares with Platonov another important feature--extreme selfdestructiveness: If you drink you die and if you dont drink you die, so why not drink
and die? Im a drunkard, Platonov. (p. 151) Anna Voynitsev is the most eligible
spinster in the district and her estate serves as a place of common attraction for the
local gentlemen. However, there is another important reason which draws the local
businesspersons and landowners. The Voynitsev family is in debt and Anna is
overwhelmed by the estates financial crisis. Sergey, her stepson, is useless. The only
hope is in Glagolyev Sr., who behaves as if he would be willing to buy the estate and to
allow the family to stay there indefinitely. Rejected by Anna, he, however, does not
show up at the auction and goes abroad. When discussing with Platonov the moral and
emotional price of saving Voynitsevka, Anna is straightforward. When making her
decision she has to choose between two parameters of nobility ideology: honor or
estate.
ANNA: [] But, the trouble is, you see, that the honor you were so eloquent about for
my benefit today is applicable only in theory and not in practice. I have no right to drive
them [Glagolyev and Petrin] out. [] For you see, they are our benefactors, our
creditors. Ive only to look askance at them and the very next day we shall be evicted. As
you see, its either honor or the estate. I choose the estate.
p. 60

101

Annas ethical credo is inconsistent. There is a moment when she assures

Platonov that if he had been not married, she would have married him without giving
it a second thought. Id sacrifice my title for you, she adds. (p. 91). However, she is
neither able, nor willing to give up for him any privilege. On the contrary, she proposes
to sacrifice herself, provided that Platonov would run away with her. The impending
threat to lose her estate does not appear to be devastating for her. A real misfortune
would be to lose Platonov. Platonovs resistance to becoming her lover perplexes
Anna. Under Platonovs pretext of respect for the marital contract and his preference
not to ruin their friendship, she recognizes something else:
PLATONOV: [] I love you as a woman, as a human being. Must every kind of love be
misrepresented as only a certain kind of love? My love is a thousand times more
precious to me than the one youve so suddenly got into your hair []
ANNA: Doesnt he realize what he is saying. Misinterpreting every kind of love as a
certain love!...What nonsense! Like the love of a novelist for a lady novelist. [] If I
cant take you fairly, I shall take you by force
pp. 92-93

Anna mocks Platonovs statement as melodramatic discourse. She herself, though, is

not aware that her comment and especially her threat belong exactly to the same
paradigm. Being raised and educated on literary models, people like Platonov and
Anna often confuse fiction with reality. The irony here lies in the fact that we detect
another example of fluctuations of high and low discourses. It is obvious that Anna
refers to yellowback-type literature, which dominated the literary scene at that time. 99
Platonov does become Annas lover but she cannot persuade him to run away
with her to Moscow. This happens since each of them has a different motivation for the
journey. Anna considers the trip not only as an opportunity o have some fun, but
primarily in terms of propriety. Whereas the concept of adultery does not clash with
99

This type of writing becomes very prominent as a result of a number of socio-economic developments,
such as distribution improvements, rising literacy, etc.

102

her ethics, she considers staying at Voynitsevka with all the rumors being
inappropriate. Chekhov mocks Annas twisted concept of decorum, juxtaposing it with
another situation in which she demonstrates her idea of etiquette. Ladies are not
supposed to sleep in the open is equalized to not hiding in the big city after a public
scandal. As to Platonov, he does not share Annas enthusiasm about Moscow, because
Voynitsevkas high ceilings do not appeal to him anymore. Moreover, their rank is
lowered: he notices that these very ceilings are whitewashed by [Annas] village
women. Ultimately, Annas aggressiveness and domination repel Platonov, and he has
to choose whether to run away with her or with Sophia. Mikhail prefers Sophia.
Sophias arrival at Voynitsevka brings in sweet memories for Platonov about
his first innocent love. He sees in Sophia his last chance to return to his young years,
full of idealism, ambitions and good intensions. She is the main initiator of the
discourse of work, martyrdom and truzhenichestvo and this is exactly what misleads
Platonov and tempts him to have a relationship with her. His quest for new faces and
new life seems to be almost fulfilled when she enters his life. Sophias reappearance
is mistakenly interpreted by Platonov as his last chance to change his life and priorities.
However, Sophia proves to be just another illusion since she is actually an old face. All
she says and does is in concurrence with a rhetoric, which she can only recite, but she
is incapable of accomplishing even one real small deed. Platonov realizes that Sophia
does not love him. What she really loves is the idea of loving him, and more important
--saving him. Platonov feels the chimerical nature of their romance and plans and
instead of a hot lover, he turns into a slovenly drunkard. Even Sophia herself is
disgusted by his appearance. It takes her great efforts to make him get off the couch.

103

And the difference is drastic between the estates Don Juan, the model gentleman
and the man on the couch with the tightly closed shutters of the schoolhouse is drastic.
The school building, which is supposed to be a busy spot, is depicted as a silent,
lifeless place. In the second part of Act Two and most of Act Three the action takes
place at or in front of Platonovs window. The reader/viewer is not admitted inside. In
a similar way, Platonov lives on the borderline of past endeavors and plans about
future. The present, however, is not cherished and the only way to cope with the
disappointment at not being capable to live up to the ideals of his youth for Platonov is
to continue to indulge in mockery and self-destruction.
Platonovs intellect rarely misleads him though. That is why his eccentric
maximalism is de omnibus aut nihil, aut veritas. The short period of his second
infatuation with Sophia does not obscure Platonovs perception of himself. The new
life promised by Sophia, actually, presents noting more than opportunity for new
faces and new decorations. The ideas of a play, continuous reincarnations, turn out
to be much more important than real deeds. However, even this plan fails the way
Sergey Voynitsevs idea to stage Hamlet does. It never happens since the selection of
the cast of the intended performance is wrong. Thus, the imbalance between theatrical
expectations and futile efforts in real life produce blurred borders, which contribute to
the tragic dnouement.
Maria Grekov is the most marginal female character in the play. It is due not to
her limited participation in the action. Rather her dramatic presence is of a different
quality. Her passion is chemistry and she prefers experiments in her home laboratory to
Voynitsevkas social gatherings and worldly pleasures. Maria feels uncomfortable in

104

Annas salon, she is embarrassed when a gentleman kisses her hand. The question of
womens emancipation, which is such a hot, widely discussed topic in the last third of
the century and especially at the turn of the century, finds in Platonov a multi-layered
approach. Chekhov incorporates this discourse by bestowing a different aspect on each
of the four heroines. Sasha represents the traditional paradigm of humility and
martyrdom in representing women in the literary tradition. Anna discusses the issue of
womens economical dependence. Sophias character interprets Turgenevs heroine in
a farcical fashion. Finally, Maria, in her turn, prefigures the future intellectual career
woman.
But in terms of the dramatic value of the characters, Maria is the only one who
openly confronts Platonov and the only person who evokes sincere respect in him for
that. She makes him realize the core of his own anxiety and contradictions, the fact that
Platonovs archenemy is neither the petty melodramatic intrigues on the estate, nor the
predictable entrapments of the clash between ideals of youth and disappointments of
maturity, but the loss of ones self-respect.
MARY: Whats wrong with you?
PLATONOV: Platonov is wrong with me. []Now I understand why Oedipus tore out
his eyes! How base I am, and how deeply conscious I am of my own baseness!
p. 192

Maria wins Platonovs respect also because of the manner she decides to deal with his
treatment of people. She presses charges for assault and summons him to court.
Platonov interprets this act as a condign punishment. The only thing, which bothers
him, is making sure that Maria finds out about his apology. Moreover, he insists that
the court beadle tell everyone that he apologized to Miss Grekov, but that she would
not accept [his] apology. (p.144)

105

In regard to the qualitative elements of the play, in the character of Maria, we

detect a parallel with Osip. Maria does not find Platonovs iurodstvo innocent and
entertaining. Osip justifies his business agreement with Vengerovich Sr. to cripple
with his own motivation:
OSIP: I used to respect you, Mr. Platonov. I used to think you were a big man. But
nowYoure too harmful to liveWhich of the three of them [women] is the woman
you really care for? [] You didnt ought to have touched what does not belong to
you.
p. 155

Neither Maria nor Osip manages to punish Platonov. Hysterical Sophia will
accidentally shoot him. Osip is lynched by the peasants off-stage most probably
because of his unremitting robberies. He ultimately is penalized for the same reason
taking something that doesnt belong to him. In that respect, both characters--Maria
and Osip-- who are at first glance very peripheral to the Platonov plot, become central
for the dramatic conflict.
In the beginning of the drama, Petrin tells Platonov a short parable:
PETRIN: What is life? Ill tell you what it is. When a man is born he can choose one
of three roads. There are no others. If he takes the road to the right, the wolves will eat
him up. If he takes the road to the left, he will eat up the wolves. And if he takes the
road straight ahead of him, hell eat himself up.
p. 47

Platonov, in his habitual manner mocks the storyteller, not realizing that this parable
tells his life story. It brilliantly summarizes the intellectual and spiritual anxiety of
Russian society at the turn of the nineteenth century and existential marginality as a
recurring trope. Platonov exemplifies both numerous and various manifestations of
such hybrid status. On the level of character network, the play brings to light
individuals who no longer fit into the dominant paradigm of the social and cultural
patterns of the milieu they initially belong to. Moreover, this type of condition

106

encompasses not only the principal characters (Platonov, Anna, Triletsky Jr.) but also
highlights the problem through minor personages (Osip, Maria).
On the other hand, within the context of the long-established tradition of
superfluous men in nineteenth-century Russian literature and in the novel in
particular class membership and ideology cease to be the dominant features of the
phenomenon in question. The category of marginals and being marginalized expands
considerably. This group reflects not only the changes within the nobility ethos, but the
radical transformation in post-reform Russian society as a whole. This study has strived
to establish the general parameters of marginality in Platonov. They have been
examined through the correlation between the focal topoi of the play, the holy fool
and jester figures and their cultural and psychological dimensions, and through their
significance for the concept of theatricality of everyday life on the Russian estate in the
last two decades of the nineteenth century.

Katabasis and Misplacement as Poetic Stratagems: On the High Road

Whereas the meaning and the dynamics of the relationships on the Voynitsev estate
create the suffocating quality of the dramatic space, the claustrophobic nature of the inn
in On the High Road is a more literal congestion, an important point of overlap
between the dramatic and the stage space. The opening stage direction clearly
establishes this feature: [] The stage represents Tikhons tavernThe floor and
benches along the wall are completely packed with pilgrims and vagrants. Many of

107

them are sleeping sitting up, for want of room.100 (224) The topos of enclosed space
had a prominent function within the literary forms dominated by the melodramatic
mode. The modern roots of this convention lead back to Gothic and Romantic
aesthetics, which, to a large extent, influenced the iconography of the nineteenthcentury melodrama. A garden, a forest, a cave, a dungeon, a tower, a castle, to name
only a few, represent the archetypal claustral space, which, as Peter Brooks puts it,
[seeks] an epistemology of the depths.101 Classical melodrama uses this type of
spatiality as a standard stratagem to develop and resolve its central Manichean
collision(s): between virtue and vice, innocence and villainy. Such kinds of topoi
challenge innocence, entrap the victimized, hide the truth. Entrance into the claustrum
brings into being the literal (physical) endeavor to rescue innocence from captivity and
the symbolic mission to search for and, eventually, restore the truth.
Entrance into the space of claustration has both horizontal and vertical
dimensions. The horizontal plane stretches between the ethical extremes of
melodrama that is the principal clash between good and evil. In addition, a visit to an
enclosed space may take the form of a descent into subterranean depths102 (Brooks,
p. 50). Brooks finds the motif of descent to be a pervasive pattern in melodrama. On
the other hand, Michael Finke emphasizes the centrality of katabatic journey in
Chekhovs works.103 In the writers persistent use of this motif, the scholar discerns a

100

All citations from the play are from Anton Chekhov, The Complete Plays, Trans., ed. and annotated
Laurence Senelick, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006). Transliteration of the characters
names is also consistent with this edition.
101
Brooks, Op. cit., p.19.
102
Ibid., p. 50
103
Finke discusses in details the katabatic subtext in his article The Heros Descent to the Underworld
in Chekhov in Russian Review, Vol. 53, No. 1. (Jan., 1994), pp.67-80 and, later, in his book Seeing
Chekhov. Life and Art, chapter Seeing Hell, Transforming the Self: Land Diving in Chekhov (Ithaca
and London: Cornell University Press, 2005), pp. 155-227.

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mythopoetic principle: [] Katabasis is [] a leitmotif in the authors life, a

deeply personal paradigm driving Chekhovs love of travel and penchant for
observation, and investing these inclinations with meaning.104 Understandably, in
Sakhalin Island Finke finds the ultimate illustration of the katabatic journey which
unites the trip to a far-off (and also marginal) land with all the hellish connotation
of the island both in terms of its social conditions and the narrators/authors search
for spiritual and creative re-birth105.
Although On the High Road does not explicitly display the motif of descent, the
play can be added to the corpus of texts, which Finke106 considers as a paradigm for
katabatic subtext. Most of the cluster of elements, which the scholar singles out as
characteristic of the masterplot in question, is present in the play and we will try to
navigate through the framework they construct and to evaluate the meanings they
generate. A number of descent models from disparate arenas of discourse were
available to Chekhov, and Chekhov was catholic in his borrowing. His descents echo
those of Russian folklore, the myths of the Ancients, canonical and apocryphal
Orthodox Christianity, and contemporary popular culture, summarizes Finke107. On
the High Road presents a comparable variety of sources of major motifs and aesthetic
levels whose simplicity and transparency might mislead and give the impression of a
work in which clich and tradition are the only references invoked. Such is the case
with Vera Gotlieb who sees in this dramatic text no more than the obvious layer of
melodrama. She contends that the playwright uses here standard melodramatic
104

Finke, Seeing Chekhov. Life and Art, (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2005), p. 155.
Finke, The Heros Descent, p.76
106
Among these texts are The Wood Demon, Peasants, Ariadne, Sinner from Toledo, A Doctors Visit,
etc.
107
Finke, The Heros Descent, p. 68
105

109

techniques without subverting them.108 In my reading of the play, I argue, in contrast,

that very early in his career Chekhov demonstrates a poetic quality that has been
consistently indicated by the scholarship later on his artistry of subversion of
traditional themes and tools. He employs one of the most conservative dramatic
structures the melodramatic form and, simultaneously, subverts and rearranges its
constituents in such a way that the readily identifiable moral teleology is frustrated.
By using spatial and structural misplacement as a key pattern in characters functions,
the dramatist reverses the primary melodramatic conflict. Before we analyze the
character of this reversals let us return to the function of the descent motif, which is
one of the means through which Chekhov, complicates the nature of the plays
dramatic clash.
It is a well-known fact that On the High Road surfaced on both the literary and
theatre scene almost three decades after it was initially written (1883-86). The reason
for that lies in the censors rejection: by representing a member of nobility as a
dclass drunkard, the playwright violated a strict stage rule. The play is one of the two
Chekhovs dramatic work whose locale is not the provincial estate109 and it is his only
lower depth play, in which the characters are tramps, beggars, criminals and the
dispossessed.110 However, the uniqueness of the play does not stem from the
uncommonness of the setting. Rather, it is the dramatic geography of the play, the
communication between the on-stage and off-stage domains, and, finally the fusion of
the two worlds they represent which had already emerged in Platonov, where Osips

108

Vera Gotlieb. Chekhovs one-act plays and the full-length plays. in The Cambridge Companion to
Chekhov. Ed. Vera Gotlieb and Paul Allain. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2000), p.58
109
The other exception is Three Sisters in which the action takes place in a country town.
110
Gotlieb, Op. cit., p. 58

110

plot line mirrors and supplements that of the title character but its function structurally
does not supersede the primacy of Platonov, nor does the dramatic space of
Voynitsevka (the village) displace that of the manor.
In On the High Road, the katabatic journey is an important element of the
interaction between the realms of on- and off-stage spaces. On the one hand, the inn
the on-stage locus represents a juxtaposition of sacred and profane. The pilgrimstramps co-existence is a projection of two archetypal paradigms of journey exploited in
literature and art the spiritual and existential one. These two patterns of quest are
interwoven, first, within the dynamics between the pilgrims and Merik, the tramp, and,
secondly, in the relationship of Merik and Bortsov, the impoverished landowner and
frequenter of the tavern. The off-stage loci 1) Bortsovka, introduced by Kuzma, a
former servant of Bortsov and 2) the nearby anonymous town where Bortsovs
unfaithful wife lives and which serves as a symbolic site of his pilgrimage, suggest
the starting point and the final destination of Bortsovs downfall. Originally, the play
was conceived as a tale of a nobleman who loses his manor, wealth, and dignity
because of betrayal and abandonment by his new bride. Eventually, Bortsov ends up as
a desperate drunkard in Tikhons tavern and the plot pivots on his ultimate humiliation
while begging the taverns owner for a drink. However, the dramatic quality of this
protagonist serves primarily as a framework for the story line. Were it not for Meriks
character, the play would have represented just another clich-ridden melodrama with
which the theatre repertoire was brimming. Meriks entry into the dramatic space and
his function in the conflict elevates Bortsovs own coming to the inn. The noblemans
own descent to the lower depth of the inn has predominantly a social dimension.

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Meriks dramatic presence mirrors and complicates such a katabasis, bringing into it an
additional, existential dimension. His arrival turns into a descent to his personal, inner
hell and the inn itself allegorizes the Russian scene of the time presenting a reduced
model of society.
We started our discussion of the play by asserting that in On the High Road
Chekhov resorts to melodramatic form and techniques, but does not stop there. He
shows that, albeit somewhat conservative and rigid, melodrama yet offers certain
unforeseen versatility. In the drama in question, it is the playwrights skillful
manipulation of stock formulas, to use Daniel Gerould111 words, which invest[s]
them with new connotations and value. Chekhovs utilization of katabatic motif in its
three hypostases the pilgrims, Bortsov and, last but not least Merik is what enables
this play to go beyond the structure of melodrama and to develop into a parable-like
dramatic form. In order to illustrate precisely how the motif operate, first, we will have
to determine the elements which constitute the descent pattern in On the High Road,
and, subsequently, to show how Chekhov works with it within the melodramatic mode.
The latter is better discernible if examined within the context of the vertical method
of dramatic analysis and, in particular, through scrutiny of the configuration of the
segmental [scene] units.112
Following Bernard Beckerman, we will apply an element of the vertical
method, which, for its part, explores the dramatic effect of the entirety of a plays

111

Daniel Gerould, Russian Formalist Theories of Melodrama in Journal of American Culture, Vol. 1,
Issue 1, Spring, 1978, p. 153
112
Bernard Beckerman, Dramatic Analysis and Literary Interpretation: The Cherry Orchard as
Exemplum in New Literary History, Vol.2, No. 3, Performances in Drama, the arts, and Society. (Spring,
1971), p.391-406, esp. pp. 404-406

112

components (such as system of characters, plot, language, etc.) by focusing on the

structure of the segmental units.
These, specifies Beckerman, are not composed of character and story but of
interactions among agents who embody active and reactive thrusts of energy113.
[]The impact of drama depends upon the sequential unfolding of the segments. []
Theatrical response is total. It is not purely emotional, not intellectual, but a complex
affective-cognitive reaction that is not very well understood. The crucial factor in
response is the dynamic element in the play to which the individual attends. This is
embodied in the structure of the segment as well as in the structure of relationship
between segments. Therefore, the appreciation of the structure of a segment is the key
to a potential dramatic response.114

In other words, the scholar differentiates two levels within the analysis of scene units.
The first level of sequence (which we will define as the micro-or interior level)
incorporates the relationship between the elements within a segmental unit. These
elements are usually perceived more as a temporal aspect (Beckerman refers to them as
to temporal strands). Our focus here is mainly on the spatial configuration of such
elements. On the other hand, the parameters of a scene unit may range from a small
segment within the actual dramatic scene to a whole act. They can even stretch beyond
the margins of a certain act division, which leads us to the second level of sequence
the macro- or external level.
On the High Road reveals a distinct correlation between the micro- and macro
levels of the segmental units. Although the play is divided into five scenes, their actual
number could be reduced to four because Scene IV is in fact extremely short and,
except for the announcing of the arrival of the coachman (a minor character), it cannot
be categorized as a qualitative element115; rather it is simply a quantitative element an

113

Beckerman, Op. cit., p. 404. We believe agents of disruption and recognition scenes to be instances of
such interactions which will be discussed further on.
114
Ibid., p.405
115
This key dichotomy between qualitative (also labeled as formative) and quantitative elements of
drama were introduced by Aristotle in his Poetics (chapters 6 and 12). For more details, see

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element which purely navigates the chronology of a dramatic work. The analysis of
Scene I and II will show that the interaction between the first two dramatic segments
operates on the macro-level; at that, the unfolding of the dramatic knot is carried by the
descent subtext, whereas Scene III, (IV) and V resolve the conflict by following a
melodramatic scenario but with a marked gendered shift.
The opening scene introduces the tavern as an arena of interaction between its
occupants and the elements. Prior to Meriks appearance, the sound of thunder and the
lightning flashes seem to be the only source of turbulence in the otherwise rather static
and lethargic environment. The paradigm of misplacement here is created by the
amalgamation of the spatial positions of the characters, their literal homelessness and
sense of existential anxiety. The inn gives shelter to individuals who are in a state of inbetween-destinations. The pilgrims Savva, Nazarovna and Yefimovna are on their way
to the next holy site. Savva, an old and very sick penitent, is dying but he is not afraid
of the looming end. For him the possibility of facing the end far from home is much
more dreadful than death itself. Consequently, the very concept of home here stands
as quite problematic. Rather than being overtly defined, it emerges only through
opposition to its antonymic counterpart homelessness which runs through the social
geography of the majority of the dramatis personae. Fedya, a factory worker, vacillates
between the category of peasant migrant as casual laborer and townsman. His
authoritative contemplation on life in the city in his capacity of shining shoes at the
Grand Otel is an ironic hint at his ambiguous identity.

Theatre/Theory/Theatre. The Major Critical Texts from Aristotle and Zeami to Soyinka and Havel .Ed
and introduced by Daniel Gerould. (New York, NY: Applause Theater & Cinema Books, 2000), pp. 4955

114

In the first place, the inn stands for a site of constant transition: the repetitive
arrivals and departures of various itinerants both random visitors and regulars stir
the temporary stillness and give impetus to the action. Two main vehicles maintain the
dramatic tension the agents of disruption and the recognition scenes (anagnorises)116.
In Platonov, a single anagnorisis reunites the title character and his long-lost lover
Sophia, whereas in On the High Road Chekhov implements several scenes of
recognition, which stimulate the progression of the play and dramatize the motif of
misplacement. Misplacement here functions on literal and allegoric levels of
appearance. The pilgrims presence in a barroom is justified by reasons purely
pragmatic they need a place to spend the night. And yet, their attitude, that of
Nazarovnas and Yefimovna in particular, betray unambiguous uneasiness. They
regard the inn as a suspicious, sacrilegious place and his inhabitants as sinners. Their
universe consists of a clear dichotomy between sin and virtue, and the latter is
considered exclusively a saints privilege. There is nothing in between and Bortsovs
misfortune does not arouse their compassion.
Semyon Bortsov brings the first act of disturbance into the ostensibly peaceful
co-existence of the taverns lodgers. At first, it is his incessant begging for vodka,
which annoys the travelers and exasperates the owner, Tikhon. The tavern resounds
with Savvas feeble moan and Bortsovs cry and yet again, the nature of their weeping
is significantly different. Savva is desperate to be able to live to see his native Vologda,
116

When discussing the function of the scenes of recognition in melodrama, Brooks is cautious: In a
novel by Dickens or a play by Ibsen we may be tempted to talk about identity, the movement of the
plot towards discovery of identity, and the moral anagnorisis that accompanies it, such terminology
appears inappropriate in a theater where persons are so typological, and where structure is so highly
conventional. Anagnorisis in melodrama thus has little to do with the achievement of psychological
identity and is much more a matter of recognition the liberation of misprision, of a pure signifier, the
token for an assigned identity. (Op. cit., 53) Yet, Chekhov already in his earliest works starts moving
towards a more sophisticated model of implementation.

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while Bortsov is tormented by his disease. Penniless and frantic, stripped of all of his
possessions, Bortsov is able to offer only the last two belongings he can trade for his
overcoat and his hat. The hat is full of holes like a sieve, but, more significantly, it
stands as the first indicator hinting at Bortsovs previous social status. Fedya
recognizes in it a gentlemans cap, an occurrence that spurs him to ridicule this barin
and sheds some additional light on Bortsovs earlier fit of rage at Tikhon:
BORTSOV: [] Understand, you ignoramus117, if there is an ounce of brains in your
thick peasants skull, Im not begging you, its to use your own vulgar way of
speaking, my guts begging! [] Im stooping to your level! My God, the way Im
stooping!
p. (227-228)

The last line of the foregoing quotation is of vital importance because Bortsov
compares his humiliation with a movement downward, a figurative descent, and as we
will see further, on, this change in his spatial position will be literally repeated twice by
Merik.
Now Bortsovs dramatic significance becomes more tangible. The anonymous
drunk, whose presence so far has been indicated mainly through the statements of other
characters, starts claiming his own position in Tikhons tavern. For the first time his
lines betray a certain social markedness. Bortsov establishes a clear boundary between
himself and the inn:
SAVVA: Whos crying?
YEFIMOVNA: The gent.
SAVVA: Ask the gent to shed a tear for me sos Ill get to die in Vologda. Tearful
prayers work wonders.
BORTSOV: Im not praying, granddad! These are not tears! Theyre my lifes blood!
Theyve squeezed my heart and the lifebloods run outBut how can you grasp that!
Your primitive mind, granddad, cant grasp that. You people live in the dark118 ages!
SAVVA: And wheres them with the light?
BORTSOV: Enlightened people do exist, granddad They would understand!
SAVVA: They do, they do, my sonThe saints was enlightened
FEDYA: So you seen saints?

117
118

Emphasis mine.
Emphasis added.

116

SAVVA: It comes to pass, young fellaTheres all kinds of folks in this world. There
be sinners, and there be servants oGod.
p. 229-230

Thus, the discourse of Scene I explores two basic, synonymous oppositions the
dark and the light/enlightened people and the sinners and the servants of God.
The pilgrims interpretation is strictly religious and literal, whereas Bortsovs approach
is ethical. Further, he tries to persuade Tikhon to give him a drink in exchange for his
coat. There is nothing under the coat but Bortsovs naked body and Tikhon does not
dare to take a sin on [his] soul. This segment concludes the scene, but more
importantly, it echoes the opening exchanges of the next scene between the pilgrims,
who construe the storm as Gods own thunder and the rumble as a natural
punishment since a sinner dont deserve to be left in peace. Consequently, the hell
metaphors119 in the on-stage locus and the off-stage locus surface from the very
beginning of the play and they persistently re-emerge throughout the text. The sin
element functions also as a compositional indicator. It serves as a framework of Scene I
and opens Scene II.
The connotations of Bortsovs self-delineation from the taverns occupants on
the one hand, and the reversal of spatial positions, on the other hand, are further
developed through the entrance of the character of Yegor Merik. Similar to Osips
function in Platonov in regard to the title character, he is the protagonist who serves as
the key commentary on Bortsov. Meriks overpowering physicality and the threatening
axe in his belt (which at the climactic point functions as a tool of the obligatory scene,
the scne--faire, transforms the balance of the tavern. While the first scene equally
distributes the energy between the dramatis personae, Meriks arrival disturbs this

119

Finke, The Heros Descent, p. 68

117

stability. Two acts of empowerment signal the shift within the taverns hierarchy. The
first one occurs as Merik introduces an essential sublevel of the inns spatiality by
rearranging the established order. Inn benches signify a privileged place to sleep and
Merik makes Fedya give up his spot and lie down on the floor instead. Before we
analyze the significance of the protagonist in spatial reversals, we need to return to his
centrality to the subterranean masterplot. From the outset, Meriks declares his
otherness: Some folks feel the cold, but the bear and the man with no family ties is
always hot. Im sweating like a pig! (p. 230). The images of the nocturnal raging
thunderstorm intensify the hellish subtext:
MERIK: Its dark, like somebody smeared the sky with tar. Cant see yer nose before
yer face. And the rain whips ya in the kisser, like one of yer snowstorms
FEDYA: Fine times for our pal the robber: even beast of prey take cover, but its
Christmas for you jokers.
p.231

Finally, Tikhon identifies Merik as a bad man and a robber who comes off the
highway. Now Chekhov switches to a conventional topos that belongs to the
melodramatic stage, namely the paradox of the sympathetic villain, which Brooks
traces back to the outlaw hero and the repentant sinner of earlier melodrama. (Op.
cit., 87)120
Meriks claim for authority is attributable to his sense of exclusivity. The
unchallenged supremacy of his axe is only an external indication, which grants its
owner respect and fear. In Meriks exterior the pilgrims discern a sign of demarcation.
120

In the 1820s and early 1840s, the French and the British stage in particular were fascinated with the
noble outlaw [] Their aspect was romantic even baroque In any even, the public enemy as
represented on the stage began to undergo another transformation. He shed his neuroses and his
primitive fierceness [] The picaresque rogue, in short, came to eclipse the humbug philosopher and
social martyr. More on this topic, see Frank Rahill, The World of Melodrama, (University Park and
London: The Pennsylvania UP, 1967), chapter XVIII Highwaymen and Housebreakers, pp. 146-151.
Chekhov, in his turn, was very well read in French melodrama, which might be one of the sources of
inspiration for characters like Osip and Merik. On the other hand, of course, those were only elements of
the melodramatic skeletons, to quote Daniel Gerould, by covering over [which ] [Chekhov] began to
evolve a new, higher genre. Op. cit., p. 163.

118

His eyes evoke the image of a wild beast but what principally arouses their suspicion
is Meriks overall impression, which they associate with his hellish pride. At one
moment, they compare him to a viper, and at another to Satan at morning mass and
spawn of Cain. Similar to Osips mediating function in connecting the Voynitsev
manor, Platonovka and the village (with the latter present in Platonov only as an offstage locus), Merik lingers between the world of the lower depths and the world
beyond the taverns dimensions. He is the carrier of a similar socio-psychological
complexity expressed through the characters of Platonov and Osip. Equally misplaced
in the two realms, Merik still paradoxically provides the correlation between them.
To a certain extent, Merik shares Bortsovs contempt for the huddled masses
of the inn. He considers them petty, ignorant and one-dimensional. In the beginning, he
displays such an attitude in the form of benign ridicule of their superstitious
antagonism. Yet, he demonstrates faculties difficult to predict warmth and genuine
compassion. The vagrants themselves evoke Meriks sympathy:
MERIK: Greetings, good Christians! [] Why dont you say something?
YEFIMOVNA: Turn away these eyes! And turn away from your hellish pride!
MERIK: Shut up you old bag! It wasnt hellish pride but affection and a kind word I
wanted to bestow on your bitter fate! [] I felt sorry for ya, I wanted to speak a kind
word, ease your misery, and you turn your snouts away!..
p. 232

Initially, the psychological tension between the pilgrims and Merik derives from the
opposition between the Good Christians and the heathen. When Merik chases
Fedya to the floor, the latter calls him a devil to which Merik objects and opens a
completely new dimension in the narratives imagery. The stage fills up with
numerous creatures from Russian folklore and, now, parallel with the underworld of
the pilgrims and that of the tavern, there emerges an other world, that of wood
goblins and ghosts, forests and the animal kingdom. Yet, Meriks underworld is

119

considerably less threatening than the hellish imagery of the tavern and much more
ethereal and poetic. Most importantly, he sees the devil, the evil, the sin inside
people, not outside them. It is an inner phenomenon and, the way we deal with them, is
our personal responsibility.
The inn perceives Merik as foreign due to his double identity. His character is
split between Yegor Merik, the robber, who, like Osip, is beyond customs and
above the law, and Andrey Polikarpov, a former meshchanin, who, for mysterious
reasons, left home and parents and wanders the world under an assumed name.

121

Meriks awareness of superiority stems from his independence, inner potential and a
genuine decency, which echoes Osips own idiosyncratic ethics. The hostility between
Merik and the tavern accumulates as Merik witnesses the way the travelers treat
Bortsovs predicament. Tikhon and the pilgrims see in the ruined gent (bearing) just
a habitual drunkard, Fedya refers to him as a joker and a scarecrow. Their
worthless sermonizing and indifference unleashes Meriks anger:
MERIK: How about it, godly sisters, why dont you preach to him? And you, Tikhon,
how come you dont throw him out? He aint paid for his nights lodging, after all.
Throw im away out, right on his ear! Ech, folks is cruel nowadays. Aint got no soft
hearts and kindliness in emFolks is mean! A mans is drowning, and they shout at
him: Drown faster, we aint got time to watch, its a workday! And as for throwing
him a rope, dont make me laugh A rope costs money.
p. 235-236

As a result, Merik performs a rather bizarre and yet symbolic act. He makes Tikhon
take off his boots as a punishing act and compensatory mechanism which functions as
a reversal of Bortsovs previous stooping to the innkeepers level: I want you,
you mule-skinner, to pull off my boots, the boots of a beggar tramp! (236) The moral
dimensions of this act operate at exactly the same sublevel of spatiality, which Merik
121

Meriks previous identity is yet again brought to light through a recognition scene between Tikhon
and Merik.

120

already introduces in the beginning of Scene Two. Such spatial shifts invert the
hierarchy within the tavern and serve as the key point of ethical conflict.
The second half of On the High Road presents a sweeping transition from a
gloomy, sordid dramatic sketch of the underworld to, as Senelick122 puts it, a
raw melodrama. Chekhov blends the motif of the fated gentry with the melodramatic
motif of the cuckolded husband by romanticizing Bortsovs plot line and
sentimentalizing Meriks role in it. The playwright rehearses the ultimate figurative
switch between the protagonists through their last literal spatial exchange of positions.
The entrance of Kuzma, Bortsovs former servant, confirms the dubious standing of his
master. Whereas Kuzma, when chronicling Bortsovs ruination, emphasizes his
financial irresponsibility, business incompetence and lack of character, the tavern is
enraptured by the tragic love story of the nobleman left at his wedding feast by his
unfaithful wife. Bortsovs more-than-two hundred-verst regular trip to the town just to
get an eyeful of Maria Bortsova is elevated to a sacred mission and expressed through
a dramatic change in the attitude of the transients. Now they address him by sir,
lord and your lordship,123 but more prominent is Meriks emblematic gesture. He
gives up his place on the bench as a token of newly acquired respect. This act
articulates Meriks self-identification with the noblemans tale of woe since what
makes Merik homeless and problematizes his identity is an analogous story of
unrequited love.

122

Laurence Senelick. Op. cit., 223

In the original text, it is also a logical transition from second person singular to second person plural.
In The Cherry Orchard, the same morphological modification signals a semantic shift in the dynamics
between Petya Trofimov and Lopakhin. For more on this, see Beckerman, Ibid., 391-393
123

121

This new revelation justifies the dnouement, which generates a dramatic clash
between Merik and Maria Bortsova, a character whose presence in the last scene is
effected by the melodramatic rule of random forces of happenstance.124 Maria, as a
matter of fact, is already introduced twice to the audience earlier in the play. First, she
enters the dramatic space while Kuzma tells the travelers how his former master ended
up on the high road and in the tavern, and, secondly, when Bortsov, amidst his
alcoholic convulsions, offers Tikhon a golden locket. The latter accepts it and finds out
a portrait of a beautiful she-devil, a real lady Bortsovs wife. This discovery
reshuffles the configuration of the plot line and prepares the ultimate reversal in the
characters pre-assigned roles. Maria emerges now as the archetypal melodramatic
villainess. She is endowed with the key attributes of villainy: Maria invades the
space of innocence (Bortsovs manor) as a temptress, (at that, her social status is
doubtful we only know that she is from the city a paradigm of modernity and
corruption); her betrayal reenacts the topos of the interrupted fte125 (she runs away
from her wedding banquet with her lover, the shyster lawyer in the city) , and,
finally, her arrival to the tavern is once again on her way back to the city. The final
recognition scene between Maria and Bortsov and her immediate decision to leave the
inn for her incapability to face her husband, unleashes a mismatched confrontation with
Merik. Overwhelmed by Bortsov numbness and by his own emotional flashback,
Merik begs Maria:
MERIK: [] Just let me speak my piece to yousos you understandTake it
easyNo, God aint give me the brains! I cant come up with the right words!
MARIA YEGOROVNA: Go away, you! Youre all drunk

124

Ben Singer, Melodrama and Modernity. Early Sensational Cinema and Its Contexts. (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2001): p. 52
125
Brooks points to this topos as a regular element of melodrama.

122

MERIK (stands in her way): Hey, you should at least take a look at him! You should
at least treat him to one kind word. For Christs sake!
MARIA YEGOROVNA: Get this halfwit away from me.
p. 248

Crushed and enraged Merik is pushed to his limits and he tries to deliver his last act of
punishment on Bortsovs behalf to use his axe and kill Maria. His attempt is
thwarted by the lodgers, and Merik, staggering and sobbing, falls on the ground. Thus,
the last act of misplacement transforms into an act of replacement. Just as Platonov
dies by pure coincidence killed by the hysterical Sophia because he reaches for
something that does not belong to [him], Osip pays with his life for stealing from the
peasants, and Merik fails to administer justice because, according to his own
interpretation, fate didnt want [him] to die over a stolen axe.
Although his first dramatic works are peppered with melodramatic rhetoric and
gestures, Chekhov invests them with a whole variety of innovative poetic techniques
which culminate in his last play. In this regard, it is interesting how Igor Sukhikh
evaluates the finale of The Cherry Orchard:
At the outset of the twentieth century Chekhov envisions a new formula of human
existence: parting with the ghosts of the past, loss of the home, destruction of the
orchard, and exit onto the high road, where lie in wait a frightening future and life in
chaos. Abandoned home, abandoned paradise.

: , , ,
, .
. 126

Platonov shows the loss of a manor, On the High Road witnesses the crossroads of
the high road. In Platonov Chekhov channels the rhetoric of timelessness
(bezvremenie) into a drama of lost identity, which through theatricalisation and selfdramatisation strives to restore a troubled inner balance. On the High Road reiterates

126

Igor Sukhikh, Knigi XX veka: russkii kanon. (Moscow: Nezavisimaia gazeta, 2001) p. 40

123

and elaborates the correlation between high and low projections of hierarchy and
misplacement.
Drawing on Platonovs discussion of modern uncertainty within the enclosed
space of Voynitsev estate, On the High Roads claustral tavern adds a new level of
fluidity of cultural identity generated by the social mobility and spiritual anxieties of
the early 1880s. The plays subterranean masterplot organizes the spatial dimensions
and serves as a compelling source of dramatic effect. The interaction between its
component realmsthe on- and off-stage loci sets up tensions which further
complicate the nature of the dramatic conflict. Chekhov explores katabasis in three
hypostasesthe pilgrims, penitently wandering the country, Bortsov, the impoverished
landlord, and Merik, the tramp. Through the archetypal paradigms of descent and
journey the plays spatiality compounds sacred and profane, high and low and thus
overcomes the structural restrictions of melodrama.
The fluctuations of identities and the spatial shifts they generate reflect the
ideological catastrophes of the provincial gentry and the spiritual crises of the turn-ofthe-century Russian society. They expand the estate and taverns encapsulated topoi
and anticipate the dimensions of the playwrights mature plays.

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CHAPTER III

The Dialectics of Internal and External Space in Chekhovs Prose

The parameters of marginality are broad and various in contemporary scholarship,
which exploits this porous category according to the specific needs of a particular
discipline. The notions of center and periphery serve as principal metaphors in analyses
of geopolitics, modes of production, power relationships between majority and
minority groups, social constructs and mechanisms. The tension between inclusion and
exclusion, or sometimes, more importantly, the ambiguous status of social and cultural
entities regarding their participation in the public space, reflect the sensitivity of these
discourses to the problems of difference, privilege, and disadvantage. Marginal
conditions possess numerous dimensions but what all of them share is that they result
from the difficulty or failure of individuals or social groups to fully integrate into
socio-economic or cultural structures. Marginality, the condition of being excluded
from mainstream processes and institutions, may be conceived of as voluntary or
imposed. Yet the complexity and multi-layeredness of social hierarchies entail that the
opposition between center and periphery is unstable and can reverse itself as one shifts
between societal systems of values. Thus an outcast from a socio-economic standpoint
can claim centrality in the cultural sphere. The ambiguous status of social and cultural

125

entities with regard to participation in the public space reveals both the pervasiveness
and fluidity of otherness.
The notion of marginality and marginalization may also be traced back to
archetypal mythological and biblical characters and situations which continue to persist
as wandering motifs in literature and the arts: the outcast; the outsider, the holy fool,
the jester, the outlaw, the wanderer, the sick, the insane, the handicappedall of them
share a certain degree of difference and alienation, be it physical, social, political,
cultural, etc. Needless to say, the very noun margin traces its etymology directly to
typography and literally is a spatial notion. To fit into a certain hierarchy of values or
not, to be a part of a social organization or to be excluded from itall of these states
mean to be inside or outside of a physical or social entity.
Chekhov inherits from the Russian Realist tradition two emblematic
ideologemes of marginality: the superfluous man and the little man. Whereas
Chekhovs predecessors conceive of these phenomena mainly in terms of social
difference, Chekhov appropriates these master-tropes but emphasizes the psychological
aspect. In his prose work and increasingly in his drama the writer recasts the
marginalization of the nobility and intelligentsia in a broader existential context and
reflects the profound intellectual and spiritual ineffectiveness of Russian turn-of-thecentury society as a whole.
This chapter will discuss several aspects of Chekhovs appropriation of the
discourses of marginality which will show that they were as important in his prose as in
his dramas. In particular I will focus on the problem of space as a mode of marginality.
My research was inspired by my close study of Chekhovs dramaturgical poetics and

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informed by Michel Foucaults concept of heterotopia and heterotopic sites, which

emerged in his essay Of Other Spaces1. Space was the central object of study and
tool of analysis in Foucaults discussion of knowledge and power. As one of Foucaults
commentators, Elden Stuart, pointed out Such studies historicize space and spatialize
history.2 Foucault contended that the great obsession of the 19th century was history
with its themes of development and of suspension, of crisis and cycle, themes of everaccumulating past The present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space.
We are in the epoch of simultaneity: we are in the epoch of juxtaposition, the epoch of
near and far, of the side-by-side, of the dispersed.3 Writing on the border of two
centuries, Chekhov internalizes and reflects this complexity of both dominants of space
and time. Much ink has been spilled on the concept of temporality in his work. Of
those writing about Chekhovs space, most noteworthy is Zingermans analysis of
certain aspects of space in Chekhovs dramatic texts. The scholar conceives of
Chekhovs space through history, arguing that the place of action in Chekhovs drama
is the space doomed to extinction.
Chekhov created a multitude of spaces: physical and metaphysical, enclosed
and open, on- and off-stage, katabatic and anabatic, literal and ironic. If we scan the
titles of his prose works we will see that a great deal of them refer to particular topoi:
At Home, The House with Mezzanine, In Exile, In the Ravine, The Island of Sakhalin,
On the Nail, On the Cart, On the Road, At Sea, In the Shed, to mention a few.
Chekhovs interior and exterior spaces signify not only literal geographical or physical

Michel Foucault, Of Other Spaces, Diacritics 16, (Spring, 1986): pp. 22-27
Elden Stuart, Mapping the Present: Heidegger, Foucault, and the Project of a Spatial History,
(London: Continuum): p. 3
3
Op., cit., p. 22
2

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loci, but also existential places. In the texts I discuss in this chapter spatiality functions
as a central trope of marginality. And, while examining them I will draw on Foucaults
concept of heterotopia since many manifestations of marginality in the texts in question
exhibit a heterotopic nature. Although the scholar never literally associates heterotopic
sites with marginal spaces, it becomes clear that both topoi are closely linked:
There are in every culture, in every civilization, real places places that do exist and that
are formed in the very founding of society which are something like counter-sites, a
kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can
be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented , contested, and inverted.
Places of this kind are outside of all places, even though it may be possible to indicate
their location in reality. Because these places are absolutely different from all the sites
that they reflect and speak about, I shall call them, by way of contrast to utopias,
heterotopias.
p. 24

Further Foucault categorizes different types of heterotopia according to six

distinctive principles. For the purposes of this study it suffices to concentrate on
two Foucaultian main categories of heterotopic spaces. Both categories can be
found in every historical period and society: the crisis heterotopias (such states as
pregnancy or sites as boarding school, barracks, etc.) and the heterotopias of
deviation (prisons, psychiatric hospitals). Foucault places cemeteries under a
separate, independent type (calling them strange) since they adjust their location
and certain attributes to the specific historical time and geographical location.
First, I will analyze a selected body of prose texts written over a period from
1887 to 1889 and which demonstrate spatial strategies that were to intensify in
Chekhovs later plays. The period in question is the beginning of what has been labeled
as Chekhovs middle period, a time of transition both in his literary work and his
biography as a private and public persona. I start my discussion by taking a closer look
at two short stories in which the main narrative locus, the graveyard, and the dramatis
personae are marginal: Bad Business (Nedobroe delo) and In the Shed/In the Coach
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House (V sarae). The spaces of Bad Business and In the Shed can be definitely
categorized as heterotopic sites. In Bad Business the graveyard stands out as an
external heterotopic space, whereas In the Shed presents a correlation of external and
internal spaces the graveyard and the shed whose interaction I will discuss later on.
The plot of Bad Business brings together two individuals a graveyard watchman and
an anonymous passerby whose relationship with the locus of action presents a semantic
juxtaposition. Here one cannot help but think of what Shklovskii described as the
counterposition of detail: Chekhov does not need contrived fabula, such as
intrigueSome of his short stories are based on the simplest opposition that provides a
strictly delineated situation and proceeds to unfold through a number of collisions,
peculiar to this situation.4 As an example the scholar uses anagnorisis the main
narrative vehicle of Chekhovs The Fat and the Thin. Old friends run into each other.
Their social status has changed. The collision lies in the degree of recognition.5
The confrontation in Bad Business is built on a similar gradual process of
anagnorisis, albeit with a typical, Chekhovian twist a sudden transition from high to
low occurring, first, within the old watchmans perception of the passerby, and
secondin the readers expectations dictated by the logic of the plot. Both receptions
are guided by a shift in the narrative code that resolves in an anecdotal dnouement. As
a matter of fact, a closer look reveals an immanent anecdotal structure of the story as a
whole. Bitsilli described such narrative construct as a breakdown in communication:
The traditional syuzhet base of the anecdote is quid pro quo misunderstanding - error: the
theme of misspent energy, and as a result, the zero resolution. [] The discrepancy
between expectation and realization creates a comic effect, as long as the result is not
terrible or sad. Such an effect is most readily achieved by bringing the intriguethe
weaving of the storylineto a zero resolution.
pp. 107-108
4
5

Viktor Shklovskii. Povesti o proze. Vol. 2. (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1966) p.345
Ibid., p.345

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Now let us see what serves as a misunderstanding in Bad Business, and more
importantly, how the reader arrives at its recognition. The effect which is usually
sought by anecdotal technique is hinted here by verbal and extralinguistic clues
scattered throughout the story. The opening line, Whos there? serves not only as a
rhetorical point of departure but also raises the key question which is going to be
pursued until the end of the storyto establish the identity of the stranger who dares to
invade and possibly threaten the space of the graveyard. On his regular tour, the
watchman runs into a man who introduces himself as a passer-by and claims to be lost
en route to a completely different destination. The night scene is wrapped in dark fog
which precludes the watchman from seeing the stranger properly. The stranger seems
to be disoriented and the watchman volunteers to lead him across the graveyard to the
gate. The action of the entire story is based on their walk towards the gate and their
exchanges. Intuitively, the old man is persistent in his attempt to discover what lies
beneath the strangers appearance, whose bizarre giggling is dissonant from the image
the latter strives to maintain that of an old, helpless, crippled, and frightened
creature. The irony is that while attempting to sustain this persona, the passerby
undergoes a variety of metamorphoses. First he states that he is just a passerby, then he
becomes a stranger, later he claims to be a pilgrim, and, finally, just before revealing
his true identity, the man, mocking the watchmans navet declares to be a ghost of a
local man who committed a suicide. The shift in stylistic register is prepared by the
strangers awkward giggling and his incessant effort to find out whether the watchman
is alone or if there are more guards, all the while discussing the high matters of life

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and death, sin and redemption. At the same time, the watchmans uneasiness with the
strangers presence is betrayed by his repetitive attempts to verify his story:
The watchman and the traveler start walking together. They walk shoulder to shoulder in
silence There is one thing that passes my understanding, says the watchman after a
prolonged silence how you got here. The gates locked. Did you climb over the wall? If
you did climb over the wall, thats the last thing you would expect of an old man. I dont
know, friend, I dont know. I cant say myself how I got here. Its a visitation. A
chastisement of the Lord. Truly a visitation, the evil one confounded me. So you are a
watchman here friend? Alone in the entire graveyard?
p. 159-160

The gate is finally reached and the watchmans protean companion ultimately
reveals himself as an ordinary thief whose fellows rob the graveyards church while
he distracts the watchman. Thus the story concludes with what is typical for this
type of anecdotal structurea reversal, but in this case on two different levels of
representation. The first level is that of role behavior.6 Role behavior may be
defined as a cluster of conventional socio-psychological features (speech, manner,
gestures) that trigger a certain set of expectations which are frustrated in Chekhovs
story. Within the heterotopic space of the graveyard, the second level, the stranger
assumes multiple, conflicting and false identities. When he reaches the gate, the
threshold to normal space, his identity is likewise normalized: he becomes the
thief that he is.
The narrative space of In the Shed (1887) consists of two loci. A shed for
carriages with a wide open door leading to an inner yard of a town mansion is the main
place of action, which in the theater would correspond to an on-stage space. The
second locus is the graveyard, which is a recounted or off-stage space. It emerges in the
story told by one of the secondary characters and denotes a heterotopic site. Several
servants a coachman, his little grandson, a groundskeeper, and an old man are
6

Role behavior (rolevaia ustanovka, rolevoe povedenie) was discussed in detail by scholars like
Paperny, Sukhikh, Kroichik, to name just a few.

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playing cards in the shed while a tragic event is taking place in the mansion. The
master of the house commits a suicide and after a day in agony dies. The shed
occupants observe the unfolding drama from the side. They are peripheral to the central
event, yet are central to the plot. It is obvious that the servants will not participate in
the impending funeral arrangements. Yet, the masters death causes them psychological
and spiritual anxiety. The servants hesitate between feelings of compassion and
contempt, since from a Christian point of view, a suicide is a mortal sin. Their
uneasiness culminates in the old mans recollection of another suicide. The tale serves
as a text within text and also introduces the heterotopic site of the graveyard: a
generals son commits suicide and his mother has to bribe the policeman and the doctor
so that she can burry her son inside, not outside the graveyard, however the watchmen
complain that the deceased howls during the night and the mother is forced to agree to
exhume the body and to rebury him beyond the limits of the graveyard.
The act of marginalization in this tale occurs twicesocially and spatially.
First, it is the alienation of the family of the departed and, secondly, it is the literal
spatial displacement of the body outside the towns graveyard. The tale resembles a
parable and as whole can be interpreted as an allegory. If we read it as such, then we
have to look for at least two meanings a primary and a secondary one. The surface
meaning reveals the difficulty with which the adult characters reconcile genuine human
empathy with the horror and derision evoked by the sin of suicide. An additional,
alternative meaning emerges when the narrative switches to the point of view of
Aleshka, the eight-year old grandson of the coachman. This child not only encounters
the problem of mortality for the first time in his life, but also and more importantly

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he has to process the fact that there are circumstances under which a dead man cannot
be accepted by the earth. Discursively, however, it is exactly through this change in
narrative perspective that these irreconcilables are reconciled in the dnouement:
When Aleshka saw the dead master in his dream, and jumped up weeping for fear of
his eyes, it was already morning. His grandfather was snoring, and the shed no longer
seemed full of terror. (p. 204)
Now I would like briefly to touch upon two novellas which were written over
two consecutive (1888) and (1889) years after In the Shed and Bad Business. Most of
the studies dedicated to them usually read them along the lines of Chekhovs
fascination with Tolstoy, but I would like to call attention to Chekhovs increasing use
of spatial position. I believe that the function of hidden spatial metaphors in these texts
is to organize narration and at the same time to comment on the existential and ethical
problems addressed. Furthermore, these metaphors contain an allusion to spatiality: the
adverbs of manner vdrebezgi, vdryzg and vrazdrob refer to solid textures and
shatterability. In other words, they imply acts of destruction and damage and are
attached to the existential states of the characters, whose spatial position, as a
consequence, is also violated and changed. Vdryzg and vdrebezgi are synonymous
and are usually used in vernacular phrases such as pian vdryzg or vdrebezgi or
porugatsia vdrebezgi or vdryzg. Vdryzg also has additional connotations of
completely, entirely. The attached meaning of vrazdrob is separately,
individually. In the cases I am going to discuss below, Chekhov places these adverbs
in unusual contexts and in that way he coins neologisms.

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In The Name Day Party (Imeniny, 1888) the trope in question is vdrebezgi
and it alludes to the way the main heroine, Olga Mikhailovna, sees her life as ruined
after a climactic quarrel with her husband:
She collapsed on the bed, and the room echoed to curt, hysterical sobs that choked her
and cramped her arms and legs She felt that all was lost, and that the lie she had told
to wound her husband had shattered her life into fragments7.
p. 25
, , , ,
, 8 .
p.166

Throughout the story the positions of the liar and the one who is being lied to
alternate. Both spouses suffer because of the mutual secrets and lies. Petr Dmitrievich
suffers because of dissatisfaction with his work and the inevitable inferiority complex
provoked by his position in an unequal marriage all of which he conceals under a
fake and exaggerated conservatism and cheap flirtations: As an intelligent man he
could not help feeling that he had overstepped the mark in expressing dissent, and what
a lot of dissemblance had been necessary to hide this feeling from himself and others!
He was ashamed to confess his distress to his wife, and that riled her. (p. 6) As for
Olga Mikhailovna we follow her from the very first page of the story as she attends
to the needs of her numerous and demanding guests. In her last trimester, irritable and
vulnerable, Olga cannot wait for the exhausting day to come to an end. She is annoyed
by her husbands inattentiveness and while seeking some privacy and rest in the
garden, she accidentally witnesses one of the young female guests flirting with Petr
Dmitrievich. In light of her condition, the scene in the garden causes her enormous
distress and she comes to the decision finally to confront her husband about his lies:
She decided to find her husband and to have it with himWhat harm has she done

7
8

In this case and in a few more examples, I give the Russian text for obvious reasons.
Emphasis mine.

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him? What has she done wrong? And, finally she was sick and tired of his subterfuges.
He was always posturing, flirting, saying things he didnt mean, trying to seem other
than what he was and should be. Why all the dissimulations? (p.10)
The origination of the lies is obviously quite dissimilar for the wife and for
the husband. While Petr Dmitrievich ostensibly finds a certain modus vivendi which
helps him cope with his frustrations, Olga Dmitrievnas pregnancy distances her from
her husband and their guests. As we noted earlier, Foucault considers pregnancy a
universal form of heterotopia belonging to one of the two main heterotopic categories
crisis sites. These siteswhether privileged or sacred, or forbidden are a
designated space for people who are, in relation to society and to the human
environment in which they live, in a state of crisis: adolescents, menstruating women,
pregnant women, the elderly, etc. Thus Olgas Dmitrievnas advanced pregnancy is a
crucial attribute of the heroines physical and, what is more important psychological
marginality. First, she tries to remove herself from the chaotic activities of the party by
withdrawing to the enclosed space of the garden, then to the hut in the garden, and
finally by the back entrance to her bedroom.
Prior to the central scene of the argument there is another episode which
incorporates spatiality as a major trope the boat trip to the The Isle of Good Hope.
Chekhov names the small peninsula ironically as a warning sign for the impending
tragic eventthe heroines miscarriage. Several images and segmental units that
accompany the boat trip resonate later on in the scene of the miscarriage (sonata
form!). The idea to have a picnic on the island belongs to Liubochkathe girl who
previously enjoyed the hosts courtship. Naturally, Olga Mikhailovna is less than

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enthusiastic, all the more because rain is expected. Yet, as a hostess, the heroine joins
the party and puts on her festive smile. The island can be reached by boat and by
carriages and the party decides to go by boat. But there are several obstacles: first the
keys for the boats are misplaced, then Petr Dmitrievich nearly falls into the water, and
finally the rain comes and cuts short the picnic. En route home Olga chooses to take the
carriage and takes off her festive smile. The motif of interrupted fte is presented
twiceby the premature return from the island, and second, by the miscarriage. In
other words, the aborted picnic foreshadows the interrupted pregnancy.
The miscarriage takes place in a rather contradictory intimate space. The
bedroom door is closed shut, as are the windows, and the curtains are drawn. At the
same time, the servants make sure that all the enclosures within the room, such as the
chest of drawers and jewelry boxes, are open, as are the gates in front of the altar in the
local church. After Olga miscarries, the curtains and windows are opened, signifying
the emptiness of the womb, while the small enclosures are shut. Gaston Bachelard,
cited by Foucault in his essay on heterotopia, was among the first who paid attention to
the finer elements of interior space as signifiers of existential conditions and crises.
Just as John R. Stillgoe discerns in Bachelards house a metaphor of humaneness, I
detect the same semantics in Chekhovs treatment of intimate space.
A Nervous Breakdown/Attack of Nerves (Pripadok, 1889) is a story in which
a medical condition and an existential crisis are condensed into another unusual
metaphor: vdryzg which as The Name Day Partys vdrebezgi assumes a pivotal
place in rendering the storys central conflict. The main protagonist, a law student

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named Vassilyev9 lets his friends talk him into a night out in an infamous
neighborhood. Vassilyevs motivation to visit some Moscow brothels for the first time
is manifold. On the one hand, the young man is driven by his natural sensual curiosity.
On the other hand, Vassilyevs impressionable nave idealism and strong social sense
stir his imagination and picture the upcoming outing as a spatial navigation through
mysterious, meandering hallways that would lead to a long-anticipated revelation.
Vassilyev envisages the brothel in a markedly melodramatic fashion. In the first
place, he visualizes entering into its real space as steering through gloomy, Gothic-like
claustral corridors that hide the sin and cry for salvation. Secondly, his expectations of
the brothels interior are described in black-and-white: both literally and
symbolicallywhich is another signature mark of the melodramatic modes
Manichean thinking. The prostitutes are wrapped in darkness; they wear white
dressing-jackets and when, lit by a candle light, they recoil in grave anxiety. Brothel
frequenters are portrayed as archetypal villains, and, conversely, fallen women
represent innocent, victimized female martyrs. The moral polarization is
accompanied, consequently, by strong emotionalism and pathos. Moreover, the
numerous brothels the main protagonist and his company stop at grow into a tangibly
histrionic sensation.
Vassilyevs romantic presupposition of the brothel clashes with reality and his
shock and disgust are depicted as a drastic change from the black-and-white morality to
the multi-colored, kitschy, cheap interior of the actual brothels and the prostitutes
clothing and coiffures. His quixotic intentions (the rhetoric of the 1870s would prepare

I use the transliteration of the characters names as they appear in the translation of Constance Garnett I
use for this story.

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the reader for Vassilyevs saving, meaning buying out or marrying, one of the
women) are frustrated by the characters realization that his poetization of fallen
women and the reasons behind their way of life are nothing more than an illusion
created by his inexperienced, adolescent, and last but not least, self-marginalized, self.
Vassilyev overcomes his initial reluctance to join his friends in their brothel tour and
such a decision is above all propelled by his feeling of voluntary and yet artificial
seclusion and alienation:
He looked with softened feelings at his friends, admired them and envied them. In
these strong, healthy, cheerful people how wonderfully balanced everything is, how
finished and smooth everything is in their minds and souls! They sing, and have a
passion for the theatre, and draw, and talk a great deal, and drink, and they have
headaches the day after; they are both poetical and debauched, both soft and hard; they
can work, too, and be indignant, and laugh without reason, and talk nonsense; they are
warm, honest, self-sacrificing, and as men are in no way inferior to himself, Vassilyev,
who watched over every step he took and every word he uttered, who was fastidious
and cautious, and ready to raise every trifle to the level of a problem. And he longed
for one evening to live as his friends did, to open out, to let himself loose from his own
control10
p. 22

Vassilyevs encounters on S. Street (Sobolev pereulok), however, do not liberate his

closed-off, structured existence. The distance between the protagonist and the real
world is even further increased as a result of the associations in his mind with a
theatrical experience. And whereas previously, his expectations about the exaggerated
aesthetics of brothels contain a positive connotation, now the theatricality of the real
brothels generates only frustration and further sense of estrangement. Allusions to
stage space heighten Vassilyevs sense of inadequacy: It seemed to him that he was
seeing not fallen women, but some different world quite apart, alien to him and
incomprehensible; if he had seen this world before on the stage, or read of it in a book,
he would not have believed it (p. 31) The initial poetization of ruined women in
10

All quotations from this story are from Anton Chekhov. The Schoolmistress and Other Stories. Trans.
Constance Garnett. (New York: The Ecco Press, 1986).

138

Vassilyevs mind follows a transition from an aesthetic experience dictated by ethical

imperatives into a physical disgust and mental crisis. Vassilyev slips into a nervous
breakdown and his collapse echoes the disintegration of human dignity he witnesses
in brothels. The essence of his breakdown is multi-dimensional because it not only
exposes an ethical crisis, but it also betrays the loss of psychological control that the
protagonist sought in the first place:
It was clear to him, too, that everything that is called human dignity, personal rights, The
Divine image and semblance, were defiled to their very foundationsto the very
marrow, as drunkards sayand that not only the street and the stupid women were
responsible for it.
p. 38
, , ,
, , , 11,
,
.
p.185

Chekhov inserts his central notion vdryzg at the very moment the character
experiences his ironic epiphany. Moreover, the writer has earlier implied the centrality
of vdryzg by preparing it at a crucial moment in the plot: when Vassilyev hears a
woman crying in another room he rushes to what he believes will be her aid, only to
find that she is drunk. Not only is this episode a microcosm of the story as a whole, but
Chekhov has anticipated his description of the neologism vdryzg, which he credits to
drunks: .
Vdryzg in Chekhov is an attribute of space, and the brothel in A Nervous
Breakdown incorporates two Foucaultian heterotopic sites. First, the very institution of
brothel Foucault considers a perfect illustration of an important feature of heterotopias
a compensatory one in which illusion may function as a means of counterbalancing
the acts of exclusion: [Heterotopias] have a function in relation to all the space that

11

Emphasis mine.

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remains. This function unfolds between two extreme poles. Either their role is to create
a space of illusion that exposes every real space, all the sites inside which human life is
partitioned, as still more illusory (perhaps that is the role that was played by those
famous brothels of which we are now deprived) (p. 27). In the second place,
Vassilyevs crisis is depicted as a stage in his adolescent experience which Foucault
regards as a crisis heterotopia per se, since the first manifestation of sexual virility
were in fact supposed to take place elsewhere than home. Vassilyevs journey away
from sexual navet, from the quality that makes him feel marginalized among other
young men his age, must take place outside of normal space. However Chekhov is
less interested in the process of sexual experience in itself, and more in the
physiological and psychological dimensions of this clash between the real and the
ideal. The heterotopic space of the brothel, which is the opposite of utopian space,
enables Vassilyevs loss of control.
In the examples discussed so far I analyzed paradigms of marginality in which
space functions as a main vehicle of meaning. Chekhov demonstrates a plethora of
devices, such as shifts in narrative perspective, codification and interaction of interior
and exterior spaces. For this discussion Foucaults description of heterotopia is
especially fitting, all the more so since Chekhov ubiquitous adverb of time vdrug is
elaborated and expanded on by the valorization of space in adverbs like vdrebezgi
and vdryzg when used as capacious metaphors.
In My Life. The Story of A Provincial. (Moia Zhizn. Rasskaz provintsiala,
1896) the quintessence of his mature narrative technique, the depth of the writers
philosophical insights, and the power of his ethical messages culminate in poetical

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virtuosity. Donald Rayfield qualifies the ultimate significance of the story in the
following way: It is Chekhovs longest story since The Duel, and by far his richest
in ideas and human material. If some Tamburlane were to decree that all Chekhovs
work save one specimen should be destroyed, one would have to choose My Life to
stand for everything he achieved in literature.12 (Rayfield, 157) Our task here is to
reveal how the complexity of ideological discussions and ethical imperatives is
signaled through the development of the theme of marginality. Once again, we will
concentrate on the poetic means which Chekhov implements in order to organize the
poetic texture. We discern two principal paradigms of representation, two major
symbols that illustrate the social and psychological marginalization of the main
protagonist, Misail Poloznev. The first paradigm is the series of topoi Misail inhabits
during his gradual process of marginalization, reflecting his departure from the center
of social activities and the mode of life expected from the people of his rank and status.
The second domain is that of his theatrical experience of the protagonist and it is the
interaction between these two domains that intensifies the discourse of liminality. In
the first case, we will scrutinize Misails places of inhabitance that speak eloquently
about the changes in his private and public life. The characters encounters with the
world of theatre and performance will bring another dimension to the modes of
marginality in My Life.
In the eyes of his father and the class he belongs to, Misail Poloznev is a
disappointment and failure in every possible aspect: he has not completed his
university studies, he has only taken petty administrative positions, and his

12

For further details, see Donald Rayfield, Understanding Chekhov. A Critical Study of Chekhovs Prose
and Drama. London: Bristol Classical Press, 1999, pp. 150-164

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performance is unsatisfactory. In other words, Misail is an underachiever within the

long line of overachievers in the Poloznev family. Misails father regards his sons
behavior as a shameful act of betrayal of the noblesse oblige principle, especially in the
light of Misails excitement over the prospects of taking up the path of physical labor
and not resuming his job in a government office. Misails total lack of ambition and his
indifference to the privileges of the divine spirit and the holy fire of his
predecessors incur his fathers wrath. Poloznev Sr. ostracizes Misail due to his sons
inability, and more importantly, his resistance to claim and secure the social position he
is entitled to. Misail is not afraid to be disowned by his father. The economic
consequences are not important to him. What saddens him is the fact that in spite of his
fathers controlling and abusive (both physical and emotional) behavior and the
obedient presence of his sister, Kleopatra, he is deeply attached to them and the
realization that he cannot be part of their life anymore is excruciating. It is with the
same degree of conciliatory estrangement that Misail secretly watches his father and
his sister as they conduct their evening stroll down Bolshaia Dvorianskia Street and as
he observes the promenade of the towns beau monde. In the situation, Poloznev also
watches the passers-by from the side, from the garden gate. Poloznev is equally a
stranger at home and on Bolshaia Dvorianskia and this simple parallel is very
important for the structure of the story because with the unfolding of the plot line it
becomes clear that Misail follows a pattern of private and public encounters that
correspond to the dynamics between the interior and exterior places he occupies.
Ironically, Misail, a nobly-born man who lives on Bolshaia Dvorianskaia
(Great Gentry Street) the central and the most representative street of the town, is

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uncomfortable in joining in the public walk there: he is unfashionably and poorly

dressed and his reputation is tarnished. Surrounded by the buildings planned by
Poloznev Sr., the main architect of the town, he experiences the same sense of isolation
and discomfort he feels at home. The experience blends intellectual confusion and
aesthetic repugnance:
How absolutely devoid of talent and imagination he was! [] When any one asked
him to plan a house, he usually drew first the reception hall and drawing-room just as
in old days the boarding-school misses always started from the stove when they
danced, so his artistic ideas could only begin and develop from the hall and drawing
room. To them he tacked on a dining-room, a nursery, a study, linking the rooms
together with doors, and so they all inevitably turned into passages, and every one of
them had two or even three unnecessary doors. His imagination must have been
lacking in clearness, extremely muddled, curtailed. As though feeling that something
was lacking, he invariably had recourse to all sorts of outbuildings, planting one beside
another; and I can see now the narrow entries, the poky little passages, the crooked
staircases leading to half-landings where one could not stand upright [] And for
some reason all these houses, built by my father exactly like one another, vaguely
reminded me of his top-hat and the back of his head, stiff and stubborn-looking. In
course of years they have grown used in the town to the poverty of my fathers
imagination. It has taken root and become our local style.
(p.44-45)13

Poloznev Sr.s house projects mirror the architects creative impotence and the lack of
his ancestors divine fire to which he proudly refers on numerous occasions. Yet
Misail is open to reconciliation owing to his open-mindedness and inherent goodness.
He is willing to accept the towns ignorance and total lack of spirituality and decency
just as he is ready to forgive the humiliation and deprivation inflicted by his father
because, in the first case, it is not the town that Misail hates but its people,14 and in
the second one, his clash with his father is similarly based on their ideological and
intellectual differences, not because he lacks filial respect and affection.
Quite the opposite, sensitive to Poloznev Sr.s profound dissatisfaction with
him, Misail literally withdraws from his fathers home. First, it is in the shed in the
13

All quotations from My Life are from Constance Garnetts translation of Anton Chekhov, The Chorus
Girl and Other Stories (New York: The Ecco Press, 1985.)
14
Rayfield , p. 158

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houses yard where he finds a temporary shelter and where his sister clandestinely
visits him, smuggling food and sisterly compassion. His new abode a former brick
barn is as superfluous and not wanted as Misail himself is. Accordingly, the
protagonists role in the only societal activity he enjoys being a part of is a peripheral
one as well, albeit with a slightly different twist. In My Life the protagonists crucial
ideological discussions are alternated with and tested against the backdrop of his
theatrical encounters. What is more, Misails first direct involvement in a charitable
performance is at Azhogins, the locus which bring together almost all of the important
people in Misails future life: the house painter Andrei Ivanov (Redka), Masha
Dolzhikova, Misails future wife, Aniuta Blagovo, the young woman who secretly
loves him all the way through the story but who will never be able to overcome the
towns prejudice and to dare to be associated with him. Last, but not least, Kleopatra is
also present, with her lingering fear and insecurities. Unsurprisingly, Misails
participation has nothing to do with real acting, his role is supporting and is executed
off-stage: he paints the sets with Redka, helps with the make-up and stage effects,
copies and distributes the parts when necessary and also serves as a prompter. And all
of this because: [] since had no proper social position and no decent clothes, at the
rehearsals I held aloof from the rest in the shadows of the wings and maintained a shy
silence. (p. 49) Furthermore, the painting Poloznev usually does is far from the crowd
either in the barn or in the yard. Thus, in every public or private activity, Misail is
always on the periphery, behind the scenes. He lives out of the sight of his father,
outside the masters house, in the barn surrounded by old newspapers. At the

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Azhogins, whose house is also located on Bolshaia Dvorianskaia, Misails perimeter

of activity is yet again in the wings.
Dubechnia a new railway road station is the next locus which gives
Poloznev shelter, work and a completely new social environment. As a favor to Aniuta
Blagovo, the daughter of the Assistant President of the Court, Dolzhikov, the railways
engineer, gives a position to Misail in Dubechnia. Misails first meeting with
Dolzhikov is charged with a number of essential details that, on the one hand, indicate
the transition in his life, and, on the other hand, re-emerge during the second audience
the protagonist is granted at Dolzhikovs house (although this second time around
in a dramatically different way.) The first meeting portrays Misail as a humble
applicant who is overwhelmed by the lavishness and the fragrance of happiness of the
engineers house. Most importantly, Misail feels uncomfortable because he knows
that he can offer no expertise or qualifications for the positions available at the station
and the awareness of his uselessness is in sharp contrast to the healthy, red-cheeked,
confident engineer. Dolzhikovs house is a topos of change and Dolzhikov himself is a
figure which signals the upcoming shift in Misails life. He provides the bridge both
ideological and social between the worlds of Bolshaia Dvorianskia and between
Dubechnia, between the city and the village, between the domains of bureaucracy and
physical labor, between the empty rhetoric and squeamishness of the divine fire and
the boldness and arrogance of the coach-drivers son.15

15

Predictably, the building of railway line is one of the iconic images of the aggressive industrialization
and modernization which were underway in Russia at the time. Characters like Dolzhikov, likewise,
exemplify the dexterity and flexibility of the new entrepreneurship. When Rayfield scrutinizes
Dolzhikov he resorts to a different time in Russian history and finds interesting parallels: The railway,
as always in Chekhov, symbolizes the straight onward thrust of ruthless modernity: the engineer,
Dolzhikov, cuts through the countryside, a sort of Peter the Great, turning old family estates into offices.

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The station at Dubechnia is on an old, abandoned estate, marked by apparent

signs of ruination. Poloznev reaches it by foot and recognizes in his new landlady the
former owner of the manor which now belongs to Dolzhikov, and in his new co-worker
his old classmate Ivan Cheprakov. Poloznevs peaceful and uneventful coexistence
with the Cheprakovs is possible only because he is a low-maintenance tenant, happy
with his living quarters crammed with old furniture, visibly indifferent to the
malnutrition he is subjected to, and, last but not least, because Madame Cheprakova
sees in Poloznev her own former status. The only question she asks upon Misails
arrival is whether he is a nobleman. During the day Misail serves as a clerk, in his
leisure time he explores the vicinity. The garden is neglected, already run wild, and
[] overgrown with rough weeds and bushes, just as the big house is abandoned and
the lodges at the sides occupied by Cheprakovs are filled with redundant fixtures.
Misails position soon proves to be days on end with no actual work. He asks
Redka to join the painters and moves to Makarikha, to the outskirts of town, and now
he lives with his old nurse Karpovna and her adopted son, Prokofii, the butcher. Unlike
Karpovna who is terrified by his choice of trade, Misail is finally happy he really
works, he works hard, he works with his hands and this gives him great satisfaction:
At first everything interested me, everything was new, as though I had been born
again. I could sleep on the ground and go about barefoot, and that was extremely
pleasant. I could not stand in the crowd of the common people and be no constraint to
anyone, and when a cab horse fell down in the street I ran to help it up without being
afraid of soiling my clothes. And the best of it was, I was living on my own account
and no burden to anyone!
p.72

Misail considers his life among house painters as one of comfort and security
notwithstanding their petty thievery, violent temperament, and foul language. They

As he repeatedly boasts, he has worked as a simple greaser in Belgium just as Peter the Great worked
as a shipwright in Holland. Rayfield. Op. cit. p.159.

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recognize their different roots and occasionally make fun of his peaceful existence
explaining it by him being some sort of religious sectarian, but the painters goodnatured jokes have nothing to do with the cruelty of the townsfolk, especially those
who like him earn their bread by hard manual labor. The latter cannot come to terms
either with Misails rejection by his father, or with his newly acquired line of work.
They despise him; they mock him, they abuse him and now he understands why his
fellow painters have the saying that a painter among men was like a jackdaw among
birds. Poloznev agitates the public decorum in particular when he dares to pass by the
rows of street shops, whose owners interpret his presence as a sign of deliberate
challenge. It seems that in open space Poloznev is more vulnerable than in enclosed
space. The more visible he is to the public eyes, the more victimized he is. And Misail
chooses to approach his fathers house only at night. Aniuta Blagovo is still
uncomfortable meeting him in public; Kleopatra continues to visit him in secret,
begging for his repentance.
Doctor Blagovo is the only person from Misails former circle who is not
uncomfortable paying him visits. Amidst his workmans bliss, Misail nonetheless longs
for intellectual stimuli and his discussions with Blagovo fill this gap. Blagovos
compassion and admiration for Misail are genuine; yet in the doctors interest in Misail
there is a touch of pure curiosity. Their animated discussions reveal Blagovos
exaggerated theatricality: he approaches Misails marginalization as if he is observing a
scientific experiment. Blagovo is much more intrigued by the result of this experiment
than by the material that is being tested itself. He respects Poloznevs breakage with
the lifestyle of his class and has a high regard for his work although he thinks that such

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efforts should be channeled into a more significant type of activity and elevated to a
higher level of social engagement. Here we discover another metaphor that Chekhov
uses to encapsulate a crucial philosophical argument between the two characters.
Misail is a misfit, he is very aware of his abilities and his social and personal choices.
Blagovo is louder, ambitious and narcissistic. For him personal freedom and human
progress require a larger scope of action and application. The doctor compares Misails
voluntary withdrawal from the society and his satisfaction with his humble, secluded
and independent life with the existence of a snail in its shell:
But, excuse me, Blagovo suddenly fired up, rising to his feet. But, excuse me! If a snail

in its shell16 busies itself over perfecting its own personality and muddles about with the
moral law, do you call that progress?
Why muddles? I said, offended. If you dont force your neighbor to feed and clothe you,
to transport you from place to place and defend you from your enemies, surely in the midst
of a life entirely resting on slavery, that is progress, isnt it? To my mind it is the most
important progress, and perhaps the only one possible and necessary for man.
p. 79

Such a comparison brings to mind Bachelards examination of shell as a poetic image.

The phenomenologist approaches the concept from the perspective of dialectics of the
material (nature) and formal imagination (mind). Bachelard is fascinated by the
phenomenons geometrical form achieved through the gradual process of evolution:
shells simultaneously epitomize the ultimate simplicity and perfection. On the other
hand, the hidden creature within a shell, be it a mollusk or a snail, presupposes a
dialectics of what is hidden and what is manifest as well as a dialectics of creatures
that are free and others that are in fetters. Finally, shells allegorize a place of
inhabitance and protection. All of the elements of the poetic image of shells are present
in the metaphor which Chekhov uses through Blagovos discourse. Misail can be
associated with a creature that comes out of its shell, breaks free from its hard cover,
16

Emphasis mine.

148

creates its own shell and carries it wherever it goes. The protagonist projects the
paradoxically harmonious coexistence of the hostility of his natural environment and
his own personal self-sufficiency and spiritual autonomy.
In Bachelards study of poetic space, among the many representations of
interior sites that undergo extensive topoanalysis, the house image takes the central
place in its capacity to become the topography of our intimate being and a tool for
analysis of the human soul. Within the cluster of important parts of the house that
correspond to various psychological and existential states, the philosopher
contemplates a series of images which may be considered the houses of things:
drawers, chests, and wardrobes. What psychology lies behind their locks and keys?
They bear within themselves a kind of esthetics of hidden things.17. Later on,
Bachelard refers to them as psychological documents. It seems to us adequate to
read another cluster of images, other unusual metaphors as a psychological
documents, all the more so since these images reverberate through the character of
Kleopatra, Misails sister and his female counterpart. In contrast to Misails gradual
and relatively undramatic marginalization, Kleopatras development is marked by high
melodrama and abrupt tragic dnouement. She undergoes a drastic transformation:
from the timid, obedient daughter who worships and dreads her father and who does
not even dare to leave the house unaccompanied by him, into a fallen woman.
Kleopatra gets involved with a married man, doctor Blagovo, gets pregnant by him,
leaves the parental roof, takes shelter with her prodigal brother, and, finally dies while

17

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space. The Classic Look at How We Experience Intimate Places.
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1994): pp. xxxvi-xxxvii

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giving birth to her child. In other words, we have at present almost all of the necessary
melodramatic conventions that anticipate the heroines ultimate demise.
The first indication of Kleopatras (at that point subconscious) revolt
symbolically coincides with Epiphany. Like Misail, who already enjoys Blagovos
frequent visits and thus feels morally elevated, Kleopatra is smitten by the charming
doctor, by his powerful presence, by his education and impressive range of knowledge.
Her world opens toward a new dimension and suddenly she realizes the domestic
constraints of her feeble, patriarchal existence. In conversation with Karpovna the
realization of her petty being grows into the first act of rebellion:
Nurse, what have I been living for till now? What? Tell me, havent I wasted my youth?
All the best years of my life to know nothing but keeping accounts, pouring tea, counting
the halfpence, entertaining visitors, and thinking there was nothing better in the world!
Nurse, do understand, I have the cravings of a human being, and I want to live, and they
have turned me into something like a house-keeper ()18. Its horrible, horrible!
She flung her keys towards the door, and they fell with a jingle into my room. They were
the keys of the sideboard, of the kitchen cupboard, of the cellar, and of the tea-caddy, the
keys which my mother used to carry.
Oh, merciful heavens! cried the old woman in horror. Holy saints above!
p. 96

The strings of objects and fixtures Kleopatra refers to belong to several categories of
spatiality: the household (I would even propose the kitchen) space, which in this
particular case has an obviously negative connotation, the circumscribed space, the one
that constrains and suffocates, and, finally, the katabatic space which hides the heroine
from the outer world and arrests her development.
Not coincidentally, there is one more type of space, this time not a real, but a
symbolic one that of theatrical space. In the aforementioned scene it is suggested by
Kleopatras exaggerated gesture when throwing the keys and later when she decides to
take part in another charity performance at the Azhogins house. This ostensibly

18

Emphases here and throughout this quotation are mine.

150

innocent episode triggers the series of events that lead to the heroines downfall.
Kleopatra is assigned a small part in the Azhogins amateur production. Although she
lacks any experience, let alone a trace of talent for acting, Kleopatra takes up the
challenge as an opportunity to break free from the confines of the Bolshaia
Dvorianskaia space. But Poloznev Sr. interprets her desire as an outrageous act of filial
disobedience just as the Azhogins construe Kleopatras stage fright and failure to
perform as a shocking display of impropriety in light of her obvious pregnancy. The
episode ends in domestic turmoil and public scandal: Poloznev Sr. nearly hits
Kleopatra, and the Azhogins ask Misail to take Kleopatra home. Chekhov narrates
Kleopatras transformation not only along the lines of his treatment of interior space,
but within the domain of histrionics. If previously the Azhogins house represented a
space of artistic freedom, intellectual delight and spiritual openness, now Kleopatras
shining diamonds replicate her awkward presence on stage and accentuate the
hypocrisy and falseness of the Azhogins claimed progressiveness.
Now it is Misails turn to protect his sister from their fathers wrath and from
societys rejection. Chekhovs lines up Misails proletarianization and Kleopatras outof-wedlock pregnancy with the towns cruelty toward tortured dogs, driven mad, the
live sparrows plucked naked by boys and flung into the water and the societal
spiritual darkness and hatred of liberty. They hope to take shelter in Makarikha, but
even there prejudice ambushes them. Prokofii, the butcher, unequivocally states the
unacceptability of their conduct: Every class ought to remember its rules, and anyone
who is so proud that he wont understand that will find it a vale of tears. (p.154-5).

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The theatrical encounter, the turning point in Kleopatras character

development, is also a significant overlapping point in Misails path. We already
mentioned his off-stage encounters with histrionics. His marriage to Masha
Dolzhikova is an account of the heroines hesitation between her short infatuation with
the rhetoric of the going to the people movement and her desire to pursue a career in
arts. At the beginning of their marriage Masha enthusiastically embraces Misails
marginalization in the fashion of a necessary woman. Her interest in Misail is the
same sort of eccentricity which Blagovo shows in his relationship with Kleopatra.
Nonetheless both characters quickly lose interest: Masha gets bored with her
experiment on small deeds in Dubechnia, Blagovo prefers his promising career to the
sick and dying Kleopatra. He leaves for Petersburg to reunite with his wife and his
children and Masha also leaves, first for the capital and then for overseas, to pursue a
career on stage as opera singer. Mashas agricultural and educational enthusiasm
unavoidably collides with the harsh reality of the Russian village. Despite the young
couples good and still utopian intentions, the spouses unceasingly encounter the
peasants hostility and derision. The villagers cheat them and take any possible
advantage of Mashas and Misails naivet. Masha discontentment with the failure of
an ambitious project is the beginning of her marriages collapse. One of their last
conversations is a discussion much more about their union and their core values than
about the peasants:
There really was filth and drunkenness and foolishness and deceit, but with all that one
yet felt that the life of the peasants rested on a firm, sound foundation. However uncouth
a wild animal the peasant following the plough seemed, and however he might stupefy
himself with vodka, still, looking at him more closely, one felt that there was in him what
was needed, something very important, which was lacking in Masha and in the doctor,
for instance, and that was that he believed the chief thing on earth was truth and justice,
and that his salvation, and that of the whole people, was only to be found in truth and

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justice, and so more than anything in the world he loved just dealing. I told my wife she
saw the spots on the glass, but not the glass itself; she said nothing in reply...
p. 134

Masha projects her disappointment with Dubechnia on Misail and eventually leaves the
village and her husband just as doctor Blagovo abandons the dying Kleopatra for a
stellar academic career.
Kleopatras unborn child liberates her spirit. If previously she is the one
who constantly attempts to reconciline Misail and Poloznev Sr., now she does not
want to have anything to do with the man who chases away his own children. And
it is Misails turn, in light of Kleopatras worsening condition, to go to his father to
ask him for generosity and mercy. Chekhovs makes the brother and the sister
walk similar life paths which (albeit with different timing and different
circumstances) ultimately make a full circle. First Misail leaves the parental roof
and Kleopatra stays behind in her mission to mediate between the son and the
father. Then Misail has to approach Poloznev Sr. to try to accomplish an impossible
task. Yet again he will go over the fence of the garden, by the back door to the
kitchen, to penetrate the house as if he is a servant or a thief. Misail spends his last
night in his paternal home in the shed in which he has to build himself a bed out of
old papers. And despite the sweeping accusations Misail utters against the
monstrosity of the towns ignorance and malice, his further life proves to be more
tolerable and peaceful than Poloznev Sr.s.
The epilogue reveals a sort of reconciliation which Misail achieves with the
town, although not with his father. He is not abused by the townsfolk anymore;
they learn to accept him as long as he maintains an unostentatious, peripheral
existence. The final scene portrays Misail, his little niece and Aniuta Blagovo by

153

Kleopatras graveside. But as soon as they approach town Aniuta parts way with
the Poloznevs. Chekhov narrates Misails life as multiple hypostases of marginal
presence: a shed, outskirts, church cemetery, a village, the wings of an amateur
performance, a supporting role in a marriage these are only few illustrations of
the protagonists position in the world of interior and exterior spaces. Chekhovs
deliberate organization of space in his prose work of the late 1880s prefigured his
use of on-stage and off-stage space in his mature dramas. The writer continued to
implement marginal sites whether explicitly heterotopic or psychologically
encoded in order to dramatize marginal existential states.

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CONCLUSION

In the early 1980s, Chekhov scholars recognized the need to take a closer look
at the works of his contemporaries. A couple of important collections, such as Writers
of Chekhovs Times (Pisateli chekhovskoi pory) and Chekhovs Fellow Writers
(Sputniki Chekhova) were published. These anthologies introduced Chekhovskaia
artel (Chekhovs guild) and they provided an important insight into a whole
generation of artists that had been overlooked. In the limelight of the collections,
however, were primarily prose writers. The dramatists of the 1880s and 1890s are still
either simply absent from the literary map, or, if present, consistently maligned and
misconstrued. Through my research, I came across a short article by Thomas J. Taylor1
which discusses the principles of selection of the dramatic texts in academic syllabi on
the history of drama of the 18th and 19th centuries. He urges the teachers of drama to
familiarize students not only with the peaks but also with the plains, in other words
to include in the curricula both literary and popular playtexts. The same
recommendation he gives to the publishers because those plains promise possibly
interesting fauna.
Brookss seminal study of melodramatic mode laid the foundation of an entire
new direction in literary and cultural studies which not only rehabilitated but also

Thomas J Taylor, Cumberland, Kotzebue, Scribe, Simon: Are We Teaching the Wrong Playwrights?
in College English, Vol. 43, No. 1 (January, 1981), pp. 45-50.

155

completely revised the value of the melodramatic within modern culture. Feminist and
film studies in particular also contributed significantly to the field. And yet the very
origin of the melodramatic form, genre and mode the stage melodrama has
remained understudied and neglected. This study has addressed the poetics of
Chekhovs earliest dramas against the backdrop of his prose work and the dominant
popular drama of the same period and has examined the way they discussed the
appropriation of modernity in their texts. Chekhov and the mass dramatists, even
though they might appear different stylistically, belonged to the same literary
traditions, shared common themes and motifs, utilized similar loci. Their dramas
emerged as a response to the changes in the socio-economic and political scene of postnarodnichestvo period and illustrated the intellectual and spiritual anxieties of the
Russian society.
Two main concepts have been the focus of this thesis: the rhetoric of
marginality and the correlation between convention and novelty of melodramatic
structure and stratagems as they are demonstrated in dramatic works. Implementing the
notion of marginality, I have had to move away from the so called mainstream
constructions of marginality and that was the main challenge of the present project.
Whereas post-structuralism and post-modernism place emphasis predominantly on the
analysis of heterogeneous and/or bi/multicultural societies, I have had to examine
different type of heterogeneity which I have labeled as marginality. This type of
condition results from a sense of psychological uncertainty, dysfunctionality, alienation
and (self-) delineation which, in turn, stems from fundamental socio-economic shifts
within a society. Modernity, marginality, and melodrama are inextricably linked.

156

Ideological destabilization, economic uncertainty and social mutation accompany the

progression of modernity. Russias transition to a postsacred, postfeudal world in
which all norms, authorities, and values are fragile and open to question2 and which
are considered to be a key feature of modernity, is the post-reform period and,
especially the period of timelessness. These societal and cultural shifts trigger
psychological changes within the fin-de-sicle individual which impact his selfidentity, patterns of communication and sense of belonging. Thus marginality and selfmarginalization are a logical outcome of the modern experience. On the other hand,
melodramas interest in the social periphery, in the victimized, and in the weakness as
strength3 embraces marginality as one of its central topoi of literary representation.
Popular dramatists articulated a special interest in social and cultural
misplacement. The playwrights responded to the societal changes by developing a new
kind of protagonist which clearly showed that they were doing something different
with melodrama: heroes and villains could be equally marginalized, and thus, they
emerged as different faces of social and psychological marginalization. The
playwrights started to implement spatial strategies, which Chekhov further developed.
Moreover, his prose from the same period began showing the effects of melodramatic
and spatial perceptions. Foucaults concept of heterotopic sites and Bachelards
insights into the poetics of interior, exterior space, and intimate space, help better
understanding the changes in the public and private lives of the fin-de-sicle individual.
While conducting my initial research on popular drama in Moscow and sifting
through various literary documents, I came across a number of primary sources (such

2
3

Singer, Op. cit., p. 24.

Vicinus, Op. cit., p. 135.

157

as memoirs, personal correspondence, official reports and memoranda of the members

of The Society of Russian Playwrights and Opera Composers, Russian Theatrical
Society, Moscow Dramatic Society, and Petersburg Dramatic Society) which offered
new avenues of exploration of the theatrical scene of the time. In 1878 The Society of
Russian Playwrights and Opera Composers established the Griboedov Prize for best
new drama. Among the winners were prominent literati Aleksandr Ostrovsky, Lev
Tolstoy, as well as Petr Gnedich, Evgenii Goslavsky, Aleksandr Sumbatov-Iuzhin, and
Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. When in 1897 Nemirovich-Danchenkos play The
Price of Life (Tsena zhizni) won the competition, the playwright gave up his prize in
favor of Chekhovs The Seagull. I intend to expand my current work on turn-of-thecentury Russian drama and to explore the history and the cultural value of the
Griboedov Prize. The project is envisaged as extensive research into the connectedness
between the aesthetic criteria and the commercial success of the winning plays and the
relationship between culture and social institutions. I will pursue a broader study of the
late 19th century drama in the context of the history and status of this literary prize. A
closer look at the circumstances surrounding the history of the Griboedov prize would
provide not only an important perspective on the mechanisms of dramaturgical canon
formation of the time, but it would also answer some pivotal questions about the role of
such cultural institutions in mediating between the artwork and the public sphere.

158

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