Letters of Anton Chekhov to his Family and Friends

Letters of Anton Chekhov to his Family and Frien

This letter collection opens with a teenaged Chekhov, in 1876, writing from Taganrog to his brother Misha, urging him not to call himself worthless, recommending Cervantes and Turgenev, and mentioning a boarder his family will take in Moscow. In 1877 he writes again from Taganrog, asking Misha to pass letters to their mother privately and to comfort her. By 1885 he is a doctor and writer in Moscow, describing his medical practice, his mounting household expenses, and his inability to afford a trip to Petersburg. In 1886 he thanks an editor for praise of his story and admits he writes hastily, two or three stories a week. A letter to Grigorovitch expresses overwhelming gratitude for the older writer's praise, confesses he has treated his own talent carelessly, discusses his book "Motley Tales," and resolves to write more seriously. He reports spitting blood and financial strain, sketches a parody novel called "Love Unrippled," and describes his growing literary fame alongside continued poverty, cheap cigarettes, and buses instead of cabs. To his brother Alexandr he sets out at length what qualities define a "cultured person," urging him toward self-respect and discipline. In an 1887 letter he defends realistic literature against a friend's criticism of his story "Mire," arguing that writers must treat all subjects, even "dirty" ones, with the objectivity of a chemist, and that no external moral police should limit literature; he also mentions writing a short play in just over an hour. He describes his rising fame in Petersburg, discusses names and titles like "lord of the world," and recounts a journey through Taganrog, the Holy Mountains monastery, and the Donets steppe, detailing weddings, monks, pilgrims, and landscapes. Later 1887 letters cover the chaotic opening night of his play "Ivanov" at Korsh's theatre, with actors unprepared, hissing and applause mixed, and the play's controversial reception. He writes admiringly of Korolenko's story "Karelin's Dream," analyzing its depiction of dreaming in detail. In 1888 he discusses writing "The Steppe" for the Syeverny Vyestnik, praises Korolenko's "Sokolinets," criticizes Gontcharov's "Oblomov" as cold and unconvincing while praising Gogol, and reflects on balancing medicine and literature as his "lawful wife" and "mistress." He writes about a trip to Sumy, the Lintvaryov family and their estate, meeting the poet Pleshtcheyev, and traveling on to Feodosia, Sevastopol, Yalta, and the Caucasus, describing seascapes, Aivazovsky's estate, a stormy night voyage on the Black Sea, and the Georgian Military Road. Through late 1888 and 1889 he writes extensively on literary theory: that art should state problems rather than solve them, that critics are needed but nearly absent in Russia, and that writers should remain free of factional "solidarity." He details his conception of the characters Ivanov and Lvov in his play, discusses Tolstoy's "Kreutzer Sonata," Bourget's novel "The Disciple," and materialism versus religion, and describes student disturbances in Moscow. In 1890 he announces his plan to travel to the island of Sahalin to study the penal colony there, explaining his motives as a mix of duty, restlessness, and desire to be useful to medicine despite expecting no literary reward. The remaining letters narrate this journey in detail: the voyage down the Volga and Kama rivers, the overland trek by horse-drawn chaise across Siberia through Tyumen, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Irkutsk, battling flooded rivers, impassable mud, cold, exhaustion, and broken carriages, alongside vivid descriptions of Siberian towns, peasants, exiles, Tatars, Jews, Poles, the Yenissey River, the Taiga forest, and Lake Baikal, ending as he boards the steamer Yermak, having crossed the lake, en route toward the Amur and ultimately Sahalin.

By Anton Chekhov · First published 1897 · Genre: Non-fiction, Epistolary, Biography · 60 chapters · 121,644 words

First lines

TAGANROG, / July 1, 1876.

DEAR BROTHER MISHA,

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letter · correspondence · personal · family · friends · Russia · culture · history · literature · writing · inspiration · creativity

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