Poet of the Little

ANTON CHEKHOV--Princess Nina Andronikova Toumanova--Columbia Uni-versity Press ($3).

Greatest of Russian short-story writers --his adherents say, greatest in the world --Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is principally known to the U. S. as the author of one play, The Cherry Orchard.* Never so popular as Maupassant, and overshadowed today by such compatriots as Tolstoy and Dostoievsky, Chekhov had a bright day in his own lifetime (1860-1904), will no doubt re-emerge in the future. His comparatively few U. S. and English readers have generally found Chekhov, even in translation, an unforgettable experience.

Last week Princess Toumanova published a brief (239-page), cool but careful biography of her late great countryman.

Chekhov enthusiasts found Biographer Toumanova's summation of their hero a little on the faint side: "Chekhov is a great artist using a small canvas, a poet of the little." Princess Toumanova regards him as the mouthpiece of "the superfluous man," as the sad "voice of twilight Russia." "He lived among the inactive, talkative, dissatisfied intelligentsia, which formed the background of his literary efforts and, as a true physician who diagnoses the disease, he observed stagnation and inertia and gave us a perfect picture of what he saw around him." But that was the later Chekhov. In his early days he set whole vistas of tables on a roar.

Chekhov's father kept a grocery shop in Taganrog, a sleepy little town on the Sea of Azov. Chekhov went to work in the shop when he was eight, and hated it.

But he liked school, where he was soon known as a poker-faced humorist and mimic. Chekhov loved practical jokes and disguises, once got himself up like a ragamuffin and fooled his uncle into giving him three kopeks. His teachers were fond of him, but none of them thought him exceptional. When he was 16 his father failed in business, packed his family off to Moscow. Chekhov stayed behind in Taganrog to finish school. When he joined his family three years later, he found them in worse straits than ever. Thereafter, though he had two older brothers, it was Chekhov who was the family breadwinner.

While he was putting himself through medical school, he began to write for the comic papers--parodies, reviews, stories, plays--anything an editor would pay for.

For a time he wrote a column, Trifles & Baubles. His one & only novel, The Tragic Hunt, appeared in 33 installments, was so complicated that most readers lost the thread of the plot. He signed his stuff by many a pseudonym, usually "Antosha Chekhonte." By the time he had taken his medical degree he had become a professional journalist. Said he: "Literature is my mistress and medicine my lawful wife." As a doctor, he knew he was threatened with tuberculosis but would never admit it, refused to be examined. Potent Alexey Suvorin, editor of St. Petersburg's Novoe Vremya, biggest Russian daily, read some of Chekhov's stories, was impressed, sent for him. Chekhov described their first interview: "He was very courteous and even shook hands with me. 'Do your best, young man,' he said. 'I am satisfied with you, only go to church often, and do not drink vodka. Breathe at me!' I did. Suvorin, not noticing any vodka odor, turned and called 'Boy!' A boy appeared and was ordered to bring tea and a few lumps of sugar. After this the respectable Mr. Suvorin gave me money and said: 'One has to be careful with money.

Pull up your trousers!' " Though Suvorin was 26 years the elder, the two became close friends. The Dreyfus Case finally put an end to their intimacy: Chekhov was a strong supporter of Zola and the Dreyfusards, Suvorin was a professional anti-Semite.

Guaranteed by such respectable sponsors as Suvorin, Chekhov became a little literary lion. He began to write seriously for the stage. His first play, Ivanov, the tragi-comedy of an ordinary man, puzzled the public, which had gone to the theatre expecting to be amused. But it aroused a flurry of controversy. His first collections of stories were so successful-- one of them won a prize--that Chekhov felt like touching wood. "I am too lucky.

... I begin to cast suspicious glances towards heaven. I shall hide myself quickly under the table and sit there tamely and quietly, without raising my voice." Chekhov took his success and its inevitable criticism calmly. The one shaft that got under his skin was that, almost alone in a socially-minded day, he took no interest in social problems. Chekhov certainly did not believe in Art for Propaganda's sake: he thought that "a writer should be just as objective as a chemist." But he surprised his critics by suddenly taking himself off to the Island of Sakhalin, Russian penal colony, and doing a book about conditions there which brought about reforms. With a sidelong glance at his critics, he said: "I am glad that these stiff prison overalls hang in my literary wardrobe."

Besides his crowded family in Moscow there were friends, and their friends. Chekhov bought a dilapidated country house outside the city, to get away from visitors, soon found his household was as crowded as ever. It was a relief to get away occasionally for a quiet stroll in a graveyard. Chattering women gave him a special pain. "What a lot of idiots there are among ladies!" he exclaimed. "People have got so used to it that they no longer notice it." He liked such misogynisms as: "If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry." Chekhov finally married, but not till he was 41, three years before his death.

When Stanislavsky started the Moscow Art Theatre in 1898, one of their first productions was Chekhov's The Sea Gull, which had been a resounding failure when it was first produced two years before.

Stanislavsky's devoted company made it just as resounding a success, and from then on Chekhov and the Moscow Art Theatre marched in step. The company produced three more Chekhov plays (Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, The Cherry Garden}, produced also Actress Olga Knipper, whom Chekhov married.

Driven south to Yalta by his lungs, Chekhov at last had to leave Russia altogether. With his wife to nurse him through his last illness, he went to Germany to die. On the evening of the night he died, Chekhov told his wife so many funny stories that she failed to hear the gong, missed her dinner. His body was brought back to Russia in a car that had been used to ship oysters in. Biographer Toumanova thinks that would have amused him.

The Author. In 1925 exiled Princess Nina Andronikova Toumanova arrived in the U. S. with $29, no English. Now she is Lecturer in French at Barnard College, has just taken her Ph.D. at Columbia University, is a naturalized U. S. citizen. It took a revolution to arouse her interest in Chekhov. As a refugee in Paris she studied at the University, discovered Maupassant, through him, Chekhov. In the U. S. she learned English by teaching French, decided to perfect it by taking a Ph.D. Her English dissertation she rewrote four times, parts of it 50 times. Nothing daunted, she now plans a volume of memoirs, a book on Maupassant.

* And that, says Princess Toumanova, is a mistranslated title; it should be The Cherry Garden.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.