Worldwide recognition of Chekhov in Russian diaspora reception

Abstract

The article deals with one of the aspects of the world recognition of Anton Chekhov’s art: its perception by the Russian emigration of the first wave, the so-called “Russian zarubezhye (expatriate community)”. Based on a large amount of newspaper and magazine publications, including those that were not previously introduced into scholarly circulation, the author demonstrates how the feeling that “Chekhov is outdated” was gradually replaced by surprise at his world glory. The article considers several such explanations. Some authors pointed to the extraordinary accuracy in depicting the details of real life, which allows any theatre viewers and readers to perceive Chekhov’s plays and stories as a source of knowledge about Russia. Others emphasized the perfection of form and likened these works to musical scores. There were also critics who perceived Chekhov as a prophet of the revolution. The most important for Chekhovian studies remain the existential interpretations, the authors of which were divided into “pessimists” and “optimists”. If the former, following Leon Shestov, believed that the writer has been killing human hopes, then the latter, following Dmitry Filosofov and Alexander Izmailov, found in Chekhov an all-forgiving pity for his weak heroes and hidden religiosity. Emigrant Chekhovian studies not only remain relevant for modern interpretations of Chekhov, but also most clearly represent a huge range of often incompatible, but still possible interpretations of his texts, which explains the world fame of the writer.