In Exile (short story)

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"In Exile"
Author Anton Chekhov
Original title "В ссылке"
Country Russia
Language Russian
Published in Vsemirnaya Illustratsiya (1892)
Publisher Adolf Marks (1901)
Publication date 9 May 1892

"In Exile" (Russian : В ссылке, translit.  V ssylke) is an 1892 short story by Anton Chekhov.

Russian language East Slavic language

Russian is an East Slavic language, which is official in the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as being widely used throughout Eastern Europe, the Baltic states, the Caucasus and Central Asia. It was the de facto language of the Soviet Union until its dissolution on 25 December 1991. Although, nowadays, nearly three decades after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russian is used in official capacity or in public life in all the post-Soviet nation-states, as well as in Israel and Mongolia, the rise of state-specific varieties of this language tends to be strongly denied in Russia, in line with the Russian World ideology.

Romanization of Russian Romanization of the Russian alphabet

Romanization of Russian is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic script into the Latin script.

Anton Chekhov Russian dramatist, author and physician

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short fiction in history. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov practiced as a medical doctor throughout most of his literary career: "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress."

Contents

Publication

"In Exile" was first published in the No. 20, 9 May 1892 issue of the Vsemirnaya Illustratsiya magazine. In a re-worked version (with two scenes re-written and the plot slightly changed) it was included into the second, 1894 edition of Chekhov's collection Novellas and Stories (Повести и рассказы), and later into Volume 8 of the Collected Works by A.P. Chekhov published by Adolf Marks in 1899–1901. [1]

Adolf Marks Russian-German publisher

Adolf Fyodorovich Marx, last name also spelled Marcks and recently Marks, known as A. F. Marx, was an influential 19th-century German publisher in Russia best known for the weekly journal Niva. He obtained Russian citizenship.

Background

The story was inspired by Chekhov's journey through Siberia and his stay in Sakhalin and, in particular, two episodes of this trip. On 4 (or 5) May 1890 he crossed the Ishim River on a ferry and then on 7 May bad weather prevented him from crossing Irtysh, so that he had to spend the night in the ferrymen's izba. Of these two instances he informed both his relatives (in a 16 May letter) and his regular correspondent, the children writer Maria Vladimirovna Kiselyova. Both were mentioned in his Po Sibiri (Through Siberia) set of sketches.

Siberia Geographical region in Russia

Siberia is an extensive geographical region spanning much of Eurasia and North Asia. Siberia has historically been a part of modern Russia since the 17th century.

Sakhalin large Russian island in the North Pacific Ocean

Sakhalin is Russia's largest island, lying in the North Pacific Ocean between 45°50' and 54°24' N. It is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast. Sakhalin, which is about one third the size of Honshu, is just off the east coast of Russia, and just north of Japan. The island's population was 497,973 as of the 2010 census, made up of mostly ethnic Russians and a smaller Korean community. The indigenous peoples of the island are the Ainu, Oroks and Nivkhs.

Ishim River river in Kazakhstan and Russia

Ishim River is a river running through Kazakhstan and Russia. It is 2,450 kilometres (1,520 mi) long; its average discharge is 56.3 cubic metres per second (1,990 cu ft/s). It is a left tributary of the Irtysh River. The Ishim River is partly navigable in its lower reaches. The upper course of the Ishim passes through Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan. In Russia, the river travels through a vast marshland for its course, and has countless meanders and oxbow lakes. The river freezes from late November until March.

While on Sakhalin, Chelhov met a boatman nicknamed Krasivy (The Handsome, mentioned in Sakhalin Island , Chapter IV), a self-professed 'happy man' who struck him with his own peculiar brand of Tolstovian philosophy. It was Krasivy, apparently, who became a prototype for Semyon Tolkovy, the story's hero. [2]

Sakhalin Island is a book by Russian writer Anton Chekhov written and published in 1891–1893. It consists of "travel notes" written after Chekhov's trip to the island of Sakhalin in summer and autumn of 1890. The book is based on the writer's personal travel experience, as well as on extensive statistical data collected by him.

Synopsis

Two ex-convicts, working as ferrymen, and the narrator sit by the wood-fire at night. A young Tartar, whose name nobody knows, is homesick, he longs for his wife and loathes the cold and cruel world around him. Old Simeon, known as Tolkovy (Brainy) listens to him with disdain, for he had brought himself "to such a point that [he] can sleep naked on the ground and eat grass", in his own words.

Tolkovy relates the story of Vasily Sergeyevich, a nobleman, whose life here in exile was full of desires, frustrations and downfalls. Of the latter's self-inflicted suffering he speaks almost with relish. Next to him he feels a superior being: having killed in himself all desires, he now is free and happy. The young Tartar passionately disagrees. For him Tolkovy with his 'happiness' is a dead man, while Vasily Sergeyevich is alive, even if very unhappy.

Critical reception

Pyotr Bykov, the literary editor of Vsemirnaya Illustratsiya , admired the story, according to Ieronim Yasinsky's memoirs. The critic Yevgeny Lyatsky in his 1904 review, ranked the story among Chekhov's finest and praised it as almost a single 'glimpse of hope in the vast panorama of the Russian hopelessness' that Chekhov the short story writer had painted. [3]

Pyotr Bykov Russian poet

Pyotr Vasilyevich Bykov was a Russian literary historian, editor, poet and translator.

Ieronim Yasinsky Russian novelist, poet, literary critic and essayist

Ieronim Ieronimovich Yasinsky was a Russian novelist, poet, literary critic and essayist. Among the numerous pseudonyms he used, were Maxim Belinsky, Nezavisimy and M.Tchunosov.

Otherwise, "In Exile" was ignored by the contemporary critics; only years later did it start to receive high praise from both the Russian and the foreign critics. "...I have to say that Chekhov does indeed seem to me a fabulous writer. Such stories and In Exile and The Fugitive have no analogues," Katherine Mansfield wrote in December 1920. [4]

Katherine Mansfield New Zealand author

Kathleen Mansfield Murry was a prominent New Zealand modernist short story writer who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. At the age of 19, Mansfield left New Zealand and settled in England, where she became a friend of writers such as D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. In 1917, she was diagnosed with extrapulmonary tuberculosis, which claimed her life at age 34.

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References

  1. ↑ Muratova, K. D. Commentaries to В ссылке. The Works by A.P. Chekhov in 12 volumes. Khudozhestvennaya Literatura. Moscow, 1960. Vol. 7, pp. 519-521
  2. ↑ Commentaries to 'In Exile' // В ссылке. Чехов А. П. Полное собрание сочинений и писем: В 30 т. Сочинения: В 18 т. – Т. 8. [Рассказы. Повести], 1892–1894. – 1977. – С. 42–50.
  3. ↑ Chekhov and His Stories // Евг. Ляцкий. А. П. Чехов и его рассказы. Этюд. — «Вестник Европы», 1904, № 1, стр. 159—160.
  4. ↑ Literaturnoye Naslesledstvo, Vol. 68. Moscow, 1960, p. 677
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