&Chachek;exov constitutes a curious exception to the
obsession with history
(to quote Andrew Wachtel) shared
by the great Russian prose writers. &Chachek;exov's dramatization of
the human struggle against the passage of time as something intensely
private can be contrasted to his predecessors' exploration of history
as part of the fervent and very public quest for a Russian national
identity. That quest began (after Karamzin) with Pu&shachek;kin, and
in the year 1999 the poet must be given his due. If the theme of
history is strikingly absent from &Chachek;exov's writing,
Pu&shachek;kin returns repeatedly to historical themes, exploring them
in a wide variety of genres and from many different,
complementary
angles (to quote Svetlana
Evdokimova). And yet, as the many excellent essays in the 1998 issue
of
A strongly temporal concern marks the works of both writers;
Pu&shachek;kin seeks answers in the past, in
origins—particularly those of the Russian hereditary
gentry. &Chachek;exov, the grandson of serfs, looks only ahead, at
potentialities, asking questions as to how things will be in the
future (in two or three hundred years). &Chachek;exov believes that
only science and its future remain certain.
The
proposed paper will attempt to argue that &Chachek;exov's deeply-felt
need to contribute to Russian science represents a positivist's
response to Pu&shachek;kin's challenge to explain the enigma of
Russian identity through an exploration of the country's history. In
this sense Pu&shachek;kin the Romantic and &Chachek;exov the scientist
are men of their own times. The paper will recommend Donald Rayfield's
comment on the sense of time translated into space
in
&Chachek;exov's story
Their contrasting non-fictional projects—Pu&shachek;kin's
Histories of Peter and of Puga&chachek;ev and &Chachek;exov's
statistical study of the convict population on Saxalin
Island—reflect a sense of civic responsibility in both writers.
What unites them on a deep level is a deeply-felt conviction as to the
value of pure art. Tolstoj's statement that &Chachek;exov is
Pu&shachek;kin in prose
draws our attention to the
lyric principle that resides at the heart of &Chachek;exov's best
stories and traces its origins to Pu&shachek;kin's lyrics and
elegies. It is for this lyric core of their artistic works that offers
refuge from public civic concerns that both writers are best
remembered and loved. Thus it is that when Pu&shachek;kin and
&Chachek;exov transcend the concerns of their time
that
they show themselves to be the greatest artists.
A study this ambitious will necessarily take the form of an essay
that only poses questions.
The discussion will be
anchored, however, in a brief analysis of the 1887 &Chachek;exov story