Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; ; 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his b ...
.
Publication
"In Exile" was first published in the No. 20, 9 May 1892 issue of the ''
Vsemirnaya Illustratsiya
''Vsemirnaya Illyustratsiya'' (, ''World Illustrated'') was a Russian weekly magazine founded by German Goppe and published by his own publishing house in Saint Petersburg in 1869–1898.Adolf Marks
Adolf Fyodorovich Marx (; 2 February 1838 – ), 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 (journal), Niva''. He obt ...
in 1899–1901.Muratova, K. D. Commentaries to В ссылке. The Works by A.P. Chekhov in 12 volumes.
Khudozhestvennaya Literatura
Khudozhestvennaya Literatura () is a publishing house in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The name means "fiction literature" in Russian. It specializes in the publishing of Russian and foreign works of literary fiction in Russia.
History
It was founde ...
. Moscow, 1960. Vol. 7, pp. 519-521
Background
The story was inspired by Chekhov's journey through
Siberia
Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...
and his stay in
Sakhalin
Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, p=səxɐˈlʲin) is an island in Northeast Asia. Its north coast lies off the southeastern coast of Khabarovsk Krai in Russia, while its southern tip lies north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. An islan ...
and, in particular, two episodes of this trip. On 4 (or 5) May 1890 he crossed the
Ishim River
The Ishim (; ) is a river running through Kazakhstan and Russia. It is long, and has a drainage basin of . Its average discharge is . It is a left tributary of the Irtysh. The Ishim is partly navigable in its lower reaches. The upper course o ...
on a ferry and then on 7 May bad weather prevented him from crossing
Irtysh
The Irtysh is a river in Russia, China, and Kazakhstan. It is the chief tributary of the Ob (river), Ob and is also the longest tributary in the world.
The river's source lies in the Altai Mountains, Mongolian Altai in Dzungaria (the northern p ...
, so that he had to spend the night in the ferrymen's
izba
An izba ( rus, изба́, p=ɪzˈba, a=Ru-изба.ogg) is a traditional Russian countryside dwelling. Often a log house, it forms the living quarters of a conventional Russian farmstead. It is generally built close to the road and inside a Y ...
. 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.
While on Sakhalin, Chekhov met a boatman nicknamed Krasivy (The Handsome, mentioned in ''
Sakhalin Island
Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, p=səxɐˈlʲin) is an island in Northeast Asia. Its north coast lies off the southeastern coast of Khabarovsk Krai in Russia, while its southern tip lies north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. An islan ...
'', 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.Commentaries to 'In Exile' // В ссылке. Чехов А. П. Полное собрание сочинений и писем: В 30 т. Сочинения: В 18 т. – Т. 8. ассказы. Повести 1892–1894. – 1977. – С. 42–50.
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 ecan 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.
Vsemirnaya Illustratsiya
''Vsemirnaya Illyustratsiya'' (, ''World Illustrated'') was a Russian weekly magazine founded by German Goppe and published by his own publishing house in Saint Petersburg in 1869–1898.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.
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
Kathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp; 14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923) was a New Zealand writer and critic who was an important figure in the Literary modernism, modernist movement. Her works are celebrated across the world and have been ...
wrote in December 1920.''Literaturnoye Naslesledstvo'', Vol. 68. Moscow, 1960, p. 677