YALTA,
October 11, 1899.
... Autobiography? I have a disease--Auto-biographophobia. To read any sort
of details about myself, and still more to write them for print, is a
veritable torture to me. On a separate sheet I send a few facts, very bald,
but I can do no more....
I, A. P. Chekhov, was born on the 17th of January, 1860, at Taganrog. I was
educated first in the Greek School near the church of Tsar Constantine;
then in the Taganrog high school. In 1879 I entered the Moscow University
in the Faculty of Medicine. I had at the time only a slight idea of the
Faculties in general, and chose the Faculty of Medicine I don’t remember on
what grounds, but did not regret my choice afterwards. I began in my first
year to publish stories in the weekly journals and newspapers, and these
literary pursuits had, early in the eighties, acquired a permanent
professional character. In 1888 I took the Pushkin prize. In 1890 I
travelled to the Island of Sahalin, to write afterwards a book upon our
penal colony and prisons there. Not counting reviews, feuilletons,
paragraphs, and all that I have written from day to day for the newspapers,
which it would be difficult now to seek out and collect, I have, during my
twenty years of literary work, published more than three hundred signatures
of print, of tales, and novels. I have also written plays for the stage.
I have no doubt that the study of medicine has had an important influence
on my literary work; it has considerably enlarged the sphere of my
observation, has enriched me with knowledge the true value of which for me
as a writer can only be understood by one who is himself a doctor. It has
also had a guiding influence, and it is probably due to my close
association with medicine that I have succeeded in avoiding many mistakes.
Familiarity with the natural sciences and with scientific method has always
kept me on my guard, and I have always tried where it was possible to be
consistent with the facts of science, and where it was impossible I have
preferred not to write at all. I may observe in passing that the conditions
of artistic creation do not always admit of complete harmony with the facts
of science. It is impossible to represent upon the stage a death from
poisoning exactly as it takes place in reality. But harmony with the facts
of science must be felt even under those conditions--i.e., it must be
clear to the reader or spectator that this is only due to the conditions of
art, and that he has to do with a writer who understands.
I do not belong to the class of literary men who take up a sceptical
attitude towards science; and to the class of those who rush into
everything with only their own imagination to go upon, I should not like to
belong....