When I requested Dear Writer, Dear Actress, a collection of letters exchanged between Anton Chekov and Olga Knipper, I expected them to arrive when Bill and Bron and I were reading “Gooseberries”. (Our project page is here.)

If they had, my note-taking would have revolved around connections with their friendship and courtship, which began in 1899, and the love affairs in “The Darling” (1899).

But the love letters arrived at the end of July, when I was thinking more about Tolstoy than Chekov, so the TICHN were all the references to Tolstoy. (If you’re interested, and you can read on-screen, they’re available on the Internet Archive.)

And in the course of reading these, I also found this article about the time that Chekov and Tolstoy went swimming on August 8, 1895, the day they met and ate gooseberries (ok, they didn’t eat berries, but they did swim together—or, maybe they didn’t).

Knipper’s letters are filled with talk of her rehearsals and performances, so it fits when she mentions that Tolstoy attended “Lonely People” (by Hauptmann?) in February 1900: “He liked it very much and said the women were better than the men.”

The following autumn, Tolstoy visits Knipper in Moscow with a friend, and she writes to Chekhov about how Gorki had apparently read Chekov’s “story, In the Ravine, to some peasants and the impression it made. He kept moving about and shed a few tears as he remembered. And the peasants looked at your photograph with such curiosity and affection, and listened so attentively to his reading.”

She writes to Chekov months later, to say she’s worried about rumours of Tolstoy’s death, but Chekov replies to say there’s been “no noticeable change in his condition and he quite clearly has a long time to live”. He adds that future communications about Tolstoy’s health will refer to a grandfather, so that their communications are not disrupted. Around the same time, Chekov refers to the photo that Countess Tolstoy took of her husband and Chekov together, but warns Knipper that, if he’s able to send a copy, she must not make any other copies of it.

It’s hard to get a sense of how much disapproval and censure artists faced at this time in Russia, just from these letters. They are lightly annotated (edited by Jean Benedetti) but not indexed, and likely would be more rewarding if I knew more about these writers or about Russian history (or both). They’re pulled from a two-volume set of Knipper’s correspondence now out-of-print, and a 13-volume set of Chekov’s (with some excerpts from Knipper’s Memoir in between some letters).

But even so, the letters were mostly quite enjoyable. The pair’s growing attachment is moving, with increasingly tender sign-offs (so much hand holding, and later kisses). Their pet names arise much later (he calls her horseykins sometimes), and each is concerned about the other’s health. They refer often to their respective work, and the dedication of each is evident. Though, in 1901, Chekov quips: “I’ve given up literature altogether, and, when I marry you, I’ll make you give up the theatre and we’ll live together like planters. Would you like that?”

Knipper worries when Chekov goes out to eat too often (whether because she’s worried about rich foods or drink, or maybe about his catching a cold, as his tubercular condition limits his presence in Moscow and he must bundle up in furs there). Chekov worries when she misses rehearsals and, when later in their relationship she has a miscarriage, he is solicitous and writes even more frequently. (There are excerpts from Knipper’s memoir here, but Benedetti clarifies that Knipper did not record her miscarriage in her memoir.)

Letters are delivered irregularly and seem infrequent at times; there are a lot of complaints about their being too short and, in the beginning, Knipper worried that she wrote about dull and monotonous things (Chekov instructed her to write more of those things, he was always happy to have a letter from her). They still seem very much in love when Chekov dies in 1905. This part of the book is very sad, even though the letters are limited and short (because they are actually together by then), but not as sad as the final segment, which includes the letters that Knipper writes to him after his death.

When I finally read “Alyosha”, I noticed that Saunders quotes Gorky’s Reminiscences of Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, including a story about walking down the street with theater director Leopold Sulerzhitsky (the friend who visited Knipper with Tolstoy and Gorki, with the peasants so impressed with Chekov’s story).

It’s clear that just a little more reading around these stories would lead to greater appreciation and understanding.

Saunders’ Afterthoughts for this story reinforce this thought, with not only a reference to Tolstoy’s Resurrection—which serves as a lens through which to imagine Tolstoy’s intent with Alyosha’s character sketch—but consideration as to how every decision that each translator makes underscores a different layer in the relationship between reader and story. (Saunders also refers to the work of three Russian-speaking friends and their comments on word selection in certain translation passages.) There is more to all of this, Saunders says (without saying): you need only look.

And, in a way I also was “reading around” with Anne Applebaum’s Autocracy Inc. (2024), which references political change in Russia/the U.S.S.R. throughout the twentieth century. It contains brief but valuable information about power politics which lurk in the background of these stories, which I found interesting. But what resonated most, for me, was her discussion of the playwright Vaclav Havel’s 1978 essay “The Power of the Powerless” and the importance of “small, symbolic acts of bravery”.

Through Havel, Applebaum reminds us that autocracies cannot be defeated at the ballot box or on the battlefield or in the public square, because autocracies have inexhaustible resources compared to ordinary people. But ordinary people have ideas and stories. Autocrats have “an enormous incentive to spread that hopelessness and cynicism, not only in their own countries, but around the world.” Which implies that hope and realism/optimism are essential to counter that inexhaustible (e.g. “flood the zone”) onslaught.

In this context, the moments of joy (or pleasure or contentment) in the stories Saunders has chosen—a woman reminded of a time when she felt like she belonged when she glimpses the light a certain way as a train passes, or a recognition of moment of beauty and contentment in a swim or freshly laundered linens—these come to mean everything.

These moments can symbolise a kind of freedom, an independent recognition of another set of values and priorities.

Ironically, Tolstoy ends his story “Alyosha” so that the overwhelming feeling is frustration and disappointment. Readers long for Alyosha to have resisted more, to have insisted on his own worth (of a new pair of boots, if only so that he can continue to work hard, of enjoyment of the cook’s company in the evenings).

But Tolstoy does give Alyosha a couple of moments of amazement. It’s up to readers to imagine what these might be, which is perhaps the broadest call to resist, of all these stories.

In short, if you don’t like how a story ends, create a different ending. In literature, yes, but in life too.

Saunders’ program is a lot of work, and I am still thinking about how his ASiaPitR works as a whole. Right now, I am a little sorry that it’s done, but I know that its impact on how I think about reading and writing will remain. And my TBR has lengthened considerably along the way.

Many thanks to my reading conspirators (as well as though who have read and commented, while busy reading other good books and stories): I would not have been half-so attentive without y’all.