Anton Chekhov About Truth, Freedom and Love

Short Stories by Anton Chekhov Bk.3: About Truth, Freedom and Love
ISBN  9781907832055

The third audio book in the series of Chekhov's Short Stories featuring a trilogy of interlinked stories

about Truth, Freedom and Love. Read by Max Bollinger in English (unabridged). First published in 1898 in

Russian and released as separate stories. This title, based on translations by Constance Garnett with

revision and adaptation by Max Bollinger follows Chekhov's original vision by bringing the three stories

together once again.

Stories in This Audio Trilogy

01 About Truth
02 About Freedom
03 About Love

Chekhov dedicated considerable amount of time writing the 3 stories in this trilogy and was very

particular about his intention to release them as once piece. This is evident from his correspondence

with his publisher. But his wishes were ignored during his lifetime and the first story had been

published separately. The story received colossal amount of attention from both professional critics and

general public and resonated so strongly that readers were compelled to write long letters to Chekhov (in

some cases over 20 pages in length) praising him for being so truthful, for enlightening and reflecting

the reality of their lives. Many prominent critics of the time such as Lyatsky attacked Chekhov for

attempting to generalise "life in a bubble" which he claimed was more of a pathological exception than a

rule. Lyatsky also accused Chekhov of only showing the dreadful sides of life and never providing the

reader with an answer of how to improve it.

Leo Tolstoy disagreed with Lyatsky after reading the second story. "Happiness does not exist and should

not exist. And if there is purpose in life, this purpose should not be our personal happiness, it should

be about something more intelligent, something more divine", from Tolstoy's letter to Gusev (1910).

The third story, About Love, concludes the trilogy, but Chekhov's initial thoughts were to produce

another sequel. The forth story never materialised however. The relationship described in the third story

was based on Chekhov's own relationship with Miss Avilova who upon publication of this story compared

Chekhov with "busy bee who flies about and is happy to collect honey from just about anything on its

way". Chekhov quickly responded to Miss Avilova,"You are being unkind towards your busy bee. The bee

first sees bright beautiful flowers and only then collects honey from them".

After publication of all stories in this trilogy, even most unflattering critics of Chekhov agreed that

these 3 stories represented a significant milestone in Chehov's personal development as a serious writer.

They all noted that the tone of these stories was less frivolous in comparison to his earlier work.

Regarding Chekhov's About Love, Mikhailovsky wrote that Chekhov was touching upon most significant and

important questions of human life with such skill, depth and emotion that "Chekhov in lifting us to the

sky, is showing us a third dimension, so to speak".

Nevertheless, Bogdanovich, another critic of the time, found yet more reasons to criticise Chekhov. This

time it was for allowing Chekhov's personal voice to speak through his characters and for Chekhov's own

guiding light shining and showing readers the way.

Such fierce and often unfair criticism no doubt played its part in contributing towards Chekhov's poor

health. In his letters he described that he simply could not write anymore. He moved to the sunny shores

of Black Sea and only after a long pause started to write again giving us such treasures as Cherry

Orchard, Uncle Vanya and The Seagull and many other wonderful novels and stories.

About The Author

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (Антон Павлович Чехов) 1860 – 1904 was a Russian short story writer, playwright

and physician, considered to be one of the greatest short story writers in the history of world

literature. His career as a dramatist produced all-time classics The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters

and Cherry Orchard. His short stories are held in high esteem by writers, critics and audiences of all

generations.

What the Critics Say About Anton Chekhov
His meticulous anatomies of complicated human impulse and response, his view of what's funny and

poignant, his clear-eyed observance of life as lived — all somehow matches our experience. Richard Ford
Anton Chekhov's late stories mark a pivotal moment in European fiction — the point where

nineteenth-century realist conventions of the short story begin their transformation into the modern

form. His psychological insight was profound and dynamic. Joyce may have more exactly captured the

texture of human consciousness, but no short story writer has better expressed its often invisible

complexities. Dana Gioia

Chekhov raised the portrayal of banality to the level of world literature. He developed the short story

as a form of literary art to one of its highest peaks, and the translation of his stories into English

has constituted one of the greatest single literary influences at work in the short story of America,

England, and Ireland. This influence has been one of the factors encouraging the short-story writers of

these nations to revolt against the conventional plot story and seek in simple and realistic terms to

make of the story a form that more seriously reflects life. James T Farrell

About The Composer

Antonin Dvorak 1841 – 1904, a Czech composer of Romantic music, who used elements of the folk music of

Moravia and his native Bohemia. His works include operas, symphonic, choral and chamber music. His

best-known works include his New World Symphony, the Slavonic Dances, "American" String Quartet, and

Cello Concerto in B minor. Dvorak’s symphonic poems are among his most original symphonic works. Audio

book adaptation of Chekhov's Trilogy about Truth, Freedom and Love produced by Max Bollinger includes

music themes based on Dvorak's Slavonic Daces composition.

About the translator and changes made in this version

Constance Clara Garnett 1861 — 1946, English translator of nineteenth century Russian Literature.

Following her visit to Russia in 1893 where she met Leo Tolstoy, Constance started translating Russian

literature, which became her life's passion and resulted in English language versions of dozens of

volumes by Tolstoy, Pushkin, Turgenev, Chekhov and other prominent Russian writers. Russian anarchist

Sergei Stepniak assisted in preparation of her early works.
Joseph Conrad compared Constance to a great musician interpreting a great composer (Turgenev). Katherine

Mansfield wrote: ‘Constance Garnett transformed the lives of younger authors by revealing a new world.’

Without her translations, H. E. Bates believed, modern English literature itself could not have been what

it is. Max Bollinger considers Garnett’s translation work as the most faithful to original Russian and

most characteristic of the era.
The stories in this particular collection have undergone substantial revision however, especially the

first story, About Truth.  This story is particularly rich in certain idiomatic content and, amongst

other things, Chekhov is employing use of Ukrainian language as well as Russian in his original text.

This inevitably creates additional layer of complexity for translators. Inclusion of Ukrainian language

in Chekhov’s original Russian text is not purely decorative.  Chekhov uses these lines with great skill

to create unique atmosphere and shape up his characters.

“The Ukrainian reminds one of the ancient Greek in its softness and agreeable resonance”, says Byelikov,

the lead character in the first story.
This audio version includes the nuances of the Ukrainian lines used by Chekhov and certain slang words

dotted around his original text .  The listeners will have the opportunity to hear the Ukrainian and

Russian words and lines at certain points together with English translation.

The e-Book and paper back version will have updated translation with some of the nuances so skilfully

incorporated by Anton Pavlovich into his texts. PDF versions of e-Book can also display Russian and

Ukrainian script.  Not all other e-Book formats are capable of displaying additional non-Latin scripts.

More about the Chekov Series
The selection of stories in this book represents Chekhov’s early work which perhaps is not as well known

as some of his plays.  The stories nevertheless possess unique potency and relevance to our modern lives

just as they did back in 19th century Russia when they first appeared in various Russian publications.

The inspiration to start the series came when I rediscovered Chekhov in England after having read his

short stories in English. It was like some magic book written in code suddenly opening up and

transforming into beautiful gleaming stream of light. Chekhov’s texts appeared  full of enlightenment,

wisdom and humour that I made it a personal goal to bring these stories to anyone seeking light and

truth.

I grew up in Russia and of course had my first experience of Chekhov’s work at school and could not

imagine back then that his words can speak in another language just as wonderfully.

After living in England for over 15 years, I was a little surprised to see these stories sound so English

as well as Russian. I give credit to wonderful gift of Constance Garnett here who captured not just the

words, but the very spirit of Chekhov’s intentions and of course to Chekhov himself who has this amazing

ability to appeal to humans of all cultures and generations. I felt like Chekhov’s texts started to speak

to me. I found his words so agile, so relevant, and so enigmatic, that I could not stop.

Chekhov himself described his work as comic satire: "All I wanted was to say honestly to people: 'Have a

look at yourselves and see how bad and dreary your lives are!' The important thing is that people should

realize that, for when they do, they will most certainly create another and better life for themselves. I

will not live to see it, but I know that it will be quite different, quite unlike our present life.”

Chekhov was often criticized by prominent literary reviewers of the time for not providing readers with

an answer or ideas how these “dreary lives” can be improved. Of course Chekhov is not giving a direct

instruction or providing readers with a manual on how to live a life, but it is possible to find

solutions in his stories − they appear between the lines for each reader. Resolutions are different for

each person and only each individual soul can find the right and most appropriate way in their life.

Chekhov’s own response to this is well documented.  He often insisted that the job of an artist was not

to answer questions, it was to ask them.



Title: Short Stories by Anton Chekhov Bk. 3
Subtitle: About Truth, Freedom, Love
ISBN: 9781907832055
Category: Classic Fiction, Romance, Drama, Short Stories
Format: Audio CD, Audio Book
Language: English
Author: Anton Chekhov
Translator: Constance Garnett, Max Bollinger
Narrator: Max Bollinger
Music: Antonin Dvorak
Imprint: Sovereign
Running Time: 90 min
2 x Audio CDs
On Sale: 2010


£14.00