Anton Chekhov in Yalta. Christopher Baugh.
This article is the first part of a new research project, Chekhov’s Theatres, which will explore the buildings and spaces with which the playwright was most closely associated. Christopher Baugh is Professor of Theatre at The University of Hull. His most recent book is Theatre, Performance and Technology: the Development of Scenography in the 20th Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
“I have been exiled to Yalta, a splendid exile perhaps, but still exile.” (to Grigory Rossolino, 11 October 1899.)
[1] Chekhov on the veranda of the White Dacha, Yalta, c. 1900.
“Oh, if only the Art Theatre could come to Yalta!” (to Olga Knipper, 2 January 1900)
Chekhov’s tuberculosis and its associated symptoms eventually caused him to abandon his life in Moscow and to sell his country dacha and estate south of Moscow at Melikhovo. He had visited the Crimea and Yalta on several occasions, finally settling into the still unfinished White Dacha on 27 August 1899.
Kathy Dacre and Christopher Baugh visited the Crimea in September 2009. The aim was to examine the recently rebuilt Chekhov Theatre in Yalta that opened in Spring 2008. Chekhov’s letters from that period provide some details of the visit to Yalta from 14-24 April 1900 by the Moscow Art Theatre. The Company performed a small repertoire of their plays including The Seagull, and Uncle Vanya. Uncle Vanya had opened in Moscow on 26 October 1899, and Chekhov saw the production for the first time in Sevastapol where the Company performed on their way to Yalta.
[2] The Moscow Art Theatre company in Yalta, April 1900.
“The Moscow Art Theatre is coming to perform in Yalta the week after Easter, bringing all its scenery and props. Tickets for all four advertised performances were sold out in a day, despite greatly increased prices.” (to Alexey Suvorin, 10 March 1900)
[3] The theatre in Yalta at the time of the MAT visit in 1900.
The Yalta theatre opened on 26 May 1884 and was extended during the early 1890s and a new entrance was built in Yekaterininskaya Street. It was set adjacent to the city gardens on a site now occupied by the rebuilt Chekhov Theatre of 2008. It was built primarily of wood; it was small, seating only 315 and, along with many theatres of its time, it was prone to damage by fire. It offered a varied repertoire of professional visiting companies and community performances of vaudeville, drama and musical concerts. A very young Feodor Chaliapin appeared there in 1898 accompanied by Sergey Rachmaninov. Chekhov was in the audience and both musicians visited and performed at the White Dacha.
[4] Playbill for Uncle Vanya in Yalta, 1900.
[5] The Seagull in Yalta, 1900 – display of playbill and photographs in Chekhov Theatre Yalta, 2009.
“In Holy Week Yalta had a visit from the Art Theatre, another thing from which I have not succeeded in recovering, since after surviving a long-drawn-out, quiet and boring winter I found myself up every night until three or four in the morning, and dining every day in multitudinous company – and this went on for more than two weeks. I am having a rest now.” (to Pavel Iordanov, 27 April 1900)
“The audience cheered almost frantically, from all directions wreaths and flowers and, eventually hats and gloves were thrown to the stage”, Crimea Messenger (Krymsky Vestnik), 15 April 1900, trans., Anna Shulgat.
Nearly 6 months after the visit, on 9 September 1900, the theatre in Yalta was destroyed by fire. We understand that the rebuilt theatre that opened in Spring 2008 closely represents the theatre that was built in 1908, four years after Chekhov’s death. If such an architectural connection can be established, then how close was the 1908 Theatre to that which had been destroyed by fire in September 1900, and which had served as a home for 10 days to the Moscow Art Theatre company in April of that year?
[6] The re-built theatre in Yalta, 1908.
[7] Rebuilt entrance to the 1908 theatre.
[8] The rebuilt Chekhov Theatre in Yalta, 2009 (Exterior).
[9] Chekhov Theatre in Yalta, 2009 (Auditorium).
[10] Chekhov Theatre in Yalta, 2009 (Stage).
There are three sites of particular interest to the Chekhov scholar in and around Yalta: the Chekhov Theatre in Yalta; the White Dacha; and, the tiny seaside dacha at Gurzuf. The ‘White Dacha’ that Chekhov designed and built was completed by 1899 when he moved to live permanently in Yalta. This beautiful house accommodated his extended family and an almost constant stream of visitors and guests, and is now a carefully preserved museum and houses a significant archive of material. Several miles away, on the coast there is his tiny ‘escape to write’ dacha in Gurzuf; and, by the city gardens in the centre of Yalta there is the newly rebuilt Chekhov Theatre.
[12] The ‘White Dacha’ in Yalta, 2009.
[13] The ‘White Dacha’ in Yalta, 2009.
[14] The ‘White Dacha’ in Yalta, 2009.
“My Yalta dacha has turned out to be very comfortable; warm and cosy with a lovely view. The garden is going to be spectacular. I am planting it myself, with my own hands.” (to Nemirovich-Danchenko, 24 November 1899)
[16] Chekhov’s tiny ‘escape to write’ dacha in Gurzuf, 2009.
[17] “I am now the owner of a little bay…”
“…I have bought a small piece of the seashore at Gurzuf. I am now the owner of a little bay with a marvellous view, rocks, bathing, fishing, and so on […] There is a little cottage but it’s in a rather sorry state; it has three rooms and is built entirely of wood.” (to Ivan Chekhov 7 February, 1900)
[19] Chekhov’s study in the White Dacha 2009.
The White Dacha was built to house an already extended family: each member was given what we would call a bed-sitting room, with just a couple of larger reception rooms for receiving family guests and more formal occasions. Chekhov’ himself had two rooms: his study seen in this photograph and a smaller bedroom leading off the study through the door seen in the centre of the picture.
[20] Chekhov in his study at Yalta in 1900.
Chekhov was responsible for designing every aspect of his study and it seems to stand poised between the world of the nineteenth century and the modernity of the twentieth. The bright, bold panels of coloured glass in the window contrast with the ornaments and the wallpaper, designed by Chekhov himself. In the far corner, by the door, can be seen the twin bells of his Ericson telephone, on which one of his earliest conversations was with Tolstoy. In some way, the room seems to be a character from a Chekhov story: firmly located in the past and held by its traditions, but with the coloured light of a modernist future beckoning through the window.
The White Dacha is of further interest since it effectively began its present life as a memorial to Chekhov some years before his death. His sister, Masha, became the writer’s archivist carefully cataloguing his correspondence from early in the 1890s and, immediately upon his death in 1904, began her long curatorship of the Yalta house until her death in 1957. Given the intensity of this relationship with her brother, it is not inconceivable that Masha was involved in the planning of the replacement theatre built in 1908.
[21] Garden of the White Dacha 2009.
Chekhov was a passionate and detailed gardener: “What beautiful trees and, in essence, how beautiful life around them should be!” (Three Sisters). “Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I think: Lord, you gave us huge forests, immense fields, the deepest horizons, and, living here, we, too, should be real giants…” (The Cherry Orchard).
“Of the seventy roses in the garden I planted in the autumn, only three have not taken. The lilies, irises, tulips, tuberoses and hyacinths are all pushing out of the ground. The willow is already coming into leaf, and the grass is already lush around the bench in the corner.” (to Olga Knipper 14 February 1900)
[22] A bench in the White Dacha garden 2009.
“I’ve put benches all round the garden, not fancy ones with cast-iron feet but wooden ones I’ll paint green.” (to Olga Knipper 14 February 1900).
[23] The water pump in the White Dacha garden 2009.
Yalta reveals a series of thoughts and, possibly, insights into the work and approach of the writer. Chekhov’s first encounter with Yalta during the 1880s was not especially auspicious. It reminded him of some of the worst aspects of a Russian fairground, and he felt that there was something cheap about the social freedom offered by the promenade. “… snoots of rich idlers with their cravings for dirt-cheap adventures, the smell of perfumery instead of the smell of Cedars and the sea, a seedy dirty quay … idle talk of young ladies and their beaus who flocked here to revel in nature of which they understand nothing at all.” (Golavacheva, 12-13)
[24] The promenade in Yalta, September 2009.
But although Chekhov’s relationship with the Crimea remained complex, by the time he became a Yalta resident in September 1898, he declared: “the Crimea is very good. Never before have I loved it as I do now.” (Golavacheva, 13)
Perhaps, like Chekhov’s study, Yalta may also be understood as a place of transition. Whilst inevitably firmly located within the aesthetic, cultural and social conditions of the nineteenth century, it offered, through its climate, its promenades and its meeting places, and especially for women, a freedom of acquaintance and encounter that offered a glimpse of, and opportunities for, a very different future. The search for a future in a different world, or at least for a place of transition is a theme that pervades the plays that Chekhov wrote in Yalta.
[25] Vernet’s ‘pavilion’ – an early 20th century postcard.
Edmond Vernet built his coffee and confectionary ‘pavilion’ on the promenade at Yalta in 1886. It was a polygonal structure set upon stilts jutting out into the tide-less Black Sea. Although destroyed by fire in 1896, it was quickly rebuilt and the 1897 guidebooks advertise Vernet’s Parisian confectionary. Although it was transferred to a new owner, Emile Floren, in 1898, it retained the name of Vernet and served as the setting for the opening of Chekhov’s short story:
“People said that there was a new arrival on the Promenade: a lady with a little dog. Dmitry Dmitrich Gurov, who had already spent a fortnight in Yalta and who was by now used to the life there, and also begun to take an interest in new arrivals. As he sat on the terrace of Vernet’s restaurant he saw a young, fair-haired woman walking along the promenade, not very tall and wearing a beret. A white Pomeranian trotted after her.”
(The Lady with the Little Dog, 1899).
Chekhov was a regular visitor to Vernet’s.
[26] Yelena Shavrona
The 15 year old Yelena Shavrona devised a plan to meet the writer whose literary patronage she sought. She had a sample of her writing to show Chekhov but it was, of course, improper for a young lady to meet with him in private, and she didn’t want to discuss her literary ambitions in the presence of her family. She noted that Chekhov visited Vernet’s for coffee. Early one morning in July 1899, she waited for the writer to appear and saw him enter and sit on the far side of the pavilion. She went in, but chose a seat close to the door and one that was exposed to the full sun. “Come and sit here in the shade. It is not so hot here and closer to the sea”. (Incident cited in Alla Golovachevna, Chekhov and Crimea, Dolya, 2008, p. 18-19). Chekhov’s emblematic Yalta short story, The Lady with the Little Dog, was published a few months later.
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Alla Golovachevna, Chekhov and Crimea, Dolya, 2008.
Quotations from Chekhov letters from Anton Chekhov: A Life in Letters, ed. Rosamund Bartlett, London: Penguin Books, 2004.
Quotation from The Lady with the Little Dog, Translated by Ronald Wilks, London: Penguin Books, 2002.
Illus. 1 Chekhov house museum and archive, Yalta.
Illus. 2-6 Archive of the Chekhov Theatre, Yalta.
Illus. 7-10 Christopher Baugh
Illus 11 Chekhov house museum and archive, Yalta.
Illus 12-14 Christopher Baugh
Illus 15 Chekhov house museum and archive, Yalta.
Illus. 16-19 Christopher Baugh
Illus 20 Chekhov house museum and archive, Yalta.
Illus. 21-24 Christopher Baugh
Illus. 25-26 from Alla Golovachevna, Chekhov and Crimea, Dolya, 2008.
Christopher Baugh
October 2009
