Reading Rosamund Bartlett’s Biographies of Tolstoy and Chekhov Alongside Isaiah Berlin

Abstract

This article aims to shed light upon two different approaches in author studies by combining Rosamund Bartlett’s biographies on Tolstoy and Chekhov with the ideas of Isaiah Berlin. To this end, the first section of the article discusses biography as a genre. Biography is not merely regarded as a text that narrates the events of a person’s life chronologically and can be read and consumed as such. Biographies also reveal a period, the intellectual history of that period, the relationship of the author under study to that history, and the influence of this relationship on their works. Furthermore, how a biographical work is to be written is contingent upon the subject being studied. As the article seeks to demonstrate, Bartlett’s biographies on Tolstoy and Chekhov serve as an important example of how biographical style can differ. Anton Chekhov’s elusive style, his use of language, and his individual characteristics necessitated an emphasis on the element of place in any biography written about him. By contrast, the historical mission that Tolstoy assumed required him to be a comprehensible writer. Although these two writers were personally acquainted, they were products of different historical periods, and the difference in their styles stems precisely from this fact. Lev Tolstoy wrote during a period when the ideal of the Russian peasantry was felt in all its vitality. Revolutionary hopes were among the foremost elements that shaped him. Anton Chekhov, on the other hand, produced his works within the spirit of a period dominated by the disillusionment following the French Revolution. This disillusionment impeded him from assuming a redemptive role and from prioritizing the intelligibility of his message. If there is no monist narrative, being intelligible is not so important after all. The difference between these two writers can be understood through Isaiah Berlin’s essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox.” If Tolstoy is a “hedgehog,” as Berlin suggests, then Chekhov is a “fox.” The reason why Rosamund Bartlett placed the theme of place at the foundation of her Chekhov biography stems precisely from this difference.