Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with biographical sketchMay 3.… I have just sent a story* to the Syeverny Vyestnik. I feel a littleashamed of it. It is frightfully dull, and there is so much discussionand preaching in it that it is mawkish. I didn’t like to send it, buthad to, for I need money as I do air ….I have had a letter from Leman. He tells me that “we” (that is all ofyou Petersburg people) “have agreed to print advertisements abouteach other’s work on our books,” invites me to join, and warns methat among the elect may be included only such persons as have a“certain degree of solidarity with us.” I wrote to say that I agreed, andasked him how does he know with whom I have solidarity and withwhom I have not? How fond of stuffiness you are in Petersburg! Don’tyou feel stifled with such words as “solidarity,” “unity of young writers,”“common interests,” and so on? Solidarity and all the rest of it Iadmit on the stock-exchange, in politics, in religious affairs, etc., butsolidarity among young writers is impossible and unnecessary …. Wecannot feel and think in the same way, our aims are different, or wehave no aims whatever, we know each other little or not at all, and sothere is nothing on to which this solidarity could be securely hooked…. And is there any need for it? No, in order to help a colleague, torespect his personality and his work, to refrain from gossiping abouthim, envying him, telling him lies and being hypocritical, one doesnot need so much to be a young writer as simply a man …. Let us beordinary people, let us treat everybody alike, and then we shall notneed any artificially worked up solidarity. Insistent desire for particular,professional, clique solidarity such as you want, will give rise tounconscious spying on one another, suspiciousness, control, and, withoutwishing to do so, we shall become something like Jesuits in relationto one another …. I, dear Jean, have no solidarity with you, butI promise you as a literary man perfect freedom so long as you live;that is, you may write where and how you wish, you may think likeKoreisha** if you like, betray your convictions and tendencies a thousandtimes, etc., etc., and my human relations with you will not alter*“The Lights.”**A well-known religious fanatic in Moscow.76