Krushenie Tsentrosibiri: monografiia

Abstract

together holds at least as much hope as it does anticipation of ill fate’ (110–11). However, for the present reviewer the high point of Professor Finke’s study must be the sections he devotes to Three Sisters. There can be no doubt that even the most experienced scholar of Chekhov’s drama will find much that is new here. From a detailed history of the writing of the play and its staging, we then find a subtle and insightful account of the many motifs contained in it. ‘The space of this play is highly ambiguous: a respite for the officers garrisoned there, for the three sisters and their brother it is rather a kind of underworld in which they feel trapped’ (175). Gender issues are also re-evaluated: ‘in a play whose title declares it to be about sisters, military life becomes one way of defining masculinity. That term is provocatively absent in the play’s title— why indeed no mention of the brother?— but all the more central in its very absence’ (177). Finally, the all-important themes of time and place in this play are given attention in ways that will surely inspire new and more experienced scholars of Chekhov’s plays to reflection: ‘Moscow is not actually a destination one might reach by road or train; perhaps [the sisters] cannot return because the Moscow of their memories is not at all a place, but a time — and time is, after all, the first motif sounded in the play’s dialogue’ (179). It is hoped that readers of this short review will take the opportunity to read this magnificent new contribution to Chekhov studies. Professor Finke is indeed to be congratulated for this scholarly work.