On September 26, 1903, Anton P. Chekhov set down his pen, tracing the final words of his famous play, "The Cherry Orchard." One hundred twenty years? It feels like so little! It's hard to believe, the subject and its treatment seem so dated to us, Europeans at least. I can assure you that the words of this play still resonate strongly in other countries, notably in Iran, where Chekhov is among the most performed authors.
But it must be believed that much more has happened in the West than in the East in one hundred twenty years. Anton, who passed away in the following year, would not fully grasp our world. He did not witness his play's performance, although he had worked on it with the troupe. Just like Kafka, who found himself very funny and burst into laughter in the middle of readings of his stories, Chekhov had spoken of a comedy and was looking for a somewhat ridiculous old woman for the lead role, reconsidering his text, which describes a still young and attractive widow.
It was Konstantin Stanislavski, an immense director whose influence still extends worldwide, who found it dramatic and changed its tone. Rightly so, as the end of the old world was, in truth, far from cheerful.
Let's recall the play's subject: Ranevskaya, 35 years old, returns from Paris to the childhood estate of which she is the sole heir. This property is being auctioned off to pay debts. The merchant Lopakhin proposes a rescue plan: demolish the old buildings, cut down all the cherry trees, and build vacation cottages to rent to tourists. Ranevskaya is horrified; her house and garden are filled with sentimental memories. Delaying the decision, the estate's inhabitants philosophize, dance, and spend their last pennies. Lopakhin ultimately wins the auction and immediately orders the orchard to be razed. The indecisive and dreamy nobles depart, making way for "men of action."
The ruin is caused, among other reasons, by the resignation of the ruling classes, their lack of genuine attachment to the country and its people. This recurring phenomenon in Russian history gives the play its modernity, as when 1.2 million Russians fled Putin's war, rejecting all responsibility and risk, offering no resistance to a delusional and blinded power that is leading the country to the abyss.
Engrossed in the weight of the words they exchange in dialogues of rare richness in Russian, the characters seem to downplay the primary cause of their distress: the flight from a Russia too harsh to live in. This reality is barely touched upon: five years before this dreadful auction, Ranevskaya had fled the estate because her young son drowned there. In Paris, she had rebuilt her life, loving a man who sent her telegrams every day, begging her to return. Even if it were not to be sold and dismembered, Ranevskaya would no longer live on her vast estate, which requires administration and maintenance. It's too heavy. Immense Russia also weighs too heavily on the shoulders of the new rich who have chosen the Côte d'Azur, Spain, Georgia... In 1903, Ranevskaya will repatriate the little money she made in France; it will be well received there. We can see that this is nothing new.
In "The Cherry Orchard," we find the same technique as in the masterpieces that came before it: dialogues that aren't really dialogues, with each interlocutor remaining enclosed within themselves. Hence, seemingly random replies and unreflective responses that create a resonant disconnection. The motives driving the characters are left unexpressed - the reader is free to guess why the characters act or fail to act as they do. What Stanislavski would call a "drama" is simultaneously a tragedy and a comedy. This offers an almost unlimited space for interpretation, much like Shakespeare.
The contemporaries of the play refused to see it as a reflection of social reality. The disastrous war of 1904 and the revolution of 1905 would open their eyes. Similarly, they didn't see Russia but its caricature. Ivan Bunin said that no cherry orchard of such magnitude was credible: "... Contrary to what Chekhov claims, there was no cherry orchard anywhere in Russia: there were only parts of gardens, sometimes very large ones, where cherry trees grew, and nowhere could these parts, again contrary to Chekhov, be right next to the master's house, and there was and there is nothing wonderful about these cherry trees, not at all beautiful, as we know, gnarled, with small foliage."
But the Nobel laureate Bunin is seriously mistaken; he must have read or heard it wrong: Chekhov, who hails from the south, knows very well that cherry orchards are not a tradition in Russian estates. In the play, the humble Firs recounts that the dried cherries from the estate were sent by cart to Kharkov and Moscow. Lopakhin regularly travels to Kharkov for business. Varia, the pious adopted daughter, dreams of pilgrimages to holy places, first to Kiev and then to Moscow. Ranevskaya's estate is therefore in "Malorossiya," Little Russia, now called Ukraine... at worst, in the border region of Belgorod, which was then part of Little Russia.
Before the war, when Ukraine had not yet rejected all works written in the Russian language, the Historical and Toponymic Commission of Odessa estimated that "The Cherry Orchard" was based on an inheritance and liquidation case that ended in 1909 but that Chekhov had been able to follow because the owner was among his acquaintances. The said Commission even placed a commemorative plaque on the supposed site! Not far from Odessa.
As the name suggests, Chekhov had Czech origins and cared very little about nationalist quarrels; he would be appalled by the ongoing spectacle.