There is a popular story on the Internet that the writers were friends for many years, until Bunin complained to Chekhov about his difficult life, and instead of sympathy, he urged him to drink less vodka. We decided to check whether something like this actually happened.
The viral text about the collapsed friendship of writers in most publications reads completely like this: “Chekhov and Bunin were very friends. The reason for the breakdown of their relationship was an eight-page letter that Bunin wrote to Chekhov in a difficult moment, where he poured out his soul in full: he wrote about his depression, about the loss of the meaning of life, about the creative crisis, about the bitter fate of the country, about insomnia, hopelessness and thoughts of suicide. Chekhov responded with a telegram to Bunin: “And you, my friend Ivan Alekseich, drink less vodka.” They didn't communicate anymore." In some publications, the text is slightly different, but very insignificantly - for example, some individual words are omitted or it is specified that the writers had been friends for nine years before the falling out. Social network users share the story about the relationship between Chekhov and Bunin (“VKontakte", Instagram, Facebook, "Classmates", X), blog platforms (“Zen", LiveJournal), forums And services questions and answers. This text also appears on websites quotes and aphorisms and Media.
Anton Chekhov and Ivan Bunin were truly close friends - this is reflected both in the memoirs of the writers themselves and their contemporaries, and in the correspondence between writers. They met at the end of 1895 and, judging by the dates of the letters sent, communicated until Chekhov’s death in 1904. All preserved correspondence carefully studied, the letters of Bunin and Chekhov can be found both in numerous editions of the collected works of both writers, and online on the Internet.
At the beginning of January 1904, several months before Chekhov's death, they continued exchange letters, and judging by the warm tone of the messages, there was no conflict between the writers. “Verified” was unable to find either Bunin’s eight-page letter to Chekhov with complaints about life, or a reply message with advice to stop drinking vodka. Moreover, several decades after the death of the playwright Bunin wrote: “I didn’t have such a relationship with any of the writers as I did with Chekhov. In all this time there has never been the slightest hostility. He was invariably discreetly gentle with me, friendly, caring like an elder - I am almost eleven years younger than him - but at the same time he never made me feel superior and always loved my company.” It turns out that Bunin, apparently, did not feel any resentment towards Chekhov.
Nevertheless, in Bunin’s memoirs there is an episode similar to the situation from the viral text. But it wasn’t Chekhov who gave him the advice to give up vodka. Bunin wrote about your friend:
“There was no sense of the writer in his speech; he rarely used comparisons or epithets, and if he did use them, they were most often ordinary ones and never flaunted them, never enjoyed his well-spoken words. I felt hatred for “lofty” words. There is a wonderful passage in just the memories of him: “Once I complained to Anton Pavlovich: “Anton Pavlovich, what should I do? I’m stuck with reflection!” And Anton Pavlovich answered me: “Drink less vodka.”
Consequently, Bunin, in his memoirs about the writer, retold someone else’s story, which had nothing to do with him.
It was not possible to reliably establish in which memoirs Bunin read about this episode. However, the writer Boris Lazarevsky in his memoirs about Chekhov mentioned vaguely similar conversation:
“The next time, quite by chance, I met Chekhov on a ship sailing to Yalta. After lunch we went aboard. Chekhov began asking me how I distributed my day and whether I drank vodka.
- Take care, take care of your health and don’t drink vodka every day. Nothing slows down a writer’s work like vodka, and you’re just getting started...
- Yes, I don’t drink vodka. Something else bothers me - this is eternal introspection. Thanks to him, the best moments were poisoned...
- Unlearn this, unlearn this. This is a terrible thing."
The earliest publication of a viral text about the rupture of friendship between Chekhov and Bunin (and in general this story in this presentation) that “Verified” was able to find - fast in the LiveJournal of blogger, politician and ex-deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Daria Mitina dated May 30, 2007. All subsequent publications almost word for word repeat the text of the post about Bunin’s complaints and Chekhov’s ironic response. In the comments, users tried to find out where the information about this episode of the writers’ biography came from. Mitina replied that she found it in her memoirs and promised to send a link to the source, but she never did (at least in the comments under this post).
Thus, the story about Chekhov’s advice to another writer not to drink vodka, although not entirely made up by Internet users, as is often the case, is based on real memories of the playwright, but is greatly distorted. Chekhov actually advised giving up vodka, but not at all to Bunin and not in response to complaints about life, but because he believed that vodka slowed down the writer’s work.
Apparently, Bunin himself first distorted the story, reading it in Lazarevsky’s memoirs and subsequently incorrectly retelling it. And then Internet users, having learned about it from Bunin’s memoirs, presented it as a dialogue between him and Chekhov. Since the memoirs of the playwright's contemporaries do not mention the rupture of many years of friendship because of this Chekhov's advice, apparently, this detail was added for greater drama.
Cover photo: Neva magazine, No. 49, 1914. P. 949., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
- I. A. Bunin. About Chekhov
- Did Chekhov say: “If a person doesn’t smoke or drink, you inevitably wonder: isn’t he a bastard?”
- Is it true that Anton Chekhov drank a glass of champagne before his death?
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