work
The Grasshopper
"The Grasshopper"
also: Попрыгунья, Poprygunya, A Great Man, Великий человек
Chekhov's short story, renamed here (from the working title "Великий человек"/"A Great Man") to "Попрыгунья" ("The Grasshopper") at his own instruction to Vladimir Tikhonov, editor of \emph{Sever}, where it was published in nos. 1-2 on 5 and 12 January 1892. It became one of Chekhov's best-known and most controversial stories: a satire of a fashionable Moscow artistic circle centered on Olga Ivanovna, a doctor's wife who chases celebrity while neglecting her husband. The philandering landscape-painter character Ryabovsky was widely read as a caricature of Chekhov's close friend Isaac Levitan, and Olga Ivanovna herself as modeled on Levitan's companion Sofia Petrovna Kuvshinnikova; publication cost Chekhov his friendship with both for a period of years. None of that controversy appears in this letter, which is purely an editorial exchange over the title.
Reading notes
- To V. A. Tikhonov, 14 December 1891. Moscow. §4 Truly, I don't know what to do about the title of my story! "A Great Man" I don't like at all. It must be called something else -- that's certain. Call it this -- "The Grasshopper."
The historically decisive sentence of the letter: Chekhov here discards the working title "Великий человек" ("A Great Man") for the story he had sent Tikhonov for \emph{Sever} and instructs him to retitle it "Попрыгунья" ("The Grasshopper" or "The Dragonfly"/"The Restless One" in some translations -- literally something like "the little jumper" or "flibbertigibbet," from a verb meaning to hop or skip about, and evoking Krylov's fable "The Dragonfly and the Ant," where the frivolous, pleasure-chasing insect is traditionally rendered "grasshopper" in the standard English versions). Under this new title the story was published in \emph{Sever}, nos. 1-2, on 5 and 12 January 1892, and it became one of Chekhov's best-known and most controversial tales: a satire of a fashionable Moscow artistic circle centered on Olga Ivanovna, a doctor's wife who chases minor celebrities and neglects her quietly remarkable husband. The story caused a lasting rift with the painter Isaac Levitan, a close friend of Chekhov's, who took the philandering landscape-painter character Ryabovsky as a caricature of himself, and with Sofia Petrovna Kuvshinnikova, Levitan's companion and a Moscow salon hostess, who was widely read as the model for Olga Ivanovna herself; the two did not fully reconcile with Chekhov for several years. None of that later controversy is present in this letter -- here the exchange is purely editorial, a working author fixing a title before the presses run -- but the line is the origin point of it.
- To V. A. Tikhonov, 14 December 1891. Moscow. §4 "A Great Man"
The discarded working title, "Великий человек." Earlier in the same autumn Chekhov had also floated "Рассказ" ("A Story") and "Обыватели"/"мещане" ("The Townsfolk") to Tikhonov before settling, only temporarily, on "A Great Man"; "The Grasshopper" instructed here proved to be the final title under which the story was printed and is now known.