To K. S. Barantsevich, 25 April 1888. Moscow.
К. С. БАРАНЦЕВИЧУ, 25 апреля 1888 г. Москва.
Headnote
1 Written from Moscow on 25 April 1888 (Easter week – Chekhov opens with the paschal greeting "Christ is risen!") to the writer Kazimir Stanislavovich Barantsevich, replying to news of a proposed miscellany (sbornik) meant to showcase the younger generation of writers.
2 Chekhov argues that Barantsevich’s delay in publishing the miscellany is a mistake – it should appear at once, while topical, or else wait for autumn – and dismisses the hope that the book will earn a place in literary history, since that history is written by the same critics who write hostile reviews. He insists that no shared table of contents can create real solidarity among young writers; that requires mutual respect, trust, and honesty, illustrated with two barbed hypotheticals about his own death: that the journalist Bibikov not be allowed to publish foolish reminiscences of him, and that his comrades not permit the amateur writer Leman – dismissed here as no writer at all, merely a skilled billiards player – to deliver a graveside eulogy in the name of the young writers, a group Leman has no real claim to belong to. He closes with an invitation to his family’s rented dacha near Sumy, travel and visiting dates (including Pleshcheyev’s stay in May-June and his own trip to the Crimea), and a warm sign-off.