About Chekhov

About Chekhov is a book of memoirs by Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Ivan Bunin, devoted to Anton Chekhov, his friend and major influence. Bunin started working on the book in the late 1940s in France. It remained unfinished, and was completed by the writer's widow Vera Muromtseva (aided by Leonid Zurov), and came out posthumously in New York City, in 1955. Translated by Thomas Gaiton Marullo, the book was published in English in 2007, under the title About Chekhov. The Unfinished Symphony. Background Ivan Bunin was greatly shocked and aggrieved by the death of Chekhov, his favourite writer. On July 9, 1904, he wrote to Maria Pavlovna, Chekhov's sister: "My dear friend, I am thunderstruck. Please bear in mind that with unspeakable pain I share all of you suffering." In July of the same year Maxim Gorky approached Bunin, suggesting that the latter should take part in a literary Chekhov memorial, a charitable almanac, initiated in Moscow by Aleksander Kuprin and Konstantin Pyatnitsky. "I'd suggest that just four of us should take part: Kuprin, you, Andreyev and me. Each might write something personal about Chekhov: about some conversation, the first meeting, remembering a day spent together and, apart from that, contribute a novella. Dear friend, I implore you to take part. We must do just something to counterbalance this barrage of these banal 'reminiscences' in the press. We are to show Chekhov without glamour, pure and clear, sweet and clever man," Gorky wrote Bunin in an 11 July 1904 letter. In October 1904 Bunin completed his essay called "In Memory of Chekhov" and delivered it at the Lovers of Russian Literature Society's special meeting. On 20 November Gorky, having received the essay by post, praised it, mentioning Kuprin's approval. The special Chekhov issue of Znanye almanac (Book III), was published in 1905. In it, under the title "In Memory of Chekhov" there were the reminiscences of Bunin Stepan Skitalets and Kuprin. It also featured Dachniki, a novelette by Gorky and "The Red Laughter" by Andreyev. On January 17, 1910, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko invited Bunin to read his memoirs at the Moscow Art Theatre where Chekhov's 50th birthday was commemorated. In 1914, Bunin published "From My Notebook" sketches in Russkoye Slovo (No.151, July 2, 1914) and the Chekhov-related part of it served as a supplement for the piece published earlier.