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D Henry Hanson Professor Niles Acting III 23 November 2017 Astronomical Astrov Being overworked, overtired, and underappreciated are not new feelings. But they certainly would be more than adequate descriptors of Mikhaíl Lvócich Astrov, henceforth known as Astrov, a country doctor in 1890’s Russia. Alienated from the peasants surrounding him, and neglected by the other wealthy countrymen, Astrov was a portrait of a man struck with ennui and a sense of lost hope for what once were fairly radical dreams. Though he may have professed to be living a harmonious life, and was content with his current state, he was truly a man just as stuck as anyone else in Chekov’s Uncle Vanya, even if he himself would never care to admit to it. Astrov lived in a truly vast empire which, at its largest, stretched from Eastern Europe, all the way to the Alaskan Territory and what is now the Pacific Northwest. Even though he lived in the country, he still was not far from the major population centers of the country. Most of the population lived to the west of the vast wastelands of Siberia. Towns like Moscow and St. Petersburg were fading from their glory days, and were crowded and filthy. The country was marred by poverty and a lack of infrastructure. The wealthy elite of the towns often subsisted on food and money generated from their country estates, which they neglected and exploited, much like The Professor. The elite in the country often found themselves alienated from the peasant- majority populace.
Figure a: The Russian Empire at the time of Uncle Vanya’s Publishing. See the far extent of the empire into what is modern day Finland, Ukraine, and the Caucuses.Russia to the far east were under the control of Japan following the Russia-Japan War. The portions of modern
Many of the country elite served on the Zemstvos or rural councils. These were put into lay after the freeing of the serfs by Tsar Alexander II. While initially planned to bring an end to class division in the country, it instead became a place where liberal-minded gentry clashed with
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Figure a: A typical Zemstvo meeting in the late 19 th^ century. Most of the men in this photo were doctors and teachers, and they often clashed with larger governmental agencies due to theirleftist leanings.
Being a doctor, Astrov would have been positioned fairly within the new bourgeoisie class in Russia more so than the old-fashioned Gentry Estate. He was a well-read man with a penchant for philosophy in a time when “seventy-four percent of citizens of the Empire between the ages of nine and forty-nine [were] recorded as illiterate in the 1879 census” (Hingley 237). On top of this, in a country of approximately 125,640,021 citizens, the country only averaged
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about 17,000 students a year at nine universities. When Astrov would have gotten his training, the number would have been even smaller. His education came during a relatively brief period of liberal politics after the freeing of the serfs from the 1860’s to the 1880’s. The young men who went to university at the time became some of the first political radicals in Imperial Russia. They gravitated towards the Zemstvos and, at least on the local level, instituted educational, medical, and social reforms. These reforms were often blocked from moving beyond the local level by not only older conservatives, but also the peasants who the newly educated were trying to help. Being an educated man in an uneducated country, especially in a rural area where most of the populace were illiterate former serfs or peasants, and where many of them opposed his radical views, it would feel not only stifling but incredibly lonely. His disgust with the few educated people in his life makes sense then. Astrov makes it clear that instead of banding together, the few other intellectuals in the area are “all eaten up by analysis and self-doubt. They piss and moan, they hate everything and everybody” (Chekov 227). It is clear that he is critiquing the fellow members of his local Zemstvo, and considers them to be a great threat to free society more so than the uneducated masses. What is ironic, is that Astrov himself is eaten up by analysis and self-doubt, and he is just a stuck as the other characters. He even abandons what exploits he thinks make him better than the other country intellectuals, like his forestry and vegetarianism, when his obsession for Yelena takes over his life. By plays end, he is alone again
Figure a: The effects of gout on the foot. Notice the discoloration and the buildup at the heel and toe joints.on the Urate crystal buildup. Figure b: A pictorial breakdown of what it happening in the former picture, focusing
An interesting quirk to point out about Astrov is his vegetarianism. Vegetarianism was a very recent fad, having “first came to Russia in the 1890s. Thanks to the influence of famous Russian vegetarians such as the writer Leo Tolstoy and botanist Andrei Beketov” (Titova 1). It flourished among radical thinkers and intellectuals, who saw it as a subtle way to protest the exploitation of the country, much in the same was Astrov had his hobby of rebuilding his forest. In fact, it became so associated with the political left that it was made illegal after the Russian Revolution and remained so until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Most vegetarians in Russia were artists and scholars, as they could afford the luxury of not eating meat, and it never caught on outside of the gentry and bourgeoisie estates. Any of the health benefits Astrov may have gained from his vegetarian diet were most certainly counteracted by his massive alcohol intake. In many scenes of the play, Astrov is either drinking or drunk, and he is never far away from a bottle of vodka, his drink of choice, and the most common liquor in Russia. He is a textbook alcoholic as evidenced by his hollow promises to stop drinking, such as when he says to Sonya, “Basta! I’ve sobered up. You see? I’m completely sober, and I’ll stay this way for the rest of my life” (Chekov 228). His inability to give up the drink betrayed his foreword thinking ideals, as by play’s end he was back to eating very little and drinking very much, just as stuck in his own spiral as Sonya or Vanya. Alcoholism was a very big problem in Russia and continues to be so today. It was so rampart that “by the 1850’s vodka sales made up half or the Russian government’s tax revenues” (Fedun 2). Many factors contributed to its rise, including the long winter months, seasonal depression, hard labor in the fields, and the ennui of country life. Often times the only
thing to do for fun or social interaction was to drink. Being drunk was a way to escape the reality for a while. It was also important to note that water purification hadn’t taken hold in Russia like in Western Europe, and the massive cholera epidemic earlier int eh dacde made many people wary of drinking non-alcoholic beverages. Astrov fell more into the category of someone drinking to combat ennui and depression. He is never seen onstage without vodka nearby, and it has become the thing that drives his life foreword pre-Yelena and after Yelena. It is as much a crutch to him as Astrov’s hoped affection was to Sonya, or the political pamphlets to Sonya’s Grandmother. Everyone had something they could use to get through the hard days, and the long cold Russian nights.
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of the wealthier peasants and merchants had started to slowly adopt parts of the western clothing style, a fact that would have challenged Astrov’s view of himself as a morally superior gentleman than his fellow countrymen.
Figure a: wool coat was a departure from the traditional fur coats that would later make a comeback in the A Russian husband and wife pictured in the 1890’s in typical Western clothing. The Stalin-era.style collar, the waistcoat, and bowler hat instead of a top hat. Figure b: A man wearing a typical everyday suit from the 1890’s. Note the tuxedo-
Mikhaíl Lvócich Astrov was a man of contradictions. He practiced vegetarianism, yet drank himself to oblivion. He condemned others for their inaction, when he himself was prone to periods of personal abandon. As such, Astrov let himself settle into a rut, though he would never tell you he was even in one. Entering into the world of country medicine with radical ideas, yet being thwarted by both the gentry and the peasants, and stuck in a spiral of alcoholism and un- romantic lust, he became the overworked, overtired, and underappreciated person who felt that he couldn’t love anybody, or even ever have a meaningful relationship with another human being.
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Works Cited Chekhov, Anton, and Curt Columbus. Uncle Vanya. Dramatists Play Service, Inc., 2017. Culp, Beatrice. “History of Public Health in Russia.” 29551. 14 Mar. 2015 Dennison, Tracy, and Steven Nafziger. “Micro-Perspectives on 19th-Century Russian Living Standards.” JSTOR [JSTOR] , Nov. 2007, Russia. Driver, Catherine. “Gout Causes, Treatment, Diet, Symptoms & Medication.” MedicineNet , MedicineNet, 10 May 2017, www.medicinenet.com/gout_gouty_arthritis/article.htm. Fedun, Stan. “How Alcohol Conquered Russia.” The Atlantic , 25 Sept. 2013, www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/how-alcohol-conquered- russia/279965/. Hingley, Ronald. “Chekov's Russia.” New Life of Anton Chekhov , Oxford University Press, pp. 215–241. Simms, J Y. “The Economic Impact of the Russian Famine of 1891-92.” Slavonic and East European Review , vol. 60, no. 1, Jan. 1982, Russia. Titova, Irina. “Vegetarians Thrive Despite Widespread Prejudice.” The Moscow Times , 4 June
