A Journey to the End of the Russian Empire

"A Journey to the End of the Russian Empire" by Anton Chekov is a nice sampling of the observational power of one of Russia's foremost playwrights. The book describes Chekov's journey to Sakhalin Island, a Russian Penal colony at the furthest end of the Russian Empire. The book is very short (approximately 109 pp.) and is part of the Penguin Classic's "Great Journeys" Collection which are short, abridged travel accounts.

Many of the books images are haunting and paint the picture of a lawless, backwards world beaten down by the lash of the birch rod. It is a lonely, unforgiving place where the prisoners and settlers live in abject, violent poverty and the entire population has been dehumanized by the harsh conditions. I For all of the effort of Russia to portray itself as an enlightened European power, Chekov's Sakhalin only proves how far this portion of the Russian Empire was from that idea.

Many of the text's images are distinctly Chekovian such idle, debilitating bored bourgeoisie wasting away in the country and an overwhelming abundance of irony. Many of the images try to show the cruelty and absurdity of the East. One is the description of a warden's house where the family is being waited on by slavish, broken prisoners- a feudal system that exists almost 30 years after the abolition of the serfs. There is a town called Derbinskoye named after a cruel warden who was killed by his prisoners: "He was murdered in a bakery. He defended himself and fell through the fermenting bread batter, bloodying the dough. His death was greeted with great rejoicing by the convicts who donated a purse of 60 roubles to the murderer." One passage, worth quoting at length, shows how much this places transforms man into caricature and brings him to his lowest depths:

"These words were intended for a group of twenty prisoners who, from the few phrases I overheard were pleading to be sent to the hospital. They were ragged, soaked by the rain, covered with mud and shivering. They wanted to demonstrate in mime exactly what ailed them, but on their pinched, frozen faces in somehow came out false and crooked, although they were probably not lying at all. 'Oh, my God, my God!' someone sighed, and my nightmare seemed to be continuing. The word 'pariah' comes tom mind, meaning that a person can fall no lower. During my entire sojourn on Sakhalin only in the settlers barracks near the mine and here, in Derbinskoye, on that rainy, muddy morning, did I live through moments when I felt that I saw before me the extreme limits of man's degradation, lower than which he cannot go."

While the images presented in "Journey..." are well drawn, this particular edition lacks because of its format. I admire the desire to make these accounts accessible to a wider audience but I feel that the book suffer from what appears to be extreme abridgment. Part One is made up of truncated letters, some with three or four sets of ellipses on one page. Part Two are more complete excerpts from "The Island: A Journey to Sakhalin," and reads much better than the first part. However, I always had the feeling like something was missing or I was not getting the whole picture. An excellent introduction but not enough for the serious student.