The only edition in print of Chekhov’s exposé of the Tsarist penal system, with many topical reverberations
In 1890, the 30-year-old Chekhov, already knowing that he was ill with tuberculosis, undertook an arduous 11-week journey from Moscow across Siberia to the penal colony on the island of Sakhalin. Now collected here in one volume are the fully annotated translations of his impressions of his trip through Siberia, and the account of his three-month sojourn on Sakhalin Island, together with author’s notes, extracts from Chekhov’s letters to relatives and associates, and photographs. Highly valuable both as a detailed depiction of the Tsarist system of penal servitude and as an insight into Chekhov’s motivations and objectives for visiting the colony and writing the exposé, this is haunting work of tremendous importance had a huge impact both on Chekhov’s subsequent work and on Russian society.
