The stories "On Christmas Night" by Anton Chekhov and "Night Ringing" by his brother Alexander: The problem of creative polemic

The article discusses the problem of literary controversy in artistic form on the material of two stories by the Chekhov brothers. The study is based on comparative analysis methods. Creative polemic presupposes, on one hand, similarity of material or problems in works of different authors and the difference in the author's positions in these works, on the other. Alexander Chekhov is known primarily for the correspondence with his younger brother. His enormous works are less known and less studied. Alexander's works are written in different genres, on a variety of subjects, but their artistic level is significantly inferior to the works of his younger brother. Alexander argues with his brother Anton in the story "Night Ringing," which is a response "replica" to Anton's story "On Christmas Night". Both stories are written on the material of life in Taganrog. They describe a real case of saving fishermen during winter fishing. The story by Anton Chekhov was published in 1883 in a satirical magazine Budil'nik (Alarm Clock). It was dedicated to Maria Pavlovna Chekhova, the writer's sister. This dedication is fundamentally important, since it points to the fact that the story has an additional esoteric meaning, which the twenty-year-old Maria had to understand. From this point of view, the story can be interpreted as the writer's reflection on the possible future fate of his sister. In addition, the story has an intertextual connection with Hugo's novel Toilers of the Sea. The intertext suggests Anton's creative dialogue with the classic of world literature. Three years later, the story "On Christmas Night" was included in Chekhov's collection Motley Stories and no longer had a dedication to the writer's sister. The story of Alexander Chekhov was written in 1887 and was the result of reading his brother's collection. Anton's Christmas story attracted his special attention, since he knew the life material underlying it. Alexander decided to start a creative polemic with his brother, to "rewrite" his story in his own way. In the center of the story, Anton has a heroine who is experiencing a crisis in relations with her husband. Alexander describes himself as the main character. There is much more ethnographism in his story than in his brother's. A story of one case from Taganrog life is created as a result. "Night Ringing" is one of Alexander's best works, but at the same time it remains an ordinary phenomenon of newspaper and magazine literature of the nineteenth century. The comparative analysis of the Chekhov brothers' stories is important for clarifying the nature of relations between them. In addition, it becomes possible to see more clearly the difference between high-level realistic literature and popular fiction.