Tatyana Repina : two translated texts

The sensational onstage suicide of Russian actress and opera singer Kadmina in 1881 led Alexei Suvorin to memorialize her in his 1888 four-act play Tatyana Repina.

One year later, his friend Anton Chekhov, himself fascinated by Kadmina, sent Suvorin a one-act play, which was in fact a fifth act continuation of Tatyana Repina, with instructions to show it to no one.

When the play was finally made public years later by Chekhovs brother Mikhail, it presented a mystery: Was it, as the brother claimed, a parody? Or was the brother simply distancing himself from a then controversial Suvorin?

Russian historian and linguist John Racin examines the enormous documentary record to make the case that Chekhovs one-act was written as an earnest artistic complement to Suvorins.

Racins convictions led him to retranslate both Tatyana Repinas, presented here with additional relevant texts.