Raymond Carver as ‘the American Chekhov’

In the 20th century it became a tradition to award a master of short fiction with the title of a “national Chekhov”. Thus, at different times Katherine Mansfield, James Joyce, Sherwood Anderson, John Cheever, Alice Munro all received this title in their respective national literatures. In American culture since the late 20th century, “the American Chekhov” has become a commonly accepted reference to Raymond Carver (1938-1988), who often acknowledged his affinity with the Russian author, and also tried to implement Chekhov’s artistic principles in his own works. This article argues the significance of Chekhovian poetics in Carver’s fiction within the context of Russian and foreign studies, and on the basis of comparison of several thematically relevant short stories by the Russian and American writers. Carver is skillful at laconically reproducing the narrative atmosphere through different colours, sounds, smells and feelings both in his short stories and in poems. For example, both authors employed the visual power of light and dark to reflect the emotional state of their characters, especially as they struggle to communicate with each other. The theme of these miniature stories was often the issue of communication, and some of Carver’s short stories reveal something in common with Chekhov’s short stories. For instance, both writers value the contrast between darkness and light, or scenes of speechless communication necessary after strong emotional experience. On the whole, there exists a special artistic empathy in both Chekhov and Carver, it is a sympathy without sentimentality, which is possible when the writer perfectly knows the lives of his characters, instead of imagining them from a certain high mark. It is symbolic that Carver wrote his last short story as an epitaph to his favourite Russian author.