A.I. Roskin's works in the context of Soviet Chekhov studies of the 1920-1930s

The article focuses on the main works of a scholar and literary critic A.I. Roskin: “A Biographical study” (1935) and two novels (1939 and 1940). The comparison of these works with similar studies of the same period (books by Yu.V. Sobolev, A.B. Derman, P.S. Kogan, and D.I. Kireev) demonstrates an ambiguous nature of A.I. Roskin’s scholarship. On the one hand, A.I. Roskin is characterized by an aspiration to overcome the destructive rudiments of vulgar sociologization, on the other hand, he is unable to free himself from those completely. In earlier works, A.I. Roskin portrayed A.P. Chekhov as an intellectual without social ideals, but denouncing the era and ordinary people (which, according to A.I. Roskin, reflected the revolutionary significance of the writer’s work). Later, the concept was revised, and A.P. Chekhov became a conscious denouncer of the social and political vices of the period preceding the revolution in 1905. This partly retained the vulgar sociological elements of the interpretation, however, the substantiation of the relevance of Chekhov’s work became less politicized: if in the “Biographical study”, Chekhov’s relevance was due to the topics of his work (potentially accusatory, but in fact “everyday descriptive”), then in the novel “Chekhov” (1939) A.I. Roskin introduces the ethical and aesthetic motive of the immortality of Chekhov’s legacy as “longing for the best future”. The last story of A.I. Roskin, “Antosha Chekhonte”, is the most neutral in terms of ideology. However, an acquaintance with the readers’ responses shows that the mass reader interpreted this text in the categories of “struggle”, “revolutionary”, etc. Thus, the works of A.I. Roskin is an integral part of the Chekhov studies of the 1920-1930s, inheriting all the specific features of literary criticism of this period.