Chekhov’s Time Is Coming: On Steppe ’s Moving Image

Abstract: In the spring of 1887, Chekhov embarked on a journey from Moscow, traversing the vast expanse of the southern Russian steppe with the intention of visiting his hometown Taganrog. Less than a year later, in February 1888, he completed his novella, Steppe: A Story of a Journey , widely regarded as transformative in his literary career. The present article delves into the innovative aspect of Chekhov’s novella by focusing on its pivotal moment of departure. Besides referring to the steppe journey that inspired the story, “departure” pertains to the literary departure of Steppe itself. Published a few decades after the introduction of trains in Russia and just before the advent of cinema, Chekhov’s Steppe , I argue, introduced an original literary “moving image.” By situating the emergence of this image in the broader context of the 19th-century revolution of seeing, I trace the existential charge of this aesthetic moment, which cast time itself as the vital and pivotal hero of Chekhov’s prose.