SOURCE: Conrad, Joseph L. “Chekhov's ‘Vologya’: Transformations of Turgenev's ‘First Love.’” In Reading Chekhov's Text, edited by Robert Louis Jackson, pp. 157-68. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1993.

In the following essay, Conrad determines the influence of Turgenev's First Love on Anton Chekhov's “Volodya.”

In light of the considerable Russian-language scholarship tying Anton Chekhov's works to those of Ivan Turgenev, it is curious that no connection has yet been made between “Volodya” (1887) and First Love (1860). Numerous Western studies have illuminated the Tolstoy-Chekhov link, but less attention has been paid to thematic and stylistic similarities between Chekhov's works and those of Turgenev. Chekhov often read and discussed Turgenev's prose, yet he seems never to have mentioned or alluded to First Love. The present examination of the two stories will show that Chekhov must indeed have begun “Volodya” with Turgenev's tale in mind. Whereas First Love, however elegantly written, seems rooted in...