The specificity of spatial structure in Anton Chekhov's prose of the second half of the 1880s

The article examines the peculiarities of how characters perceive space in Chekhov's short stories written in the second half of the 1880s. Space as a component of a literary work's artistic world and its perception has been a subject of study within Chekhov scholarship; furthermore, concepts of narrative structure (A.P. Chudakov) and predominant topoi (N.E. Razumova) have been built upon differences in the organization of spatial relations. Traditionally, space itself in Chekhov studies has been examined either as a chronotope (M.O. Goryacheva, I.N. Sukhikh, and others), comprising various loci: the dacha, the village, the city, etc. Also important is the consideration of space from the perspective of psychological aspects and phenomena of consciousness. Based on Boris Uspensky's theory of point of view, the increasing complexity of narrative models in the short stories of the 1880s is investigated. The selection of material for the study is justified by the "transitional" nature of the main characteristics of the poetics in Chekhov's stories of this period, noted previously by scholars, and the emergence of different artistic dominants compared to the earlier phase. In the early works, a character's perception of space almost coincides with the narrator's point of view (e.g., the story "Enemies"). There are attempts to artistically conceptualize the perception of space in the early stories, but they are isolated. However, already in the transitional stories of the mid-1880s, the vision of space becomes entirely subordinated to the character's "point of view," and in some stories, an effect of perceptual "illusion" is created. The article analyzes the most complex cases related to the increasing psychological depth and mythopoetic structure of Chekhov's prose. The analysis of spatial perception in the stories of the "mature" period shows that this perception is based on the maximal concentration of the character's psychological state. The illusions and syncretism that form the basis of the main character's perception of space in the story "Horse Thieves" correlate with a crisis worldview. In the story "Gusev," the perception of space is maximally subordinated to the character's consciousness. Even after the character's death within the story's plot, the stylistic presentation of spatial perception indicates the narrator's subservience to the hero's consciousness. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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