The character of the clergyman in A.P. Chekhov's prose in the context of Russian and English literature tradition (N.S. Leskov and George Eliot)

A research of representation of clergy characters in Chekhov's stories allows speaking about essential typological convergence between works of Chekhov and English writers of the 19th century, first of all, George Eliot. An important fact is that the Russian writers' heritage mediated Chekhov's absorption of English literary traditions. N.S. Leskov's works are of key importance here. Chekhov carries on Leskov's tradition in many respects: like his "favourite scribbler" he aims to show facts of life, defends freedom of expression, stays out of any ideological currents. Chekhov's clergymen also show echoes of Leskov's characters. A unique role of Leskov in the history of Russian literature is that he was first to describe a clergyman as a thinking, sentient and suffering person. Leskov's and Chekhov's prose is close by authors' pathos, equal writers' wish to find and describe ordinary clergymen, close to their parish, in whom the human dominates over dogmatism and condescending ministerial severity. This pathos penetrates all Leskov's series of sketches Trifles from the Life of Archbishops. Leskov's discoveries were directly connected with the English tradition of "clerical" prose. It is important that, in contrast to Chekhov, the author of The Cathedral Clergy showed the genuine interest in the literature, culture, religious movements of Great Britain; his works confirm it. It is arguable that Leskov knew George Eliot's novels and short novels, too. Eliot in her works demonstrates clergymen's fates, and each one is dramatic in its own way. All characters bear the burden of loneliness, suffer from misunderstanding, poverty, excessive toil. Ability for sympathy becomes the main trait of clergymen. There is no doubt that their openness and the absence of haughtiness will affect Leskov's and Chekhov's "clerical" prose. The characters of clergymen quite often appear in Chekhov's stories, but five of them seem to be most representative: The Requiem, A Nightmare, Holy Night, The Letter, The Archbishop, and also the short novel The Duel. Chekhov endows the priests from these works with common traits; the "kernel" of them is humaneness, connected with largeness of views, anti-dogmatism in respect of people. Moreover, mercy, ability to forgive and accept somebody's views, delicacy, subtle sensitivity of life are peculiar to these characters. The research allows stating the typological proximity in the conception of a clergyman as a person, a truly moral individual free from dogmatism, in George Eliot's, N.S. Leskov's and A.P. Chekhov's works.

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