Translations of Ponson Du Terrail's Novels About Rocambole in Anton Chekhov's Parodies of the 1880s

This article establishes a link between early Anton Chekhov's parodies and the translations into Russian from French of the Rocambole novels by Pierre Ponson du Terrail. The Rocambole novels were first published in Russia in 1868, and, like in France, had a considerable success. The work regroups mentions of Ponson du Terrail and his cycle about Rocambole in Chekhov's texts of the 1880s. During this period, Chekhov was learning how to be a writer. He aimed at wide-spread text genres and imitated them in his parodies. The genre of a feuilleton novel, in which Ponson du Terrail excels, is in Chekhov's parody list. A few mentions of Ponson du Terrail and Rocambole are scattered in Chekhov's early texts. On the basis of the compiled information and a contextual analysis, semantic features of the use of the words rokambol' [Rocambole] and chervonnyy valet [knave of hearts] are traced in its humorous display. In fact, an entire short story was written by Chekhov in 1882 that imitated the feuilleton novel genre. It was entitled "The Mysteries of One Hundred and Fourty-Four Catastrophes, or the Russian Rocambole" (further referred as "Russian Rocambole"). This six-page text evokes every stereotype about adventure literature: the exceeding number of characters, a love intrigue, resurrections and rescues, poisons and weapons, an impressive finale with a train crash. This short story resembles in many details a typical poorly organized feuilleton novel. Chekhov mockingly pictures its main features. On the other hand, Chekhov, being attentive towards news agenda, adds a realistic layer to his story, connecting it with the actual events. He refers to the tragic Tcherny railway accident that happened in 1882 when a train derailed and more than forty people died. The plot of "Russian Rocambole" thus proposes a fictional explanation to this calamity. The link with the real event was the reason why "Russian Rocambole" was not published until 1923 although it was written in 1882. Moreover, the characters of "Russian Rocambole" are well-known journalists and editors, criminals and crooks. The "double bottom" aspect - a mix of real and fiction events - is a common characteristic of Chekhov's texts. However, the choice of joining together a feuilleton novel genre parody with a tragic event is yet to be analysed. A possible explanation can be found in a famous affair. Around 1871, a gang of con men named "Valets de Creur" was created in Moscow. The same title can be found in the Rocambole cycle "Le Club des valets de creur" published in 1858 (La Patrie). It is not a coincidence since the young crooks reproduced crimes exactly the same as those by the book's characters in real life. The affair of the "Valets de Creur" led to a great trial, and drew a particular attention of Russian writers. Thus, we can observe that in order to speak about Russian criminals and crooks, Chekhov chooses Ponson du Terrail's Rocambole novels as the source of his parody.

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