Chekhov’s Grim Journey East

Grove Koger

Today’s post from my book When the Going Was Good deals with a highly unusual travel narrative by a writer known primarily for his plays and short stories, Anton Chekhov, who was born January 29, 1860.

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The Island of Sakhalin: Travel Notes (Ostrov Sakhalin: Izputevykh zapisok; Moscow: Russkaya mysl’, 1895)

Although educated as a doctor, Anton Chekhov had developed an early interest in literature and the theater. By the time he was thirty he had written a number of stories and plays, including his first notable achievement in the latter category, Ivanov. In this 1887 play, Chekhov treated the familiar Russian subject of the “superfluous” man, a theme whose suggestions of spiritual crisis had personal meaning. He already knew that he had tuberculosis, and after his brother Nikolai died in 1889 and another play received a critical drubbing, he announced that he wanted to “live for half a year as I have never lived up to this time.”

Chekhov had always enjoyed reading explorers’ accounts, and now resolved to visit the island of Sakhalin, a grim penal colony lying half a world away off the coast of Siberia. After receiving official permission, he set out in May 1890, but it took him nearly three months to complete the journey (by train, carriage, and riverboat) to Russia’s eastern seaboard. Chekhov stayed another three months on the island itself, conducting an examination of the colony’s administration and taking a numbingly thorough census of its population.

The Island of Sakhalin actuallybegins with Chekhov’s arrival at the port of Nikolayevsk near the island. The book combines aspects of a travelogue with meticulous observations of the lives of prisoners, guards, and exiles. Chekhov describes the island’s terrifying natural setting and ferocious weather, notes the degradation of its landscape by its colonizers, and observes the brutalizing effect of imprisonment and corporal punishment upon its inhabitants—all in the same determinedly detached tone. In a letter home, Chekhov called Sakhalin “hell,” but in his book he was a firm if sympathetic doctor, intent on describing what might well have been the many symptoms of an extraordinary disease. Writing in the New Yorker in 2015, Indian-American author Akhil Sharma called it “the best work of journalism written in the nineteenth century.”

The editions of Chekhov’s book published by Washington Square Press (New York, 1967) and Greenwood Press (Westport, Conn., 1977) as The Island: A Journey to Sakhalin include an introduction by Robert Payne; however, the translation by Luba and Michael Terpak has been criticized as inaccurate. Subsequent editions from Century (London, 1987) and the Folio Society (London, 1989) reproduce the same translation but include an introduction by Irina Ratushinskaya. The Ian Faulkner edition (Cambridge, 1993) published as A Journey to Sakhalin is translated and introduced by Brian Reeve and includes “Across Siberia,” Chekhov’s account of the first part of his journey, as well as an introduction, notes, maps, several appendices, and a selection of period photographs.

For more information about the author, I recommend Toby W. Clyman, ed., A Chekhov Companion (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1985); Janet Malcolm, Reading Chekhov: A Critical Journey (New York: Random House, 2001); James McConkey, To a Distant Island (New York: Dutton, 1984); V.S. Pritchett, Chekhov: A Spirit Set Free (New York: Random House, 1988); Donald Rayfield, Anton Chekhov: A Life (New York: Holt, 1997); and Juras T. Ryfa, The Problem of Genre and the Quest for Justice in Chekhov’s “The Island of Sakhalin” (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1999).

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The photograph at the top of today’s post shows the village of Krasnyy Yar on Sakhalin, and is reproduced courtesy of the Aleksandrovsk Municipal History and Literature Museum in Alekandrovsk-Sakhalinskiy. The portrait of Chekhov (by an unknown photographer) dates from 1900 and is reproduced courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, and the map is reproduced courtesy of the site Open Democracy.

Hanno’s Great Voyage South

Grove Koger

Hanno the Navigator was a Carthaginian seaman living in the fifth century BCE, and what little we know about him we know in a tenuous, roundabout way.

According to Roman author Pliny the Elder (c.23-79), Hanno hung a report in a temple in Carthage (in what’s now Tunisia) of a voyage he had taken down the Atlantic coastline of Africa. Beside his report, he hung three skins, a detail we’ll get back to later. The Navigator’s text was subsequently copied about 400 BCE in an inscription in another Carthaginian temple, and then translated into Greek and copied during the Middle Ages in two Byzantine manuscripts, Codex Palatines Graeus 398 and Codex Vatopedinus 655. Next, Swiss polymath Conrad Gessner translated the text into Latin in 1559. Along the way, portions of the narrative have been lost and others may have been corrupted, but in any case, it’s been given the title Periplus, which means “coastal voyage.”

Hanno’s mission apparently involved colonization as well as trade, and was probably based on at least some previous knowledge of the coast, as he is said to have sailed with a fleet of 60 penteconters (50-oared ships) and some 30,000 men and women. While these numbers may well be exaggerated, they certainly suggest a large expedition. The Navigator apparently established several settlements on the coast of what’s now Morocco, including Thymiaterion (Kenitra or Mehidy, at 34°15’N; that is, north latitude) and Acra (possibly Agadir, at 30°25’N). The river he refers to as the Lixos may have been the Drâa, which flows into the Atlantic opposite the Canary Islands at 28°45’N.

Hanno probably ventured farther south. But just how far? There’s speculation that he may have reached the Gambia River (13°28’N), south of which the African coastline shifts noticeably to the southeast. It’s at this point that we need to consider two tantalizing mysteries in the text of the Periplus.

In Section 13 of the work, as translated by Wilfred H. Schoff in 1913, we read that Hanno’s ships “came to an immense opening of the sea, from either side of which there was level ground inland; from which at night we saw fire leaping up on every side at intervals, now greater, now less.” Fire shows up again in Section 15, where the expedition “passed by a burning country full of fragrance, from which great torrents of fire flowed down to the sea. But the land could not be come at for the heat.” In the next section, the ships “sailed along with all speed, being stricken by fear.” After rowing four more days, the Carthaginians “saw the land at night covered with flames. And in the midst there was one lofty fire, greater than the rest, which seemed to touch the stars. By day this was seen to be a very high mountain, called ‘chariot of the Gods.’”

This “chariot” could have been Mount Cameroon, which lies at 4°13’N near the Gulf of Guinea in what’s now the nation of Cameroon. It’s known in the local dialect as Mongo ma Ndemi, or “Mountain of Greatness.” At 13,435 feet high, it’s easily the highest point in the region. And it’s an active volcano. In fact, it’s part of a chain of volcanic islands nearly a thousand miles long known as the Cameroon Line that includes the islands of Bioko, Príncipe, São Tomé (which lies practically on the equator), and Annobón (Pagalu).

Another mystery involves the skins that Hanno hung up beside his report. The final section of his report refers to an island with a lake, within which there is another island “full of savage men. There were women too, in even greater number.” These savages had “hairy bodies,” and although the men escaped “by climbing the steep places and defending themselves with stones,” the Carthaginians “took three of the women,” whom they killed and skinned when the creatures “bit and scratched” and “would not follow.” In his translation, Schoff refers to these creatures as “Gorillæ,” but the animals we call gorillas don’t throw stones. On the other hand, chimpanzees do, and one population of the apes is found in West Africa just south of the Gambia River. Two others can be found near Mount Cameroon.

Taken together, these clues suggest that Hanno’s fleet may have reached the westernmost point of the African continent, which lies just north of the Gambia River, or even approached the equator. On the other hand, most modern authorities doubt that the Navigator’s fleet could have returned if it had sailed past Cape Bojador (at 26°7’N), as the currents and winds would have been against them. Although the Carthaginian ships were equipped with fifty oars apiece, rowing against the currents for any distance would have been a Herculean task.

Making our analysis even more difficult, Hanno may have altered the descriptions of the places he visited in order to throw off competing traders from other countries. We’ll probably never know the real extent of his travels, but—based on the clues in the Periplus—it seems likely that he or his fellow countrymen possessed at least fragmentary knowledge of tropical Africa.

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The quotations in today’s post are taken from The Periplus of Hanno; A Voyage of Discovery down the West African Coast, by a Carthaginian Admiral of the Fifth Century B.C.; The Greek Text, with a Translation by Wilfred H. Schoff (Philadelphia: Commercial Museum, 1913). Surprisingly little about Hanno has been published in English; the most useful source I’ve found is the book Carthage: A History, by French historian and archaeologist Serge Lancel, translated by Antonia Nevill and published by Blackwell in 1995.

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The image at the top of today’s post is a 1754 map illustrating Hanno’s possible route down the coast of West Africa, with the island of São Tomé shown, slightly out of its true position, on the equator. The second image shows a Phoenician ship on a coin minted during the reign of King Tennes of Sidon, who ruled in the 4th century BCE. (Carthage was originally a Phoenician colony.) The third is an 1893 wood engraving of the mouth of the Drâa River, while the fourth is a map of the Cameroon line, reproduced from Wikipedia under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.2.

Our Once & Future Chestnut

Grove Koger

For today’s post, I’m reprinting an article that I published in the Fall 2008 issue of Boise Journal.

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For Americans, chestnuts are something of an anomaly. On the one hand, they’re familiar and traditional. We all know about those chestnuts roasting on an open fire, don’t we? Yet how many have actually eaten them? Chances are, not many; and for those of us who have, chances are, not often.

A century ago, the answers would have been entirely different. What happened?

The “boundless chestnut woods” that Henry David Thoreau once celebrated stretched over vast tracts of land from Maine southward into Florida and westward into Arkansas. The American Chestnut Foundation estimates that chestnut-rich forests once covered some 200 million acres.

American chestnut trees regularly grew 150 feet all. A specimen with a diameter of 17 feet was recorded in North Carolina in the early years of the last century, and another found in Great Smoky Mountains National Park was measured to be more than 9 feet in diameter 6 feet about the ground. Trees this size could produce as many as 10 bushels or more of nuts, which then might cover the ground beneath the trees four inches deep.  Castanea dentata, as botanists call the American chestnut, was a generous, magnificent giant. By 1940, however, it had virtually disappeared.

Tragedy had struck in the form of a fungus-induced blight. The culprit, Endothia parasitica, had apparently hitchhiked on Chinese chestnut saplings imported from the Far East in 1904 and planted on Long Island. Although the fungus posed little threat to Asian trees, it proved fatal to those growing in North America, sparing only a few isolated groves of European chestnuts in the American West.

The loss of the trees meant much more than the loss of a colorful tradition, however. Hardest hit by the blight were the Appalachian farmers who sold and traded the chestnuts, fed their hogs on them, and harvested the game that foraged on them. The trees were also fine sources of timber, tannic acid (for tanning leather) and honey.

Fortunately, the blight didn’t spell the absolute end of the chestnut culture in the United States. But before we get to that good news, let’s take a wider view.

There are several species in the genus Castanea, but the largest nuts come from the European, or Spanish chestnut, Castanea sativa. The species apparently originated in Iran, and was carried to Southeastern Europe by the Greeks and subsequently spread by the Romans. Specimens can grow to tremendous size and live for centuries, if not millennia. An example known as the Castagnu dî Centu Cavaddi, or Hundred-Horse Chestnut, can be found on the slope of Sicily’s Mount Etna. It’s believed to be between 2,000 and 4,000 years old and once had a circumference of 190 feet, although its massive trunk has long since split into several separate ones. It came by its distinctive name because, according to legend, a company of a hundred horsemen once found shelter beneath its branches during a storm.

Chestnut trees must be at least five to seven years old before they produce. The chestnuts grow inside a prickly burr that splits open in the fall and drops the nuts to the ground, still enclosed in a tough shell and a bitter inner membrane. This is how they’re marketed for a short period of time in many communities around the world.

Sapling American chestnut trees still sprout from the stumps of their long-dead elders, but they routinely die before they reach 10 feet in height. Under the guidance of the American Chestnut Foundation, however, growers are breeding blight-resistant hybrids of American and Chinese chestnuts that can be replanted in the wild.

If chestnuts are marketed in your area, you can eat them raw; however, roasting accentuates their flavor, and it’s usually the first step in sautéing or glazing them. Here’s how: Using the point of a small, sharp knife, cut an X into the flat side of each nut, making sure than you pierce the shell. Then boil the nuts for about five minutes and drain them. Next, place them on an ungreased baking sheet, cut side up, and bake for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees, turning once. After removing the nuts from the heat, wrap them in a towel for a few minutes to cool. You can then peel away the shell (which will have curled open) and rub away the inner membrane with the towel.

Oven-roasted nuts are slightly sweet and slightly mealy, a natural treat whose subtle flavor will grow on you. To enhance that flavor even more, roast them gently over charcoal for 15 to 20 minutes, a technique that imparts a pleasant smokiness. Just score and boil the nuts as above and place them in a cast iron pan over the grill, shaking the pan frequently to stir them. They’re done—and delicious—when their shells curl open.

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The photograph at the top of today’s post was taken by Petr Kratochvil and the second by Richard Revel; both are reproduced courtesy of PublicDomainPictures.net. The painting of the Hundred Horse Chestnut is by Jean-Pierre Houël (1735-1813). The bottom photograph is by makamuki0 (pixabay.com) and is reproduced courtesy of Needpix.com.

Sanctuary in the Himalayas

Grove Koger

Today’s post, which is drawn from When the Going Was Good, deals with the most famous book by Heinrich Harrer, who died January 7, 2006.

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Seven Years in Tibet (Sieben Jahre in Tibet: Mein Leben am Hofe des Dalai Lama. Vienna: Ullstein, 1952)

Inspired as a youth by the exploits of athletes and explorers, Heinrich Harrer trained himself in skiing and mountain climbing. He earned a place on the Austrian Olympic Team in 1936, but by his own account soon found the competition with “human rivals” unfulfilling. Turning to his other interest, Harrer managed with several friends to scale the heretofore unconquered north wall of Switzerland’s Mount Eiger in 1938. Now a far greater challenge—Kashmir’s Nanga Parbat—beckoned, and Harrer and other expedition members traveled to what was then British India to reconnoiter the peak.

Harrer and his companions were arrested and interned when war broke out. His first two attempts at escape failed, but on his third try—near the end of April 1944—he and six fellow prisoners got away. By mid-May, Harrer and a companion paused at a 17,200-foot pass on the Tibetan border, hoping somehow to reach Japanese lines several thousand miles away. Thus began the pair’s journey into the “forbidden” country, whose capital Lhasa they reached only after a roundabout, twenty-month trek of harrowing hardship and danger.

Seven Years in Tibet is an account of a brave if foolhardy escape that became something else entirely. The two fugitives were greeted warmly and treated well, and Harrer eventually became a tutor to the young Dalai Lama, the country’s spiritual and political leader. He left the country only in 1951, forced out by invading Chinese troops. Harrer actively championed the Tibetan cause, but had relatively little to say about his pre-Tibetan years in Europe. As a motion picture version of his book was reaching the screen in 1997, it was revealed that he had been a member of Hitler’s corps of secret police, the Schutzstaffel. When confronted with the revelations about his past, Harrer called his SS membership “one of the greatest errors of my life.”

If you’re looking for a good edition of Seven Years, the English translation is by Richard Graves. Peter Fleming wrote an introduction to the first English edition (London: Hart-Davis, 1953) that has been widely reprinted since. Beginning with the Tarcher/Perigee edition (New York, 1981), many English editions have also carried a foreword by the Dalai Lama.

Harrer’s other works include The White Spider (1958); I Come from the Stone Age (1963); Ladakh: Gods and Mortals behind the Himalayas (1981); and Return to Tibet: Tibet after the Chinese Occupation (1983). And for more information about Harrer, see Orville Schell, Virtual Tibet: Searching for Shangri-La from the Himalayas to Hollywood (New York: Metropolitan/Holt, 2000); and Encountering, Retracing, Mapping: The Ethnographic Legacy of Heinrich Harrer and Peter Aufschnaiter (Zurich: Ethnographic Museum, University of Zurich; Stuttgart: Arnoldsche Art Publishers.

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The image at the top of today’s post is the dust jacket of an early German edition of Harrer’s book. The photograph of Lhasa is by littleP (pixabay.com) and is reproduced courtesy of Needpix.com.