What We Hope For…Anton Chekhov QUOTES FOR WRITERS
We are accustomed to live in hopes of good weather, a good harvest, a nice love-affair, hopes of becoming rich or getting the office of chief of police, but I’ve never noticed anyone hoping to get wiser. We say to ourselves: it’ll be better under a new tsar, and in two hundred years it’ll still be better, and nobody tries to make this good time come tomorrow.
On the whole, life gets more and more complex every day and moves on its own sweet will, and people get more and more stupid, and get isolated from life in ever-increasing numbers.
Anton Chekhov
4 comments on “What We Hope For…Anton Chekhov QUOTES FOR WRITERS”
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herein the mindset of the typical Russian, who endures and does not think to cure. This is why there is a war with Ukraine because none of them ever question the tsar. pravda; ya panemayu Russkiyi.
I think you and Chekhov might agree…not sure I do altogether. His last line about life becoming more complex and people more isolated seems both contemporary and universal
the Russians had it first, though; by mentally isolating the people, the tsars, then Stalin, and now Putrid have made sure to ensure themselves a population which finds personal interconnection difficult so that it produces a degree of brutalisation of the spirit which does not protest when your neighbour falls out of a window/drinks polonium tea/is taken away. Russian joke to illustrate this; the greatest joy is when the secret police break down your door and say ‘Ivan Ivonovitch, you are coming with us.’ the joy is in saying ‘Ivan Ivanovitch lives next door.’ This joke predates the Soviet Union. the deliberate isolation of individuals is something which modern western society is foolishly trying to inflict on itself and calls it progress; though the attempts to control through the lockdowns is having a backlash, as people become aware of how many mental problems this caused and how much of an impact it has had on society and health, such that maybe it will rescue us all from the folly of self-isolation by social media in seeing the trouble it causes. There is a reason that Russia has the highest incidence of fetal alcohol syndrome in the world.
Sorry to get too serious; I’ve been a Russia-watcher since my teens when a nuclear event was only ever 4 minutes away, such that when Mt St. Helen’s went up and we came out of school to those sunsets, we all solemnly said goodbye to each other and shook hands because we assumed we would not meet again in this world.
And the more I learn of Russia, and trace its psyche back to the time of Ivan the terrible, the more horrifying it becomes.
Thank you for this perspective, Sarah. I agree that Covid demonstrated how interdependent we are and the importance of regular social interaction.