Tutkimusmatkalla helvetissä

Tšehovin Sahalinin tieteellis-ideologinen diskurssi

• Tintti Klapuri Turun yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74779

Abstract

Journey to Hell: Scientific-ideological discourse in Chekhov’s Sakhalin Island

This article examines the relation of Anton Chekhov’s documentary travelogue Sakhalin Island (Ostrov Sakhalin, 1895) to the developments of Russian scientific culture in the latter part of the nineteenth century, particularly focusing on the ways in which Chekhov utilizes the ideas of Darwinism and positivism to argue his case for modernization and humanization of the Russian penal system.

The article shows that in Sakhalin Island, originally natural scientific ideas such as mutual aid and gradual adaptation are transformed into means of ideological argumentation, very much in the spirit of the time. Moreover, it can be argued that the methodological assumptions of Chekhov’s documentary travelogue embody empi¬rical research during the time when positivistic methodologies and positivistic world-view widened to embrace subjective observation. Finally, this article explicates how the “objective” Chekhov indeed takes a political stand and even offers concrete solutions to social problems. For example, Chekhov suggests the replacement of communal cells with individual households, the enhancement of rational settlement politics and the Russification of the Sakhalian indigenous people according to their own needs. All these solutions are based on the ideas prevalent in the Russian scientific culture at the time.