Kashtanka

"Kashtanka"
Kashtanka, Fedyushka and Luka Alexandrovich 1903 illustration by Dmitry Kardovsky
Author	Anton Chekhov
Original title	"Каштанка"
Country	Russia
Language	Russian
Published in	Novoye Vremya
Publication date	25 December 1887 (old style)

External video

Kashtanka, the 1952 Soviet animation by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky (31 min)

"Kashtanka" (Russian: Каштанка) is a 1887 short story by Anton Chekhov.

Ther story was first published in Novoye Vremya's No. 4248, 25 December (old style) 1887 issue, originally under the title "In Learned Society" (В учёном обществе; V uchyonom obschestve).

Revised by the author, divided into seven chapters and under the new title it came out as a separate edition in Saint Petersburg in 1892 and enjoyed six re-issues in 1893-1899. Chekhov included it into Volume 4 of his Collected Works published by Adolf Marks in 1899-1901. In 1903 the story came out illustrated by Dmitry Kardovsky and in such form continued to be re-issued well into the end of the 20th century.

There were at least two persons who claimed to have prompted Chekhov the original idea. One of them was Nikolai Leykin: of that Viktor Bilibin informed the author in a 7 December 1887 letter (Chekhov apparently left the claim uncommented). Another, the circus performer and animal trainer Vladimir L. Durov (1863-1934) in his 1927 book "My Animals" maintained that it was him who once told Chekhov the real life story about a dog named Kashtanka who'd performed with his troupe.

Chapter 1. Misbehaviour. Kashtanka, a young foxey-looking mongrel, belonging to a carpenter drunkard named Luka Alexandrovich gets lost through her own 'improper behaviour', frightened by a military band on the street. Hungry and desperate ("If she had been a human being she would have certainly thought: 'No, it is impossible to live like this! I must shoot myself!'"), she huddles up by the entrance to some unfamiliar house.

Chapter 2. A Mysterious Stranger. A stranger comes out, feels sorry for the lost dog and, delighted with her funny looks, takes her to his place where he treats her to good dinner. Upon the inspection, she finds the place poor and ugly (nothing "besides the easy-chairs, the sofa, the lamps and the rugs") next to her masters' apartments, rich with all manner of rubbish. On the plus side, the host gives her not a single kick, which feels like a novelty. Finally, she goes to sleep, dreaming nostalgically of how Luka's son Fedyushka used to lovingly 'play' with her by way of using her "...as a bell, that is, shake her violently by the tail so that she squealed and barked," as well as giving her a piece of meat to swallow and then "with loud laugh, pull[ing] it back again from her stomach," by a thread he'd fixed it with.