After the Russo-Turkish (1778-84) in which Russia inflicted a crushing defeat on the Ottoman empire, seizing the Crimea and swathes of territory on the Azov Sea and the Black Sea, the Russian empress, Catherine the Great, came up with a plan that, in the next phase of Russian expansion, would involve the capture of Constantinople and the disintegration of the Ottoman empire.
The so-called Greek Plan envisaged the newly seized territories – the Crimea and what was now known as New Russia – being colonised by Greeks, encouraged to emigrate from the Ottoman empire. Cities, newly founded or re-founded, would be given Greek names – Kherson, Mariupol, Stavropol, Odessa, Sevastopol – while Catherine’s grandson, Constantine, would be installed as the new emperor in Constantinople, revivifying the Byzantine state, though as a subservient adjunct to Moscow.
The Greek Plan never fully materialised – the formation of a Greek state in 1830 that had the same ambitions on Turkish-held territory as the Russian state and British and French willingness to prop up the decaying Ottoman empire and thwart Russia’s drive to the Mediterranean undermined it; though the goal of taking Constantinople was never abandoned until the Bolshevik takeover of Russia. The Bolshevik revolution also put paid to that 100-year long flourishing of Hellenism in southern Russia and the northern Black sea region. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Greeks of the area were identified as politically unreliable, their schools, newspapers, churches closed or demolished and hundreds of thousands killed or deported to Uzbekistan and Kazakstan.
One of the cities in New Russia re-founded by Catherine the Great was Taganrog – its Greek roots were mentioned as far back as Herodotus, who referred to the colony as Emporion Kremnoi – and in the decades following its rebirth in 1775 the Greek community came to dominate commercial life and had the most prestigious schools, churches and businesses.
It was in Taganrog that the writer Anton Chekhov was born in 1860. His father Pavel Chekhov was a shop owner who had strong connections to the Greek community. His son was baptised by two Greek business associates, who encouraged their friend to send his progeny to the city’s prestigious Greek school attached to the Greek Church of St Constantine and St Helen – where Anton and his brothers sang in the choir. Thus, in 1867 Antonos Tsechoff was enrolled in the school in order to master demotic Greek and give him the best advantages in the business life his father had planned for him.
But Anton – and his brother Kolia (Nicholas) – struggled at the school, leaving after only one year with a cursory knowledge of Greek and a memory of the cruel tortures devised by teachers to discipline pupils.
The Chekhov brothers transferred to Taganrog’s gimnazia, a school Donald Rayfield describes as ‘hell and heaven – like a good English public school, minus sport, sodomy and the cane.’
Here, even if his teachers didn’t think he’d amount to much in the future, Anton flourished. The only subject that gave him trouble was Greek, regularly failing to pass the subject with the necessary ‘3’ mark.
Anton Chekhov’s struggles with Greek are the basis of his short story, A Classical Student.
A Classical Student, by Anton Chekhov
BEFORE setting off for his examination in Greek, Vanya kissed all the holy images. His stomach felt as though it were upside down; there was a chill at his heart, while the heart itself throbbed and stood still with terror before the unknown. What would he get that day? A three or a two? Six times he went to his mother for her blessing, and, as he went out, asked his aunt to pray for him. On the way to school he gave a beggar two kopecks, in the hope that those two kopecks would atone for his ignorance, and that, please God, he would not get the numerals with those awful forties and eighties.
He came back from the high school late, between four and five. He came in, and noiselessly lay down on his bed. His thin face was pale. There were dark rings round his red eyes.
Well, how did you get on? How were you marked?‘ asked his mother, going to his bedside.
Vanya blinked, twisted his mouth, and burst into tears. His mother turned pale, let her mouth fall open, and clasped her hands. The breeches she was mending dropped out of her hands.
‘What are you crying for? You've failed, then?’ she asked.
‘I am plucked… I got a two.’
‘I knew it would be so! I had a presentiment of it,’ said his mother. ‘Merciful God! How is it you have not passed? What is the reason of it? What subject have you failed in?’
‘In Greek… Mother, I… They asked me the future of phero, and I… instead of saying oisomai said opsomai. Then… then there isn't an accent, if the last syllable is long, and I … I got flustered… I forgot that the alpha was long in it.… I went and put in the accent. Then Artaxerxov told me to give the list of the enclitic particles… I did, and I accidentally mixed in a pronoun… and made a mistake… and so he gave me a two… I am a miserable person… I was working all night… I've been getting up at four o'clock all this week…’
‘No, it's not you but I who am miserable, you wretched boy! It's I that am miserable! You've worn me to a threadpaper, you Herod, you torment, you bane of my life! I pay for you, you good-for-nothing rubbish; I've bent my back toiling for you, I'm worried to death, and, I may say, I am unhappy, and what do you care? How do you work?’
‘I… I do work. All night… You've seen it yourself.’
‘I prayed to God to take me, but He won't take me, a sinful woman… You torment! Other people have children like everyone else, and I've one only and no sense, no comfort out of him. Beat you? I'd beat you, but where am I to find the strength? Mother of God, where am I to find the strength?’
The mamma hid her face in the folds of her blouse and broke into sobs. Vanya wriggled with anguish and pressed his forehead against the wall. The aunt came in.
‘So that's how it is… Just what I expected,’ she said, at once guessing what was wrong, turning pale and clasping her hands. ‘I've been depressed all the morning… There's trouble coming, I thought… and here it's come…’
‘The villain, the torment!’
‘Why are you swearing at him?’ cried the aunt, nervously pulling her coffee-coloured kerchief off her head and turning upon the mother. ‘It's not his fault! It's your fault! You are to blame! Why did you send him to that high school? You are a fine lady! You want to be a lady? A-a-ah! I dare say, as though you'll turn into gentry! But if you had sent him, as I told you, into business… to an office, like my Kuzya… here is Kuzya getting five hundred a year… Five hundred roubles is worth having, isn't it? And you are wearing yourself out, and wearing the boy out with this studying, plague take it! He is thin, he coughs… just look at him! He's thirteen, and he looks no more than ten.’
‘No, Nastenka, no, my dear! I haven't thrashed him enough, the torment! He ought to have been thrashed, that's what it is! Ugh… Jesuit, Mahomet, torment!’ she shook her fist at her son. ‘You want a flogging, but I haven't the strength. They told me years ago when he was little, “Whip him, whip him!” I didn't heed them, sinful woman as I am. And now I am suffering for it. You wait a bit! I'll flay you! Wait a bit…’
The mamma shook her wet fist, and went weeping into her lodger's room. The lodger, Yevtihy Kuzmitch Kuporossov, was sitting at his table, reading Dancing Self-taught. Yevtihy Kuzmitch was a man of intelligence and education. He spoke through his nose, washed with a soap the smell of which made everyone in the house sneeze, ate meat on fast days, and was on the look-out for a bride of refined education, and so was considered the cleverest of the lodgers. He sang tenor.
‘My good friend,’ began the mamma, dissolving into tears. ‘If you would have the generosity – thrash my boy for me… Do me the favour! He's failed in his examination, the nuisance of a boy! Would you believe it, he's failed! I can't punish him, through the weakness of my ill-health… Thrash him for me, if you would be so obliging and considerate, Yevtihy Kuzmitch! Have regard for a sick woman!’
Kuporossov frowned and heaved a deep sigh through his nose. He thought a little, drummed on the table with his fingers, and sighing once more, went to Vanya.
‘You are being taught, so to say,’ he began, ‘being educated, being given a chance, you revolting young person! Why have you done it?’
He talked for a long time, made a regular speech. He alluded to science, to light, and to darkness.
‘Yes, young person.’
When he had finished his speech, he took off his belt and took Vanya by the hand.
‘It's the only way to deal with you,’ he said. Vanya knelt down submissively and thrust his head between the lodger's knees. His prominent pink ears moved up and down against the lodger’s new serge trousers, with brown stripes on the outer seams.
Vanya did not utter a single sound. At the family council in the evening, it was decided to send him into business.
He came back from the high school late, between four and five. He came in, and noiselessly lay down on his bed. His thin face was pale. There were dark rings round his red eyes.
Well, how did you get on? How were you marked?‘ asked his mother, going to his bedside.
Vanya blinked, twisted his mouth, and burst into tears. His mother turned pale, let her mouth fall open, and clasped her hands. The breeches she was mending dropped out of her hands.
‘What are you crying for? You've failed, then?’ she asked.
‘I am plucked… I got a two.’
‘I knew it would be so! I had a presentiment of it,’ said his mother. ‘Merciful God! How is it you have not passed? What is the reason of it? What subject have you failed in?’
‘In Greek… Mother, I… They asked me the future of phero, and I… instead of saying oisomai said opsomai. Then… then there isn't an accent, if the last syllable is long, and I … I got flustered… I forgot that the alpha was long in it.… I went and put in the accent. Then Artaxerxov told me to give the list of the enclitic particles… I did, and I accidentally mixed in a pronoun… and made a mistake… and so he gave me a two… I am a miserable person… I was working all night… I've been getting up at four o'clock all this week…’
‘No, it's not you but I who am miserable, you wretched boy! It's I that am miserable! You've worn me to a threadpaper, you Herod, you torment, you bane of my life! I pay for you, you good-for-nothing rubbish; I've bent my back toiling for you, I'm worried to death, and, I may say, I am unhappy, and what do you care? How do you work?’
‘I… I do work. All night… You've seen it yourself.’
‘I prayed to God to take me, but He won't take me, a sinful woman… You torment! Other people have children like everyone else, and I've one only and no sense, no comfort out of him. Beat you? I'd beat you, but where am I to find the strength? Mother of God, where am I to find the strength?’
The mamma hid her face in the folds of her blouse and broke into sobs. Vanya wriggled with anguish and pressed his forehead against the wall. The aunt came in.
‘So that's how it is… Just what I expected,’ she said, at once guessing what was wrong, turning pale and clasping her hands. ‘I've been depressed all the morning… There's trouble coming, I thought… and here it's come…’
‘The villain, the torment!’
‘Why are you swearing at him?’ cried the aunt, nervously pulling her coffee-coloured kerchief off her head and turning upon the mother. ‘It's not his fault! It's your fault! You are to blame! Why did you send him to that high school? You are a fine lady! You want to be a lady? A-a-ah! I dare say, as though you'll turn into gentry! But if you had sent him, as I told you, into business… to an office, like my Kuzya… here is Kuzya getting five hundred a year… Five hundred roubles is worth having, isn't it? And you are wearing yourself out, and wearing the boy out with this studying, plague take it! He is thin, he coughs… just look at him! He's thirteen, and he looks no more than ten.’
‘No, Nastenka, no, my dear! I haven't thrashed him enough, the torment! He ought to have been thrashed, that's what it is! Ugh… Jesuit, Mahomet, torment!’ she shook her fist at her son. ‘You want a flogging, but I haven't the strength. They told me years ago when he was little, “Whip him, whip him!” I didn't heed them, sinful woman as I am. And now I am suffering for it. You wait a bit! I'll flay you! Wait a bit…’
The mamma shook her wet fist, and went weeping into her lodger's room. The lodger, Yevtihy Kuzmitch Kuporossov, was sitting at his table, reading Dancing Self-taught. Yevtihy Kuzmitch was a man of intelligence and education. He spoke through his nose, washed with a soap the smell of which made everyone in the house sneeze, ate meat on fast days, and was on the look-out for a bride of refined education, and so was considered the cleverest of the lodgers. He sang tenor.
‘My good friend,’ began the mamma, dissolving into tears. ‘If you would have the generosity – thrash my boy for me… Do me the favour! He's failed in his examination, the nuisance of a boy! Would you believe it, he's failed! I can't punish him, through the weakness of my ill-health… Thrash him for me, if you would be so obliging and considerate, Yevtihy Kuzmitch! Have regard for a sick woman!’
Kuporossov frowned and heaved a deep sigh through his nose. He thought a little, drummed on the table with his fingers, and sighing once more, went to Vanya.
‘You are being taught, so to say,’ he began, ‘being educated, being given a chance, you revolting young person! Why have you done it?’
He talked for a long time, made a regular speech. He alluded to science, to light, and to darkness.
‘Yes, young person.’
When he had finished his speech, he took off his belt and took Vanya by the hand.
‘It's the only way to deal with you,’ he said. Vanya knelt down submissively and thrust his head between the lodger's knees. His prominent pink ears moved up and down against the lodger’s new serge trousers, with brown stripes on the outer seams.
Vanya did not utter a single sound. At the family council in the evening, it was decided to send him into business.