Chekhov and Lika mizinova: an unusual story of unrequited love classics

The most famous play by Anton Chekhov, no doubt, became "the Seagull". Many people know the plot of the story, but few people know that she was taken from life classic. An unusual relationship between the writer and Lika, or rather, Lydia Staciunai Mizinova, inspired by Chekhov's immortal plays, which is in the repertoire far beyond the country of the author.

Lydia Mizinova Chekhov met in the autumn of 1889 thanks to my sister. Lika began teaching at the school L. F. Rzhevskaya, where he worked as a relative of the writer. Women became friends and so mizinova began to visit Chekhov house.

In the writer's beauty made an indelible impression, because the contemporaries not in vain compare it with the Swan Princess from Russian fairy tales. The face was very beautiful, and Anton had not ceased to admire. She was 19 and he was 29 when they first met. After that, they saw each other daily, and if any of them were out — texted. In letters Chekhov called it "beautiful Lika", "infernal beauty" and other names, emphasizing the rapture.

The face was adorned with curly ash-grey hair, large grey eyes and an extraordinary softness and femininity in movements and in everything she did. At the same time Mizinova was a wonderful character — she was friendly, affectionate, sociable and deeply believed in God. Not cheated nature a woman of the mind and Czechs could speak with Lika on any topic and she was always a wonderful conversationalist.

Many believed that Lika and Anton would be a great couple. The writer also was very handsome — tall, broad-shouldered and fit. Chekhov was also a very pleasant open face with slightly narrowed eyes alive. On the exterior of Anton Pavlovich, and his friend A. I. Kuprin wrote:

Chekhov enjoyed success with women, but it is very valued their independence. He married very late, shortly before his death, when he was seriously ill. But the reluctance to start a family does not mean that the classic was shunned by women. Beautiful ladies needed him for inspiration, new ideas.

Not love, but love has experienced the Czechs for many years to the Face, which not only gave him the plots, but helped to survive failures. When his "Seagull" failed miserably at the Alexandrinsky theatre, Anton Pavlovich asked the sister, but not very, and certainly with Lika.

So Chekhov wrote to Lika in the letters and she answered him in the same style. But none of them ever talked about feelings and not even gave any hint of a serious relationship. Lika flirted with the painter Levitan, who was at her very seriously, and in letters Chekhov described his novel in his usual ironic manner.

Generally, around this woman always had a lot of men and perhaps her character is not allowed to develop their relationship with Chekhov, who would love to see near him a more serious minded person. But Lika didn't see any reason to change, so everything remained as before, at the level of the amicable and trusting relationship.

While the Face had some influence on the theater. The writer was an inveterate couch potato and it was hard to knock on any adventure. However mizinova almost lured Chekhov a journey to the Caucasus. Parents Face said that he was going with a friend, and to avoid unnecessary talk, and bought her tickets in different parts of the train.

At the last moment the Czechs refused, citing the danger of the events in the Caucasus the raging cholera epidemic. The face was terribly outraged and wrote to the writer of the angry letter. Replied Anton in his usual ironic and instructive manner:

Chekhov's biographers have noted that the writer much upset in the Face, and especially her Bohemian manners and coquetry. But like a wise man, he was well aware that to re-educate an adult is unlikely.

So said Chekhov of his naughty Muse and went on a journey without him.Lika mizinova could not find their place in life. It was difficult, you could say, hysterical relationship with the fashion at the time the writer Potapenko. It is their described Chekhov in "the Seagull" as a love story Trigorin and Nina Zarechnaya.

Potapenko was a handsome, charismatic man, but it is completely unlike Chekhov. In addition, the writer was married. They Lika went abroad, where he left a woman alone in a foreign country. Potapenko and Leakey born daughter, but the child died of pneumonia two years.

Mizinova tried to find something to do — she opened a sewing workshop, then studied singing, but I couldn't concentrate on any lesson. Then she went to Paris, whence he wrote to Chekhov imbued with despair of the letter and asked to come.

The Czechs were not going to leave the country. In a letter to the writer Face told Anton Pavlovich about the cause of the affair with Potapenko, and did so very briefly. "The reason is You..." — the woman wrote in a message to the writer and attach your photo on the back of which was written by her hand the following lines:

Below Lika added:

The Czechs did not respond to the cry of her soul. After a while Lika was married to a famous theater Director Alexander Sanin, with whom he lived for 35 years. Anton Chekhov married the actress Olga Knipper, but he lived after this only three years and died of consumption.

Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper

Each of the women, somehow connected with Chekhov, left on the writer's memories. But you will not find among them the memoirs of Faces Mizinova — she's one of the all chose to keep the details of their relationship with the writer in secret. So we know about the history of a strange love the Faces and the theater only from the memoirs of contemporaries, and several surviving letters.

Quite different relationships were with women of another Russian classic Leo Tolstoy. The writer is not shunned female society and the ladies were not too kind.