Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
1–10 of 218 posts
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#2I am an American living in Russia. When I was studying Russian I read a number of Chekhov's short stories and got a feel for who he was.
I later came across one of his quotes: "В человеке должно быть все прекрасно: и лицо, и одежда, и душа, и мысли" (Everything in a person should be excellent: his face, his clothes, his soul and his ideas). I sometimes discussed this phrase with Russians, eventually coming to be believe that "face" in this context meant that you should do all you can to appear clean and groomed, not necessarily that you need to be beautiful. I liked this quote and it can be a starting point of interesting discussion when I talk to Russians about Chekhov.
There's a funny story about when Chekhov went to Tomsk (now a town of about 500,000 people in Siberia.) In a letter, he wrote "Tomsk is a very dull town. To judge from the drunkards whose acquaintance I have made, and from the intellectual people who have come to the hotel to pay their respects to me, the inhabitants are very dull, too." In recent history, the inhabitants of Tomsk erected a bronze caricature statute [1] of Chekhov which makes him look funny. The local residents consider that touching his nose is good luck, so the statue has a really shiny bronze nose. I personally saw it and even touched his nose.
[1] https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g665310-d35959...
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#3I am an American living in Russia. When I was studying Russian I read a number of Chekhov's short stories and got a feel for who he was. I later came across one of his quotes: "В человеке должно быть все прекрасно: и лицо, и одежда, и душа, и мысли" (Everything in a person should be excellent: his face, his clothes, his soul and his ideas). I sometimes discussed this phrase with Russians, eventually coming to be beli…
> Everything in a person should be excellent
Probably nitpicking, but I'd translate "прекрасно" as "beautiful" here.
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#4Here's a lovely little article about Chekhov that has been languishing on my "post this someday when HN is slow" list.
http://lithub.com/anton-chekhov-a-post-modernist-way-ahead-o...
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#5I am an American living in Russia. When I was studying Russian I read a number of Chekhov's short stories and got a feel for who he was. I later came across one of his quotes: "В человеке должно быть все прекрасно: и лицо, и одежда, и душа, и мысли" (Everything in a person should be excellent: his face, his clothes, his soul and his ideas). I sometimes discussed this phrase with Russians, eventually coming to be beli…
At least in Soviet times this quote was taught and discussed in schools and I'd dare to argue that for some it is the only quote by Chekhov's they remember.
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#6One needn't click on affiliate links to buy Chekhov's works. Project Gutenberg has them:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=chekhov
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#7I am an American living in Russia. When I was studying Russian I read a number of Chekhov's short stories and got a feel for who he was. I later came across one of his quotes: "В человеке должно быть все прекрасно: и лицо, и одежда, и душа, и мысли" (Everything in a person should be excellent: his face, his clothes, his soul and his ideas). I sometimes discussed this phrase with Russians, eventually coming to be beli…
> Everything in a person should be excellent Probably nitpicking, but I'd translate "прекрасно" as "beautiful" here.
I think "exellent" is an excellent choice of the word (beautiful ≈ красиво).
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Everything in a person should be excellent Probably nitpicking, but I'd translate "прекрасно" as "beautiful" here.
I think "exellent" is an excellent choice of the word (beautiful ≈ красиво).
Agreed, the English "beautiful" often doesn't seem to capture прекрасно. I always took them to have some overlapping meaning, rather than being a direct translation.
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#9This translation is great but I think it's still interesting to read into the connotations of Chekhov's original words:
http://www.anton-chehov.info/754-n-p-chexovu.html
>you are drawn away from it, and you vacillate between cultured people and the lodgers vis-a-vis
>тебя тянет от нее, и тебе приходится балансировать между культурной публикой и жильцами vis-а-vis.
Here "cultured people" are originally "культурная публика", literally "cultured public".
>Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions:
>Воспитанные люди, по моему мнению, должны удовлетворять след условиям:
Here "Cultured people" are originally "Воспитанные люди". More like well-brought-up.
Re: Chekhov: “Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions”
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Everything in a person should be excellent Probably nitpicking, but I'd translate "прекрасно" as "beautiful" here.
I think "exellent" is an excellent choice of the word (beautiful ≈ красиво).
I don't know russian, but in croatian which is somewhat similar adding pre to infront of the word makes it stronger, does not change meaning. Like too beautiful or as beautiful as it could get. Though in russian it could be different. (edit or even more beautiful than it is allowed/expected/needed)