37. Thus in several Chekhov stories women are confronted with the tedium of married
life and driven, usually against their better judgment, into extramarital liaisons
(“Ot nechego delat’,” “Neschast’e,” both 1886).
38. M. V-v, Kak provodit’ leto na dache (Dachnaia dietetika) (St. Petersburg, 1909). Similar in its insistence on simple furnishings and the rational
use of domestic space is Khoziaika doma (domoustroistvo) (St. Petersburg, 1895). The virtues of physical activity and exposure to the natural
environment are also extolled in “Dachnik”: Dachnye mestnosti vblizi g. Kieva (Kiev, 1909). A parody of good intentions for the summer is Sasha Chernyi’s fourth
“epistle” (of 1908) from the Baltics, in his Sobranie sochinenii v piati tomakh (Moscow, 1996), 1:135–36.
39. Zhizn’ v svete, doma i pri dvore (St. Petersburg, 1890).
40. N.A. Leikin, “Vinter,” in his Na dachnom proziabanii, 4th ed. (St. Petersburg, 1912), 56.
41. Zhizn’ v svete, 108–10.
42. Dachnik, no. 5 (1912), 12. Similar is Chekhov’s story “Dachniki” (1885), where newlyweds
enjoying their privacy at the dacha unwisely take a stroll to the railway station
and meet the husband’s uncle and his large family, who have come to visit. Unwelcome
dacha guests are also the subject of Sasha Chernyi’s “Mukhi” (1910): see his Sobranie sochinenii, 1:65–66.
43. See D. Rayfield, “Orchards and Gardens in Chekhov,” SEER 67 (1989): 530–45.
44. Chekhov, “Dachnye pravila,” in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii 3:21. There is a strong parallel here with bourgeois beach culture in Western Europe,
which presented the seaside as an ideal location for acquaintances to be made and
matches to be expedited.
45. Zhizn’ v svete, 109.
46. One memoir account is V. D. Tsvetaev, Dubrovitsy: Iz dachnykh vpechatlenii (Moscow, 1907). Descriptions of such entertainments are abundant in late imperial
dacha periodicals.
47. N. Fedotov, Putevoditel’po dachnym mestnostiam (St. Petersburg, 1889), 200, 215.
48. L. McReynolds and C. Popkin, “The Objective Eye and the Common Good,” in Constructing Russian Culture in the Age of Revolution: 1881–1940, ed. C. Kelly and D. Shepherd (Oxford, 1998), 77.
49. Iu. Blok, Velosiped: Ego znachenie dlia zdorov’ia, prakticheskoe primenenie, ukhod za mashinoiu
i pr. (Moscow, 1892), 25–26.
50. A.K. Sobolev, Podmoskovnye dachi (Ocherki, nabliudeniia i zametki) (Moscow, 1901), 27.
51. For an interesting brief history of early Russian sound reproduction, see L. I.
Tikhvinskaia, “Fragmenty odnoi sud’by na fone fragmentov odnoi kul’tury,” in Razvlekatel’naia kul’tura Rossii XVIII–XIX vv.: Ocherki istorii i teorii, ed. E.V. Dukov (St. Petersburg, 2000). An ironic comment on the dacha gramophone
craze is S. Marshak, “Dacha” (1911), in his Sobranie sochinenii v vos’mi tomakh (Moscow, 1968–72), 5:’475–76.
52. Door-to-door collection is described in the story “Ob”dinenie,” in N. A. Leikin,
Na dachnom proziabanii, 4th ed. (St. Petersburg, 1912).
53. The Department of Manuscripts and Rare Books of the St. Petersburg State Theater
Library (the repository for manuscripts of all plays approved for performance in prerevolutionary
Russia) contains more than thirty plays with some direct reference to the dacha in
the title; the number set at the dacha must be significantly greater. On the generally
acknowledged need for a lighter repertoire in the summer theaters, see S. Krechetov,
“Letnii teatral’nyi stil’ i Malakhovskii teatr,” Rampa i zhizn’, no. 32 (1912), 10–11.
54. See M.V. Iunisov, “‘Lishnii’ teatr: O liubiteliakh i ikh ‘gubiteliakh,’” in Dukov,
Razvlekatel’naia kul’tura Rossii.
55. V.O. Mikhnevich, Peterburgskoe leto (St. Petersburg, 1887), 14.
56. S. Cherikover, Peterburg (Moscow, 1909), 206.
57. Al’fa, “Arkhitekturnye zametki,” Domovladelets (St. Petersburg), no. 4 (1906), 6.
58. V. S. Karpovich, ed., Motivy dereviannoi arkhitektury (St. Petersburg, 1903), preface.
