The writer B. Akunin took the liberty of "finishing" Chekhov's play "The Seagull". B. Akunin, apparently, was inspired by several phrases in Chekhov's letter to E. M. Shavrova: "I finished the play <...> It didn't turn out so well", and his self-assessments in a letter to A. S. Suvorin:"He began it forte and ended it pianissimo, against all the rules of dramatic art. A novel was published. I am more dissatisfied than satisfied" (Chekhov A. P. Poln. sobr. soch. i pis'mov: V 30 t. M., 1986. Vol. 12. p. 357; further - only p.).

The open ending of a literary work generally excites the reader's imagination, and he mentally creates virtual post-plot versions of the" ending "of" Eugene Onegin", "War and Peace", "Crimes and Punishments"," Ladies with a Dog "... B. Akunin broke away from his own creative ideas in order for the classic play to be "finished to the end". the end."

Let's start with a quick reference. Boris Akunin is the literary pseudonym of Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili, deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine "Foreign Literature", translator from Japanese and English, editor-in-chief of the twenty-volume "Anthology of Japanese Literature", author of the monograph "Writer and Suicide", as well as a series of detective novels about Erast Petrovich Fandorin, an official of special assignments under the Moscow Governor-General ("Azazel", "Turkish Gambit", "Leviathan", "Death of Achilles", "State Councilor"), other novels and novellas. In 2000, the Novy Mir magazine (No. 4) published his comedy in two acts, The Seagull, and almost simultaneously a book appeared that combines two "Seagulls" - A. Chekhov / B. Akunin. "Chaika". Comedy and its sequel (Jerusalem-Moscow, 2000).

The reader is presented not only with variations on the themes of the play, but also with a rewrite and correction of the fourth act of the first "Seagull".-

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The first act of B. Akunin's play is completed, and the second act is written. B. Akunin partially rewrites and appends the first "Seagull" in order to turn a comedy with a suicide into a comedy with a murder. The murder of Treplev is suspected by everyone present in the house, and everyone in turn confesses to it. The riddle of Treplev's self-removal turns into a solution to the search for the killer. As an" investigator", Dr. Dorn offers himself, who convinces everyone that this is a murder, and begins using the deductive method to calculate the culprit.

The idea of the strangeness of Treplev's suicide always torments readers and directors of The Seagull. Let us recall that Dorn's phrase addressed to Trigorin ("The fact is that Konstantin Gavrilovich shot himself..."), which ends with an ellipsis, is followed by the remark Curtain - this is how Chekhov's play ends. One of the researchers of the director's interpretations of Chekhov's play calls Treplev's shot, sounding offstage, "mysterious". This last sound symbol and "Treplev's unprotected meekness" are conveyed, for example, in the production of the Czech director Peter Lebla in such a way that "there is reason to think: was it suicide?" (Davtyan L. Treplev's Play as a defining impulse in modern theatrical interpretations of "The Seagull" / / Young Researchers of Chekhov. III. Proceedings of the International Conference, Moscow, 1998, pp. 302-303). B. Akunin removes the understatement and reduces the ambiguity of the play's meanings to only eight dubbed versions: Who killed Treplev?

Interestingly, the version of Treplev's suicide is rejected and refuted by a researcher of literary suicide. One of the chapters of G. Chkhartishvili's book "Writer and Suicide" is called "Dangerous profession", and many judgments about the" vulnerability " of creative nature and its predisposition to suicide are naturally projected on Treplev (Chkhartishvili G. S. Writer and Suicide, Moscow, 1999, pp. 287-300). Chekhov's medical knowledge made it possible to build a fairly convincing picture of the suicidal writer's behavior. Early aging syndrome combined with a weakened life instinct ("My youth has suddenly been torn off, and it seems to me that I have already lived in the world for ninety years"), unsuccessful love ("I can't stop loving you..."), creative crisis, low self-esteem (remark " 5 the continuation of two minutes in silence vomits all his manuscripts and throws them under the table.. . "), loneliness, effeminacy, infantilism, insecurity, obsessive thought of death ("Soon I will kill myself in the same way") and unsuccessful suicide after the second act - all these and other signs that characterize the behavior of an impulsive suicide are characteristic of Chekhov Treplev.

Reading the sequel to "The Seagull", you will inevitably think that you are dealing with the author's consciousness, oversaturated with detective production.-

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1. A. Conan Doyle has a short story "The Death of a Russian Landowner", in which Holmes proves to a surprised Watson that F. M. Dostoevsky completely misunderstood the story of a real crime, artistically reflected in the novel "The Brothers Karamazov". According to Holmes, Smerdyakov slandered himself, and someone else killed him. "But who is the killer then?" Watson asks, dumbfounded. "The Romans asked: "Who benefits from this?". Let's listen to them and determine the motive " - says Holmes (Conan Doyle A. The death of a Russian landowner / / Book Review. 1991. N 24. P. 8) and further convincingly proves that everyone could have killed, including Alyosha Karamazov. But Holmes does not interfere with the text of Dostoevsky's novel, whereas B. Akunin "straightens" the plot of the play. His Mandrel suggests following two " world-old detective recommendations: Cui prodest and Cherchez la femme ("Look for someone who benefits" and "Look for a woman"). The recommendations are crass, but no less correct - almost all murders are committed for these two reasons."

The detective element, the advantages and disadvantages of which were known to the author of "The Swedish Match" and "Drama on the Hunt", can be included in the picture of human life, but to reduce Chekhov's world to a detective means to narrow this world to one riddle and guess "who benefits" and exclude all other mysteries of existence. In the second" Seagull", the concentration of the plot around one event led to an increase in drama, and it is even more problematic to call this "Seagull" a comedy.

Having partially rewritten and completed "The Seagull", B. Akunin retained the basic logic of Chekhov's characters, the speech style and behavioral repertoire of each character. But at the same time, a talented stylist, apparently, deliberately exceeds the limit, which is why many characters acquire grotesque features. All the characters become more unbalanced, the moments of psychopathy in the behavior of Treplev, Nina, Masha clearly increase. Treplev's depression in the second" Seagull " develops into a dangerous madness. Sorin's suspiciousness about his ill health turns out to be either an obvious simulation, or mania. Sorin himself, who kills his nephew in order to save him from the humiliations of a mental hospital, resembles the heroes of the thriller S. King. The role of the actress is inherent in real life not only Arkadina, but also Nina Zarechnaya, who clearly "plays" in the second "Seagull". The creative confrontation between Treplev and Trigorin teeters on the edge of envy and hatred. In addition, Trigorin appears as a bisexual who shows a sensual attraction to Treplev, which gives a new reason for Arkadina's reproaches. The relationship between Treplev and Masha is turned out, and Masha's mother is called a "pimp" by her husband. Masha tells her husband in front of everyone that their child is from a chatterbox-

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va yi, like Dostoevsky's heroine, experiences passion-hatred for the hero of her novel.

The features of the decadence era are significantly enhanced in the second"Chaika". This also applies to visual images, sound images and sound symbols that create the background in B. Akunin's play. In addition to the wind, the remarks repeat the rumble or rumble of thunder, lightning flashes, the sound of rain, the clock striking, and the soundless finale of Chekhov's "The Seagull" clearly contrasts with the sound crescendo of the finale of Akunin's play: "Everyone freezes in immobility, the light fades, one seagull is illuminated by a weak ray. Her glassy eyes light up. The cry of a seagull is heard, gradually increasing and at the end almost deafening. To these sounds the curtain closes" (158).

The very image of the seagull becomes a symbol of bloodthirsty aggression, not sacrifice, in B. Akunin's play. In Chekhov's The Seagull, Treplev ("Soon I will kill myself in the same way") and Nina Zarechnaya (through Trigorin's phrase about a girl who is "happy and free like a seagull" and who was destroyed by a man "like this seagull")are likened to a dead bird with her own confession: "I am a seagull...". In the comedy by B. Akunin, Nina, who confessed to the murder of Treplev, mutters: "I'm a seagull... I am a seagull...", either remembering the old self, or reviving a different side of the symbolic image of this bird. Masha, confessing to the murder of Treplev, also likens herself to a seagull: "This is not Zarechnaya-a seagull, this is me-a seagull. Konstantin Gavrilovich shot me just like that, for no reason, so that a stupid black-headed bird wouldn't fly over him!" (133); "I was standing outside the window and thought: enough, enough. Even a seagull, if it is tortured for a long time, will probably hit with its beak. So I will bite him on the crown of his head, or on his high, clear forehead, or on his temple, where the blue vein quivers" (134).

The real bearer of the idea of innocent suffering associated with the symbolism of the seagull is Akunin Trigorin, who, accusing Arkadina, shouts: "here, on the shore of this magical lake, my heart is left! Your son shot him like a white bird. I'm a seagull!" The most paradoxical is the recognition of the balanced Dorn, who suddenly acts as a defender of all life on earth, both from the hunter Treplev and from Treplev, the artist, who already in his play claimed that "all life is extinct." He calls Treplev a criminal, "cleaner than Jack the Ripper": "And it all started with this bird - it fell first. (He stretches out his hand to the seagull.) I have avenged you, poor seagull!" These words conclude the comedy of B. Akunin, and after them the stuffed avenged bird comes to life.

The second act of B. Akunin's "The Seagull" consists of eight takes, each of which presents the exposure and self-recognition of the killer. At the same time, nine characters of the play "challenge" and prove-

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their right to murder: Nina kills, fearing that the distraught Treplev will kill Trigorin; teacher Medvedenko - for the sake of the future of their family; Shamraev or his wife Polina Andreevna - because they can no longer bear the humiliation of their daughter; Sorin - to save their beloved nephew from the madhouse; Arkadina - out of jealousy; Trigorin - to save their beloved nephew from the madhouse. understand the psychology of the killer and use it in their work; finally, the lead investigator Dorn sees in the elimination of the hunter Treplev fulfilling some kind of environmental mission. At the same time, B. Akunin uses a rare move in detective literature, when the investigator turns out to be a criminal.

B. Akunin manages to preserve the components of Chekhov's individual style. It expands the Shakespearean layer of Chekhov's play (See about it: Golovacheva A. G. Klassicheskie podzhizheniya: Chekhov - Pushkin - Shakespeare [Classical Approaches: Chekhov-Pushkin-Shakespeare]. 1998. N 4), introducing two new quotations from Hamlet. One of them is uttered by Arkadina when she hears that a bullet entered Treplev's right ear and exited through his left eye: "And the juice of the damned henbane poured into the hole of the ear...". In the scene of a fainting spell played out by Zarechnaya, Dorn speaks down to her: "Come on, get up. That you're lying there like a drowned Ophelia." In Dorn's speech, B. Akunin retains musical quotations, while sometimes enhancing the tragicomic effect inherent in Chekhov. So, entering the room where the deceased lies, Dorn sings from "Ivan Susanin": "The poor horse fell in the field."

The excess of the Chekhov style measure is also characteristic of the development of a bestial theme: there are many references to birds and animals, insects. A number of such references, as we remember, are contained in Treplev's play ("lions, eagles and partridges, horned deer, geese, spiders, silent fish, starfish"," cranes and May beetles"; Treplev says that self-love "sucks my blood, sucks like a snake..."; Trigorin about me:" I am tossing from side to side like a fox hunted by dogs..."; Sorin talks about bees, cows, horses; Treplev mentions the miller in" Rusalka", who" said that he was a raven", and at the same time reports about Nina, who"signed herself a Seagull".

In" The Seagull " by B. Akunin, already in the first remark, in addition to books, in the description of Treplev's office, stuffed animals of various kinds are mentioned, which can be considered an analogue of the characters in his play and proof of a mental disorder: "Everywhere - on the cabinet, on the shelves, and just on the floor-there are stuffed animals and birds; crows, badgers, hares, cats, dogs, etc. In the most prominent place, as if at the head of all this army, is a stuffed large gull with outstretched wings." After the news of her son's death, Arkadina compares herself to a "wounded wolf": "Boris, take me to some remote corner where I can howl like a wounded wolf." Medvedenko calls himself a "booger"; he says about Treplev: "He sits like a raven over the

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prey." Sorin says that Treplev used a gun or revolver "to shoot anything that came across-birds, small animals, recently in the village he shot a pig." Shamraev picks it up: "What a pig! He shot a rooster in the chicken coop the day before yesterday." And again Sorin:" (...) And on Thursday, Kostya shot the Catch-up guy - just like that, for nothing. A good old dog, half-deaf, lived out his life in peace." Trigorin calls Arkadina "the spider", and himself "her prey". Strengthening the bestial theme, apparently, should contribute to strengthening the comic effect in B. Akunin's play.

The gun, which appeared in Chekhov's play, is replaced in the second "Seagull" by a grotesque revolver, which appears so often (both in the remarks of the first act and in the speech of the characters in the second act) that it could be included in the list of actors. Already in the first scene, while reading his own manuscript and in a further conversation with Nina, Treplev does not let go of the "big revolver" from his hands. This follows from numerous remarks. He alternates between stroking it "like a kitten" and "aiming at an invisible enemy" and" banging the revolver on the table " while listening to Nina; he doesn't let go of the gun even when he hugs her, and after she's gone, his "eyes are half-closed, his hand with the revolver hanging limp."

Through the mouth of Dr. Dorn, the relationship between Chekhov's hero and the hero of the detective series B. Akunin is established: "My ancestors, the von Dorns, moved to Russia during the time of Alexey Mikhailovich, very quickly became Russified and terribly bred. Some became the Fondornovs, others the Fandorins, while our branch was simply truncated to the Dornovs." B. Akunin's novels belong to the genre of "postmodern detective stories", which are characterized by a diverse game author's position and intertextuality. If B. Akunin himself pointed to Dorn's surname as the literary source of Erast Fandorin's surname, then another researcher discovers the French roots of B. Akunin's character: "Fandorin is a French surname, Fandor, if you remember, together with Juve hunted Fantomas." He also writes that one can say about the works of B. Akunin that they are "not serious, and at the same time firmly made" (Lesin E. Fandorin and Fantomas // Book Review. 2000. N 14. P. 16). The same judgment can be attributed to B. Akunin's comedy "The Seagull".

Kazakhstan, Alma Ata

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