Book Review - Kashtanka

In Chekov's short story, Kashtanka, a loveable and innocent dog named Kashtanka is accidentally lost in the winter street by her drunken, abusive, carpenter master. She is rescued from death in the cold by a sympathetic circus clown animal trainer, who nurses her back to well-fed health, introduces her to his other performing animals, including a lazy cat, loquacious goose, and kindly pig, and trains her to take part in his act. Kashtanka is re-christened Tyotya, and after a brief period of nostalgia nearly forgets her old life and learns to love the clown and doing tricks for him. When the goose dies, we see how much the clown cares for his animals, too - he weeps and mourns as for a human. We cannot but believe he loves Tyotya no less.

But on the fateful day of Kashtanka-Tyotya's very first live circus performance, her old master happens to be in the audience. Recognizing his lost dog in the circus ring, and being the dolt that he is, he whistles and calls to her, upon which Kashtanka runs to her old master reflexively. What, exactly, transpires after that between the clown and the carpenter isn't related, but in the last chapter of the book, Kashtanka is doggedly and lovingly following at the heels of her old master, who smells of "sawdust and glue", and her life with the clown now seems to her no more substantial than a dream.

This is a clear metaphor for the willing, animal-like subservience of the proletariat to its capitalist exploiters. Chekov was ahead of his time in presenting to us the story of Kashtanka as a dialectic tragedy. Kashtankas of the world, unite!