Come incontrai Čechov di Ivan Šmelëv. Una memoria tra allusione e metatesto

How I met Chekhov by Ivan Shmelyov. A memoir between allusion and metatext Marco Sabbatini For several reasons, Ivan Shmelyov’s writing is strongly linked to the prose of Anton Chekhov. During the exile in Paris, Shmelyov focuses his reflections on Chekhov, offering a peculiar portrait of the writer in the trilogy How I Met Chekhov (Kak ja vstrechalsya s Chekhovym, 1934). The author uses a hybrid narrative form, oscillating between memoir and short narrative essay. The autofiction interferes here with Chekhov’s short stories. In this way, Shmelyov deliberately reproduces Chekhov’s style, he intends to pay homage to his prose master and affirm his own writing in the sign of the realist tradition, in which emerges an inclination towards irony. This article will highlight Shmelyov’s narrative strategies through these autobiographical memoirs, above all through The Merry Marriage, the last story in the trilogy, which stands out for its metatextual implications and allusions to marriage as a recurring motif in Chekhov’s repertoire. Keywords: Chekhov, Shmelyov, non fiction prose, emigration