THREE SISTERS

The Russian people remember author and playwright Anton Chekhov as an intellectual deeply concerned with the state of Russia and her moral landscape at the turn of the twentieth century. Although his work may at first appear light or simplistic, beneath the surface rushes a powerful current of agitation, anxiety, and foreboding: a warning that if Russia continues down her current path, it will mean destruction. Three Sisters, written in 1901, is one of Chekhov’s best known plays and one that perfectly captures the uncertainty of his time. The narrative follows the Prozorovs, a family of well-educated but impoverished aristocrats, over a period of several years, tracing their struggles and ultimate failure to achieve what each wants most. To orient ourselves towards this enigmatic work, we might take a step back in time and view the play through the eyes of faithful Old Russia, untouched by the cold rationalism that had come to dominate intellectual culture by the late nineteenth century. Although Chekhov’s own religious feelings are ambiguous, a reading of the play informed by the Church history he was undoubtedly familiar with illuminates the nuances of the characters and suggests the possibility for broader commentary on society, femininity, and spiritual life. Most obviously, interesting parallels can be drawn between the Prozorov sisters and the story of Saint Sophia and her three daughters, whom the Church remembers as martyrs.

According to ancient Christian tradition, Saint Sophia was a widow with three daughters, whom she named after the three theological virtues: Faith was the oldest daughter, Hope the middle, and Love the youngest. Sophia herself is named for another virtue, as her name means Wisdom. This means that Faith, Hope, and Love are the daughters of Wisdom in both a literal and metaphorical sense. One can suggest that the play’s three sisters, Olga, Irina, and Masha, display temperaments and characteristics corresponding to each of the three virtues. Olga, the oldest, can be connected with Faith, Irina with Hope, and Masha with Love. The birth order of Chekhov’s characters is also relevant. Because Faith is the oldest daughter, she is the first to be questioned, tried, tortured, and put to death by the Emperor Hadrian—in other words, the life of Faith is the first to be opened and the first to be closed. It is the same way with Olga, the oldest of the Prozorov daughters, who is both the first to speak and the last to speak during the play’s four acts. But in this new world, Olga Sergeyevna Prozorova takes on a new layer as the character in whom Faith and reason can coexist, the practical sister and the one to whom others come for advice. She assumes a caring, maternal role both in her home and at the local school, where she is first a teacher and later a reluctant headmistress. Overburdened with responsibility, she frequently expresses the sense that a great weight rests on her shoulders, and, like many of the characters, suffers from overwork and lack of meaning. 

In another parallel, the theme of suffering pervades both the account of Saint Sophia’s daughters and the three sisters of the play, but it is certainly suffering of a different sort. Faith, Hope, and Love suffer indescribable tortures because they have found a meaning that completely overcomes the present life; their concern is not for this world but for the next. By contrast, the Prozorov sisters seem completely absorbed in the present. Overworked, understimulated, and underloved in less-than-desirable circumstances, they lament the state their lives have come to, powerless in their privilege to repair their spirits. All three sisters, it could be argued, lead fairly self-centered lives. It is only in extraordinary events that they occasionally snap out of their malaise, and Olga especially who springs to action, leaving her own worries behind to help someone else. In Act 3, Olga is the first to open the house and its resources to the victims of the disastrous fire. Later, she is the only person to stand up for Anfisa, the elderly servant whom she considers a member of the family regardless of her utility (or lack thereof). Olga shows us, through a rather unremarkable life punctuated by acts of kindness and generosity, that Faith plods patiently on even when her circumstances are not ideal. Olga has comparatively little to do for the bulk of the play; her drama is little. But Faith marks the beginning of the end, the cover that opens and closes the story and protects the characters inside, and Olga’s practicality positions her as a natural leader who looks out for others as well as herself.

But this simplistic analysis is perhaps too naive. We cannot escape the nagging feeling that the certainty and innocence of a saint’s daughter could only exist in a very ancient world, when Faith was newly born into the world. In the new world, Chekhov’s uncertain Russia, Faith is dying. She has lost the spirit to fight for herself. And a key element is absent both in the spiritual landscape and in our analysis. If we are to connect the story of Saint Sophia with Three Sisters, we must admit that the central figure is missing: Sophia herself. Aside from a passing remark on her final resting place in Moscow, the girls’ mother is never mentioned. The very language of the play and the characters’ own words seem to want us to believe that it is the masculine that is missing, that the absent father is the source of the family’s difficulties. Olga’s first words in Act 1, Scene 1 lament the loss of their patriarch, the symbol of order, structure, and authority. But Saint Sophia’s story tells us otherwise. Hers is a distinctly feminine history. Sophia is the one who counsels and encourages her daughters before their trials, and without Wisdom to guide them, the story of Faith, Hope, and Love may have turned out quite differently. This is the true tragedy of the play, and the reason the sisters never find what they need: they are looking for happiness in the wrong place. It is not the father whose absence has crippled them, but the mother. For the Prozorovs, it is the lack of the mother, the lack of Wisdom, that limits each of the sisters and prevents the girls from reaching their fullest potential. In a still broader sense, with the death of what once was mother Russia—the noble and aristocratic Russia of their ancestors—virtue is helpless. Still, Olga tries. In assuming a rational nature, she seems to have taken on her mother’s virtue as well as her own. But reason is not quite the same as Wisdom, and so there is still a lack. In the old world, we are told, the three virtues are united by Wisdom. But in the new world, they must struggle alone. Olga is able to give sound advice to her family, but with her final words, Faith is left longing for Wisdom: “If we only knew.”