Sakhalin Island (book)
Sakhalin Island () is a book by Anton Chekhov written and published in 1891–1893. It consists of "travel notes" written after Chekhov's trip to the island of Sakhalin in summer and autumn of 1890. The book is based on the writer's personal travel experience, as well as on extensive statistical data collected by him. The English translation came out in 1967 under the title The Island: A Journey to Sakhalin. In the opinion of some critics, the book was influenced by The House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Siberia and Katorga by Sergei Maksimov (who is repeatedly mentioned in the text). Background At the time Sakhalin was a frontier prison colony of the Russian Empire. In 1890, Chekhov undertook an arduous journey by train, horse-drawn carriage, and river steamer to the Russian Far East and the katorga, or penal colony, on Sakhalin Island, north of Japan, where he spent three months interviewing thousands of convicts and settlers for a census. The letters Chekhov wrote during the two-and-a-half-month journey to Sakhalin are considered to be among his best. His remarks to his sister about Tomsk were to become notorious. Chekhov witnessed much on Sakhalin that shocked and angered him,