The Duel

The Duel is a novella by Anton Chekhov originally published in 1891; it was adapted for the screen by Iosif Kheifits in 1973 (as The Bad Good Man, starring Vladimir Vysotsky) and by Dover Kosashvili in 2010 (as The Duel). Publication "The Duel" was first serialized in Aleksey Suvorin's newspaper Novoye Vremya from October–November 1891, after which Suvorin edited the novella and published it as a separate edition. The book enjoyed nine re-issues during the 1890s. Chekhov included "The Duel" in Volume 6 of his Collected Works, published by Adolf Marks in 1899–1901. Background Chekhov started writing the novella in January 1891. According to Mikhail Chekhov, while working upon it Chekhov regularly met with the zoologist and writer Vladimir Wagner. The two had lengthy discussions, one of which was on the subject of the then-popular concept of "the right of the strong one", which formed the basis of the philosophy of main character Von Koren, for whom Wagner apparently served as a template. Plot Ivan Andreitch Laevsky is an educated Russian aristocrat who has run off to a Black Sea village with a married woman, Nadezhda Fyodorovna. When the novella begins, he has fallen out of love with Nadezhda Fyodorovna, who is having affairs with other men, and wants to leave her. He receives a letter informing him that her husband has died; however, he hides the letter in a book and does not tell her about it. That, he says, would be like inviting her to marry him.