Photograph courtesy archivio GBB / Contrasto / Redux

Anton Chekhov’s “Sakhalin Island,” his long investigation of prison conditions in Siberia, is the best work of journalism written in the nineteenth century. The fact that so few people know of the book, and that among Western critics (not necessarily Russian ones) it is considered a minor masterpiece instead of a major one—inferior to Alexander Herzen’s journals, for example—has something to do with how journalism is rarely considered literature. But it has even more to do with the lies that Chekhov told to get access to the prison colony.

Chekhov began preparing to go to Siberia in 1889. This was soon after his brother’s death from tuberculosis and not so long after learning that he, too, had the disease, and was likely to die. Getting permission to make the three-month journey to visit the prison colony required Chekhov to tell many different lies to many different people. He told some that he was doing an academic thesis to complete medical-degree requirements. To others, he said that he was taking a simple survey of the size of household groups. This second lie, combined with the first, is why “Sakhalin Island” is often mistakenly seen as medical anthropology instead of what it always was: investigative journalism. As Chekhov explains of the island:

In order as far as possible to visit all the inhabited spots, and to become somewhat closer acquainted with the life of the majority of the exiles, I resorted to a device which, in my position, seemed the only way. I carried out a census. In the settlements that I visited I went round all the cabins and noted down the heads of the households, members of their families, tenants and workmen. To make my work easier, and to cut down on time, I was very obligingly offered assistants, but as my main aim in conducting the census was not its results but the impressions received during the making of it, I used somebody else’s help only on rare occasions.

“Sakhalin Island” was published as a series of nine articles in the journal New Times. In its own time, it was seen as investigative journalism. Now—owing to the way certain things get misremembered, as well as to the fact that there is nothing else like “Sakhalin Island” in Chekhov’s bibliography—critics don’t know how to handle the work, and the book is often viewed through the lies that Chekhov told.

The reason “Sakhalin Island” is the greatest work of journalism from the nineteenth century is that, unlike other major journalistic works from that period (for example, journalism from the Crimean War), the book has not aged. There are two causes for this. One is technical, and the other is a matter of sensibility.

The nine articles that became “Sakhalin Island” are each so long that they give Chekhov the space to build up characters and narrative arcs. Second, Chekhov’s articles are mostly about closely observed humanity. His sentences deliver news, but they are primarily concerned with how human beings live their lives. In Chekhov’s case, unlike that of his contemporaries, this observation of human behavior is lacking in self-censorship. He is willing to write about anything, and he is willing to see everything with compassion. Here is a typical detail that Chekhov developed, and the stance that he took towards it:

I was told that at one time there had been benches standing on the path to the lighthouse, but they had been forced to take them away because, while out strolling, the convicts and settled exiles had written on them and had carved with their knives filthy lampoons and all sorts of obscenities. There are a lot of free lovers of this so-called “wall literature” too, but, in penal servitude, the cynicism surpasses all limits and absolutely no comparison may be made with it. Here, not only benches and the walls of backyards, but even the love letters, are revolting. It is remarkable that a man will write and carve various abominations on a bench while at the same time he is feeling lost, abandoned and profoundly unhappy.

When I read something like this, I swoon. Because human beings are the same and have always been the same and will always be the same, it is possible to read “Sakhalin Island” and feel like you are reading something that is occurring right now. Every time I read the book, I am captivated by moments such as this: