Affected Realism and Imitated Perception: Ekphrasis and Orthodox Space in Leskov and Chekhov

Nikolai Leskov and Anton Chekhov frequently portray Russian Orthodox sites and services in their fiction. Examining Leskov’s novella The Sealed Angel, and three early Chekhov stories, this article explores how the two authors represent Orthodox liturgical space through the Byzantine technique of ekphrasis, a descriptive method used to present church architecture in sermons, hymns, encomia, and prayers. Rather than objectively describing church architecture and interior space, ekphrasis reproduces the site’s aesthetic and affective impact on the speaker, who recounts this idealized experience to evoke an emotional response. Ekphrastic technique therefore contradicts mimetic procedures of realist representation, prioritizing the impression produced by the material image over descriptive accuracy. Leskov and Chekhov present Orthodox sites as they are imaginatively perceived, in idealist approximations of liturgical space that more faithfully reflect the nature of liturgical experience. Both authors dramatize character point of view and voice to call forth an embodied, affective experience of Orthodox space—transposing the reader to a fictive setting, and simulating spatial presence and perception. By reviving classical ekphrasis, Leskov and Chekhov also parody realist mimetic conventions, and advance the historical development of realism itself.