“Počemu Zimoj Ne Byvaet Groma?”: Gurov, Job, and Chekhovian Epistemology in ‘Dama s Sobačkoj’

This article interprets Chekhov's famous ‘Dama s sobachkoi’ as less a love story than a work about knowledge and its limitations. The analysis focuses on the interplay between scientific and religious discourses in the text as represented, broadly, by the story's two protagonists. This dichotomy, however, becomes complicated in an episode where Gurov pronounces authoritative scientific statements about the universe which nonetheless allude to a religious intertext, specifically the Book of Job. The article traces Gurov's gradual abandonment of his divine, omniscient position and explores the ethical implications of this transformation and, more broadly, the ethical aspect of Chekhovian epistemology.