Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (Анто́н Па́влович Че́хов) (January 29 1860 (Jan. 17 O.S) in Taganrog, Russia – July 14 or July 15 (July 1 or 2) 1904 in Badenweiler, Germany) was a major Russian playwright and perhaps the finest modern writer of the short story.

Although better known in his homeland for his outstanding short stories, Chekhov is a major influence on twentieth-century drama through his use of mood, apparent trivialities and inaction to highlight the internal psychology of his characters. In particular, his four major plays--The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard--are frequently revived in modern productions. Chekhov wrote several hundred short stories in his lifetime, countless of them anthologized in contemporary collections and many featuring some of the best short fiction ever written.

Life

Early Life

Chekhov born in Taganrog, a small provincial port on the Sea of Azov, in southern Russia. He was the son of a grocer and grandson to a serf who had bought his own freedom, and Chekhov was the third of six children. His father was a strict disciplinarian and a religious zealot: Chekhov had a demanding livelihood, needing to wake up early and stay up late to keep the grocery store, though he was allowed to sing in the church choir. Young Anton had a love of practical jokes, was a frequent patron of amateur theatricals and had extraordinary gifts as a micmic.

Chekhov's father Pavel run into serious financial difficulties in 1875, his business bankrupt, and he was forced to escape to Moscow to avoid being sent to prison. For three years Anton stayed behind to finish school by giving private tuition for a creditor's son, selling off household goods, and later, working in a clothing warehouse. By 1879 Chekov completed his studies and rejoined his family in Moscow under a scholarship to read medicine at the Moscow University.

Early Writings

In a bid to support his family, Chekhov started writing short, humorous sketches and vignettes of Russian life, many under the pseudonym "Antosha Chekhonte". His first published piece appeared in a St Petersburg weekly Strekoza ("Dragonfly") in March, 1880. It is not known how many stories Chekhov wrote during this period, but his output certainly was prodigious, and he rapidly earned a reputation as a comic, if rather slight, chronicler of Russian street life. Yet his talent was already recognized one of the leading publishers of the time, Nicolas Leykin, who was the owner of Oskolki ("Fragments"), to which Chekhov began submitting some of his finer works. However Leykin restricted Chekhov's length in submission--limiting him to only comic sketches and a page and a half in length, something which perhaps gruelled into Chekhov his trademark economical style but also restricted the growth of his talent.

Chekhov qualified as a doctor in 1884, but he continued writing for weekly periodicals and in 1885 began submitting to Petersburgskaya gazeta ("The Petersburg Gazette") longer works of more somber nature which was rejected by Leykin. By December 1885 he was invited to write for one of the most respected papers of St Petersburg, Novoye vremya ("New Times"), owned and edited by the millionaire magnate Alexis Suvorin. By 1886 Chekhov was becoming a well-known writer. Dmitrii Grigorovich , one of the many writers who were attracted to Chekhov's stories, persuaded him to take his talents seriously. In an immensely fruitful year Chekhov wrote over a hundred stories and published his first collection "Motley Tales" {Pestrye rasskazy) with support from Suvorin, and in the following year the short story collection "At Dusk" (V sumerkakh) won Chekhov the coveted Pushkin prize. This would marked the beginnings of a highly productive career for the writer.

Literary Maturity and Early Plays

In 1887, forced by overwork and ill health -- the first signs of a tuberculosis ailment which was to kill him -- Chekhov undertook a trip to eastern Ukraine. On his return, he started writing the long short story The Steppe (Step), which was eventually published in a serious literary journal Severny vestnik ("Northern Herald"). This short story marks a convenient point in marking Chekhov's mature works, having the prestige to published in a leading serious literary periodical of the time and showing the style and concerns which were to be the hallworks of his later fiction.

After a successful production of The Seagull by the Moscow Art Theatre, he wrote three more plays for the same company: Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. In 1901 he married Olga Leonardovna Knipper (1870-1959), an actress who performed in his plays.

The movement toward Naturalism in theatre that was sweeping Europe reached its highest artistic peak in Russia in 1898 with the formation of the Moscow Art Theatre (later called the Moscow Academy Art Theatre). Its name became synonymous with that of Chekhov, whose plays about the day-to-day life of the landed gentry achieved a delicate poetic realism that was years ahead of its time. Konstantin Stanislavsky, its director, became the 20th century's most influential theorist on acting.

Chekhov visited western Europe in the company of A.S. Suvorin , a wealthy newspaper proprietor and the publisher of much of Chekhov's own work. Their long and close friendship caused Chekhov some unpopularity, owing to the politically reactionary character of Suvorin's newspaper, Novoye vremya ("New Time"). Eventually Chekhov broke with Suvorin over the attitude taken by the paper toward the notorious Alfred Dreyfus affair in France, with Chekhov championing Dreyfus.

Chekhov spent many of his forty four years severely ill with a case of advanced tuberculosis contracted from his patients in the late 1880s. This illness forced him to spend long periods of time in Nice, France and later in Yalta in the Crimea. These temperate southern climates were far more accomodating than that of his native, preferred Russia.

Chekhov died of complications from his tuberculosis in Badenweiler, Germany where he had been visiting a special clinic for treatment. He is now buried in Novodevichy Cemetery. His last sentence was "Ich sterbe" (I die) in German language.

Assessment

Anton Chekhov was Russia's, and perhaps the world's, foremost story writer. He was also a pioneering dramatist whose four last plays (The Seagull, The Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya, and The Cherry Orchard) are the opposite of conventionally dramatic, depending for their impact (as do his stories) on hints and cunning anticlimaxes.

Late in the 19th century Anton Chekhov revolutionized the short story. No other storywriter so consistently as Chekhov turned out first-rate works. Though often compared to Guy de Maupassant, Chekhov is much less interested in constructing a well-plotted story; nothing much actually happens in Chekhov's stories, though much is revealed about his characters and the quality of their lives. While Maupassant focuses on event, Chekhov keeps his eye on character.

The typical Chekhovian story has little external plot. The point of the story is most often found in what happens within a given character, and that is conveyed indirectly, by suggestion or by significant detail. It is often said that nothing happens in Chekhov's stories and plays, but he compensates for any lack of outward excitement by his original techniques for developing internal drama. His main themes are work and love, but his characters find lasting satisfaction in neither activity. His younger characters are usually portrayed as victims of illusion, the older ones as victims of disillusionment. The passage of time is a constant preoccupation, as are the trivialities of life and the desultory and unsuccessful search for its meaning.

Especially noteworthy amongst his stories are "Skuchnaya istoriya" (written 1889; "A Dreary Story"), "Duel" (written 1891; "The Duel"), "Palata No. 6" (written 1892; "Ward Number Six"), "Kryzhovnik" (written 1898; "Gooseberries"), "Dushechka" (written 1899; "The Darling"), "Dama s sobachkoy" (written 1899; "The Lady with the Dog"), "Arkhiyerey" (written 1902; "The Bishop"), and "Nevesta" (written 1903; "The Betrothed").

Stories like "The Grasshopper" (1892), "The Darling" (1898), and "In the Ravine" (1900)--to name only three--all reveal Chekhov's perception, his compassion, and his subtle humour and irony. One critic says of Chekhov that he is no moralist--he simply says "you live badly, ladies and gentlemen," but his smile has the indulgence of a very wise man.

As samples of the Russian epistolary art, Chekhov's letters have been rated second only to Aleksandr Pushkin's by the literary historian D.S. Mirsky. Although Chekhov is still chiefly known for his plays, critical opinion shows signs of establishing the stories--and particularly those that were written after 1888--as an even more significant and creative literary achievement.

In his dramatic works Chekhov sought to convey the texture of everyday life, moving away from traditional ideas of plot and conventions of dramatic speech. Dialogue in his plays is not smooth or continuous: characters interrupt each other, several different conversations often take place at the same time, and lengthy pauses occur when no one speaks at all. His plays commonly feature the struggle of a sensitive individual to maintain his integrity against the temptations of worldly success. A recurring theme is the pointlessness of radical, human/mechanical change, versus the powerful inertia of slow natural/organic cycles.

One of the actors once told Chekhov that Stanislavsky intended to have frogs croaking, the sound of dragonflies, and dogs barking on the stage. "Why?" Chekhov asked with a note of dissatisfaction in his voice. "It is realistic," the actor replied. "Realistic," Chekhov repeated with a laugh, and after a slight pause he said: "The stage is art. There is a canvas of Kranskoi (a famous Russian painter) in which he wonderfully depicts human faces and substituted a real one. The nose will be realistic but the picture will be spoiled."

"The stage reflects in itself the quintessence of life, so one must not introduce on it anything that is superfluous," he said.

Chekhov disliked Symbolist drama and Konstantin's play parodies it in The Seagull. All the same, he confessed that one of his great influences was Maeterlink . And then there was Ibsen: without The Wild Duck (one of Chekhov's favorite plays) The Seagull would not be as it is, indeed perhaps would not exist at all.

Perhaps one of his best known contribution is the Chekhov's dictum (or just Chekhov's gun) saying: If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there.

Influence

Though already celebrated by the Russian literary public at the time of his death, Chekhov did not become internationally famous until the years after World War I, by which time the translations of Constance Garnett (into English) and of others had helped to publicize his work. Yet his elusive, superficially guileless style of writing--in which what is left unsaid often seems so much more important than what is said--has defied effective analysis by literary critics, as well as effective imitation by creative writers

Chekhov's plays were immensely popular in England in the 1920s and have become classics of the British stage. In the United States his fame came somewhat later, through the influence of Stanislavsky's technique for achieving realistic acting. American playwrights such as Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and Clifford Odets have used Chekhovian techniques, and few important writers of short stories in the 20th century can have escaped Chekhov's influence entirely.

The work by British playwright Michael Frayn is often compared to that of Anton Chekhov for its focus on humorous family situations and its insights into society. Frayn also translated and adapted several plays by Chekhov.

The delicate stories by Katherine Mansfield New Zealand-born English master of the short story reveal the influence of Anton Chekhov.

John Cheever has been called "the Chekhov of the suburbs" for his ability to capture the drama and sadness of the lives of his characters by revealing the undercurrents of apparently insignificant events.

German theater director Peter Stein , the artistic director of the politically radical Berlin Schaubühne, included in his final productions for the Schaubühne Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters (1984).

French film director Louis Malle's last film, Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), follows a rehearsal in New York City of Uncle Vanya, a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. Starring the same two principle actors of My Dinner with André, Vanya on 42nd Street blurs the distinction between life and theatrical performance.

British stage and motion picture actor Sir Anthony Hopkins directed, scored, and starred in 1996 the film August, an adaptation of the play Uncle Vanya.

The American theater critic and educator Robert Brustein has adapted numerous plays, including works by Chekhov and Ibsen.

The Russian film director Nikita Sergeevich Mikhalkov made Dark Eyes (1987) in Italy with Marcello Mastroianni, based on the short stories by Anton Chekhov, a writer who has deeply influenced him.

Master of the short story, the British author Victor Sawdon Pritchett's short stories are prized for their craftsmanship and comic irony and have been compared to those of Anton Chekhov.

Playwright and character actor Wallace Shawn has played in the film made from the Anton Chekhov play Vanya on 42d Street (1994), where he played Vanya.

Belgian-born American playwright Jean Claude Van Italliehas also adapted works by Chekhov and other Russian writers in English dramatic versions.

Lanford Wilson is one of the most prolific playwrights in contemporary American theater. His version of Anton Chekhov's The Three Sisters was produced in New York City in 1997.

Works

Plays

• That Worthless Fellow Platonov (c.1881) - one act
• On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco (1886, 1902)
• Ivanov (1887) - four acts
• The Bear (1888) - one act comedy
• The Proposal or A Marriage Proposal (c.1888-1889) - one act
• The Wood Demon (1889) - four-act comedy
• The Seagull (1896)
• Uncle Vanya (1899-1900) - based on The Wood Demon
• The Three Sisters (1901)
• The Cherry Orchard (1904) (Set in the Russian village of Abramtsevo Colony, which is famous for its folk art.)

Nonfiction

• A Journey to Sakhalin (1895), including:
  • Saghalien [or Sakhalin] Island (1891-1895)
  • Across Siberia
  • Letters

Short stories

Many of these were written under the pseudonym "Antosha Chekhonte".

• "Intrigues" (1879-1884) - nine stories
• "Late-Blooming Flowers" (1882)
• "The Swedish Match" (1883)
• "Lights" (1883-1888)
• "Oysters" (1884)
• "Perpetuum Mobile" (1884)
• A Living Chronology (1885)
• "Motley Stories" ("Pëstrye Rasskazy") (1886)
• "Excellent People" (1886)
• "Misery" (1886)
• "The Princess" (1886)
• "The Scholmaster" (1886)
• "A Work of Art" (1886)
• "Hydrophobia" (1886-1901)
• "At Home" (1887)
• "The Beggar" (1887)
• "The Doctor" (1887)
• "Enemies" (1887)
• "The Examining Magistrate" (1887)
• "Happiness" (1887)
• "The Kiss" (1887)
• "On Easter Eve" (1887)
• "Typhus" (1887)
• "Volodya" (1887)
• "The Steppe" (1888) - won the Pushkin Prize
• "An Attack of Nerves" (1888)
• "An Awkward Business" (1888)
• "The Beauties" (1888)
• "The Swan Song" (1888)
• "Sleepy" (1888)
• "The Name-Day Party" (1888)
• "A Boring Story" (1889)
• "Gusev" (1890)
• "The Horse Stealers" (1890)
• "The Duel" (1891)
• "Peasant Wives" (1891)
• "Ward No 6" (1892)
• "In Exile" (1892)
• "The Grasshopper" (1892)
• "Neighbours" (1892)
• "Terror" (1892)
• "My Wife" (1892)
• "The Butterfly" (1892)
• "The Two Volodyas" (1893)
• "An Anonymous Story" (1893)
• "The Black Monk" (1894)
• "The Head Gardener's Story" (1894)
• "Rothschild's Fiddle" (1894)
• "The Student" (1894)
• "The Teacher of Literature" (1894)
• "A Woman's Kingdom" (1894)
• "Three Years" (1895)
• "Ariadne" (1895)
• "Murder" (1895)
• "The House with an Attic" (1896)
• "My Life" (1896)
• "Peasants" (1897)
• "In the Cart" (1897)
• "The Man in a Case", "Gooseberries", "About Love" - the 'Little Trilogy' (1898)
• "Ionych" (1898)
• "A Doctor's Visit" (1898)
• "The New Villa" (1898)
• "On Official Business" (1898)
• "The Darling" (1899)
• "The Lady with the Dog" (1899)
• "At Christmas" (1899)
• "In the Ravine" (1900)
• "The Bishop" (1902)
• "The Bet" (1904)
• "Betrothed" or "A Marriageable Girl" (1903)

Novels

• The Shooting Party (1884-1885)

External link

• eTexts of Chekhov's works, at Project Gutenberg
• Official Web Site of the City of Taganrog, "The Birthplace of Anton Chekhov"