Anton Chekhov
(1860–1904)

Anton Chekhov is an acknowledged master of two genres, the short story and the play—but critics argue over where he made the greater literary contribution. A doctor and a writer, Chekhov examined the precise workings of everyday life—at times with clinical detachment, at times with deep compassion. Chekhov's characters tell us not what to believe, but how people actually behave. "The artist is not meant to be a judge of his characters and what they say," he once wrote. "His only job is to be an impartial witness."

Chekhov was born on January 17, 1860, in Taganrog, a small seaport in southern Russia. He was the third son in a family of five boys and one girl. His mother was the daughter of a textile merchant; his father owned a general store that stayed open from 5:00 AM to midnight. The Chekhovs' children all worked in the shop from an early age.

When Chekhov was 16, his father went bankrupt. The family fled to Moscow, leaving Anton behind to finish school and tutor the son of his father's creditor. He lived on his own for three years, sending money to his mother.

In 1879, Chekhov rejoined his family and entered medical school at Moscow University. To support his impoverished family, he began writing short comic sketches and "little stories" for humor magazines, using silly pen names.

Chekhov graduated from medical school in 1884 and entered into general practice in Moscow. He continued to write his "frivolous tales." That year he also began experiencing the early symptoms of tuberculosis. In 1885, Chekhov achieved his first serious literary success with his story "The Huntsman." He also met Alexei Suvorin, the rich owner of Russia's leading newspaper, who became Chekhov's patron and close friend. Suvorin encouraged him to write longer, more sophisticated fiction and to publish his work under his own name.

By 1888, Chekhov was a literary celebrity. He had published two collections of stories, won the prestigious Pushkin Prize, and had his first play, Ivanov, performed. Though he never completely abandoned humor, his stories were growing more complex and psychologically probing.

In 1890, Chekhov journeyed across Siberia to the island of Sakhalin, a Russian penal colony. Appalled by the misery he saw, he wrote The Island of Sakhalin, an enormous book that brought about some reforms.

Chekhov returned home a changed man and wrote two of his greatest stories, "Gusev" and "The Duel." Struggling over his Sakhalin book, he threw himself into a new cause: disaster relief during the famine of 1891–1892.

In 1892, Chekhov bought a country estate in Melikhovo, where he lived for the next six years with his parents and sister. He resumed his work as a doctor, treating the local peasants and serving as district cholera superintendent during an epidemic. He also wrote some of his finest stories, including "Neighbors," "Ward 6," "My Life," and "Peasants," whose savage portrayal of peasant life caused a sensation. Chekhov also turned to drama, but a disastrous production of The Seagull (1896) made him vow never to write another play.

In 1897, Chekhov was hospitalized after a lung hemorrhage caused by tuberculosis. Following his father's sudden death, he moved with his mother and sister to Yalta, a resort on the Black Sea. Despite failing health, Chekhov continued to write, producing the stories "Lady with Lapdog" and "The Darling." Increasingly, Chekhov turned his attention to drama, writing three masterpieces that forever changed the direction of modern theater: Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard. Chekhov insisted these plays were comedies, yet all deal with a tragic theme: the destruction of beauty in the world.

In 1901, Chekhov married Olga Knipper, a star of the Moscow Art Theater. Three years later, at the age of 44, and six months after the triumphant opening of The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov died in Badenweiler, Germany.

Chekhov's lifetime was a period of great political upheaval in Russian history. In 1861, the year after Chekhov was born, Tsar Alexander II realized his nation needed to be modernized, and her institutions liberalized. His first step was the Emancipation Act, which abolished serfdom for Russia's 52 million peasants.

An overhaul of the legal system, and the creation of elected local assemblies, called zemstvos, followed. Conservatives were outraged by the tsar's reforms. But liberals and radicals were also upset. They felt more drastic changes were needed, including a national parliament. In 1866, terrorists made the first of several attempts to assassinate the tsar. In 1881, a group called the People's Will finally succeeded by throwing a bomb into his carriage. Alexander II was killed on the very day he had signed a decree promising to set up two nationally elected "advisory" commissions—a tentative step toward democracy.

When Alexander III became tsar, he cancelled his father's decrees. Throughout his reign (1881–1894), government repression led to widespread political unrest. During his son Nicholas II's rule, that unrest culminated in a bloody uprising called the Revolution of 1905. The Russian Revolution in 1917 finally toppled the tsarist regime.

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