Anton Chekov was born on January 29, 1860 in the coastal town of Taganrog on the Sea of Azov, in Ukraine. His father was a grocer. Chekov attended the Taganrog grammar school from 1868 to 1879. His mother, Yevgenia Morozov, was the daughter of a textiles dealer. Chekov did not have a very happy childhood, he had to spend long hours in his father’s grocery store and his father’s extremist views on religion used to upset the young Chekov.
After his father went bankrupt, Chekov supported himself by giving tuitions. He first started to write during his student days at the University of Moscow, which he joined in 1879. He qualified as a doctor in 1884. Chekov wrote comic stories to support himself, his siblings and his mother. His stories would depict marital discord, the antics of whimsical young women etc in a humorous vein.
He was at ease writing the one-act play and his plays such as “The Bear” and “The Wedding” are considered classics of the genre. Chekov wrote “Ivanov” and “The Wood Demon” in 1887 and 1888, respectively. Both the plays were unsuccessful and not well received by the audience. Chekov shared a fruitful professional relationship with Constantin Stanislavsky who was a director at the Moscow Art Theatre.
It was after his plays were performed at the Moscow Art Theatre that Chekov tasted professional success. “The Seagull,” performed by the Moscow Art Theatre in 1897 was his first success. Chekov was, however, unhappy with the manner in which the theatre adapted his plays, choosing to highlight the tragic element, whereas Chekov felt that his plays were satirical comedies.
Chekov’s three plays, “Uncle Vanya,” which was a version of “The Wood Demon,” “The Three Sisters,” and “The Cherry Orchard” are considered to be classics of modern theatre. They were written in 1899, 1901, and 1904, respectively. Chekov aimed to create an awareness in people about the dreariness of their existence and hoped that it would move the people to work for a better tomorrow for themselves.
Chekov lived on his country estate in the village of Melikhove, from 1892 onwards. He produced some of his best-known stories from here. These included “The Black Monk,” “Murder,” and “Ward number Six.” “Gooseberries” and “The Betrothed” were among his last stories, which he wrote while staying at Yalta.
Chekov traveled to the prison island of Sakhalin in Siberia, in 1890, where he conducted a census of the ten thousand inmates, which included the convicts and the settlers. The arduous journey took a toll on his physical condition. Chekov returned to Russia after visiting Singapore, Sri Lanka, India and Egypt. Based on his travels, Chekov wrote the famous travel book “The Island: A Journey to Sakhalin”.
Chekov introduced new elements into the art of writing short stories. Even though there is not much drama in his stories, which often lack a clear plot, the characters of the protagonists come out quite clearly in his stories. Chekov made up for the lack of an external plot by building up the story through the internal turmoil that his characters undergo. “Love” was a recurring theme in his works and his stories often revolved around man’s unsuccessful search for the meaning of life.
Along with Pushkin, Chekov is rated very highly as a practitioner of the epistolary art; the letters he wrote are considered excellent specimens of this art. In his dramas, Chekov adopted a style in which there are simultaneous conversations taking place interspersed with pauses and no ostensible continuity in the dialogues. The conversations are perfectly ordinary and at times thoughts are left incomplete, and this accentuates the truths that Chekov endeavors to bring out. His dramas depicted the conflicts between changes that humans intend to bring and the natural course of events. Chekov did not much favor the realism that Stanislavsky sought to introduce in his plays nor did he favor Symbolist drama.
Chekov mentioned Maeterlink and Ibsen as his inspirations for writing drama. His first novel was Nenunzhaya Pobeda written in 1882. It was set in Hungary and parodied the works of Mór Jókai, who was a popular Hungarian writer and politician.
Chekov’s plays were published in the newspapers of St. Petersburg, one such paper was the Novoe Vremia. Chekov was a friend of H.S. Suvorin, the proprietor of the Novoe Vremia. Chekov ended his association with Suvorin in 1898 over the Alfred Dreyfus affair that had occurred in France. Chekov had supported Dreyfus.
It was during this period as a writer that Chekov developed his style as a disinterested observer and a dispassionate writer. He felt that a writer should keep in mind the following points
- Brevity of expression and honest characterization of the protagonists.
- A compassionate view and originality in the writing.
- Eschew lengthy political rhetoric and an objective assessment.
Chekov’s well known dictum, also known as “Chekov’s gun” states that if there is a mention of a rifle hanging on the wall in the first chapter, then it is essential that it must go off in the second or third chapter or else it should not be mentioned in the first place. It exemplifies his approach to writing.
Chekov was accused of being indifferent to the issues that he raised in his work. This was because it was felt that he did not criticize the social problems, which the liberal intelligentsia hoped he would. In 1888, Chekov was given the Pushkin Prize and in 1889, he became a member of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature. He was a friend of Maxim Gorky and renounced his membership of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, when Maxim Gorky’s election to the academy was not recognized by the authorities.
Chekov did not pursue his medical practice seriously, he practiced only till 1892; however, he contracted tuberculosis in the 1880’s while he was treating one of his patients. His illness forced him stay in places like Nice and Yalta, where the mild climate was more suited to his constitution. Chekov married Olga Knipper, who was an actress, in 1901. Tuberculosis led to his early demise at the age of forty-four, on July 15,1905. He died at Badenweiler, Germany and was buried at the Novodeviche Monastery in Moscow. His last words were “I die.”
