Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov was born into a large family in Taganrog. His father, Pavel Yegorovich, first drove bulls from the Voronezh province to Moscow to sell, and in 1858 he became a merchant of the third guild. Married to Evgenia Morozova, they had six children, Anton himself was the third.

The situation in the Chekhovs' house was strict: the children were not allowed to mess around. Every day at five o'clock in the morning the brothers sang in the church choir, and after school they helped their father in the grocery store. All children had to learn the craft: Anton, for example, learned the profession of a tailor. The mother taught the children to be responsive, to respect and support the weak, to love nature and those around them.

To studythe future writer began in 1868 at the Taganrog gymnasium. There he took the literary pseudonym Chekhonte, a nickname given to him by one of his teachers. At the age of 13, Chekhov first visited the theater, where French composer Jacques Offenbach's operetta La Belle Elena was playing. It was then that Chekhov fell in love with the stage and literature.

The theater once gave me a lot of good things ... Before, there was no greater pleasure for me than to sit in the theater ... From a letter from Anton Chekhov, 1898

In 1876, Chekhov Sr. went bankrupt, and the whole family left for Moscow. Sixteen-year-old Anton, who was completing his studies at the gymnasium, was left alone and was engaged in tutoring to earn his living. During these years, he read a lot, wrote essays for gymnasium magazines, and the magazine "Zaika" with short sketches from Taganrog life sent to the brothers in Moscow. At the same time, Chekhov wrote the first play - "Fatherless" and the vaudeville "No wonder the chicken sang."

In 1879 Chekhov graduated from high school and left Taganrog for Moscow. There he began to take care of the family, provided for loved ones on a modest income from literary publications. Chekhov's debut in print took place in December of the same year: the story "Letter to a learned neighbor" and the humoresque "What is most often found in novels, short stories, etc." were published in the Dragonfly magazine.

In the same year, Chekhov entered the medical faculty of Moscow University named after I.M. Sechenov. A medical student lived with his brother Ivan in Voskresensk near Moscow (today the city of Istra). There, in 1881, he met the head of the Resurrection Zemstvo hospital, Dr. Pavel Arkhangelsky. Even during his studies, Chekhov received patients, did his practice here, and after graduating from the university he remained to work as a county doctor. In the summer of 1884, he moved to the post of head of the Zvenigorod hospital.

Classes at the university Anton Chekhov combined with permanent literary work. He mainly published under the pseudonym Antosha Chekhonte, later there were Doctor without Patients, Uncle, Man Without a Spleen, Baldastov, Antonson, My Brother's Brother - about fifty in all.

Chekhov published in the Moscow comic magazines "Alarm", "Spectator", "Shards", collaborated with the "Petersburg newspaper", the newspaper "New time" and "Russian Vedomosti". In 1882, the writer completed work on the first collection of short stories, Prank, but it was never published, probably due to financial problems. Chekhov's first collection, Tales of Melpomene, was published in 1884.

By 1885 Chekhov was already a popular short story writer. But the writer Dmitry Grigorovich intervened in his literary path, who criticized the young man for wasting his talent. Many leading authors and critics of those years agreed with this opinion.

Better go hungry, as we did in our time, save your impressions for labor that is thought out, processed, written not in one sitting, but written during the happy hours of the inner mood. One such work will be a hundred times more appreciated than hundreds of beautiful stories scattered at different times in the newspapers. From a letter from Dmitry Grigorovich to Anton Chekhov, 1886

But it was thanks to one of the critics, the publisher Alexei Suvorin, that Chekhov was able to reveal his potential. In Suvorin's journal Novoye Vremya, with which Chekhov began to collaborate, the authors were paid a decent fee, they were not limited either by the time of creation of works or by the number of words. It was at this favorable time for the writer that some of his best works came out: The Memorial Service, The Enemies , Agafya, The Nightmare and others - and Chekhov's story appeared as a new phenomenon in Russian literature. In Novoye Vremya, Anton Chekhov first began signing texts with his own name.

However, with the five stories published in Nov[oi] Vremya, I raised a commotion in St. Petersburg, from which I was pissed off like a child. From a letter from Anton Chekhov to his brother Alexander, 1886

Since 1887, Chekhov began to try himself in more serious genres and themes. The turning point in the writer's work was the story "Steppe" for the magazine "Northern Messenger". Chekhov found inspiration for her on a journey along the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov, during which he also visited his homeland - Taganrog. "Steppe" was well received by the public. Chekhov's friend, the everyday writer of Moscow Vladimir Gilyarovsky , wrote: “Charm! After all, this is a real, real steppe! You breathe the steppe directly when you read . In the same year, Chekhov's first dramatic work, the play Ivanov , was staged at the Korsh Theater in Moscow , and a year later his third collection, At Twilight, was awarded the Pushkin Prize at the Academy of Sciences.

... The stories of Mr. Chekhov, although they do not fully meet the requirements of the highest artistic criticism, nevertheless represent an outstanding phenomenon in our modern fiction literature. From the decision of the academic commission, 1888

In 1890, Anton Chekhov traveled to Sakhalin Island to investigate the life of Russian prisons. The local administration forbade communication with political prisoners, but the writer violated this rule. He managed to conduct a census of the population of the island, filling out ten thousand cards for its inhabitants. Five years later, an artistic and journalistic book of travel notes about the exiled colony and hard labor, Sakhalin Island, was published.

After Sakhalin, the writer settled in Moscow on Malaya Dmitrovka. During these years, Chekhov was already one of the most widely read authors in Russia. It was published in the journals "Severny Vestnik", "Russian Thought", the newspapers "New Time" and "Russian Vedomosti". He communicated with writers Vladimir Korolenko, Vladimir Gilyarovsky, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, director Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko , actors Alexander Lensky and Alexander Yuzhin, artist Isaac Levitan .

In 1890, Anton Chekhov set out to travel again, this time in Western Europe. The writer visited Vienna, Bologna, Venice, Naples, where he climbed Vesuvius, Paris and other cities.

I can say one thing: I have never seen a city more wonderful than Venice in my life. This is a solid charm, brilliance, joy of life. From a letter from Anton Chekhov to his brother Ivan, 1891

In March 1892, Chekhov bought an estate in Melikhovo, near Moscow . There he opened a medical center, built three schools and a bell tower, helped build a highway and, of course, treated the sick. During the famine that raged in Melikhovo during these years, the writer collected donations for the starving, and during cholera he worked as a sanitary doctor from the Zemstvo: in his area there were 25 villages, four factories and a monastery.

Medical practice took a lot of time and effort, but it was in Melikhovo that Chekhov wrote his most famous works: the play "The Seagull" , the story "Ward No. 6", the stories "The House with a Mezzanine" and "The Man in the Case" - about 40 significant works in total.

... Seven years of "Melikhov's sitting" were not in vain for him. They left their own special imprint, special color on his works of this period. He himself acknowledged this influence. Suffice it to recall his "Peasants" and "In the ravine", where Melikhovo's paintings and characters shine through on every page. From the memoirs of the writer's brother Mikhail Chekhov

Contemporaries often called Chekhov the "Poet of Twilight." His work was considered by many to be pessimistic and decadent, there was even the term "Chekhovian moods". The writer was surprised by such comments, as he recalled: “What kind of “gloomy person” am I, what kind of “cold blood” am I, as critics call me? What kind of pessimist am I? Indeed, of my things, my favorite story is “Student”. And the opposite word: "pessimist" ... "

In August 1895 Chekhov traveled to Yasnaya Polyana to meet Leo Tolstoy . Count Tolstoy respected the writer, highly valued Chekhov's work and called him "the incomparable artist of life."

Do you need my bio? There she is. I was born in Taganrog in 1860 ... In 1891 I made a tour of Europe, where I drank fine wine and ate oysters. He began to write in 1879. I also sinned in the dramatic part, although moderately ... Of the writers I prefer Tolstoy, and of the doctors - Zakharyin. However, this is all nonsense. Write whatever. If there are no facts, then replace them with lyrics. From a letter from Anton Chekhov to his editor, 1892

In the last years of his life, Chekhov's tuberculosis worsened, so the doctors insisted on moving the writer to the South. At first he lived in Nice, then in Paris, and in September 1898 he settled in Yalta. There he built a dacha , worked in the local Guardianship of Visiting Patients.

In the same year, the writer met his future wife, actress Olga Knipper . He first saw her at a rehearsal at the Moscow Art Theatre . In 1901 they got married. The actress was the prima of the Moscow Art Theater troupe, so she could not leave Moscow for a long time. All Chekhov's acquaintances, friends and publishers were also there, and he remained in Yalta and worked on the play "Three Sisters" , the story "The Lady with the Dog"and the story "In the ravine". Chekhov maintained a warm and reverent relationship with his wife by correspondence - they sent each other more than 800 letters and telegrams.

My dear, hello! In your letter you are angry that I am writing to you little by little. But then I write to you often! <…> Write to me more often, do not be stingy. For this I will reward you, I will love you fiercely, like an Arab. Farewell, Olya, be healthy and cheerful. Don't forget, write and remember your Antoine more often.

Knipshitz dear, in the last issue of Niva your theater is depicted, by the way, you, Maria Fed. and Savitskaya. You came out better than anywhere else. This number is worth it to buy it and hide it as a keepsake. By the way, you will also find academicians there; me with a very thick nose. <...> Oh, my dear, dear, my good! I expected to sit down at the table without you and start working, but I still do nothing and feel not very important. Keep in mind, I'll be there soon, behave yourself. I kiss you hard. Your Antonio.

The last work of the playwright was the play The Cherry Orchard . In the summer of 1904, he went to a mountain resort in the German city of Badenweiler to treat his lungs. But the local doctor found that the writer's heart condition had deteriorated significantly. According to his wife’s recollections, on the night of July 1-2, Chekhov woke up, for the first time in his life he asked to send for a doctor and said: “I haven’t drunk champagne for a long time ...” After which the writer went to bed again - and did not wake up. On the morning of July 5, Chekhov's coffin was sent to Moscow. He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Olga Knipper-Chekhova survived her husband by 55 years.