Anton Chekhov

Chekhov Early Life  Born in Taganrog seaport  3 rd of six children  Son of grocer  Grandson of serf

Chekhov Early Life  Father religious zealot – family tyrant  Childhood marked by despotism, lying  Acquainted with 19 th century  lower middle class and peasant life  Becomes subject of mature work

Chekhov Early Life  1875 father’s business failed  Debt - threatened with imprisonment  Father went to Moscow  Mother was left with Anton & sister  Mother lost house went to Moscow  Anton finished high school alone in Taganrog

Chekhov’s friends  Chekhov was friends with artists, painters, writers and publishers  Following are slides of his painter friend Levitan’s paintings. Some were turned into stamps.  These slides depict the countryside that Chekhov saw each day.

Chekhov Medical Student  Scholarship medicine in Moscow  Wrote to support family  Support family for rest of his life  comic stories newspapers

Themes in stories, plays  Petty tyranny government officials  Suffering of the poor  coarseness & vulgarity (poshlost)  Ironic misunderstandings and  cross purposes between people  Starvation, abandonment  Treatment of orphans

Mature work  1885 invited to write for most respected city paper  New Times edited Alexi Suvorin  Recognized by “dean of Russian letters” Grigorovich  1884 decline in health – denied tuberculosis  1888 received Pushkin Prize  Russia’s highest literary prize for his short stories

Drama  1887 began to publish plays – debut Ivanov  1880s also published stories drawing on Chekhov's medical expertise and depicting psychosomatic illness or the psychological effects of physical disease or distress  Sleepy is an example

Prison Reform  Sakhalin Island census  Recorded misery on prison island  Result: Russian prison reform  5,000 miles through Siberia  returned Hong Kong, Singapore, Ceylon  Trip to Italy & France with Suvorin

Chekhov’s Melikovo Estate

Marriage  Married actress Olga Knipper 1898  Died 1904

 Biographical material from website  Anton Chekhov ( ) 