Despotism and lying so mutilated our childhood that it's sickening and frightening to think about it.

In adulthood, Chekhov criticised his brother Alexander's treatment of his wife and children by reminding him of Pavel's tyranny: 'Let me ask you to recall that it was despotism and lying that ruined your mother's youth. 'Our talents we got from our father,' Chekhov remembered, 'but our soul from our mother.' Chekhov's mother, Yevgeniya (Morozova), was an excellent storyteller who entertained the children with tales of her travels with her cloth-merchant father all over Russia. A director of the parish choir, devout Orthodox Christian, and physically abusive father, Pavel Chekhov has been seen by some historians as the model for his son's many portraits of hypocrisy.

His father, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, the son of a former serf and his wife, was from the village Olkhovatka ( Voronezh Governorate) and ran a grocery store. He was the third of six surviving children. Anthony the Great (17 January Old Style) 29 January 1860 in Taganrog, a port on the Sea of Azov – on Politseyskaya (Police) street, later renamed Chekhova street – in southern Russia. Young Chekhov (left) with brother Nikolai in 1882Īnton Chekhov was born into a Russian family on the feast day of St. He made no apologies for the difficulties this posed to readers, insisting that the role of an artist was to ask questions, not to answer them.

Ĭhekhov at first wrote stories to earn money, but as his artistic ambition grew, he made formal innovations that influenced the evolution of the modern short story. The plays that Chekhov wrote were not complex, but easy to follow, and created a somewhat haunting atmosphere for the audience. These four works present a challenge to the acting ensemble as well as to audiences, because in place of conventional action Chekhov offers a 'theatre of mood' and a 'submerged life in the text'. 'Medicine is my lawful wife', he once said, 'and literature is my mistress.' Ĭhekhov renounced the theatre after the reception of The Seagull in 1896, but the play was revived to acclaim in 1898 by Konstantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre, which subsequently also produced Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and premiered his last two plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Portrait of Anton Chekhov by Isaac Levitan (1886)Īnton Pavlovich Chekhov (Russian: Антон Павлович Чехов, IPA: 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904 ) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time.

Chekhov plays