Anton Chekhov
Dec 29, 2015
Anton
Chekhov
Chekhov Early Life
Born in Taganrog seaport
3rd of six children
Son of grocer
Grandson of serf
Chekhov Early Life
Father religious zealot – family tyrant
Childhood marked by despotism, lying
Acquainted with 19th 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
1883-1885 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 (1860-1904)
http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/chekhovbio.html