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