Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (Russian: Антон Павлович Чехов
[note 1], IPA:
[ɐnˈton ˈpavləvʲɪtɕ ˈtɕexəf]; 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. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. 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. Chekhov was a physician by profession. "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress."
Chekhov 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. 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". The plays that Chekhov wrote were not complex, but easy to follow, and created a somewhat haunting atmosphere for the audience.
Chekhov 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. 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.
