Anton Chekhov: life, characteristics, works, phrases

Anton Chekhov was born on January 29, 1860, in Taganrog, Russia. In addition to being a writer, he was also a doctor.. The author was known not only for his narratives, but also for his dramatic texts, such as the seagull, one of his most famous plays, despite having been poorly received by Russian audiences on its debut.

The writer, who died on July 15, 1904, in Badenweiler, Germany, is one of the main authors of Russian Realism. Thus, his works are characterized by the absence of idealization of reality and characters, which, through the stream of consciousness, show themselves in their complexity.

Read too: Leo Tolstoy – considered the main representative of Russian Realism

Anton Chekhov's Biography

Portrait of Anton Chekhov, work by Osip Braz (1872-1936).

Anton Chekhov was born on January 29, 1860, in Taganrog, Russia.. At the age of 8, he started his studies at a school in his hometown. And he went to the theater for the first time, at the age of 13, to see the operetta the beautiful Helena

, by Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880). From then on, he fell in love with dramaturgy and his interest in drama grew. literature.

The writer's father—Pavel Chekhov—was a merchant and in 1876, bankrupt and in debt, fled with his family to Moscow. However, Anton, aged 16, he was left alone in Taganrog to finish his studies. Three years later, he left for Moscow, where he studied medicine.

In 1887, the doctor was already known for his Tales and won the Pushkin Literary Prize. However, he began to be admired by critics when he published his novel the steppe, in 1888. At that time, he also became known as a theater author. Two years later, in 1890, the author took a trip to the island of Sakhalin.

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From this trip came the book The island of Sakhalin, published in 1895, in which Chekhov shows the inhuman situation of prisoners in the penal colony of Sakhalin. But success as a writer did not make him abandon the Mschool. So, in 1892, he acquired an estate in Melikhovo, where he worked as a doctor.

However, due to problems with the tuberculosis, on medical recommendation, the writer, in 1898, moved to Yalta. In that year, he met actress Olga Knipper (1868-1959), whom he married in 1901. However, three years later, when he was undergoing treatment in Germany, he died on 15 July 1904 in the town of Badenweiler.

Read too:Fyodor Dostoevsky – another great author of Russian Realism

Features of Anton Chekhov's work

Anton Chekhov is one of the main authors of Realism Russian. Their narratives are characterized by richness of detail with which the narrator tells the story. present a anti-romantic perspective; therefore, there is no idealization of reality or characters.

The author's works have complex plots, developed from a ironic and deeply philosophical perspective, despite departing from everyday events. Furthermore, his characters manifest themselves through the interior monologue, that is, through the stream of consciousness, which reveals complex beings and, therefore, so real.

Works by Anton Chekhov

Book cover An Extraordinary Man and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov, published by L&PM publishers. [1]

• late flowers (1882)

• bad story (1882)

• the slander (1883)

• The consultation (1883)

• the employee's death (1883)

• Happiness (1883)

• The fat and the thin (1883)

• at the barbershop (1883)

• From the diary of an accounting assistant (1883)

• In the Post Office (1883)

• At sea (1883)

• the smart doorman (1883)

• the tragic (1883)

• the victor's triumph (1883)

• an enigmatic character (1883)

• A case of judicial practice (1883)

• a naughty child (1883)

• The surgery (1884)

• The reading (1884)

• The mask (1884)

• the medal (1884)

• the oysters (1884)

• chameleon (1884)

• singers (1884)

• From bad to worse (1884)

• Bad mood (1884)

• Preventive measures (1884)

• Marriage for interest (1884)

• The album (1884)

• the complaints book (1884)

• a terrible night (1884)

• in the cemetery (1884)

• The art of simulation (1885)

• the disgrace (1885)

• the vacationer (1885)

• Living Chronology (1885)

• the cook is married (1885)

• in foreign lands (1885)

• lost (1885)

• the corpse (1885)

• The hunter (1885)

• the family man (1885)

• The Thinker (1885)

• The writer (1885)

• The mirror (1885)

• the captain's uniform (1885)

• the evildoers (1885)

• hotel rooms (1885)

• Drug against drunkenness (1885)

• Sadness (1885)

• the chorus girl (1886)

• the restless guest (1886)

• Tobacco harm (1886)

• Ivanov (1887)

• enemies (1887)

• the bishop (1887)

• The bear (1888)

• the steppe (1888)

• the marriage proposal (1889)

• Tatiana Repina (1889)

• Inevitably tragic (1889)

• A bid (1889)

• thieves (1890)

• the festivity (1891)

• the duel (1891)

• the cicada (1892)

• Infirmary number 6 (1892)

• the story of an unknown (1893)

• the black monk (1894)

• The wife (1895)

• Three years (1895)

• The island of Sakhalin (1895)

• My life (1896)

• the seagull (1896)

• peasants (1897)

• Uncle Vania (1898)

• the lady with the puppy (1899)

• the three sisters (1901)

• The Cherry Garden (1904)

See too: The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas - starting point of Brazilian Realism

the lady with the puppy

Book cover The lady with the puppy and other tales, by Anton Chekhov, published by Editora 34.[2]

the tale the lady with the puppy tells the story of Dmitry Dmitrich Gúrov and Anna Sergueevna. As is typical of nineteenth-century realist narratives, adultery is the central theme. Thus, the protagonist is on vacation in Yalta, when he sees a young blonde woman walking along the beach, accompanied by her little dog.

Dmitri is married, but that doesn't stop him from dating other women. So, he approaches the “little dog lady”, who is much younger than he is, as well as being married. Despite this, they end up having a sexual relationship and, some time later, start meeting in a hotel in Moscow.

Both the protagonists are bored with their bourgeois lives. In this way, the passion that unites the couple gives their monotonous lives meaning. However, they find themselves torn between passion and social rules. And they seem not to want to give up either one thing or the other:

“Anna Sergueevna and Gúrov loved each other as two very intimate people, as husband and wife, as tender friends; it seemed to them that fate itself had chosen one for the other, and they did not understand why he had a wife and she a husband; it was as if they were two migratory birds, male and female, that were captured and forced to live in separate cages. They forgave each other what they were ashamed of in their past, forgave everything in the present and felt that their love had transformed them both.”|1|

Anton Chekhov's Phrases

The following phrases by Anton Chekhov are taken from his works the seagull, the three sisters and Uncle Vania:

• "Only what is serious can be beautiful."

• "In the entire universe, only the spirit remains unchanged."

• “We are not happy and there is no happiness; we can only wish.”

• "Laziness and idleness are contagious!"

• "The normal state of a man is to be original."

• "It is not thieves or fire that destroy the world, but hatred, hostility, petty intrigues..."

• "Talent is bold, free spirit, broad ideas."

Note

|1| Translated by Maria Aparecida Botelho Pereira Soares.

Image credits

[1] L&PM Editors (reproduction)

[2] Publisher 34 (reproduction)

by Warley Souza
Literature teacher