View source for Anton Chekhov

{{Short description|Russian dramatist and author (1860–1904)}}
{{About|||Chekhov (disambiguation)}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2022}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2024}}
{{Infobox writer
| native_name      = Антон Чехов
| native_name_lang = ru
| pseudonym        = 
| image            = Anton Chekhov 1889.jpg
| caption          = Chekhov in 1889
| alt              = Chekhov seated at a desk
| birth_date       = {{Birth date|df=yes|1860|1|29}}
| birth_place      = [[Taganrog]], Russia<!--See MOS:GEOLINK-->
| death_date       = {{death date and age|df=yes|1904|7|15|1860|1|29}}
| death_place      = [[Badenweiler]], Germany
| resting_place    = [[Novodevichy Cemetery]], Moscow
| occupation       = Writer, physician, philanthropist
| alma_mater       = [[I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University|First Moscow State Medical University]]
| years_active     = 1876–1904
| genres           = {{hlist|Play|novella|short story|comedy|[[feuilleton]]|[[opinion journalism]]|[[travel literature|travelogy]]|diary|correspondence}}
| movement         = [[Literary realism|Realism]]
| notableworks     = {{ubl|''[[The Seagull]]''|[[Three Sisters (play)|''Three Sisters'']]}}
| awards           = [[Pushkin Prize]]
| spouse           = {{marriage|[[Olga Knipper]]|1901}}
| relatives        = [[Alexander Chekhov]] (brother)<br />  [[Nikolai Chekhov]] (brother)<br />[[Maria Chekhova]] (sister)<br /> [[Mikhail Chekhov (writer)|Mikhail Chekhov]] (brother)<br />[[Michael Chekhov]] (nephew)<br />[[Olga Chekhova]] (niece-in-law)<br />[[Ada Tschechowa]] (great-niece)<br />[[Vera Tschechowa]] (great-great niece)<br/>[[Hartmut Reck]] (great-great nephew-in-law)<br/>[[Vadim Glowna]] (great-great nephew-in-law)<br/>[[Lev Knipper]] (nephew)<br />[[Marina Ried]] (great-niece)<br />[[Rudolf Platte]] (great-nephew-in-law)
| signature        = Подпись Антон Чехов.png
}}
[[File:Anton Tschechow - Ölskizze von Lewitan.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|Portrait of Anton Chekhov by [[Isaac Levitan]] (1886)]]

'''Anton Pavlovich Chekhov'''{{Family name footnote|Pavlovich|Chekhov|lang=Eastern Slavic}} ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|tʃ|ɛ|k|ɒ|f}}; {{Langx|ru|Антон Павлович Чехов}};{{efn|In Chekhov's day, his name was written in [[Reforms of Russian orthography#Post-revolution reform|pre-reform Russian]]{{snd}}{{lang|ru|Антонъ Павловичъ Чеховъ}} ({{IPA|ru|ɐnˈton ˈpavləvʲɪtɕ ˈtɕexəf}}). See, for instance, [{{GBurl|id=-dLQDwAAQBAJ&dq=Антонъ%D0Павловичъ%D0Чеховъ|pg=PP1}} Антонъ Павловичъ Чеховъ. 1898. ''Мужики и Моя жизнь''.]}}
{{OldStyleDate|29 January|1860|17 January}} – {{OldStyleDate|15 July|1904|2 July}}) was a Russian playwright and short story writer, widely considered 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.{{efn|"Greatest short story writer who ever lived." – [[Raymond Carver]]{{sfn |Chekhov |Bartlett |2004 |p=[https://archive.org/details/aboutloveotherst0000chek/page/n21/mode/2up xx]}}}}<ref name="Boyd 2004-07-03">{{cite web |last=Boyd |first=William |author-link=William Boyd (writer) |title=A Chekhov lexicon |website=the Guardian |date=3 July 2004 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jul/03/classics |access-date=31 October 2023 |quote=Quite probably. the best short-story writer ever.}}</ref><ref name="Steiner 2001-05-13">{{cite web |last=Steiner |first=George |author-link=George Steiner |title=Observer review: The Undiscovered Chekov by Anton Chekov |website=the Guardian |date=13 May 2001 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/may/13/classics.arts |access-date=31 October 2023 |quote=Stories&nbsp;... which are among the supreme achievements in prose narrative.}}</ref> 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.{{sfn|Bloom|2002|p=38}} Chekhov was a physician by profession.<!--article is in British English--> "Medicine is my lawful wife," he once said, "and literature is my mistress."{{sfn |Chekhov |Garnett |2004 |loc=[https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6408/pg6408-images.html#link2H_4_0042 Letter to Alexei Suvorin, 11 September 1888]}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Anton Chekhov - Wikiquote |url=https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anton_Chekhov |access-date=2025-02-15 |website=en.wikiquote.org |language=en}}</ref>

Chekhov renounced the theatre after the reception of ''[[The Seagull]]'' in 1896, but the play was revived to acclaim in 1898 by [[Moscow Art Theatre|Konstantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre]], which subsequently also produced Chekhov's ''[[Uncle Vanya]]'' and premiered his last two plays, ''[[Three Sisters (play)|Three Sisters]]'' and ''[[The Cherry Orchard]]''. These four works present a challenge to the acting ensemble{{efn|"Actors climb up Chekhov like a mountain, roped together, sharing the glory if they ever make it to the summit." – [[Ian McKellen]]{{sfn |Miles |1993 |p=[https://archive.org/details/chekhovonbritish0000unse/page/8/mode/2up 9]}}}} as well as to audiences, because in place of conventional action Chekhov offers a "theatre of mood" and a "submerged life in the text."{{efn|"Chekhov's art demands a theatre of mood." – [[Vsevolod Meyerhold]]{{sfn |Allen |2002 |p=[https://archive.org/details/performingchekho0000alle/page/12/mode/2up 13]}}}}{{sfnm |Styan |1981 |1p=[https://archive.org/details/moderndramainthe0001stya/page/84 84] |ps=; "A richer submerged life in the text is characteristic of a more profound drama of realism, one which depends less on the externals of presentation."}} 

Chekhov began writing stories to earn money, but as his artistic ambition grew, he made formal innovations that influenced the evolution of the modern short story.{{sfnm|Malcolm|2004|1p=87|ps=; "Chekhov is said to be the father of the modern short story."}}{{efn|"He brought something new into literature." – [[James Joyce]]{{sfn |Power |Joyce |1974 |p=57}}}}<ref>"Tchehov's breach with the classical tradition is the most significant event in modern literature," [[John Middleton Murry]], in ''Athenaeum'', 8 April 1922, cited in Bartlett's introduction to ''About Love''.</ref> He wrote that it is not the duty of writers to solve problems, but to correctly state them.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chekhov |first=Anton Pavlovich |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6408 |title=Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends |date=2004-09-01 |language=English |translator-last=Garnett |translator-first=Constance}}</ref>

==Biography==
[[File:Chekhov Birthhouse.jpg|thumb|left|[[Birth house of Anton Chekhov]] in [[Taganrog]], Chekhova street, Russia]]
[[File:Taganrog gymnasium boys.jpg|thumb|left|[[Chekhov Gymnasium|The Taganrog Boys Gymnasium]] in the late 19th century. The cross on top is no longer present.]]
===Childhood===
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on the [[feast day]] of [[St. Anthony the Great]] on {{OldStyleDate|29 January|1860|17 January}}) in [[Taganrog, Russia|Taganrog]], a commercial port city on the [[Sea of Azov]] – on Politseyskaya (Police) street, later renamed Chekhova street – in southern [[Russian Empire|Russia]].{{sfn |Chekhov |Garnett |2004 |loc=[https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6408/pg6408-images.html#link2H_4_0231 TO G. I. ROSSOLIMO.YALTA, October 11, 1899]}} He was the third of six surviving children; he had two older brothers, [[Alexander Chekhov|Alexander]] and [[Nikolai Chekhov|Nikolai]], and three younger siblings, Ivan, [[Maria Chekhova|Maria]], and [[Mikhail Chekhov (writer)|Mikhail]]. His father, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, the son of a former [[serfdom|serf]] and his wife,<ref>{{harvnb|Rayfield|1997|pp=3–4}}: Egor Mikhailovich Chekhov and Efrosinia Emelianovna</ref> was from the village [[Olkhovatka, Olkhovatsky District, Voronezh Oblast|Olkhovatka]] ([[Voronezh Governorate]]) and ran a grocery store. He was a director of the parish choir, a devout [[Russian Orthodox|Orthodox Christian]], and a physically abusive father.  Pavel Chekhov has been seen by some historians as the model for his son's many portraits of hypocrisy.<ref name = "Wood 78">{{harvnb|Wood|2000|p=78}}</ref> Chekhov's mother, Yevgeniya (Morozova), was an excellent storyteller who entertained the children with tales of her travels all over Russia with her cloth-merchant father.{{sfn|Payne|1991|p=XVII}}{{sfn|Simmons|1970|p=18}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=taganrogcity.com {{!}} Chekhov & Taganrog |url=http://www.taganrogcity.com/chekhov_taganrog.html |access-date=2025-02-15 |website=www.taganrogcity.com}}</ref> "Our talents we got from our father," Chekhov recalled, "but our soul from our mother."<ref name = "Bio">From the biographical sketch, adapted from a memoir by Chekhov's brother Mihail, which prefaces [[Constance Garnett]]'s translation of Chekhov's letters, 1920.</ref> 

Young Chekhov attended the [[Greek Church and Greek School (Taganrog)|Greek School in Taganrog]] and [[Chekhov Gymnasium|The Taganrog Boys Gymnasium]] (since renamed the [[Chekhov Gymnasium]]). There he was held back for a year at fifteen for failing an examination in Ancient Greek.<ref name = "Bartlett 4-5">Bartlett, pp. 4–5.{{Incomplete short citation|date=October 2023}}</ref> He sang at the [[Greek Orthodox Church|Greek Orthodox]] monastery in Taganrog and in his father's choirs. In a letter of 1892, he used the word "suffering" to describe his childhood and recalled:

{{blockquote|text=When my brothers and I used to stand in the middle of the church and sing the trio "May my prayer be exalted", or "The Archangel's Voice", everyone looked at us with emotion and envied our parents, but we at that moment felt like little convicts.<ref name="multiref1">Letter to I.L. Shcheglov, 9 March 1892. [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6408 ''Letters of Anton Chekhov''.]</ref>}}

Later, in his adulthood, Chekhov criticized his brother [[Alexander Chekhov|Alexander]]'s treatment of his wife and children by reminding him of their father Pavel's tyranny: "Let me ask you to recall that it was [[despotism]] and lying that ruined your mother's youth. Despotism and lying so mutilated our childhood that it's sickening and frightening to think about it. Remember the horror and disgust we felt in those times when Father threw a tantrum at dinner over too much salt in the soup and called Mother a fool."{{Sfnm|1a1=Malcolm |1y=2004 |1p=102 |1ps=; Letter to brother Alexander, 2 January 1889}}{{efn|Another insight into Chekhov's childhood came in a letter to his publisher and friend Alexei Suvorin: "From my childhood I have believed in progress, and I could not help believing in it since the difference between the time when I used to be thrashed and when they gave up thrashing me was tremendous."{{sfn |Chekhov |Garnett |2004 |loc=[https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6408/pg6408-images.html#link2H_4_0187 YALTA, March 27, 1894]}}}}

In 1876, Chekhov's father Pavel was declared bankrupt after overextending his finances building a new house, having been cheated by a contractor named Mironov.{{sfn|Rayfield|1997|p=31}} To avoid [[debtor's prison]] he fled to Moscow, where his two eldest sons, [[Alexander Chekhov|Alexander]] and [[Nikolai Chekhov|Nikolai]], were attending university. The family lived in poverty in Moscow. Chekhov's mother was physically and emotionally broken by the experience.<ref>Letter to cousin Mihail, 10 May 1877. [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6408 ''Letters of Anton Chekhov''.]</ref> 

Chekhov was left behind to sell the family's possessions and finish his education. He remained in Taganrog for three more years, boarding with a man by the name of Selivanov who, like Lopakhin in ''The Cherry Orchard'', had bailed out the family for the price of their house.{{sfn|Malcolm|2004|p=25}} Chekhov had to pay for his own education, which he managed by private tutoring, catching and selling [[European Goldfinch|goldfinches]], and selling short sketches to the newspapers, among other jobs. He sent every [[ruble]] he could spare to his family in Moscow, along with humorous letters to cheer them up.{{sfn|Payne|1991|p=XX}} 

As a teenager Chekhov fell in love with the [[Taganrog Theatre]]. He attended the theatre on a regular basis and became enchanted and inspired by productions of [[vaudeville]]s, [[Italian opera]]s and popular [[comedie]]s.<ref>Chekhov and Taganrog: [http://taganrogcity.com/chekhov_taganrog.html]</ref><ref>Taganrog Theatre: [https://mytaganrog.ru/16-dramaticheskij-teatr-imeni-a-p-chehova.html]</ref>

During that time, Chekhov read widely and analytically, including the works of [[Miguel de Cervantes|Cervantes]], [[Ivan Turgenev|Turgenev]], [[Ivan Goncharov|Goncharov]], and [[Arthur Schopenhauer|Schopenhauer]],<ref name = "Mihail 1876">Letter to brother Mihail, 1 July 1876. [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6408 ''Letters of Anton Chekhov''.]</ref>{{sfn|Simmons|1970|p=26}} and wrote a full-length comic drama, ''Fatherless'', which his brother Alexander dismissed as "an inexcusable though innocent fabrication."{{sfn|Simmons|1970|p=33}} Chekhov also experienced a series of love affairs, one with the wife of a teacher.{{sfn|Payne|1991|p=XX}} In 1879, Chekhov completed his schooling in Taganrog and moved in with his family in Moscow, having gained admission to the medical school at [[I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University]].{{sfn|Rayfield|1997|p=69}}

===Early writings===
Chekhov then assumed responsibility for the whole family.{{sfn|Wood|2000|p=79}} To support them and to pay his tuition fees, he wrote daily short, humorous sketches and vignettes of contemporary Russian life, many under pseudonyms such as "Antosha Chekhonte" (Антоша Чехонте) and "Man Without Spleen" (Человек без селезенки). His prodigious output gradually earned him a reputation as a [[satire|satirical]] chronicler of Russian street life, and by 1882 he was writing for ''Oskolki'' (''[[Fragments (magazine)|Fragments]]''), owned by [[Nikolai Leykin]], one of the leading publishers of the time.{{sfn|Rayfield|1997|p=91}} Chekhov's tone at this stage was harsher than that familiar from his mature fiction.<ref name="Obs">"There is in these miniatures an arresting potion of cruelty&nbsp;... The wonderfully compassionate Chekhov was yet to mature." [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/may/13/classics.arts "Vodka Miniatures, Belching and Angry Cats"], [[George Steiner]]'s review of ''The Undiscovered Chekhov'' in ''The Observer'', 13 May 2001. Retrieved 16 February 2007.</ref><ref name="SS1">{{cite web| last=Willis|first=Louis| title=Chekhov's Crime Stories| url=http://www.sleuthsayers.org/2013/01/chekhov-wrote-crime-stories_27.html| work=Literary and Genre| publisher=SleuthSayers |location=Knoxville| date=27 January 2013}}</ref>
[[File:Anton P Chekhov.jpg|thumb|right|Portrait of young Chekhov in country clothes]]
[[File:Chekhov with brother 1882.jpg|thumb|left|Anton Chekhov (left) with brother Nikolai in 1882]]
[[File:Young Chekhov 1880s.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|left|Anton Chekhov in 1880s]]

In 1884, Chekhov qualified as a physician, which he considered his principal profession though he made little money from it and treated the poor free of charge.{{sfn|Malcolm|2004|p=26}}

In 1884 and 1885, Chekhov found himself coughing blood, and in 1886 the attacks worsened, but he would not admit his [[tuberculosis]] to his family or his friends.<ref name = "Bio"/> He confessed to Leykin, "I am afraid to submit myself to be sounded by my colleagues."<ref>Letter to N.A.Leykin, 6 April 1886. [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6408 ''Letters of Anton Chekhov''.]</ref> He continued writing for weekly periodicals, earning enough money to move the family into progressively better accommodations.

Early in 1886 he was invited to write for one of the most popular papers in [[St. Petersburg]], ''[[Novoye Vremya (newspaper)|Novoye Vremya]]'' (''New Times''), owned and edited by the millionaire magnate [[Alexey Suvorin]], who paid a rate per line double Leykin's and allowed Chekhov three times the space.{{sfn|Rayfield|1997|p=128}} Suvorin was to become a lifelong friend, perhaps Chekhov's closest.<ref>{{harvnb|Rayfield|1997|pp=448–450}}: They only ever fell out once, when Chekhov objected to the [[antisemitism|anti-Semitic]] attacks in ''New Times'' against [[Alfred Dreyfus|Dreyfus]] and [[Émile Zola|Zola]] in 1898.</ref><ref name = "Wood 79">In many ways, the right-wing Suvorin, whom [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]] later called "The running dog of the [[Tsar|Tzar]]" (Payne, XXXV), was Chekhov's opposite; "Chekhov had to function like Suvorin's kidney, extracting the businessman's poisons."{{harvnb|Wood|2000|p=79}}</ref>

Before long, Chekhov was attracting literary as well as popular attention. The sixty-four-year-old [[Dmitry Grigorovich (writer)|Dmitry Grigorovich]], a celebrated Russian writer of the day, wrote to Chekhov after reading his short story "The Huntsman" that<ref>[https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1944 ''The Huntsman''.]. Retrieved 16 February 2007.</ref> "You have ''real'' talent, a talent that places you in the front rank among writers in the new generation." He went on to advise Chekhov to slow down, write less, and concentrate on literary quality.

Chekhov replied that the letter had struck him "like a thunderbolt" and confessed, "I have written my stories the way reporters write up their notes about fires—mechanically, half-consciously, caring nothing about either the reader or myself."{{sfn|Malcolm|2004|pp=32–33}} The admission may have done Chekhov a disservice, since early manuscripts reveal that he often wrote with extreme care, continually revising.{{sfn|Payne|1991|p=XXIV}} Grigorovich's advice nevertheless inspired a more serious, artistic ambition in the twenty-six-year-old. In 1888, with a little string-pulling by Grigorovich, the short story collection ''At Dusk'' (''V Sumerkakh'') won Chekhov the coveted [[Pushkin Prize]] "for the best literary production distinguished by high artistic worth."{{sfn|Simmons|1970|p=160}}

===Turning points===
[[File:Chekhov family.jpg|thumb|Chekhov's family and friends in 1890: (top row, left to right) Ivan, Alexander, father; (second row) Mariya Korniyeeva, Lika Mizinova, Masha, Mother, Seryozha Kiselev; (bottom row) Misha, Anton]]
In 1887, exhausted from overwork and ill health, Chekhov took a trip to Ukraine, which reawakened him to the beauty of the [[Pontic–Caspian steppe|steppe]].<ref name = "Masha 1887">"There is a scent of the steppe and one hears the birds sing. I see my old friends the ravens flying over the steppe." Letter to sister Masha, 2 April 1887. [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6408 ''Letters of Anton Chekhov''.]</ref> On his return, he began the novella-length short story "[[The Steppe (novella)|''The Steppe'']]", which he called "something rather odd and much too original", and which was eventually published in ''[[Severny Vestnik]]'' (''The Northern Herald'').<ref>Letter to Grigorovich, 12 January 1888. Quoted by {{harvnb|Malcolm|2004|p=137}}.</ref> In a narrative that drifts with the thought processes of the characters, Chekhov evokes a [[chaise]] journey across the steppe through the eyes of a young boy sent to live away from home, and his companions, a priest and a merchant. "The Steppe" has been called a "dictionary of Chekhov's poetics", and it represented a significant advance for Chekhov, exhibiting much of the quality of his mature fiction and winning him publication in a literary journal rather than a newspaper.<ref>"'The Steppe,' as Michael Finke suggests, is 'a sort of dictionary of Chekhov's poetics,' a kind of sample case of the concealed literary weapons Chekhov would deploy in his work to come." {{harvnb|Malcolm|2004|p=147}}.</ref>

In autumn 1887, a theatre manager named Korsh commissioned Chekhov to write a play, the result being ''[[Ivanov (play)|Ivanov]]'', written in a fortnight and produced that November.<ref name=autogenerated3>From the biographical sketch, adapted from a memoir by Chekhov's brother Mikhail, which prefaces [[Constance Garnett]]'s translation of Chekhov's letters, 1920.</ref> Though Chekhov found the experience "sickening" and painted a comic portrait of the chaotic production in a letter to his brother Alexander, the play was a hit and was praised, to Chekhov's bemusement, as a work of originality.<ref name = "Alexander 1887">Letter to brother Alexander, 20 November 1887. [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6408 ''Letters of Anton Chekhov''.]</ref> 

Although Chekhov did not fully realise it at the time, Chekhov's plays, such as ''The Seagull'' (written in 1895), ''Uncle Vanya'' (written in 1897), ''The Three Sisters'' (written in 1900), and ''The Cherry Orchard'' (written in 1903) served as a revolutionary backbone to what is common sense to the medium of acting to this day: an effort to recreate and express the realism of how people truly act and speak with each other. This realistic manifestation of the human condition may engender in audiences reflection upon what it means to be human.

This philosophy of approaching the art of acting has stood not only steadfast, but as the cornerstone of acting for much of the 20th century to this day. [[Mikhail Chekhov (writer)|Mikhail Chekhov]] considered ''Ivanov'' a key moment in his brother's intellectual development and literary career.<ref name = "Bio"/> From this period comes an observation of Chekhov's that has become known as ''[[Chekhov's gun]]'', a dramatic principle that requires that every element in a narrative be necessary and irreplaceable, and that everything else be removed.<ref>{{citation |title=Chekhov's Art: A Stylistic Analysis|author=Petr Mikhaĭlovich Bit︠s︡illi|year=1983|publisher=Ardis|page=x}}</ref><ref>{{citation|title=The Literature 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Novelists, Playwrights, and Poets of All Time|author=Daniel S. Burt|year=2008|publisher=Infobase Publishing}}</ref><ref name="marble">{{citation|title=Chekhov: The Silent Voice of Freedom|author=Valentine T. Bill|year=1987|publisher=Philosophical Library}}</ref>

{{blockquote|Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there.|Anton Chekhov<ref name="marble" /><ref>S. Shchukin, ''Memoirs'' (1911)</ref>}}

The death of Chekhov's brother Nikolai from tuberculosis in 1889 influenced ''A Dreary Story'', finished that September, about a man who confronts the end of a life that he realises has been without purpose.<ref name="Dreary">{{Cite book |last=Chekhov |first=Anton Pavlovich |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1883 |title=The Wife, and Other Stories |date=2006-02-26 |language=English |translator-last=Garnett |translator-first=Constance}}</ref>{{sfn|Simmons|1970|pp=186–191}} Mikhail Chekhov recorded his brother's depression and restlessness after Nikolai's death. Mikhail was researching prisons at that time as part of his law studies.  Anton Chekhov, in a search for purpose in his own life, himself soon became obsessed with the issue of prison reform.<ref name = "Bio"/>

===Sakhalin===
[[File:Chekhov ht.jpg|thumb|Anton Chekhov in 1893]]
In 1890, Chekhov undertook an arduous journey by train, horse-drawn carriage, and river steamer across [[Siberia]] to the [[Russian Far East]] and the [[katorga|''katorga'' (penal colony)]] on [[Sakhalin Island]], north of [[Japan]].  He spent three months there interviewing thousands of convicts and settlers for a census. The letters Chekhov wrote during the two-and-a-half-month journey to Sakhalin are considered among his best.{{sfn|Malcolm|2004|p=129}} His remarks to his sister about [[Tomsk]] were to become notorious.{{sfn|Simmons|1970|p=223}}{{sfn|Rayfield|1997|p=224}}

{{blockquote|Tomsk is a very dull town. To judge from the drunkards whose acquaintance I have made, and from the intellectual people who have come to the hotel to pay their respects to me, the inhabitants are very dull, too.{{sfn |Chekhov |Garnett |2004 |loc=[https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6408/pg6408-images.html#link2H_4_0079 (TO HIS SISTER.) TOMSK, May 20 (1890)]}}}}

Chekhov witnessed much on Sakhalin that shocked and angered him, including floggings, embezzlement of supplies, and [[sexual slavery|forced prostitution]] of women. He wrote,  "There were times I felt that I saw before me the extreme limits of man's degradation."{{sfn|Wood|2000|p=85}}{{sfn|Rayfield|1997|p=230}} He was particularly moved by the plight of the children living in the penal colony with their parents. For example:

{{blockquote|On the [[Amur River|Amur]] steamer going to Sakhalin, there was a convict who had murdered his wife and wore fetters on his legs. His daughter, a little girl of six, was with him. I noticed wherever the convict moved the little girl scrambled after him, holding on to his fetters. At night the child slept with the convicts and soldiers all in a heap together.{{sfn |Chekhov |Garnett |2004 |loc=[https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6408/pg6408-images.html#link2H_4_0106 TO A. F. KONI. PETERSBURG, January 16, 1891.]}}}}

Chekhov later concluded that charity was not the answer, but that the government had a duty to finance humane treatment of the convicts. His findings were published in 1893 and 1894 as ''Ostrov Sakhalin'' (''[[Sakhalin Island (Chekhov)|The Island of Sakhalin]]''), a work of social science, not literature.{{sfn|Malcolm|2004|p=125}}<ref name = "Simmons 229">{{harvnb|Simmons|1970|p=229}}: Such is the general critical view of the work, but Simmons calls it a "valuable and intensely human document."</ref> Chekhov found literary expression for the "Hell of Sakhalin" in his long short story "[[s:The Murder|The Murder]]",<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chekhov |first=Anton Pavlovich |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13419 |title=The Bishop and Other Stories |date=2004-09-09 |language=English |translator-last=Garnett |translator-first=Constance}}</ref> the last section of which is set on Sakhalin, where the murderer Yakov loads coal in the night while longing for home. Chekhov's writing on Sakhalin, especially the traditions and habits of the [[Gilyak people]], is the subject of a sustained meditation and analysis in [[Haruki Murakami]]'s novel ''[[1Q84]]''.<ref>Murakami, Haruki. ''1Q84''.  Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 2011.</ref> It is also the subject of a poem by the Nobel Prize winner [[Seamus Heaney]], "Chekhov on Sakhalin" (collected in the volume ''Station Island'').<ref>Heaney, Seamus. ''Station Island'' Farrar Straus Giroux: New York, 1985.</ref> [[Rebecca Gould]] has compared Chekhov's book on Sakhalin to [[Katherine Mansfield]]'s ''Urewera Notebook'' (1907).<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Gould|first=Rebecca Ruth|s2cid=165401623|date=2018|title=The aesthetic terrain of settler colonialism: Katherine Mansfield and Anton Chekhov's natives|journal=Journal of Postcolonial Writing|volume=55|pages=48–65|doi=10.1080/17449855.2018.1511242|url=https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/40478/1/Gould_The_aesthetic_terrain_of_settler_Journal_of_Postcolonial_Writing_2018.pdf }}</ref> In 2013, the Wellcome Trust-funded play 'A Russian Doctor', performed by Andrew Dawson and researched by Professor Jonathan Cole, explored Chekhov's experiences on Sakhalin Island.<ref name="Connor 2013">{{cite web |last=Connor |first=Steve |title=Anton Chekhov's Sakhalin Island to be brought to life on stage by British neuroscientist |website=The Independent |date=2013-12-27 |url=https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/news/anton-chekhov-s-sakhalin-island-to-be-brought-to-life-on-stage-by-british-neuroscientist-9027432.html |access-date=2026-03-23}}</ref>

===Melikhovo===
[[File:Melihovo.jpg|thumb|[[Melikhovo]], now a museum]]
Mikhail Chekhov, a member of the household at Melikhovo, described the extent of his brother's medical commitments:

{{blockquote|From the first day that Chekhov moved to Melikhovo, the sick began flocking to him from twenty miles around. They came on foot or were brought in carts, and often he was fetched to patients at a distance. Sometimes from early in the morning peasant women and children were standing before his door waiting.<ref name=autogenerated1>From the biographical sketch, adapted from a memoir by Chekhov's brother Mikhail, which prefaces Constance Garnett's translation of Chekhov's letters, 1920.</ref>}}

Chekhov's expenditure on drugs was considerable, but the greatest cost was making journeys of several hours to visit the sick, which reduced his time for writing.<ref name=autogenerated2>From the biographical sketch, adapted from a memoir by Chekhov's brother Mihail, which prefaces Constance Garnett's translation of Chekhov's letters, 1920.</ref> However, Chekhov's work as a doctor enriched his writing by bringing him into intimate contact with all sections of Russian society: for example, he witnessed at first hand the peasants' unhealthy and cramped living conditions, which he recalled in his short story "Peasants". Chekhov visited the upper classes as well, recording in his notebook: "Aristocrats? The same ugly bodies and physical uncleanliness, the same toothless old age and disgusting death, as with market-women."<ref name="note">{{Cite book |last=Chekhov |first=Anton Pavlovich |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12494 |title=Note-Book of Anton Chekhov |date=2004-06-01 |language=English |translator-last=Koteliansky |translator-first=S. S. (Samuel Solomonovitch) |translator-last2=Woolf |translator-first2=Leonard}}</ref> In 1893/1894 he worked as a [[Zemstvo]] doctor in [[Zvenigorod]], which has numerous sanatoriums and rest homes. A local hospital is named after him.

In 1894, Chekhov began writing his play ''The Seagull'' in a lodge he had built in the orchard at Melikhovo. In the two years since he had moved to the estate, he had refurbished the house, taken up agriculture and horticulture, tended the orchard and the pond, and planted many trees, which, according to Mikhail, he "looked after&nbsp;... as though they were his children. Like Colonel Vershinin in his ''[[Three Sisters (play)|Three Sisters]]'', as he looked at them he dreamed of what they would be like in three or four hundred years."<ref name = "Bio"/>

The first night of ''The Seagull'', at the [[Alexandrinsky Theatre]] in St. Petersburg on 17 October 1896, was a fiasco, as the play was booed by the audience, stinging Chekhov into renouncing the theatre.{{sfn|Rayfield|1997|pp=394–398}} But the play so impressed the theatre director [[Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko]] that he convinced his colleague [[Konstantin Stanislavski]] to direct a new production for the innovative [[Moscow Art Theatre]] in 1898.<ref name = "Ben">Benedetti, ''Stanislavski: An Introduction'', 25.</ref> Stanislavski's attention to psychological realism and ensemble playing coaxed the buried subtleties from the text, and restored Chekhov's interest in playwriting.<ref>Chekhov and the Art Theatre, in Stanislavski's words, were united in a common desire "to achieve artistic simplicity and truth on the stage."{{harvnb |Allen |2002 |p=[https://archive.org/details/performingchekho0000alle/page/10/mode/2up 11]}}</ref> The Art Theatre commissioned more plays from Chekhov and the following year staged ''Uncle Vanya'', which Chekhov had completed in 1896.<ref>{{harvnb|Rayfield|1997|pp=390–391}}: Rayfield draws from his critical study ''Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" and the "Wood Demon"'' (1995), which anatomised the evolution of the ''Wood Demon'' into ''Uncle Vanya''—"one of Chekhov's most furtive achievements."</ref> In the last decades of his life he became an [[atheist]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Tabachnikova|first=Olga|title=Anton Chekhov Through the Eyes of Russian Thinkers: Vasilii Rozanov, Dmitrii Merezhkovskii and Lev Shestov|year=2010|publisher=Anthem Press|isbn=978-1-84331-841-5|page=26|quote=For Rozanov, Chekhov represents a concluding stage of classical Russian literature at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, caused by the fading of the thousand-year-old Christian tradition that had sustained much of this literature. On the one hand, Rozanov regards Chekhov's positivism and atheism as his shortcomings, naming them among the reasons for Chekhov's popularity in society.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Anton Chekhov's Life and Thought: Selected Letters and Commentary|year=1997|publisher=Northwestern University Press|isbn=978-0-8101-1460-9|editor1-first=Simon |editor1-last=Karlinsky |editor2-first=Michael Henry|editor2-last=Heim| last=Chekhov|first=Anton Pavlovich|page=13|quote=While Anton did not turn into the kind of militant atheist that his older brother Alexander eventually became, there is no doubt that he was a non-believer in the last decades of his life.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov|year=2009|publisher=Random House Digital, Inc.|isbn=978-0-307-56828-1|pages=xxii|author=Richard Pevear|quote=According to Leonid Grossman, 'In his revelation of those evangelical elements, the atheist Chekhov is unquestionably one of the most Christian poets of world literature.'}}</ref>

===Yalta===
In March 1897, Chekhov suffered a major [[haemorrhage]] of the lungs while on a visit to Moscow. With great difficulty he was persuaded to enter a clinic, where doctors diagnosed [[tuberculosis]] on the upper part of his lungs and ordered a change in his manner of life.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chekhov |first=Anton Pavlovich |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6408 |title=Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends |date=2004-09-01 |language=English |translator-last=Garnett |translator-first=Constance}}</ref>

[[File:Tolstoy and chekhov.jpg|thumb|left|Chekhov with [[Leo Tolstoy]] at [[Yalta]], 1900]]
After his father's death in 1898, Chekhov bought a plot of land on the outskirts of [[Yalta]] and built a [[White Dacha|villa (The White Dacha)]], into which he moved with his mother and sister the following year. Though he planted trees and flowers, kept dogs and tame cranes, and received guests such as [[Leo Tolstoy]] and [[Maxim Gorky]], Chekhov was always relieved to leave his "hot [[Siberia]]" for Moscow or travels abroad. He vowed to move to Taganrog as soon as a water supply was installed there.<ref>Olga Knipper, "Memoir", in {{harvnb |Benedetti |1997 |pp=[https://archive.org/details/dearwriterdearac0000chek/page/36/mode/2up 37], [https://archive.org/details/dearwriterdearac0000chek/page/270/mode/2up 270]}}</ref><ref name = "Bartlett 2">Bartlett, 2.{{Incomplete short citation|date=October 2023}}</ref> In Yalta he completed two more plays for the Art Theatre, composing with greater difficulty than in the days when he "wrote serenely, the way I eat pancakes now". He took a year each over ''[[Three Sisters (play)|Three Sisters]]'' and ''[[The Cherry Orchard]]''.{{sfn|Malcolm|2004|pp=170–171}}

On 25 May 1901, Chekhov married [[Olga Knipper]] quietly, owing to his horror of weddings. She was a former protégée and sometime lover of [[Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko]] whom he had first met at rehearsals for ''The Seagull''.<ref>"I have a horror of weddings, the congratulations and the champagne, standing around, glass in hand with an endless grin on your face." Letter to Olga Knipper, 19 April 1901.</ref>{{sfn |Benedetti |1997 |p=[https://archive.org/details/dearwriterdearac0000chek/page/124/mode/2up 125]}}<ref>{{harvnb|Rayfield|1997|p=500|ps="Olga's relations with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko were more than professional."}}</ref> Up to that point, Chekhov, known as "Russia's most elusive literary bachelor",<ref>Harvey Pitcher in ''Chekhov's Leading Lady'', quoted in {{harvnb|Malcolm|2004|p=59}}.</ref> had preferred passing liaisons and visits to brothels over commitment.<ref>"Chekhov had the temperament of a philanderer. Sexually, he preferred brothels or swift liaisons."{{harvnb|Wood|2000|p=78}}</ref> He had once written to Suvorin:

{{blockquote|By all means I will be married if you wish it. But on these conditions: everything must be as it has been hitherto—that is, she must live in Moscow while I live in the country, and I will come and see her.... I promise to be an excellent husband, but give me a wife who, like the moon, won't appear in my sky every day.<ref>Letter to Suvorin, 23 March 1895. [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6408 ''Letters of Anton Chekhov''.]</ref>}}

[[File:Anton Chekhov and Olga Knipper, 1901.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|Chekhov and [[Olga Knipper|Olga]], 1901, on their honeymoon]]
The letter proved prophetic of Chekhov's marital arrangements with Olga: he lived largely at Yalta, she in Moscow, pursuing her acting career. In 1902, Olga suffered a miscarriage; and [[Donald Rayfield]] has offered evidence, based on the couple's letters, that conception occurred when Chekhov and Olga were apart, although other Russian scholars have rejected that claim.<ref>{{harvnb|Rayfield|1997|pp=556–557|ps=Rayfield also tentatively suggests, drawing on obstetric clues, that Olga suffered an [[ectopic pregnancy]] rather than a miscarriage.}}</ref><ref name = "Simmons Benedetti">There was certainly tension between the couple after the miscarriage, though {{harvnb|Simmons|1970|p=569}}, and {{harvnb |Benedetti |1997 |p=[https://archive.org/details/dearwriterdearac0000chek/page/240/mode/2up 241]}}, put this down to Chekhov's mother and sister blaming the miscarriage on Olga's late-night socialising with her actor friends.</ref> The literary legacy of this long-distance marriage is a correspondence that preserves gems of theatre history, including shared complaints about [[Stanislavski]]'s directing methods and Chekhov's advice to Olga about performing in his plays.{{sfn |Benedetti |1997 |p=}}{{page needed |date=October 2023}}

In Yalta, Chekhov wrote one of his most famous stories,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://short-stories.co/@antonchekhov/lady-with-lapdog-g7e4vkp3zd06|title=Lady with lapdog|last=Chekhov|first=Anton|website=Short Stories}}</ref> "[[The Lady with the Dog (short story)|The Lady with the Dog]]"<ref>{{cite news|author=Rosamund, Bartlett|title=The House That Chekhov Built |journal=London Evening Standard|date= 2 February 2010|page=31}}</ref> (also translated from the Russian as "Lady with Lapdog"),<ref>Greenberg, Yael. "The Presentation of the Unconscious in Chekhov's Lady With Lapdog." ''Modern Language Review'' 86.1 (1991): 126–130. Academic Search Premier. Web. 3 November 2011.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2014-10-07 |title=7 Memorable Dogs From Literature (IMAGES) |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dogs-literature_b_5940408 |access-date=2025-02-15 |website=HuffPost |language=en}}</ref> which depicts what at first seems a casual liaison between a cynical married man and an unhappy married woman who meet while holidaying in [[Yalta]]. Neither expects anything lasting from the encounter.  Unexpectedly though, they gradually fall deeply in love and end up risking scandal and the security of their family lives.  The story masterfully captures their feelings for each other, the inner transformation undergone by the disillusioned male protagonist as a result of falling deeply in love, and their inability to resolve the matter by either letting go of their families or of each other.<ref>"Overview: 'The Lady with the Dog'." ''Characters in 20th-Century Literature.'' Laurie Lanzen Harris. Detroit: Gale Research, 1990. Literature Resource Center. Web. 3 November 2011.</ref>

===Death===
In May 1903, Chekhov visited Moscow; the prominent lawyer [[Vasily Maklakov]] visited him almost every day. Maklakov signed Chekhov's will. By May 1904, Chekhov was terminally ill with [[tuberculosis]]. Mikhail Chekhov recalled that "everyone who saw him secretly thought the end was not far off, but the nearer [he] was to the end, the less he seemed to realise it".<ref name = "Bio"/> On 3 June, he set off with Olga for the German spa town of [[Badenweiler]] in the [[Black Forest]] in Germany, from where he wrote outwardly jovial letters to his sister Masha, describing the food and surroundings, and assuring her and his mother that he was getting better. In his last letter, he complained about the way German women dressed.<ref>Letter to sister Masha, 28 June 1904. [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6408 ''Letters of Anton Chekhov''.]</ref> Chekhov died on 15 July 1904 at the age of 44 after a long fight with tuberculosis, the same disease that killed his brother.{{sfn|Rayfield|1997|p=595}}<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anton-Chekhov | title=Anton Chekhov &#124; Biography, Plays, Short Stories, & Facts &#124; Britannica | date=27 October 2023 }}</ref>

Chekhov's death has become one of "the great set pieces of literary history"{{sfn|Malcolm|2004|p=62}}{{mdash}}retold, embroidered, and fictionalized many times since, notably in the 1987 short story "Errand" by [[Raymond Carver]]. In 1908, Olga wrote this account of her husband's last moments:

{{blockquote|Anton sat up unusually straight and said loudly and clearly (although he knew almost no German): ''Ich sterbe'' ('I'm dying'). The doctor calmed him, took a syringe, gave him an injection of [[camphor]], and ordered [[champagne]]. Anton took a full glass, examined it, smiled at me and said: 'It's a long time since I drank champagne.' He drained it and lay quietly on his left side, and I just had time to run to him and lean across the bed and call to him, but he had stopped breathing and was sleeping peacefully as a child&nbsp;...<ref>Olga Knipper, ''Memoir'', in {{harvnb |Benedetti |1997 |p=[https://archive.org/details/dearwriterdearac0000chek/page/284/mode/2up 284]}}</ref>}}

Chekhov's body was transported to Moscow in a [[refrigerator car|refrigerated railway-car]] meant for [[oyster]]s, a detail that offended [[Maxim Gorky|Gorky]].<ref>"Banality revenged itself upon him by a nasty prank, for it saw that his corpse, the corpse of a poet, was put into a railway truck 'For the Conveyance of Oysters'." Maxim Gorky in [http://www.eldritchpress.org/ac/gorky.htm ''Reminiscences of Anton Chekhov''.]. Retrieved 16 February 2007.</ref> Some of the thousands of mourners followed the funeral procession of a [[Fyodor Eduardovich Keller|General Keller]] by mistake, to the accompaniment of a military band.<ref>Chekhov's Funeral. M. Marcus.''The Antioch Review'', 1995</ref> Chekhov was buried next to his father at the [[Novodevichy Cemetery]].<ref>{{harvnb|Malcolm|2004|p= 91}}; Alexander Kuprin in [http://www.eldritchpress.org/ac/gorky.htm ''Reminiscences of Anton Chekhov'']. Retrieved 16 February 2007.</ref><ref>{{cite news|title= Novodevichy Cemetery|url= http://www.passportmagazine.ru/article/1099/|access-date= 12 September 2013|work= Passport Magazine|date= April 2008}}</ref>

==Legacy==
[[File:Anton Chekhov museum Alexandrovsk-Sakhalinsky file 3.jpg|thumb|Anton Chekhov museum in [[Alexandrovsk-Sakhalinsky (town)|Alexandrovsk-Sakhalinsky]], Russia. It is the house where he stayed in Sakhalin during 1890.]]

A few months before he died, Chekhov told the writer [[Ivan Bunin]] that he thought people might go on reading his writings for seven years. "Why seven?", asked Bunin. "Well, seven and a half", Chekhov replied. "That's not bad. I've got six years to live."{{sfn|Payne|1991|p=XXXVI}}
Chekhov's posthumous reputation greatly exceeded his expectations. The ovations for the play ''[[The Cherry Orchard]]'' in the year of his death served to demonstrate the Russian public's acclaim for the writer, which placed him second in literary celebrity only to [[Leo Tolstoy|Tolstoy]], who outlived him by six years. Tolstoy was an early admirer of Chekhov's short stories and had a series that he deemed "first quality" and "second quality" bound into a book. In the first category were: ''Children'', ''The Chorus Girl'', ''A Play'', ''Home'', ''Misery'', ''The Runaway'', ''In Court'', ''Vanka'', ''Ladies'', ''A Malefactor'', ''The Boys'', ''Darkness'', ''Sleepy'', ''The Helpmate'', and ''[[The Darling (Chekhov)|The Darling]]''; in the second: ''A Transgression'', ''Sorrow'', ''The Witch'', ''Verochka'', ''In a Strange Land'', ''The Cook's Wedding'', ''A Tedious Business'', ''An Upheaval'', ''Oh! The Public!'', ''The Mask'', ''A Woman's Luck'', ''Nerves'', ''The Wedding'', ''A Defenceless Creature'', and ''Peasant Wives.''{{sfn|Simmons|1970|p=595}}

Chekhov's work also found praise from several of Russia's most influential radical political thinkers. If anyone doubted the gloom and miserable poverty of Russia in the 1880s, the anarchist theorist [[Peter Kropotkin]] responded, "read only Chekhov's novels!"<ref>{{cite web
 | title=The Constitutional Movement in Russia
 | url=http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=142
 | author=Peter Kropotkin
 | publisher=The Nineteenth Century
 | website=revoltlib.com
 | date=1 January 1905
| access-date=5 November 2019
| archive-date=3 November 2019
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191103020419/http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=142
 | url-status=dead
 }}</ref> [[Raymond Tallis]] further recounts that [[Vladimir Lenin]] believed his reading of the short story [[Ward No. 6]] "made him a revolutionary".<ref>{{cite book
 | title= In Defence of Wonder and Other Philosophical Reflections
 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aFhsBAAAQBAJ&q=Karl+Marx+ward+no+six&pg=PT154 
 | author=Raymond Tallis
 | publisher=Routledge
 | date=3 September 2014
|isbn = 9781317547402}}</ref> Upon finishing the story, Lenin is said to have remarked: "I absolutely had the feeling that I was shut up in Ward 6 myself!"<ref>{{cite web 
 | title=To The Finland Station
 | author=Edmund Wilson
 | url=https://archive.org/details/WilsonToTheFinlandStation/page/n369/mode/2up?q=Ward+6+myself
 | publisher=Doubleday
 | website=archive.org
 | date=1940
 | quote=When Vladimir finished reading this story, he was seized with such a horror that he could not bear to stay in his room. He went out to find someone to talk to, but it was late: they had all gone to bed. 'I absolutely had the feeling,' he told his sister next day,'that I was shut up in Ward 6 myself!'
}}</ref>

In Chekhov's lifetime, British and Irish critics generally did not find his work pleasing; [[E. J. Dillon]] thought "the effect on the reader of Chekhov's tales was repulsion at the gallery of human waste represented by his fickle, spineless, drifting people" and [[R. E. C. Long]] said "Chekhov's characters were repugnant, and that Chekhov revelled in stripping the last rags of dignity from the human soul".<ref>{{cite journal|last=Meister|first=Charles W.|year=1953|title=Chekhov's Reception in England and America|journal=American Slavic and East European Review|volume=12|issue=1|pages=109–121|jstor=3004259|doi=10.2307/3004259}}</ref> After his death, Chekhov was reappraised. [[Constance Garnett]]'s translations won him an English-language readership and the admiration of writers such as [[James Joyce]], [[Virginia Woolf]], and [[Katherine Mansfield]], whose story "The Child Who Was Tired" is similar to Chekhov's "Sleepy".<ref>{{cite book|author=William H. New|title=Reading Mansfield and Metaphors of Reform|publisher=McGill-Queen's Press|year=1999|isbn= 978-0-7735-1791-2|pages=15–17}}</ref> The Russian critic [[D. S. Mirsky]], who lived in England, explained Chekhov's popularity in that country by his "unusually complete rejection of what we may call the heroic values".{{sfn|Wood|2000|p=77}} In Russia itself, Chekhov's drama fell out of fashion after the [[Russian Revolution of 1917|revolution]], but it was later incorporated into the Soviet canon. The character of Lopakhin, for example, was reinvented as a hero of the new order, rising from a modest background so as eventually to possess the gentry's estates.{{sfn |Allen |2002 |p=[https://archive.org/details/performingchekho0000alle/page/88/mode/2up 88]}}<ref name = "Danchenko">"They won't allow a play which is seen to lament the lost estates of the gentry." Letter of [[Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko]], quoted by Anatoly Smeliansky in "Chekhov at the Moscow Art Theatre", from ''The Cambridge Companion to Chekhov'', 31–32.</ref>

[[File:Chekhov 1898 by Osip Braz.jpg|thumb|upright=.7|[[Osip Braz]], ''Anton Chekhov'', 1898, oil on canvas; [[Tretyakov Gallery]], [[Moscow]]]]

Despite Chekhov's reputation as a playwright, [[William Boyd (writer)|William Boyd]] asserts that his short stories represent the greater achievement.<ref name = "Boyd">"The plays lack the seamless authority of the fiction: there are great characters, wonderful scenes, tremendous passages, moments of acute melancholy and sagacity, but the parts appear greater than the whole." [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jul/03/classics ''A Chekhov Lexicon,''] by [[William Boyd (writer)|William Boyd]], ''The Guardian'', 3 July 2004. Retrieved 16 February 2007.</ref> [[Raymond Carver]], who wrote the short story "Errand" about Chekhov's death, believed that Chekhov was the greatest of all short story writers:

{{blockquote|Chekhov's stories are as wonderful (and necessary) now as when they first appeared. It is not only the immense number of stories he wrote—for few, if any, writers have ever done more—it is the awesome frequency with which he produced masterpieces, stories that shrive us as well as delight and move us, that lay bare our emotions in ways only true art can accomplish.<ref>Bartlett, [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jul/15/classics.antonchekhov "From Russia, with Love"], ''The Guardian'', 15 July 2004. Retrieved 17 February 2007.</ref>}}

According to literary critic [[Daniel S. Burt]], Chekhov was one of the greatest and most influential writers of all time.<ref name=":8">{{Cite book |last=Burt |first=Daniel S. |url=https://archive.org/details/literary100ranki0000burt_v6e1/mode/2up |title=The Literary 100, Revised Edition: A Ranking of the Most Influential Novelists, Playwrights, and Poets of All Time |publisher=Facts On File |year=2009 |pages=137–139 |language=en |author-link=Daniel Burt (author)}}</ref>

===Style===

One of the first non-Russians to praise Chekhov's plays was [[George Bernard Shaw]], who subtitled his ''[[Heartbreak House]]'' "A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes", and pointed out similarities between the predicament of the British landed class and that of their Russian counterparts as depicted by Chekhov: "the same nice people, the same utter futility".<ref>Anna Obraztsova in "Bernard Shaw's Dialogue with Chekhov", from Miles, 43–44.</ref>

[[Ernest Hemingway]], another writer influenced by Chekhov, was more grudging: "Chekhov wrote about six good stories. But he was an amateur writer."<ref>Letter from [[Ernest Hemingway]] to [[Archibald MacLeish]], 1925 (from ''Selected Letters'', p. 179), in ''Ernest Hemingway on Writing'', Ed Larry W. Phillips, Touchstone, (1984) 1999, {{ISBN|978-0-684-18119-6}}, 101.</ref> Comparing Chekhov to Tolstoy, [[Vladimir Nabokov]] wrote, "I do love Chekhov dearly. I fail, however, to rationalize my feeling for him: I can easily do so in regard to the greater artist, Tolstoy, with the flash of this or that unforgettable passage […], but when I imagine Chekhov with the same detachment all I can make out is a medley of dreadful prosaisms, ready-made epithets, repetitions, doctors, unconvincing vamps, and so forth; yet it is ''his'' works which I would take on a trip to another planet."<ref>[[q:Anton Chekhov#Quotes about Chekhov|Wikiquote quotes about Chekhov]]</ref> Nabokov called "[[The Lady with the Dog]]" "one of the greatest stories ever written" in its depiction of a problematic relationship, and described Chekhov as writing "the way one person relates to another the most important things in his life, slowly and yet without a break, in a slightly subdued voice".<ref>From [[Vladimir Nabokov]]'s ''Lectures on Russian Literature'', quoted by [[Francine Prose]] in ''Learning from Chekhov'', 231.</ref>

For the writer [[William Boyd (writer)|William Boyd]], Chekhov's historical accomplishment was to abandon what [[William Gerhardie]] called the "event plot" for something more "blurred, interrupted, mauled or otherwise tampered with by life".<ref>"For the first time in literature the fluidity and randomness of life was made the form of the fiction. Before Chekhov, the event-plot drove all fictions." [[William Boyd (writer)|William Boyd]], referring to the novelist [[William Gerhardie]]'s analysis in ''Anton Chekhov: A Critical Study'', 1923. [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/jul/03/classics "A Chekhov Lexicon"] by William Boyd, ''The Guardian'', 3 July 2004. Retrieved 16 February 2007.</ref>

Virginia Woolf mused on the unique quality of a Chekhov story in ''The Common Reader'' (1925):

{{blockquote|But is it the end, we ask? We have rather the feeling that we have overrun our signals; or it is as if a tune had stopped short without the expected chords to close it. These stories are inconclusive, we say, and proceed to frame a criticism based upon the assumption that stories ought to conclude in a way that we recognise. In so doing we raise the question of our own fitness as readers. Where the tune is familiar and the end emphatic—lovers united, villains discomfited, intrigues exposed—as it is in most [[Victorian literature|Victorian fiction]], we can scarcely go wrong, but where the tune is unfamiliar and the end a note of interrogation or merely the information that they went on talking, as it is in Tchekov, we need a very daring and alert sense of literature to make us hear the tune, and in particular those last notes which complete the harmony.<ref>Woolf, Virginia, ''The Common Reader: First Series, Annotated Edition'', Harvest/HBJ Book, 2002, {{ISBN|0-15-602778-X}}, 172.</ref>}}

Michael Goldman has said of the elusive quality of Chekhov's comedies: "Having learned that Chekhov is comic&nbsp;... Chekhov is comic in a very special, paradoxical way. His plays depend, as comedy does, on the vitality of the actors to make pleasurable what would otherwise be painfully awkward—inappropriate speeches, missed connections, ''faux pas'', stumbles, childishness—but as part of a deeper pathos; the stumbles are not pratfalls but an energized, graceful dissolution of purpose."<ref>Michael Goldman, ''The Actor's Freedom: Towards a Theory of Drama'', p72.</ref>

===Influence on dramatic arts===

In the United States, Chekhov's reputation began its rise slightly later, partly through the influence of [[Stanislavski's system]] of acting, with its notion of [[subtext]]: "Chekhov often expressed his thought not in speeches", wrote Stanislavski, "but in pauses or between the lines or in replies consisting of a single word&nbsp;... the characters often feel and think things not expressed in the lines they speak."<ref>Reynolds, Elizabeth (ed), ''Stanislavski's Legacy'', Theatre Arts Books, 1987, {{ISBN|978-0-87830-127-0}}, 81, 83.</ref><ref name = "Eßlin">"It was Chekhov who first deliberately wrote dialogue in which the mainstream of emotional action ran underneath the surface. It was he who articulated the notion that human beings hardly ever speak in explicit terms among each other about their deepest emotions, that the great, tragic, climactic moments are often happening beneath outwardly trivial conversation." [[Martin Esslin]], from ''Text and Subtext in Shavian Drama'', in ''1922: Shaw and the last Hundred Years'', ed. Bernard. F. Dukore, Penn State Press, 1994, {{ISBN|978-0-271-01324-4}}, 200.</ref> The [[Group Theatre (New York)|Group Theatre]], in particular, developed the subtextual approach to drama, influencing generations of [[Theater in the United States|American playwrights]], screenwriters, and actors, including [[Clifford Odets]], [[Elia Kazan]] and, in particular, [[Lee Strasberg]]. In turn, Strasberg's [[Actors Studio]] and the [[Method acting|"Method" acting]] approach influenced many actors, including [[Marlon Brando]] and [[Robert De Niro]], though by then the Chekhov tradition may have been distorted by a preoccupation with realism.<ref name="Tovstonogov 1968 pp. 146–155">{{cite journal |last=Tovstonogov |first=Georgii |title=Chekhov's "Three Sisters" at the Gorky Theatre |journal=The Drama Review |publisher=JSTOR |volume=13 |issue=2 |year=1968 |issn=0012-5962 |doi=10.2307/1144419 |jstor=1144419 |pages=146–155 |quote=Lee Strasberg became in my opinion a victim of the traditional idea of Chekhovian theatre&nbsp;... [he left] no room for Chekhov's imagery.}}</ref> In 1981, the playwright [[Tennessee Williams]] adapted ''The Seagull'' as ''[[The Notebook of Trigorin]]''. One of Anton's nephews, [[Michael Chekhov]], would also contribute heavily to modern theatre, particularly through his unique acting methods which developed Stanislavski's ideas further.

[[Alan Twigg]], the chief editor and publisher of the Canadian book review magazine ''[[B.C. BookWorld]]'' wrote:

{{blockquote|One can argue Anton Chekhov is the second-most popular writer on the planet. Only Shakespeare outranks Chekhov in terms of movie adaptations of their work, according to the movie database IMDb.&nbsp;... We generally know less about Chekhov than we know about mysterious Shakespeare.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Memories of Chekhov: Accounts of the Writer from His Family, Friends and Contemporaries. Foreword by Alan Twigg.|last = Sekirin|first = Peter|publisher = MacFarland Publishers|year = 2011|isbn = 978-0-7864-5871-4|location = Jefferson, NC|pages = 1}}</ref>}}

Chekhov has also influenced the work of Japanese playwrights including [[Shimizu Kunio]], [[Yōji Sakate]], and [[Ai Nagai]]. Critics have noted similarities in how Chekhov and Shimizu use a mixture of light humour as well as an intense depictions of longing.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Rimer|first1=J.|title=Japanese Theatre and the International Stage|publisher=Koninklijke Brill NV|location=Leiden, The Netherlands|isbn=978-90-04-12011-2|pages=299–311|year=2001}}</ref> Sakate adapted several of Chekhov's plays and transformed them in the general style of ''[[nō]]''.<ref name=Clayton>{{cite book|last1=Clayton|first1=J. Douglas|title=Adapting Chekhov: The Text and Its Mutations|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-50969-5|pages=269–270|year=2013}}</ref> Nagai also adapted Chekhov's plays, including [[Three Sisters (play)|''Three Sisters'']], and transformed his dramatic style into Nagai's style of satirical realism while emphasising the social issues depicted in the play.<ref name=Clayton/>

Chekhov's works have been adapted for the screen, including [[Sidney Lumet]]'s ''[[The Sea Gull|Sea Gull]]'' and [[Louis Malle]]'s ''[[Vanya on 42nd Street]]''. [[Laurence Olivier]]'s final effort as a film director was a 1970 adaptation of ''[[Three Sisters (1970 film)|Three Sisters]]'' in which he also played a supporting role. His work has also served as inspiration or been referenced in numerous films. In [[Andrei Tarkovsky]]'s 1975 film [[The Mirror (1975 film)|''The Mirror'']], characters discuss his short story "[[Ward No. 6]]". Woody Allen has been influenced by Chekhov and references to his works are present in many of his films including ''[[Love and Death]]'' (1975), ''[[Interiors]]'' (1978) and ''[[Hannah and Her Sisters]]'' (1986). Plays by Chekhov are also referenced in [[François Truffaut]]'s 1980 drama film ''[[The Last Metro]]'', which is set in a theatre. ''[[The Cherry Orchard]]'' has a role in the comedy film ''[[Henry's Crime]]'' (2011). A portion of a stage production of ''[[Three Sisters (play)|Three Sisters]]'' appears in the 2014 drama film ''[[Still Alice]]''.  The 2022 Foreign Language Oscar winner, [[Drive My Car (film)|''Drive My Car'']], is centered on a production of ''Uncle Vanya''.
 
Several of Chekhov's short stories were adapted as episodes of the 1986 Indian anthology television series ''[[Katha Sagar]]''. Another Indian television series titled ''Chekhov Ki Duniya'' aired on [[DD National]] in the 1990s, adapting different works of Chekhov.<ref>{{cite web |title=Chekhov Ki Duniya |url=https://nettv4u.com/about/Hindi/tv-serials/chekhov-ki-duniya |website=nettv4u |language=en}}</ref>

[[Nuri Bilge Ceylan]]'s Palme d'Or winner [[Winter Sleep (film)|''Winter Sleep'']] was adapted from the short story "The Wife" by Anton Chekhov.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Diken |first=Bülent |date=1 September 2017 |title=Money, Religion, and Symbolic Exchange in Winter Sleep |url=https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/religion-and-society/8/1/arrs080106.xml |journal=Religion and Society |language=en-US |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=94–108 |doi=10.3167/arrs.2017.080106 |issn=2150-9301|doi-access=free }}</ref>

== Publications ==
{{Main|Anton Chekhov bibliography}}

==See also==
{{Portal|Literature|Biography|Russia|Soviet Union|Anarchism|Communism|Socialism|Organized Labour|Environment|Feminism}}
* [[Chekhov's gun]]
* [[Chekhov Library]]
* [[Chekhov Monument in Rostov-on-Don]]
* [[Ann Dunnigan]], English-language translator
* [[Jean-Claude van Itallie]], English-language translator

== Explanatory notes ==
{{notelist|30em}}

== Citations ==
{{Reflist|22em}}

== General and cited sources ==
{{refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite book |last=Allen |first=David |title=Performing Chekhov |url=https://archive.org/details/performingchekho0000alle |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive |publication-place=London |publisher=Routledge |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-203-01950-4 |doi=10.4324/9780203019504 |oclc=559297281}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Bartlett |editor-first=Rosamund |editor-link=Rosamund Bartlett |translator-last=Bartlett |translator-first=Rosamund |translator-last2=Phillips |translator-first2=Anthony |title=Anton Chekhov: A Life in Letters |publisher=Penguin Books |publication-place=London |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-14-044922-8 |oclc=1131582937 |ref={{sfnref|Bartlett|2004a}}}}
* {{cite book |last=Bartlett |first=Rosamund |author-link=Rosamund Bartlett |title=Chekhov: Scenes from a Life |url=https://archive.org/details/chekhovscenesfro0000bart |url-access=registration |via=Internet ARchive |publisher=Free Press |publication-place=London |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-7432-3074-2 |oclc=632112773 |ref={{sfnref|Bartlett|2004b}}}}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Benedetti |editor-first=Jean |editor-link=Jean Benedetti|translator-last=Benedetti |translator-first=Jean |title=Dear Writer, Dear Actress: The Love Letters of Olga Knipper and Anton Chekhov |url=https://archive.org/details/dearwriterdearac0000chek/page/n7/mode/2up |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive |publisher=Ecco Press |publication-place=Hopewell, N.J. |year=1997  |isbn=978-0-88001-550-9 |oclc=891822370}}
* Benedetti, Jean, ''Stanislavski: An Introduction'', Methuen Drama, 1989 edition, {{ISBN|978-0-413-50030-4}}
* {{cite book |last=Bloom |first=Harold |author-link=Harold Bloom |title=Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds |publisher=Warner Books |publication-place=New York |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-446-69129-1 |oclc=1285554573}}
* Borny, Geoffrey, ''Interpreting Chekhov'', ANU Press, 2006, {{ISBN|1-920942-68-8}}, [https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/interpreting-chekhov/download free download]
* {{cite book |last=Chekhov |first=Anton |translator-last=Bartlett |translator-first=Rosamund |translator-link=Rosamund Bartlett|title=About Love and Other Stories |url=https://archive.org/details/aboutloveotherst0000chek |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive |publication-place=Oxford & New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-19-280260-6 |oclc=252643218 |ref={{sfnref |Chekhov |Bartlett |2004}}}}
* Chekhov, Anton, ''The Undiscovered Chekhov: Fifty New Stories'', translated by [[Peter Constantine]], Duck Editions, 2001, {{ISBN|978-0-7156-3106-5}}
* {{cite book |last=Chekhov |first=Anton Pavlovich |translator-last=Garnett |translator-first=Constance |title=Letters of Anton Chekhov |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6408 |publisher=Project Gutenberg |year=2004 |orig-year=1920 |oclc=746986995 |ref={{sfnref |Chekhov |Garnett |2004}}}} {{open access}} ebooks also available at {{OCLC|647111461|647103583}}
* Chekhov, Anton, ''Easter Week'', translated by Michael Henry Heim, engravings by Barry Moser, Shackman Press, 2010
* {{cite book |last1=Chekhov |first1=Anton |translator-last=Payne |translator-first=Robert |translator-link=Pierre Stephen Robert Payne |year=1991 |title=Forty Stories |publisher=Vintage Classics|location=New York City |isbn=978-0-679-73375-1 |ref={{sfnref|Payne|1991}} }}
* Chekhov, Anton, ''Letters of Anton Chekhov to His Family and Friends with Biographical Sketch'', translated by [[Constance Garnett]], Macmillan, 1920. [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6408 Full text at Gutenberg.]. Retrieved 16 February 2007.
* Chekhov, Anton, ''Note-Book of Anton Chekhov,'' translated by [[S. S. Koteliansky]] and [[Leonard Woolf]], B.W. Huebsch, 1921. [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12494 Full text at Gutenberg.]. Retrieved 16 February 2007.
* Chekhov, Anton, ''The Other Chekhov'', edited by Okla Elliott and [[Kyle Minor]], with story introductions by Pinckney Benedict, Fred Chappell, Christopher Coake, Paul Crenshaw, Dorothy Gambrell, Steven Gillis, [[Michelle Herman]], Jeff Parker, Benjamin Percy, and David R. Slavitt. New American Press, 2008 edition, {{ISBN|978-0-9729679-8-3}}
* Chekhov, Anton, ''Seven Short Novels'', translated by Barbara Makanowitzky, W. W. Norton & Company, 2003 edition, {{ISBN|978-0-393-00552-3}}
* Clyman, T. W. (Ed.).  A Chekhov companion. Westport, Ct: Greenwood Press, (1985). {{ISBN|9780313234231}}
* Finke, Michael C., ''Chekhov's 'Steppe': A Metapoetic Journey'', an essay in ''Anton Chekhov Rediscovered'', ed Savely Senderovich and Munir Sendich, Michigan Russian Language Journal, 1988, {{OCLC|17003357}}
* Finke, Michael C., ''Seeing Chekhov: Life and Art'', Cornell UP, 2005, {{ISBN|978-0-8014-4315-2}}
* Gerhardie, William, ''Anton Chekhov'', Macdonald, (1923) 1974 edition, {{ISBN|978-0-356-04609-9}}
* Gorky, Maksim, Alexander Kuprin, and I.A. Bunin, ''Reminiscences of Anton Chekhov'', translated by [[S. S. Koteliansky]] and [[Leonard Woolf]], B.W.Huebsch, 1921. [http://www.eldritchpress.org/ac/gorky.htm Read at eldritchpress.]. Retrieved 16 February 2007.
* Gottlieb, Vera, and Paul Allain (eds), ''The Cambridge Companion to Chekhov'', Cambridge University Press, 2000, {{ISBN|978-0-521-58917-8}}
* Jackson, Robert Louis, ''Dostoevsky in Chekhov's Garden of Eden&nbsp;– 'Because of Little Apples','' in ''Dialogues with Dostoevsky'', Stanford University Press, 1993, {{ISBN|978-0-8047-2120-2}}
* [[Harold L. Klawans|Klawans, Harold L.]], ''Chekhov's Lie'', 1997, {{ISBN|1-888799-12-9}}.  About the challenges of combining writing with the medical life.
* {{cite book |last1=Malcolm |first1=Janet |author-link1=Janet Malcolm|title=Reading Chekhov, a Critical Journey |location=London |publisher=Granta Publications |year=2004 |orig-year=2001 |isbn=9781862076358 |oclc=224119811 }}
*{{cite book |editor-last=Miles |editor-first=Patrick |editor-link=Patrick Miles (writer) |title=Chekhov on the British Stage |url=https://archive.org/details/chekhovonbritish0000unse |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive |publisher=Cambridge Univ. Press |publication-place=New York, NY |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-521-38467-4 |oclc=26363574}}
* Nabokov, Vladimir, ''Anton Chekhov'', in ''Lectures on Russian Literature'', Harvest/HBJ Books, [1981] 2002 edition, {{ISBN|978-0-15-602776-2}}.
* Pitcher, Harvey, ''Chekhov's Leading Lady: Portrait of the Actress Olga Knipper'', J Murray, 1979, {{ISBN|978-0-7195-3681-6}}
* {{cite book |last1=Power |first1=Arthur |last2=Joyce |first2=James |title=Conversations with James Joyce |publisher=Millington |publication-place=London |date=1974 |isbn=978-0-86000-006-8}} Republished in 2012 as an ebook: {{OCLC|817895885}}
* Prose, Francine, ''Learning from Chekhov'', in ''Writers on Writing'', ed. Robert Pack and Jay Parini, UPNE, 1991, {{ISBN|978-0-87451-560-2}}
* {{cite book |last1=Rayfield |first1=Donald |author-link1=Donald Rayfield |year=1997 |title=Anton Chekhov: A Life |location=London |publisher=HarperCollins |isbn=9780805057478 |id={{OCLC|654644946|229213309}} |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/antonchekhovlife0000rayf }}
* Sekirin, Peter. "Memories of Chekhov: Accounts of the Writer from His Family, Friends and Contemporaries," MacFarland Publishers, 2011, {{ISBN|978-0-7864-5871-4}}
* {{cite book |last1=Simmons |first1=Ernest Joseph |title=Chekhov: A Biography |location=Chicago |publisher=University of Chicago Press |orig-year=1962 |year=1970 |isbn=9780226758053 |oclc=682992 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/chekhovbiography0000simm_w9k2 }}
* Speirs, L. Tolstoy and Chekhov. Cambridge, England: University Press, (1971), {{ISBN|0521079500}}
* Stanislavski, Constantin, ''My Life in Art'', Methuen Drama, 1980 edition, {{ISBN|978-0-413-46200-8}}
* {{cite book |last=Styan |first=John Louis |title=Modern Drama in Theory and Practice |url=https://archive.org/details/moderndramainthe0001stya |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive |publisher=Cambridge University Press |publication-place=Cambridge |year=1981 |isbn=978-0-521-23068-1 |oclc=752009093}}
* [[Henri Troyat|Troyat, Henri]], ''Chekhov'', London: Macmillan, 1987, {{ISBN|978-0-33344-141-1}}
* {{cite book |last1=Wood |first1=James |author-link1=James Wood (critic) |year=2000 |orig-year=1999 |chapter=What Chekhov Meant by Life |title=The Broken Estate: Essays in Literature and Belief |location=New York, NY |publisher=Modern Library |isbn=9780804151900 |oclc=863217943}}
* Zeiger, Arthur, ''The Plays of Anton Chekhov'', Claxton House, Inc., New York, NY, 1945.
* Tufarulo, G, M., ''La Luna è morta e lo specchio infranto. Miti letterari del Novecento'', vol.1 – G. Laterza, Bari, 2009– {{ISBN|978-88-8231-491-0}}.
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Sister project links
|wikt=no
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|q=Anton Chekhov
|s=Author:Anton Chekhov
|commons=Category:Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
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{{Spoken Wikipedia|En-Anton_Chekhov_(intro).ogg|date=26 July 2012}}

; Biographical
* {{Books and Writers |id=tsehov |name=Anton Chekhov}}
* [http://www.online-literature.com/anton_chekhov/ Biography] at ''The Literature Network''
* [https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3845755 "Chekhov's Legacy"] by [[Cornel West]] at [[National Public Radio|NPR]], 2004
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090414073007/http://tgpi.ttn.ru/ The International competition of philological, culture and film studies works dedicated to Anton Chekhov's life and creative work] {{in lang|ru}}
* [https://medhum.org/article/narrative/jack_coulehan/cold-eye-warm-heart-medicine-and-anton-chekhov/ Cold Eye, Warm Heart: Medicine and Anton Chekhov by Jack Coulehan, medhum.org]  

; Documentary
* 2010: [https://www.srf.ch/sendungen/sternstunde-kunst/tschechow-lieben Tschechow lieben] (Tschechow and Women) – Director: [[:de:Marina Rumjanzewa|Marina Rumjanzewa]] – Language: German

; Works
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/anton-chekhov}}
* {{Gutenberg author |id=708| name=Anton Pavlovich Chekhov}}. All [[Constance Garnett]]'s translations of the short stories and letters are available, plus the edition of the ''Note-book'' translated by [[S. S. Koteliansky]] and [[Leonard Woolf]] – see the "[[#References|References]]" section for print publication details of all of these. Site also has translations of all the plays.
* {{Internet Archive author}}
* {{Librivox author |id=147}}
* [http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/ac/jr/index.htm 201 Stories by Anton Chekhov], translated by Constance Garnett presented in chronological order of Russian publication with annotations.
* [http://public-library.ru/Chekhov.Anton/ Антон Павлович Чехов. Указатель] Texts of Chekhov's works in the original Russian, listed in chronological order, and also alphabetically by title. Retrieved June 2013. {{in lang|ru}}
* [http://ilibrary.ru/author/chekhov/ Антон Павлович Чехов] Texts of Chekhov's works in the original Russian. Retrieved 16 February 2007. {{in lang|ru}}
* {{OL author|id=OL19677A}}

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