- Born
- Died
- Birth nameAnton Pavlovich Chekhov
- Nickname
- Antosha Chekhonte
- Height6′ 1¼″ (1.86 m)
- Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in 1860, the third of six children to a family of a grocer, in Taganrog, Russia, a southern seaport and resort on the Azov Sea. His father, a 3rd-rank Member of the Merchant's Guild, was a religious fanatic and a tyrant who used his children as slaves. Young Chekhov was a part-time assistant in his father's business and also a singer in a church choir. At age 15, he was abandoned by his bankrupt father and lived alone for 3 years while finishing the Classical Gymnazium in Taganrog. Chekhov obtained a scholarship at the Moscow University Medical School in 1879, from which he graduated in 1884 as a Medical Doctor. He practiced general medicine for about ten years.
While a student, Chekhov published numerous short stories and humorous sketches under a pseudonym. He reserved his real name for serious medical publications, saying "medicine is my wife; literature - a mistress." While a doctor, he kept writing and had success with his first books, and his first play "Ivanov." He gradually decreased his medical practice in favor of writing. Chekhov created his own style based on objectivity, brevity, originality, and compassion. It was different from the mainstream Russian literature's scrupulous analytical depiction of "heroes." Chekhov used a delicate fabric of hints, subtle nuances in dialogs, and precise details. He described his original style as an "objective manner of writing." He avoided stereotyping and instructive political messages in favor of cool comic irony. Praised by writers Lev Tolstoy and Nikolai Leskov, he was awarded the Pushkin Prize from the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1888.
In 1890, Chekhov made a lengthy journey to Siberia and to the remote prison-island of Sakhalin. There, he surveyed thousands of convicts and conducted research for a dissertation about the life of prisoners. His research grew bigger than a dissertation, and in 1894, he published a detailed social-analytical essay on the Russian penitentiary system in Siberia and the Far East, titled "Island of Sakhalin." Chekhov's valuable research was later used and quoted by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in his "Gulag Archipelago." In 1897-1899, Chekhov returned to his medical practice in order to stop the epidemic of cholera.
Chekhov developed special relationship with Stanislavsky and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko at the Moscow Art Theater. He emerged as a mature playwright who influenced the modern theater. In the plays "Uncle Vanya," "Three Sisters," "Seagull," and "Cherry Orchard," he mastered the use of understatement, anticlimax, and implied emotion. The leading actress of the Moscow Art Theater, Olga Knipper-Chekhova, became his wife. In 1898, Chekhov moved to his Mediterranean-style home at the Black Sea resort of Yalta in the Crimea. There he was visited by writers Lev Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, Ivan Bunin, and artists Konstantin Korovin and Isaac Levitan.
- IMDb mini biography by: Steve Shelokhonov
- SpouseOlga Knipper-Chekhova(May 25, 1901 - July 15, 1904) (his death)
- Uncle of Olga Tschechowa and Michael Chekhov.
- "Chekhov's Gun" is a dramatic principle in which every element must be essential to the story, and irrelevant elements must be removed. When giving advice to fellow playwrights, Chekhov used the example that if a gun is shown in the first act, it must be fired by the end; otherwise it should not be there at all.
- His drama, Uncle Vanya performed at the Donmar Warehouse, was awarded the 2003 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best Revival of 2002.
- As a physician Chekhov had diagnosed himself with tuberculosis as early as 1884, but he refused to seek treatment or curb his hectic lifestyle. It was not until March 1897, when he suffered a hemorrhage at a Moscow restaurant, that he reluctantly got medical attention. By then Chekhov's TB was advanced beyond cure, though by following doctor's orders he managed to live another seven years.
- Was a confirmed bachelor until he met actress Olga Knipper-Chekhova in 1898, during rehearsals of his play "The Seagull". They married in 1901. By mutual (albeit unhappy) consent their marriage was marked by long separations, as Chekhov remained in Yalta for his health while Knipper continued her career with the Moscow Art Theater. They wrote each other many letters, which were later published.
- When an actor has money he doesn't send letters, he sends telegrams.
- Love, friendship, respect, do not unite people as much as a common hatred of something.
- The personal life of every individual is based on secrecy, and perhaps it is partly for that reason that civilized man is so nervously anxious that personal privacy should be respected.
- If a lot of cures are suggested for a disease, it means the disease is incurable.
- A woman can become a man's friend only in the following stages: first an acquaintance, then a mistress, and only then a friend.
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