Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. Chekhov's last plays

Will be presented in our article. Let's start with short biography, and then we will talk about everything in more detail.

Brief chronicle of the life and work of A.P. Chekhov

  • Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on January 17 (29), 1860 in Taganrog. The family of his parents is Chekhov Pavel Georgievich (merchant) and Evgenia Yakovlevna.
  • The period from 1876 to 1878 is the time of the writer's first literary experiments.
  • Studying at Moscow University, at the Faculty of Medicine, took place in 1879-1884.
  • In 1880, the first works of the writer were published, and he also worked in various humorous magazines: "Alarm Clock", "Shards", "Dragonfly".
  • In 1890 Chekhov went to Sakhalin Island.
  • He began to cooperate in 1898 with the Moscow Art Theater, where the premiere of the play "The Seagull" took place at the same time.
  • Marriage to Knipper O. L. - 1901.
  • 1903-1904 - on the stage Art Theater was the first staged play called " The Cherry Orchard".
  • In 1904, on July 2 (15), the writer died in Badenweiler, in a German resort.

So, we have briefly described the life and work of Chekhov. The table that can be compiled from this chronicle will help you to better absorb the information if you need to remember the main dates associated with the personality of Anton Pavlovich.

If you need a deeper knowledge of the biography, a fairly detailed sketch of the life and work of Chekhov, which we have compiled and now bring to your attention, will help you.

At the parents' house

Chekhov Anton Pavlovich was born in Taganrog. His grandfather was a serf by birth, but he bought the will for himself and his family and served after that as the manager of the estate (some features of his image are reflected in the character Firs from The Cherry Orchard). Anton Pavlovich's father owned a grocery store, but he was notable for his inability to conduct business affairs and impracticality. Much was combined in his character: artistic talent passed on to children (Pavel Georgievich drew well, and was also fond of music, played the violin, loved with authority and despotism in relation to relatives and others. Chekhov, recalling his childhood, wrote to Alexander, his older brother, in 1883 that childhood was poisoned by horrors.Family despotism and punishment developed in Chekhov an aversion to violence and injustice, a desire for independence, a heightened sense of self-worth.

Autonomy in life

Both creativity and Chekhov's life became independent early on. In his family, children quickly became independent. The sons helped in trade, from an early age working in a shop. Therefore, from a young age, Anton Pavlovich was immersed in the everyday environment: he cleaned the apartment, went to the market, carried water, washed his own collars for uniforms, ran

But there was something else in his life: home performances and sketches that Anton Pavlovich himself invented and acted out with his brothers, fishing. A bright beginning was brought into the family by the mother, who was a reasonable, sincere and kind woman.

The world of nature in the life and work of Chekhov

From childhood, Anton Pavlovich fell in love with the natural world, which left a deep imprint in his soul, awakening a thirst for life. And Chekhov's work reflects this. In his stories we will come across descriptions of the steppe, the Taganrog Bay ("Steppe", "On Christmas Night", etc.). This writer felt very keenly the connection with nature throughout his life and showed in his works its deep influence on human life. In Chekhov's creations, nature is humanized: animals, flowers, trees think and feel like people ("Fear", "White-browed", "Kashtanka", "Agafya").

Education at the gymnasium

The older brothers still managed to find a time when the family was prosperous: a French teacher visited the house, after which he was replaced by madam. For Nikolai, the brother of the future writer, music teachers were also invited.

When Anton Pavlovich grew up, the financial situation of the family worsened, so he managed to get only a gymnasium education. Chekhov, however, did not arouse particular interest in studying at the gymnasium. This place was typical for that time. You can get a more or less correct idea about him according to Chekhov's story called "The Man in the Case".

The natural sciences were well conducted in the gymnasium, there was a telescope, the latest instruments in the classrooms. Anton in the classes on the Law of God became the favorite student of Fyodor Platonovich Pokrovsky. He was an interesting, extraordinary person who early noticed a humorous talent in the future writer and gave him the nickname Chekhonte, which later became. Thus, he played a certain role in his life. And Chekhov's work took shape not without the participation of this interesting personality. However, the spirit that reigned in this educational institution was mainly distinguished by formalism and bureaucracy. The spiritual development of the future writer was strongly influenced by books and theater. He showed an early love for dramatic art: at the age of 13, the future writer was already a regular visitor to the Taganrog Theater.

To this period also belong his first literary experiments, now known only by the names that Chekhov created at that time. Life and work, in short, at this time are marked by some important events. We have already presented the main facts of the biography, and as for creativity, we note the following. As a high school student, he published the magazine "Bunny", wrote the comedy "No wonder the chicken sang" and also the drama "Fatherlessness".

The ruin of the Chekhov family

In 1876, Anton Pavlovich's father went bankrupt and was forced to leave for Moscow with his family. Anton was left alone in Taganrog at the age of 16, as he had to finish high school. He began to earn money by private lessons, even sent money transfers to his family. These difficult years, a life full of loneliness, trials and hardships, contributed to the early maturation of a writer like Chekhov. Life and work (briefly described) of the subsequent period are marked by the following main events.

Chekhov - student of Moscow University

Having passed his final exams in 1879, Chekhov went to Moscow. Here he was enrolled at Moscow University, at the Faculty of Medicine. From the very first course, Chekhov began to work in various magazines, to be published. For the family, almost the only financial source was his literary earnings. Chekhov becomes the head of the family and its breadwinner.

First published works

His first published works (parodies) were published in the Dragonfly magazine. Chekhov, choosing literary path, is printed simultaneously in both humorous and serious genres. However, in early work, the former prevail. Under various pseudonyms (My brother's brother, Man without a spleen, Antosha Chekhonte), he is published in the humorous magazines "Shards", "Dragonfly", "Alarm Clock", "Spectator". The main genres in which the humorous press of that time existed were various "little things" that were created according to certain canons: comic aphorisms, comic calendars, captions for drawings, anecdotes, dictionaries, comic announcements, manuals, etc. Chekhov soon mastered them and felt that he was cramped in them.

Satirical and humorous stories

In 1882-1883, such stories as "The Death of an Official", "Thick and Thin", "Daughter of Albion" were published. At that time, many works were written in the form of a sketch, that is, a short humorous story, the comedy of which lies in the transmission of the conversations of the characters. Chekhov raised this genre to the level of serious literature. Among artistic features Chekhov's scenes can be distinguished as follows: simple titles, a minimum of explanations and descriptions ("Burbot", "Guest", "Help", "In the bathhouse"), speaking surnames (actor Porcupines, General Zapupyrin, overseer Ochumelov, master Khryukin), as well as funny colloquial speech of characters.

New keys in the work of Chekhov

The themes of later creations are already present in the first Chekhov stories: the author laughs at the absurdity of people's behavior and thinking, their empty claims. Over time, new tonalities appear in the works. Humor still dominates in creativity, but it acquires some new shades, a new sound - sad, lyrical. One can see a movement from ridicule to analysis, and from funny characters to contradictory, complex ones. The images-masks are replaced by individual characters. In the stories relating to the period 1883-1886 ("Art", "Trouble", "Tosca", "Huntsman"), the future Chekhov is already visible.

Making a Chekhov story

Chekhov's life and work continue. Summary them in the period from 1884 to 1888 can be given the following. In 1884, after completing his studies at the university, Chekhov worked in Zvenigorod, Voskresensk. He is also a correspondent for the Moscow edition, Oskolkov. In the period from 1884 to 1888, he created many works - more than 350. Chekhov's story at that time takes shape as an original and new phenomenon in Russian literature. Chekhov in this small genre managed to contain a huge psychological and socio-philosophical content. Surprisingly capacious he has this form.

The heyday of Anton Pavlovich's talent in the genre of the story

By the period of 1880-1890, the type of the hero is finally determined (average, ordinary, often "small" person). The object of the image becomes ordinary, everyday life. This time is considered the heyday of Chekhov's talent. New collections are being created. In 1886 - Motley Stories, in 1887 - Innocent Speeches and At Twilight, in 1888 - Stories, in 1890 - Gloomy People. The writer was awarded the Pushkin Prize for a collection called "At Twilight". In the autumn of 1887, he wrote the comedy "Ivanov", after which - the vaudevilles "Anniversary", "Wedding", "Proposal" and "Bear", which were staged in professional theaters.

Chekhov goes to Sakhalin Island

The trip to Sakhalin changed the life and work of Chekhov. Let us briefly describe the main events of that time. Chekhov went to this island to be near the convicts. Here he made a single-handed census in three months, talked with different people. Chekhov, as a citizen and artist, decided to show people the harsh truth. The result of the trip is the book "Sakhalin Island" published in 1894.

Works written in the 90s

After that, he began to treat the phenomena of domestic reality more sharply. The first of the major works written after the trip were a story called "Duel" (published in 1891), as well as "Ward No. 6" - a story published in 1892.

Chekhov in the 1990s writes about delusions, illusions, and the inconsistency of various life programs "The Jumper", "The Teacher of Literature"). At this time, such stories as "About Love", "Gooseberry", "Man in a Case", "Ionych" were also created.

From the spring of 1892, the writer settled in Melikhovo, an estate near Moscow, engaged in charitable social activities, treated peasants, built schools, and a first-aid post. His life is changing. P. Chekhov, life, whose works are interconnected, creates on the basis of the impressions received the works "In the ravine", "New cottage", "On the cart", "Men".

Dramaturgy by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

The first play with which Chekhov's dramaturgy began is The Seagull. She was placed in Alexandria theater in 1896. However, the performance was not successful. The reason is Chekhov's innovation, misunderstood by many. After 2 years, in the production of the Art Theater, she caused a sensation. After "The Seagull" came the play "Uncle Vanya" (in 1899), also played with great success. In the last works ("Three Sisters" and "The Cherry Orchard" - 1901 and 1903, respectively), the author's dramatic principles were already fully embodied.

last years of life

In 1897, Chekhov was forced to go to a tuberculosis clinic, and then spend the winter of 1897-1898 in Nice. At the insistence of doctors, he went in September 1898 to Yalta, where he lived all winter. In recent years, the writer has been preparing a collection of works, which appeared in print in two editions (1899-1902 and 1903).

In 1901, the writer married Olga Leonardovna Knipper, an actress.

Gradually, his health deteriorated, the doctors insisted on being sent to Germany, to Badenweiler. The writer went here with his wife. July 2 (15), 1904 was the last day of his life.

And Chekhov's work, and his social activities, and various facts from his biography show us that he was a man of high spiritual ideals, and thanks to people like him, our world is getting a little better. The chronicle of Chekhov's life and work was presented in this article. We will be glad if it inspired in you the desire to continue your acquaintance with this wonderful writer. The life and work of Chekhov, his biography are very instructive and interesting. In this article, unfortunately, it is impossible to tell about all the details.


Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

An outstanding Russian writer, playwright, doctor by profession. Honorary Academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Rank belles-lettres. He is a universally recognized classic of world literature. His plays, especially The Cherry Orchard, have been staged in many theaters around the world for a hundred years. One of the world's most famous playwrights.


On January 29, 1860, in a small house on Police Street, the third child, Anton, was born in the family of Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov. Anton's early childhood passed in endless church holidays, name days. IN weekdays after school, the brothers guarded their father's shop, and at 5 in the morning they got up every day to sing in the church choir. As Chekhov himself said: "As a child, I did not have a childhood."

Father's house of the writer in Taganrog


Father, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov (1825-1898)

He inherited a despotic character from his father and, although in letters to the family he showed care and compassion, in life he often resorted to assault and abuse. He forced his children to work in the shop from morning to night, and also to sing in the choir at many hours of church services.


The writer's mother, Evgenia Yakovlevna Chekhova (1835-1919)

A quiet woman who stoically endured her husband's despotism and years of need. She did not like to read and write, all her life she lived in the interests of the family, worrying, first of all, for her children. She survived four of her seven children - the very first daughter Eugene (1869-1871) died at the age of two. Anton Chekhov said that "The talent in us comes from the side of the father, and the soul from the side of the mother."



First, Chekhov studied at the Greek school in Taganrog. The Greek who ran the school forced them to memorize their lessons, beat the students with a ruler, put them in a corner on their knees on coarse salt. At the age of 8, after two years of study, Chekhov entered the Taganrog gymnasium. The male classical gymnasium was the oldest educational institution in the south of Russia (founded in 1806) and provided a solid education and upbringing for those times

Gymnasium 2 name A . P . Chekhov


Young people who graduated from the eight classes of the gymnasium could enter any Russian university without exams or go to study abroad. The gymnasium formed in Chekhov an aversion to hypocrisy and falsehood. Here his vision of the world, love for books, knowledge and theater was formed. Here he received his first literary pseudonym "Chekhonte", which he was awarded by the teacher of the Law of God, Fyodor Pokrovsky. Here began his first literary and stage experiments.

A. P. Chekhov. Unfinished oil portrait by brother Nicholas (1883)


Chekhov, a schoolboy, published humorous magazines, came up with captions for drawings, wrote humorous stories, scenes. The first drama "Fatherlessness" was written by 18-year-old Chekhov while studying at the gymnasium. The gymnasium period of Chekhov was an important period of maturation and formation of his personality, the development of its spiritual foundations. Gymnasium years gave Chekhov a huge amount of material for writing. The most typical and colorful figures will appear later on the pages of his works. Perhaps one of these figures was his mathematics teacher Edmund Dzerzhinsky, the father of the future first representative of the Cheka

Dzerzhinsky Edmund Iosifovich - teacher of mathematics A.P. Chekhov in the gymnasium


Sklifosovsky Nikolay Vasilievich - Honored Professor, Director of the Imperial Clinical Institute Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna in St. Petersburg Grigory Antonovich Zakharyin - outstanding Russian general practitioner, founder of the Moscow clinical school, honorary member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences

In 1879 he graduated from the gymnasium in Taganrog. In the same year, he moved to Moscow and entered the medical faculty of Moscow University, where he studied with famous professors: Nikolai Sklifosovsky, Grigory Zakharyin and others. In the same year, Anton's brother Ivan received a teacher's job in the town of Voskresensk near Moscow. He was given a large apartment that could accommodate a whole family.


The Chekhovs, who lived closely in Moscow, came to Ivan in Voskresensk for the summer. There, in 1881, Anton Chekhov met Dr. P. A. Arkhangelsky, head of the Resurrection Hospital (Chikinsky Hospital). From 1882, as a student, he already helped the doctors of the hospital in receiving patients. In 1884, Chekhov graduated from the university course and began working as a county doctor at the Chikinskaya hospital. Then he worked in Zvenigorod, where for some time he was in charge of the hospital.

P.A. Arkhangelsky - an outstanding general practitioner


Having received a medical diploma, Chekhov placed a sign on the door of his apartment « Dr. A.P. Chekhov » , he continues to treat incoming patients and visit the seriously ill at home. “Medicine is progressing a little. I'm flying and I'm flying. Every day you have to spend more than a ruble on a cab driver. I have a lot of acquaintances, and therefore, a lot of patients. Half have to be treated for nothing, while the other half pays me five and three rubles. - January 31, 1885 to M. G. Chekhov.

Chekhov in Melikhovo with the dachshund Khina, 1897


In the depths of his soul, the doctor never died in Chekhov: “I dream of abscesses, edema, lanterns, diarrhea, specks in the eye and other grace. In the summer, I usually receive the paralyzed for half a day, and my sister assists me - this is a fun job ”-V.G. Korolenko, May 1888. One of the motives for the trip to Sakhalin was the desire to "at least pay a little" to medicine. A survey of the sanitary condition of prisons, infirmaries, barracks, local pediatrics shocked Chekhov. The results of it own work in the book "Sakhalin Island" they allowed him to say: "Medicine cannot reproach me for treason. I paid due tribute to learning."

Portrait of Chekhov by Osip Braz


And in the mid-1890s, Chekhov still dreamed of his own course in private pathology and therapy at the university. To read it, you need an academic degree and the defense of a dissertation. Anton Pavlovich suggests using "Sakhalin Island" as such, but is refused by the dean of the faculty both in defense and in lecturing.

A.P. Chekhov personal doctor L.N. Tolstoy


Chekhov voluntarily takes part in the fight against the consequences of famine and the cholera epidemic in 1891-1892, but gradually practical medicine, even in a limited way, begins to weigh on the writer.

Monument to Chekhov in Badenweiler


His confessions to A. S. Suvorin are widely known: “I am lonely, because everything cholera is alien to my soul, and work that requires constant travel, conversations and petty troubles is tiring for me. No time to write. Literature has long been abandoned, and I am poor and miserable, because I found it convenient for myself and my independence to refuse the remuneration that district doctors receive ”(letter dated August 1, 1892). “I’m already very tired of talking, tired of the sick, especially women, who, when they are being treated, are unusually stupid and stubborn.” (I.I. Gorbunov-Posadov, May 20, 1893).

Title page of lifetime PSS, 1903




The Melikhovsky period is not only Chekhov's inspired literary work and active medical practice, it is the colossal social activity of the writer.

During the cholera epidemic, Chekhov worked as a zemstvo doctor, serving 25 villages. He opens a medical center in Melikhovo at his own expense, receiving many patients and supplying them with medicines. In Melikhovo and its environs, Chekhov is building three schools for peasant children, a bell tower and a fire shed for peasants, participates in laying a highway to Lopasnya, petitions for railway station fast trains began to stop and there he seeks the opening of a post office and a telegraph. In addition, he organizes the planting of thousands of cherry trees, sows bare forest areas with larches, elms, maples, pines and oaks.


In Melikhovo, Chekhov came up with the idea of ​​creating a public library in his native Taganrog. The writer donates there more than 2 thousand volumes of his own books, including many unique editions with autographs of museum value, and also compiles a gallery of portraits of scientists and artists for the library. Subsequently, Chekhov constantly sends the books he buys to the library, and in large quantities. Thanks to the efforts of Anton Pavlovich, he appeared in Taganrog.

Monument to Peter the Great. In Paris, Chekhov managed to convince the famous sculptor Antokolsky to donate the statue to the city, organized the bronze casting of the statue and its delivery through the port of Marseille to Taganrog


From 1892 to 1899, Chekhov lived in the Melikhovo estate near Moscow, where one of the main Chekhov museums now operates. During the years of "Melikhov's sitting" 42 works were written. Chekhov later traveled extensively in Europe. In 1891/92, part of the central zone of Russia and the Volga region experienced severe famine due to crop failure and drought. Chekhov organizes the collection of donations in favor of the starving Nizhny Novgorod and Voronezh provinces and himself travels to the disaster site. Chekhov is indignant at the fact that there are no objective articles in the newspapers about the situation in the countryside, that correspondents know the village "only from Gleb Uspensky." The estate in Melikhovo was sold in 1899. Chekhov with his mother and sister go to live in Yalta, where the construction of a beautiful house has already been completed.

"Chekhov's House" on Malaya Dmitrovka, 2008


Here Anton Pavlovich again begins an active social activities: How local, he is elected a member of the board of trustees of the women's gymnasium, donates 500 rubles for the construction of a school in Mukholatka, and is busy building the first biological station. In Yalta, being himself seriously ill with tuberculosis, he works in the Guardianship of Visiting Patients. At that time, many consumptives came to Yalta, and almost without money, only because they had heard about Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, who helps to get settled and can even apply for a residence permit for people of Jewish nationality.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov's signature


Last years Chekhov, whose tuberculosis has worsened, to improve his health, constantly lives in his house near Yalta, only occasionally coming to Moscow, where his wife (since 1901), artist Olga Leonardovna Knipper, occupies one of the prominent places in the troupe formed in 1898 Moscow Art Theater.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov and Olga Knipper


In the summer of 1904, Chekhov went to a resort in Germany. Due to a sharp exacerbation of the disease, which he could not cope with, the writer died on July 2 (15), 1904 in Badenweiler, Germany. The denouement came on the night of July 1-2, 1904. According to his wife Olga Leonardovna, at the beginning of the night Chekhov woke up and “for the first time in his life he himself asked to send for a doctor. Then he ordered to give champagne. Anton Pavlovich sat down and somehow significantly, loudly said to the doctor in German (he knew very little German): "Ich sterbe." Then he repeated for the student or for me in Russian: “I am dying.” Then he took a glass, turned his face to me, smiled his amazing smile, said: “I haven’t drunk champagne for a long time ...”, calmly drank everything to the bottom, quietly lay down on his left side and soon fell silent forever.

Monument to Chekhov in Serpukhov, 2009


The coffin with the body of the writer was delivered to Moscow, where on July 9 (22), 1904, the funeral took place. A funeral service was held in the Dormition Church of the Novodevichy Convent. Chekhov was buried right there behind the Assumption Church in the monastery cemetery, next to the grave of his father. A wooden cross with an icon and a lantern for a lamp was placed on the grave. On the anniversary of the death of A.P. Chekhov on July 2 (15), 1908, a new marble monument was opened on the grave, made in the Art Nouveau style according to the project of the artist L.M. Brailovsky. In 1933, after the abolition of the cemetery on the territory of the Novodevichy Convent, at the request of O.L. Knipper, Chekhov was reburied in the cemetery behind the southern wall of the monastery. . Soon both tombstones were transferred here - A.P. Chekhov and his father.

Chekhov's grave at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow

" Engineer? - yes, 30 patents for inventions in the Soviet era. Philosopher? - yes, one of the brightest interpreters of Platonism, one of the brightest Russian Platonists. Poet? - yes, maybe not a big one, but still he created poems and published a book of poems, a friend of A. Bely, who grew up in an atmosphere of symbolists. Mathematician? - yes, a student of the famous professor Bugaev (father of A. Bely), who created very interesting concepts in this area. Florensky is a person who cannot be unambiguously characterized in any way. This figure, although causing and causing controversy today, is certainly of enormous proportions.

On the one hand, you can hear the most enthusiastic reviews about Florensky, and comparing him with Leonardo de Vinci speaks for itself. On the other hand, “stylized Orthodoxy”, “a bouquet of heresies”, “Khlist nonsense”… Who is he really?

The fate of the outstanding thinker, priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, scientist-encyclopedist Pavel Alexandrovich, a man of multilateral talents is amazing and tragic.

He left significant works on philosophy, theology, aesthetics, the theory of language, mathematics and physics, electromechanics. In his works, many theoretical problems are widely covered, which greatly determine the time (by fifty years, as the scientist himself believed). Already at the beginning of our century, he came to ideas that later became fundamental in cybernetics, art theory, and semiotics. And that's not it. He was a symbolist poet whose works appeared in Libra and came out as a separate edition, a gifted astronomer, an excellent musician, an astute admirer of I.S. Bach, L. Beethoven and his contemporaries. Florensky was a polyglot, fluent in Latin, ancient Greek and most modern European languages, as well as the languages ​​of the Caucasus, Iran and India.

Pavel Alexandrovich strove to synthesize knowledge in various fields, to present the world in an all-encompassing unity. Often he is reproached for intellectual aristocracy, elitism. Perhaps there are reasons for this. But still, first of all, P. Florensky was a priest. Did he sit down at the theological or treatise- he put on an epitrachelion and handrails, which symbolizes priestly service. P. Florensky confessed and communed the Holy Mysteries of V. Rozanov, who was dying in his arms, married the young daring A. Losev. Prior to his arrest, Father Pavel was mostly surrounded by people of “refined culture”, but soon he was destined to become a camp priest who worthily carried his cross to the end.

P. Florensky loved his family, his family, his homeland - great and unfortunate Russia. He was born on January 9, 1882, near the town of Yevlakh in the west of present-day Azerbaijan, where his father, a railway engineer, was then building the Transcaucasian railway. The family tree of the father went to the Russian clergy; mother belonged to an old and noble Armenian family. P. Florensky's childhood years were spent in Georgia, where he studied at the Tiflis Gymnasium, from which he graduated as the first student with a gold medal in 1900. He was firmly convinced that Caucasian childhood and Caucasian roots, impressions from the nature of the region were decisive for the formation of his personality and philosophical views. A poetic perception of the surrounding world, a passion for knowledge were characteristic of Florensky from the first steps of his life. He was endowed with a rare acuteness of perception and approached nature with the inquisitiveness of a naturalist. In each phenomenon he tried to catch a hidden, hidden meaning. And above all, about the sea, which he constantly and insatiably contemplated in his childhood and adolescence. On its shore, he felt "face to face in front of his dear, lonely, mysterious and endless eternity." The impression of the boundless, free elements remained with him for the rest of his life, the call of the sea, the crumbly sound of the surf, the endless self-luminous surface, the salty and iodine-scented air, the infinite wealth of colors ... Later he compared the voices of the sea, the rhythm of the surf with the rows of Jean Fourier and mathematical constructions of Gottfried Leibniz; he could hear the surf in the famous Rostov chimes, in the running and running back rhythms of Bach's fugues and preludes. Moreover, peering into himself, Florensky discovered in the rhythm of inner life, in the sounds that fill the consciousness, these forever remembered rhythms of the waves. And this trait, this combination of science and poetry, manifested itself in P. Florensky even in the most serious works. It is striking that in his works on art history he used the mathematical apparatus. Thus, a study on nature and painting, "Reverse Perspective" - ​​anticipates theorems and set theory, which at the beginning of the 20th century, when he composed this, was an entirely new area of ​​\u200b\u200bmathematics. And the work “Imaginations in Geometry” seemed to be specially written to introduce poetic imagery into rigorous mathematics.

Florensky's intense communion with nature turns into an ardent passion for the natural sciences; I.V. becomes his favorite writer, by the way, one of the first ones he read on his own. Goethe.

According to the philosopher's own admission, his soul was worried about a wide variety of questions: singing sands, caves with overhanging stalactites and stalagmites sticking out from below, geysers, milky ways and foggy spots, infinitely small and infinitely large. The stories of the father, who often came to his son's bedroom in the evening to talk to him, were added to what he read from books and magazines. The range of topics is very broad. These are the travels of D. Livingston, G. Stanley or D. Cook, wild peoples, the Stone and Bronze Ages, the Kant-Laplace hypothesis of world formation, the wave theory of light, the fundamentals of thermodynamics, the wave theory of sound and light, the theory of Ch. Darwin ...

It seemed that everything was going as well as possible: excellent successes in the gymnasium, serious reading of scientific and art books, communication with nature, scientific conversations with his father. And suddenly, in the last grade of the gymnasium, Florensky experienced spiritual crisis, he understood the limitations and relativity of physical knowledge. The first impulse was the desire to go to the people, partly under the influence of reading L. Tolstoy, then to the monks. Parents insisted on continuing education. He enters the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University. And here he eagerly absorbs knowledge. In addition to studying mathematics and physics, she attends lectures on philosophy, independently studies art history.

Pavel Alexandrovich met the Symbolists, struck up a friendship with Andrei Bely, wrote articles for the magazines Novy Put and Libra.

N. Bugaev, one of the founders of the Moscow Mathematical Society, had a great influence on him in those years. This society included outstanding scientists - F. Bredikhin, P. Chebyshev, V. Tsinger, N. Zhukovsky. They believed that mathematics-oriented science would help the search for a worldview. For P. Florensky, these ideas opened boundless prospects for philosophical creativity. It seemed to him that philosophy would turn into a rigorous science, which was the dream of generations of mathematicians, beginning with Pythagoras.

P. Florensky graduated from the University with a diploma of the 1st degree, but unexpectedly he refused the offer to remain at the department and from the profession of mathematics. A young man, who was predicted to become a scholar, enters the Moscow Theological Academy, wishing, as he wrote, "to produce a synthesis of ecclesiastical and secular culture." And the years of the "second student" were filled with intense studies, deep study of various disciplines - philosophy, philology, history of religion and mathematics. His successes were so significant that already in his fourth year he was elected to the chair of the history of philosophy: he had previously been instructed to give two test lectures, one on Plato, the other on Kant. P. Florensky's lectures and seminars at the Academy were devoted to the history of the worldview; in parallel, he taught mathematics and physics.

Pavel Aleksandrovich was an excellent lecturer. One of his students, S. Volkov, recalled that he had neither the majesty of posture and gesture, nor the effective sound of his voice, nor the ornate smoothness of phrases. The speech flowed as if from within, not striving for deliberate prettiness, it was beautiful in its organic unity. There was a certain magical charm in his lecture, he read as if he were thinking aloud.

Here, in the Moscow Theological Academy, which was located in Sergiev Posad, P. Florensky came up with the idea of ​​the future book “The Pillar and Ground of Truth”, the purpose of which is to comprehend and express the path that led the author into the world of Christian speculation and Orthodox churchhood.

But the content of the work is deeper and more significant, it is interesting not only as an original Russian religious and philosophical work, "The Pillar ..." - a kind of encyclopedia of human knowledge in various fields. That is why it has become a phenomenon in Russian culture. Both in subject matter, and in the form of presentation, and in external design, the book is unique. The author demonstrates in it almost “superhuman erudition”, brilliant knowledge in the field of philosophy, theology and mathematics, reinforces philosophical conclusions with facts from the field of medicine, psychopathology, folklore and linguistics, refers to mathematical logic, and sometimes quotes poetic works. The pages of the book are written by the hand of a talented writer, brightly, figuratively, lyrically.

It is characteristic that P. Florensky carefully thought out the design of his work, as a result, readers received an edition that was destined to become a wonderful monument of book culture. The colors used on the cover were selected according to the recipes of the ancient Sophia icons of the Novgorod school, each chapter is preceded by an allegorical vignette, borrowed from the book of the time of Peter the Great "Symbols and Emblems". In addition, the book is replete with diagrams, drawings and reproductions. The main text is in Elizabethan type.

"Pillar... » brought the author well-deserved fame and caused a lot of feedback. The book was called "the only one in the world", which "will pass the centuries of exciting distance", "an outstanding phenomenon in modern Russian religious and philosophical culture", a work of "remarkable talent".

After October 1917, P. Florensky continued his intense creative activity, despite many difficulties and open persecution in the party press. His performance is amazing. Already in 1918 he was preparing for publication a collection of works in 19 volumes.

The scope of his duties is extremely wide. For three years he has been working in the Commission for the Protection of Monuments of Art and Antiquities of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and at the same time writing the work "Trinity Sergius Lavra in Russia" - now it is published in the 16th issue of Prometheus. He teaches at VKHUTEMAS and creates "Reverse Perspective". In a detailed study of "Imaginations in Geometry" he anticipated what in modern physics is called the antiworld. He does not leave his studies of philosophy either, he creates the capital work “At the Watersheds of Thought”. And in parallel, with interruptions, for nine years he writes memories of childhood.

The beginning of his engineering activity also belongs to this time. The scientist participates in the preparation of the GOELRO plan, works at the Glavelectro of the Supreme Economic Council, studies electric fields and dielectrics, as a result of which his monograph "Dielectrics and their application in technology" appeared. He reads reports at the All-Russian Association of Engineers and edits the "Technical Encyclopedia", etc.

The life of this outstanding scientist-encyclopedist. a man of great talents ended tragically. He went through prisons, camps, the infamous Solovki, where he was shot on December 8, 1937.

A person is perfect only in 2 cases: when he creates and when he loves.

There is also the perfection of achievement or sacrifice, but it is associated with the departure from our lives, and therefore is completely undesirable.

P. Florensky realized himself completely in all 3 dimensions of perfection: he is a brilliant creator, he is ideal loving father his children, physical and spiritual, and, to the greatest misfortune for us, he is a martyr, a priest who was shot in the Solovetsky Gulag.

So much has been said about Florensky's martyrdom that it obscured the most important discovery of his life, the book Imaginations in Geometry. Father Pavel was arrested for her, and they killed her for her, although, of course, he was hastily attributed to participation in the monarchist underground organization, which sounds absurd for anyone who is familiar with the life and works of Pavel Florensky.

In fact, the brilliant priest was absolutely loyal to the existing government.

Whatever Pavel Florensky touched with his thought, everything began to shine and glow with a new, unique light. He opened the dictionary to the word "truth" and read in Lithuanian "truth." This means that truth is what is, what is reliable in itself and does not need proof, like the sun in the sky.

This approach was years ahead of the movement of philosophical thought. Decades will pass after the publication of Florensky's book "The Pillar and Ground of Truth", and a whole trend of linguistic philosophy will appear. Linguistic philosophy will look very closely at words and will come to the conclusion that almost all scientific definitions rest on the vague polysemantic meanings that we give to words. Thought runs into a dead end. Everything is formed by the word, and the word is, by its very nature, imprecise. Florensky, groping for the conventionality of the word, immediately found a way out of the impasse. This is intellectual word creation, the thinker himself creates his own mythology around words, without hiding the subjectivity of the creative approach. So, the word "truth" was associated with the word "is", "Be", in German "ist".

Florensky was firmly convinced that any scientific truth must have a specific sensual appearance for a person. He owns a remarkable postulate of the proof of the existence of God. If there is a trinity of Rublev, then there is God.

The iconostasis is not a barrier between the altar and the worshiper, but a window into another world. Florensky did not deny that the icon is a symbol, but for him the symbol was a greater reality than the board on which the trinity is depicted.

The magnetism of Rublev's trinity attracted the eye of Florensky, who suddenly discovered Lobachevsky's geometry in this great icon. After all, the "imaginary geometry" of the great geometer was really for mirror-curved hemispheres. Florensky saw that the geometry of the icon is subordinated not to Euclid, but to Lobachevsky. The perspective of the curved space is such that you do not look deep into the picture, but the picture covers you with its curved hemisphere - you are inside the icon.

Florensky called this "reverse perspective". There was one step left to the main discovery of life. A. Einstein's "General Theory of Relativity" was published in Russian, where the entire space of our Universe turned out to be curved precisely according to Florensky's laws.

From that moment began the spiritual duel between Father Paul and the great physicist. What did Florensky disagree with in Einstein's theory of relativity?

The fact is that according to the theory, the speed of light in the Universe cannot exceed 300,000 km/s. Everything that is beyond this speed, in the formulas of the great theory appears with a minus sign, is denoted by imaginary quantities.

Florensky does not argue with this physical fact, but he believes that it is precisely these “imaginations in geometry” that designate a reality that is beyond the control of physics and cosmology. Light above the speed of light is "that light". Physically, it does not exist, but, besides physics, there is also the Spirit.

Recall that Florensky believes that the golden background of ancient icons symbolizes the invisible light, or "the other light."

There is no doubt that the priest P. Florensky sees in the formulas of the general theory of relativity the actual confirmation of his correctness. He does not agree with Einstein, but he agrees with his discovery that time and space become zero as they approach the speed of light. Well, what if we jump over this zero and go to other world? Dante helped Florensky to take this step.

While reading The Divine Comedy, Father Pavel noticed that Dante, descending lower and lower through the circles of hell, suddenly finds himself at the top and goes out into purgatory. This can happen only if there is a point of twisting the space according to the laws of non-Euclidean geometry. You go down, you get up.

Combining Einstein's general theory of relativity and Dante's "Divine Comedy", Florensky created his own unique image of the Universe. Here the spirit is the cause of light, and thought flies through the universe faster than all speeds. The boundaries of our earthly world outline the radius of a light beam, running its way in 1 second. Thus, our earthly world turns out to be within the solar system, and what we see outside it is already other, completely non-human worlds.

It turns out that physically we are here within the speed of light, but mentally we penetrate into all dimensions of the universe, where, without disappearing anywhere, our earthly time has curled up into a ball, accommodating the past, present and future, real eternity.

The book "Imaginations in Geometry" ends with a very important thought experiment, which Florensky carries out according to the laws of Einstein's theory of relativity.

If any body rushes through the Universe at the speed of light, then it will “turn out” into the Universe and acquire an infinite mass, that is, it will become the entire Universe.

And right there, Florensky had the most ingenious and dazzling in beauty conjecture. It is not at all necessary to rush at the speed of light in order to "get out" in the universe - one must become one.

Many philosophers and poets knew that the human soul is the Universe curled up into a ball, but before Florensky such a statement was just a beautiful metaphor.

With the appearance of Florensky's book Imaginations in Geometry, the metaphor of immortality turned into a convincing scientific hypothesis.

Turning to the issues of genealogy, Florensky significantly deepened its philosophical foundations in his works, defined the main concepts: the unity of the genus as a whole in its relationship with the individual. “Genus for a modern person is a totality, an ensemble, an aggregate, a logical volume, that is, an external and mechanical unity, nothing more.” But for the ancient, it was an essential unity, a single body of knowledge... But in order for us, people of the 20th century, who have almost lost the sight of the unity and for a long time not seeing the forest behind the trees, to understand this unity of the genus again, we have to mentally compensate for the lack of our vision. These compensations can serve as hypotheses: “4-dimensional vision, the unity of the blood or the unity of the seed, the unity of the biological form, and, finally, the unity of the purely mystical. But at the same time, we must remember that all such hypotheses are just crutches with which we are trying to hide the ugliness of our organization.

At the next stage, in the monograph “Analysis of Spatiality and Time in Artistic and Visual Works” (1924), P. Florensky defines the concepts of spiritual genetics and the laws of his being: “The genus is a single organism and has a single holistic image. It starts in time and ends. It has its ups and downs. Each time of life is valuable in its own way, but the genus strives for some specific, especially complete expression of its idea, it faces a historical task assigned to it, which it is called upon to solve.

In the same work, Florensky approaches generalizations concerning the conditions for the survival, degeneration and rebirth of not only clans, but also peoples. “But the more fully and perfectly the historical meaning of the genus was expressed in a well-known representative, the less reason to expect further growth of the generic branch to which it belongs. There is no doubt that the life of the race is determined by its law of growth and passes through certain ages. But there is also no doubt about the freedom that belongs to the genus - freedom by the equally superior power of its creativity. The freedom of an individual representative of the genus, on average, as well as the full life of the genus as a whole, exceeds that of individual relatives on average. In addition, at some time and in the person of some individual representatives of the genus, this self-determination of it receives extraordinary opportunities. The family then stands at the gates of its own destiny.

It is quite obvious that the philosophy of genealogy, the path to which was paved by P. Florensky, is impossible without specific studies of certain genera. Interest in his ancestors, in the history of his kind, he considered the vital task of every person striving to comprehend his role and place in the history of successive generations and the meaning of the birth of God. “Only with this tribal self-knowledge is it possible to have a conscious attitude to the life of one’s people and to the history of mankind, but usually they do not understand this and neglect tribal self-knowledge, revering it at worst as an object of empty vanity, and at best as a legitimate, historically earned reason to pride."

A man who miraculously combined the highest education and culture with the deepest and purest faith, a man for whom "... the voice of eternity in general sounded ... stronger than the calls of the temporal", a man crossed out from the spiritual heritage of the past for a long time, returned to people again .

3.1. "Sakhalin island"

3.2. The most terrible work of Russian literature

3.3. Playwright A.P. Chekhov

3.4. Chekhov's last plays

4. "THE LAST PAGE OF MY LIFE"

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

APPS

INTRODUCTION

Chekhov! How much is connected in the soul of each of us with this name ...

Modest, with a shy smile and an affectionate squint of eyes - this is how this person most often comes to mind. Meanwhile, from decade to decade, our understanding of it is continuously enriched. He remains alive, dear and close to us. Only the true scale of his talent, the weight of his contribution to world culture, are becoming more and more clear.

Zinovy ​​Paperny in his book “A.P. Chekhov” writes: “Opening Chekhov’s books, the reader – using the comparison of the artist himself – is like a person entering a garden where there are no explanations, signboards, pointers, where one has to peer, listen, inhale the smell and decide for yourself. At the same time, the author does not at all play the role of an indifferent host who let the guests into the garden and then left them to themselves. No, although the inscriptions on the trees are not visible, this garden is so wonderfully laid out, the trees are planted in such a way that a sensitive reader will never get lost.

Chekhov's works have passed the test of time, ten times longer than the most modest Anton Pavlovich determined him. This is the reason for the ongoing interest in the personality of the writer.

T.A. Sotnikova in the article to the book “A.P. Chekhov. Tales. Stories” told in detail about the writer, linking the most important events of his life with creativity.

But A.P. Chekhov is known to us not only as a great Russian writer, but also as a doctor. Anton Pavlovich, until his last days, retained a close connection with his medical profession. And, of course, the book of B.M.Shubin "Doctor A.P.Chekhov" is also of interest. Shubin pays great attention not to Chekhov the writer, but Chekhov the doctor: “Engaged in medical activities, Anton Pavlovich led ordinary life doctor-worker, doctor-ascetic<…>Chekhov loved medicine, cherished and was proud of the title of a doctor.

Despite the large amount of literature written about the life and work of Chekhov, there is still no, and apparently cannot be times and forever written biography of the writer. Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky said very truly about Whitman: "My Whitman." Each biographer and reader has his own Chekhov, but we will still try to reflect the main points of life and creative way writer.


1. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

1.1. Taganrog

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on January 17 (29), 1860 in the city of Taganrog. He was the third son in the family of a merchant of the third guild Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov and Evgenia Yakovlevna Chekhova (nee merchant daughter Morozova). Anton Pavlovich himself considered January 16 his birthday: perhaps an incorrect entry was made in the register of births, and the birthday was recorded according to the day of St. Anthony, whose name the child was baptized.

As an adult, Chekhov wrote about the house on Police Street in which he was born: “I wonder how we could live in it?” Indeed, in three tiny rooms with a total area of ​​​​23 meters at the time of Anton's birth, in addition to his parents, his two older brothers, Alexander and Nikolai, lived. The younger ones - Ivan, Maria and Mikhail - were born in other apartments.

Chekhov spent his childhood in a house on the corner of Monastyrskaya Street and Yarmarochny Lane. The father's shop was located on the first floor, the apartment was on the second.

When Anton Pavlovich said: “As a child, I didn’t have a childhood,” he meant a lot by this. First of all, the mode of life of the children of Pavel Yegorovich was not very childish - it was almost a hard labor regime. The shop of Pavel Yegorovich traded from 5 am to 11 pm, Pavel Yegorovich often entrusted the care of it to his sons. The day of his children was distributed between a shop, a gymnasium, again a shop, endless rehearsals and rehearsals, and the same endless church and home prayers. In addition, the children learned the craft, Antosha - tailoring. Antosha had to be accustomed from an early age to counting, and most importantly, to the art of trading, which included both respectful treatment of customers and knowledge of the techniques of “measuring, weighing and all sorts of petty trade trickery,” as Anton’s elder brother wrote in his memoirs. Pavlovich - Alexander Pavlovich.

Pavel Yegorovich brought up his children despotically. Whipping was a common occurrence in the family. And, however, it would be wrong to paint the life of Pavel Yegorovich's family only with dark colors. We must not forget about the softening influence of the mother, Evgenia Yakovlevna, just as we must not forget that Pavel Yegorovich's influence on his children was far from being only negative.

Pavel Yegorovich wanted to make his children educated people. He sent them to the gymnasium, hired a music teacher for them, and early began to teach them languages; the eldest sons already in their teenage years spoke fluent French.

The reality that surrounded Antosha Chekhov was an attack on his freedom.

Even more strong enemy his freedom than family despotism, was the gymnasium. The Taganrog gymnasium was ideal from the point of view of the tsarist ministry of public education. It was a real slave factory.

Reality attacked Chekhov from all sides, striving to make a slave out of him, violence approached him from everywhere. But the rougher the onslaught of reality was, the more concentrated and stubborn the young Chekhov became in defending his human dignity.

Antosha's passion for theater and literature began early. Chekhov's first youthful work known to us was written for the theatre. This is the play "Fatherless".

Together with the passion for the theater came the first literary experiments. As a fourth-grade gymnasium student, Antosha collaborated in a handwritten journal published under the editorship of a senior grade student. This magazine contained a satirical poem by Antosha dedicated to Inspector Dyakonov.

Chekhov became a regular in the gallery of the Taganrog Theater from the age of thirteen; performed by local troupes and visiting celebrities, he had the opportunity to see Russian classical repertoire, Shakespeare's plays, Modern vaudevilles and melodramas on stage. Cervantes, Hugo, Turgenev, Goncharov, the naturalist Humboldt, the philosopher Bockl, and along with them various humorous magazines and collections, entered into the extensive reading circle of the young Chekhov.

1.2. "I'm forever a Muscovite"

In 1876, Pavel Egorovich's illusions about the possibility of getting rich suffered a complete collapse. He could not pay back the money borrowed for the construction of a new house on time, was declared bankrupt and converted from a merchant to a bourgeois class. Pavel Yegorovich was threatened with a debt hole, that is, a prison, and he was forced to leave - in fact, to flee - to Moscow with his wife and younger children, Maria and Mikhail. By that time, two older sons were already studying in Moscow: Alexander - at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University, Nikolai - at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Ivan and Anton stayed in Taganrog to finish high school. But a year later, Ivan dropped out of school and moved to his parents in Moscow, as he could not find an opportunity to earn a living in Taganrog.

Anton remained in Taganrog - without money, without support, alone and free. He made a living as a tutor.

Left alone, Antosha sold the remnants of home furnishings, ran around the lessons and sent money to Moscow. He had to get acquainted with the humiliating expectation of monthly wages of pennies, with the sidelong glances of the "masters" thrown by chance at the torn shoes of the tutor, with the tormenting dreams of a glass of sweet tea, which may or may not be served.

In addition, Anton Chekhov devoted most of his free time to the strongest passion of his youth - the theater.

The lonely life in Taganrog was marked by the writing of the plays “Fatherlessness” and “Found a scythe on a stone” and the vaudeville “Not without reason the chicken sang”.

There is evidence that, having arrived in Moscow for the holidays, Chekhov offered his play “Fatherlessness” to the great actress of the Maly Theater Maria Yermolova - no more, no less than for a benefit performance! Of course, the staging was denied. It is unlikely that Yermolova even read the work of a novice playwright: this was done by people who were specially with her.

After graduating from the gymnasium, Chekhov decided to enter the medical faculty of Moscow University. It is difficult to say what influenced his choice: he did not leave any evidence of this. The study did not promise to be easy - both because the medical faculty was one of the most difficult, and because chemistry and biology were not taught at the Taganrog gymnasium. Chekhov studied these subjects on his own, already as a student.

In 1879, Chekhov left Taganrog forever and came to Moscow: he could not imagine his life without her. Chekhov owns the words that even today many provincials could subscribe to, feeling forces in themselves, the embodiment of which is possible only in Moscow: “Whoever gets used to it, he will not leave it. I am forever a Muscovite.


2. ENTERING LITERATURE

2.1. "Small Press"

Having become a student of the medical faculty of Moscow University and settling in the capital, Chekhov immediately understood what remained - and still remains - incomprehensible to many young people who come to Moscow with Napoleonic plans. He realized how much he had to change in himself in order "not to stand below the level of the environment in which he fell." A lot was meant: from the Taganrog pronunciation (“Fatherlessness” - as, apparently, Chekhov’s speech of that time - was full of dialectisms like “ripet”, “shove”, etc.) and spelling errors (when entering the university, Chekhov wrote in a petition in the name of the rector, who asks to enroll him "in the medical faculty") - down to habits and character traits.

The first acquaintance with the university made an unfavorable impression on Anton Pavlovich. A well-known literary critic, the author of one of the biographical books about Chekhov, academician G.P. Berdnikov believes that this mood was remembered by Anton Pavlovich for a long 10 years and splashed out on the pages of Boring History: a bored janitor in a sheepskin coat, a broom, a pile of snow... On a fresh boy who has arrived from the provinces and imagines that the temple of science is indeed a temple, such gates cannot make a healthy impression...”

Antosha became a medical student and contributor to humorous magazines. It happened almost simultaneously. And immediately a system of life filled with continuous work was established.

Anton Pavlovich loved medicine, was in awe of professors, among whom were such scientists as Zakharyin, Sklifosovsky - names that are the pride of Russian science. Chekhov studied thoroughly, and it was very difficult for him to combine his studies with his daily work in magazines.

Meanwhile, his collaboration in humorous magazines soon became the main source of the family's livelihood. Caring for the family required a lot of effort and work. This concern led to a lot of writing: the fee was beggarly, it was necessary to write as much as possible, write continuously, without straightening your back, without knowing rest.

In the circle of writers for the so-called " small press» - that is, for commercial publications, as well as for light family reading- Brother Alexander introduced Chekhov. Nikolai Chekhov also collaborated with these publications as an artist. The "small press" included the magazines "Dragonfly", "Spectator", "Alarm Clock", "Cricket", "Shards", "Light and Shadows" and many others.

Famous writers considered it shameful for themselves to be published in such publications. The only exception was N. Leskov, who published in "Shards" short stories. Medical student Anton Chekhov had neither a literary name nor money, but he had a large family dependent on his income and colossal creative energy. He became an employee of the "small press" and began to write in all its genres.

Its first publication took place on March 9, 1880 in the St. Petersburg weekly Dragonfly. It was "Letter from the Don landowner Stepan Vladimirovich N. to the learned neighbor Dr. Friedrich." In this work there is still nothing not only from the great writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, but even from the excellent humorist Antosha Chekhonte (with this pseudonym - after his gymnasium nickname - Chekhov most often signed publications of those years; in total, he then had more than 50 pseudonyms). But it was in the “Letter to a Learned Neighbor” that the first Chekhovian aphorism appeared, which is still quoted in all cases when it is necessary to designate “the exact measure of ignorance, absolute intellectual zero, below which there is no longer any logic in thoughts, no sense in words” ( M. Gromov): "This cannot be, because this can never be."

In 1880 and 1881 Chekhov published twelve works each in the "small press"; starting in 1882, he had over a hundred publications a year. From their early stories Chekhov compiled the collection "Prank". Brother Nikolai made illustrations for the book, it was typed, but only two copies were published. In 1882 - 1883, among many others, such masterpieces as "Thick and Thin" (in the first edition), "Chameleon", "Death of an Official", "Daughter of Albion" were written.

In the spring of 1884, Anton Pavlovich successfully passed the final state exams, which he was so afraid of.

He had been waiting for this moment for a long time. For almost a year, he asked Alexander Pavlovich to take care of the dacha near Taganrog: “... I will come as a doctor and live with you all summer. There will be money, and we will live,” he dreamed.

But for some reason he didn’t rent a dacha in his homeland, but went to rest in Voskresensk, where for the seventh year already brother Ivan taught at the parish school, with his family usually gathering in the summer.

After graduating from the university, Chekhov works as a doctor in Voskresensk, Zvenigorod; there he not only treats the sick, but also goes to autopsies, acts as an expert in court, etc. Many observations continue to give him the work of the permanent Moscow correspondent of "Oskolkov" (feuilletons "Shards of Moscow Life"). He spends the summer months with his family in the Babkino estate near Moscow; Chekhov's acquaintances expanded among young artists and writers; his friendship with I.I. Levitan strengthened.

While working in Voskresensk, Chekhov got acquainted, for example, with the family of artillery colonel Mayevsky, with the life of officers of an artillery battery. Much of what he then learned was embodied in the play "Three Sisters".

Only a professional physician could create images of doctors Astrov, Dymov, Sobol, Ragin, Startsev, write Ward No. 6, Boring Story, Case Study, Ionych, Black Monk. More precisely, Chekhov could write these stories only as a doctor.

In the year of graduation from the university, Chekhov's first collection “Tales of Melpomene. Six stories by Antosha Chekhonte.

In December 1885, his first trip to St. Petersburg took place, the importance of which for Chekhov's further creative path can hardly be overestimated.

2.2 Turning year

Chekhov was brought to St. Petersburg by Leikin, the publisher of the St. Petersburg magazine Shards. In his house, he stopped, having received "a pair of horses, an excellent table, free tickets to all theaters" and being forced to listen to what literature should be like. On this visit, Chekhov first met people of a different circle - not the "small press", but big literature.

This trip began many years friendly relations with Alexei Sergeevich Suvorin - publicist, novelist, playwright, major publisher. Chekhov contributed to his newspaper Novoye Vremya until the early 1890s. Suvorin published Chekhov's collections At Twilight (1887), Gloomy People (1890), Plays (1897) and others.

The feeling that his literary activity was taken seriously increased after a letter from D.V. Grigorovich on March 25, 1896. In this letter, the literary patriarch confessed to Chekhov for the first time that he sees in him "a real talent, a talent that puts you far out of the circle of writers of the new generation." This was the first recognition of Chekhov's talent.

Chekhov understood that it would not be easy to get out of the rut of urgent work - including for material reasons. But the understanding that it was necessary to change one's literary fate gradually became stronger in Chekhov.

The turning point in his life was 1888. By that time, Chekhov was a very famous writer, the author of not only the "small press", but also the prestigious Suvorin newspaper Novoye Vremya. His collections "Motley Stories" (with the indication of authorship "A. Chekhonte (An. P. Chekhov)"), "At Twilight" (for him the highest literary award - the academic Pushkin Prize) and "Innocent Speeches" were published a year later. The premiere of his comedy "Ivanov" took place in the Moscow theater of F.A. Korsh.

In 1888, Chekhov wrote the story "The Steppe (The Story of a Trip)" - a milestone work that separated the early work of Antosha Chekhonte from the prose of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. Of course, it is possible to speak about the separate stages of the life of a major creative personality only conditionally, and not all Chekhov's stories before 1888 were humorous. But, perhaps, it was in The Steppe that Chekhov began to fully embody what he once confessed to Grigorovich: “I wrote and did my best not to spend on the story of images and pictures that are dear to me and which I, God knows why, shore and carefully hid.

The images and paintings of the "Steppes" are associated with Chekhov's first childhood impressions. As a boy, he visited his grandfather, who managed the estates of the Counts Platonovs in the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov. The journey of the ten-year-old boy Yegorushka across the steppe is largely autobiographical. Some episodes of the story - for example, the scene in the Jewish inn - directly repeat the events of Chekhov's childhood, which, according to him, cut into his memory as "Our Father". But the artistic appeals made by Chekhov in The Steppe take her far beyond the scope of an autobiography.

Chekhov called his story "strange" and, feeling its unified poetic tone, was afraid to break loose on him. The "Steppe" is full of wonderful landscape paintings ("While I was painting, I felt that my belly smelled of summer and the steppe"), but its charm, associated with the beauty of the landscape, is not exhausted by it.

"What will this life be like?" With these words, the story ends. And at the same time, it already contains a deep, essential picture future life boy Yegorushka and human life in general. Yegorushka for the first time thinks about how space and time are interconnected: “It seemed that a hundred years had passed since the morning ... Wouldn’t God want Yegorushka, the britzka and horses to freeze in this air and, like hills, would petrify and remain forever at one place?"

Most of the critics of the time perceived The Steppe as a set of ethnographic observations, connected to each other no more than pictures in a kaleidoscope. The work was considered in the system of values ​​in which Chekhov's artistic innovation was considered a failure.

Chekhov did not seek to define human types and life phenomena that appeared before his hero Yegorushka. In "Steppe" he seemed to try another version of what he found and accepted for himself. creative method, which was called "objective": when the author "dissolves" in the characters and pictures, not trying to make direct generalizations and conclusions, but leaving it to the reader.


3. LITERARY REPUTATION

3.1. "Sakhalin island"

In the first half of the 1890s. Chekhov becomes one of the most readable writers Russia - his works regularly appear in the journals "Severny Vestnik" and "Russian Thought" (since 1892), the newspapers "New Time" (until 1893) and "Russian Vedomosti"; separate editions and collections are published (Stories, 1888; Gloomy People, 1890; Tales and Stories, 1894), which are constantly reprinted, causing a wide response in literary circles.

In July 1890, thirty-year-old writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov landed on the shores of Sakhalin Island. What made A.P. Chekhov go on a trip across Russian expanses to the edge of the state? Researchers long years explained this from the standpoint of the ideology that reigned in the country during the Soviet era. Or maybe curiosity, a passion for travel, the opportunity to get to know the world of outcasts, which was an invaluable storehouse of materials for the artist, drove the writer on the road? "Sakhalin Island" by A.P. Chekhov is not the first case in the history of Russian literature of turning to the life of people hidden from the public, forced to be in prisons, exile, hard labor. Before him and after, writers turned to the literature that we, speaking modern language, we call the camp. But Sakhalin Island occupies a special place here. Anton Pavlovich worked on the island as a researcher, physician, and sociologist. During a three-month stay on the island, Anton Pavlovich did a gigantic job. In order to become better acquainted with the life of settlers and exiles, he conducted a census of the Sakhalin population. “I traveled all over the settlements, went into all the huts, got up every day at five o’clock in the morning, and all the days I was in great tension from the thought that much had not yet been done.”

"Sakhalin Island" was conceived as a scientific work, which "will consist of only numbers." But, while working, Chekhov was looking for a tone that would allow him to write artistically and at the same time “in protocol, without pathetic words”, without taking away from the plot “its severity and everything that is worthy of attention in it.”

The significance of this work goes far beyond statistics. Chekhov did everything he could to ensure that the terrible fates of the people he saw on the penal island did not disappear without a trace.

The impressions of the Sakhalin trip were directly embodied in the stories "Gusev" (1890), "Women" (1891), "In exile" (1894), "Murder" (1895).

3.2. The most terrible work of Russian literature

The trip to Sakhalin with particular force emphasized in the mind of the writer all the unbearability, all the tightness, the prison stuffiness of the then Russian life. This life clearly presented itself to him as a life within four walls, with guards, bars, and shackles.

This is how Chamber No. 6 arose - perhaps the most terrible work of Russian literature. It was not for nothing that young Vladimir Ilyich told his sister Anna Ilyinichna: “When I finished reading this story last night, I felt downright terrified, I could not stay in my room, I got up and went out. I had the feeling that I was locked in room number 6.

It was great public importance of this work in the matter of mobilizing the forces of protest, hatred for the autocracy. "Ward No. 6" was one of the symptoms of the beginning of a social upsurge, one of the noticeable designations of the historical boundary between the eighties and nineties.

All of Russia saw in the story a symbolic image of the brute and blunt force of the autocracy in the form of the hospital watchman Nikita, saw itself locked in the ward. Young Lenin expressed the feeling of the whole country, shocked by the simple and irresistible power of human images. "Ward No. 6" called for a fight against the diverse Nikita.

Chekhov struck with his hammer not only at the autocracy, but with "Chamber No. 6" dealt an irresistible blow to all types and forms of intelligentsia's "beautiful soul", refusal to fight, no matter what reasoning this may be covered up.

The truth that the author of Chamber No. 6 revealed was tragic for himself. What is the way out of prison? Chekhov did not know this. But he already understood that violence must be opposed not by flashes of despair and impotent protest, but by struggle.

This became one of the important, fundamental themes of Chekhov's entire work of the nineties and nine hundredths: the exposure of the weakness of the then intelligentsia.

Despite the fact that Chekhov did not know and did not see the ways in which the motherland was moving towards freedom, nevertheless, the social sensitivity inherent in him helped the writer, if not to realize with complete clarity, then to feel more deeply and reflect in his works the social upsurge that came in country in the nineties, upsurge, leading to the first Russian revolution.

3.3. Playwright A.P. Chekhov

In the mid-nineties, Chekhov reached the pinnacle of artistic mastery in the field of dramaturgy.

In 1895, Anton Pavlovich began working on The Seagull. In October 1896, the play was staged at the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. The main thing in The Seagull is the theme of art and heroism. In art only the one who is capable of a feat wins. "The Seagull" is the result of the author's many years of thinking about the essence of the artist's vocation.

Consider the title of the play. We are faced with the fact that Chekhov's title not only defines the theme of the work, but already carries a figurative principle that cannot be reduced to strictly defined logical concepts, it is artistically ambiguous and irreplaceable.

"The Seagull" is a complex, multifaceted image shimmering in different colors, tones, motifs, exalted, according to Gorky, to a spiritualized symbol. This is the fate of Nina, “shot” like a bird, but not dead, mentally surviving, and Treplev, who said about himself, looking at the killed bird: “Soon in the same way I will kill myself,” and Trigorin, who saw in “The Seagull” just "a plot for a short story."

"The Seagull" failed on the stage of the St. Petersburg Alexandrinsky Theater (October 1896). The then theater was not yet mature for Chekhov's innovative dramaturgy.

Chekhov created his own, special style of dramaturgy. In his plays, the internal action plays a huge role, which the viewer, the reader clearly feels behind the external action. Despite the apparent lack of dynamism, Chekhov's plays are filled with deep inner drama. The conflicts here are not limited to what is directly happening on the stage. Chekhov is able to give a clear, artistically strong generalized image of the social reality that surrounds the heroes of his plays. This is deep inner action. Chekhov's plays the theater of that time could not yet feel and convey.

One of the manifestations of the pre-revolutionary social upsurge was the creation in 1989 by two remarkable Russian theatrical figures, K.S. Stanislavsky and V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, Moscow, as it was then called the Public Art Theater.

The success and happiness of Chekhov's historic meeting with the Art Theater was that this theater understood important features Chekhov's style, Chekhov's aesthetics, penetratingly unraveled some of its fundamental principles, including the concealment of beauty in the ordinary, "imperceptible" beauty.

Chekhov's affinity with the new theater began with the fact that the theater decided to rehabilitate the failed "The Seagull" with such noise. The author and the theater achieved a brilliant victory.

3.4. Chekhov's last plays

Comedy, up to vaudeville, boldly intertwined in his plays with dramatic motifs. Both of his last plays - "Three Sisters" and "The Cherry Orchard" - are characterized by a combination of the dramatic and the comic that is brilliant in their innovative audacity.

Chekhov's interweaving of comedy and even vaudeville motifs with dramatic motifs was connected with his feeling that the end of his old life was near. Already coming, the cleansing storm is near, which will sweep away the motherland from the path, dispel all the curse of the old! And the artist already feels it is historical to present in a funny way the drama of the old life. They are still heavy dramas. But the poet is already looking at these dramas with the eyes of the future: and he can see the absurdity, the doom, the historical exhaustion of the old forms of life.

The dramatic theme of The Three Sisters, the theme of wasted beauty. So much spiritual wealth, so much readiness for selfless work, so much responsiveness to everything bright in life, in people, so much sensitivity, kindness, a subtle mind, so much passionate thirst for a pure, elegant, human life, so much happiness lies in these wonderful women, in these amazing three sisters!

The funny, sad and comic in "Three Sisters" originates in the contradiction between the strength and scope of dreams and the weakness of dreamers. And the very abundance of dreamy talk about the future, in the absence of a real struggle for it, begins to resemble Manilovism.

The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov's dying genius creation, is a bold combination of comedy - "in places even a farce," as Anton Pavlovich wrote about the play - with gentle and subtle lyrics.

Laughter, free and cheerful, pervades all the provisions of the play. But no less significant in it is the lyrical beginning. Chekhov is the creator of the most original, innovative genre lyrical comedy, social vaudeville.

Farewell to the new, young, tomorrow's Russia with the past, obsolete, doomed to a quick end, the aspiration to tomorrow's homeland - this is the content of "The Cherry Orchard".

The Cherry Orchard is a play about the past, present and future of the motherland. The future rises before us in the form of an unprecedentedly beautiful garden.

The whole play is imbued with the mood of a bright farewell to the outgoing life, with everything good and bad that was in it, the mood of joyful greetings to the new, young.

It seemed to Chekhov himself, along with his heroes, that “everything has long since grown old, outlived” and only everything is waiting for “the beginning of something young and fresh.” And he said goodbye to the past with youthful joy. "Goodbye, old life!" - the young voice of Anya, the voice of young Russia, the voice of Chekhov, rings in the finale of The Cherry Orchard.

The premiere of The Cherry Orchard was turned into a solemn celebration of the author at the Art Theater. This happened on January 17, 1904, Chekhov's birthday.

The premiere of one of the most mysterious plays in the world repertoire was like saying goodbye to the author. The Cherry Orchard itself, like all Chekhov's works, had a long life ahead of it.


4. "THE LAST PAGE OF MY LIFE"

Continuous, intense writing, multifaceted public affairs, the failure of The Seagull, which was not understood by the theater and the public, at the first performance on the Alexandrinsky stage in 1896 - all this hastened the long-awaited health catastrophe.

Chekhov found an apical process in the lungs. Doctors ordered him to change his lifestyle, give up hard work, advised him to go to the Riviera, to Nice. Here, in the south of France, he lived from the autumn of 1897 to the spring of 1898.

In September 1898, at a rehearsal of The Seagull, Anton Pavlovich met his future wife, a talented artist of the Art Theater O.L. Knipper.

Great love entered the life of Anton Pavlovich in the general atmosphere of beauty, exciting expectations of the holiday of art.

And so it was necessary to leave Moscow and Melikhovo (he lived in the estate in Melikhovo since 1892). The doctors resolutely demanded that Anton Pavlovich be relocated to the south, to the Crimea.

Chekhov thought about moving to Yalta with a heavy feeling. Disgust for the Yalta "spirit", in bad taste, vulgarity of the bourgeois crowd, longing for his beloved theater, for his beloved Moscow, St. Petersburg, a feeling of cut off and loneliness, especially offensive during a social upsurge in which Chekhov wanted to participate, to be aware of all events - all this made life in Yalta unbearable. Anton Pavlovich called Yalta his "warm Siberia", "Devil's Island".

On May 25, 1901, Chekhov married Olga Leonardovna. There have been few changes. Olga Leonardovna did not leave the Moscow stage; Chekhov did not receive permission from doctors to move from Yalta to Moscow. The years of Chekhov and Knipper's life together are a story of long separation, rare meetings and extremely rich correspondence. In 1899, he called Olga Leonardovna "the last page of my life."

In the last Yalta years, the last Chekhov's masterpieces were written, including the stories "In the ravine", "The lady with the dog", "The Bishop", the play "The Cherry Orchard". They were written hard: the writer's health was melting with every line.

By the summer of 1904, Chekhov's health had deteriorated so much that doctors demanded an immediate trip to the German mountain resort of the Black Forest. On June 3, Chekhov and his wife left for the resort town of Badenweiler. Those who saw him before leaving recalled that he directly said: "I'm going to die."

His condition deteriorated sharply on the night of July 2. For some time he joked, made Olga Leonardovna laugh with improvisations on the themes resort life; then for the first time he himself asked to send for a doctor.

Olga Leonardovna recalled his last minutes: “The doctor came and ordered to give champagne. Anton Pavlovich sat down and somehow significantly, loudly said to the doctor in German (he knew very little German): "Ichsterbe" ("I'm dying"). Then he took a glass, turned to face me, smiled his amazing smile, said: “I haven’t drunk champagne for a long time ...”, calmly drank it all to the bottom, quietly lay down on my left side and soon fell silent forever ... "

Chekhov's body was transported to Moscow a few days later. The funeral took place on July 9th. The grave of Anton Pavlovich is in the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent, not far from the grave of his father.


CONCLUSION

So, having worked through a number of literature, we were able to get a fairly clear idea of ​​the personality of A.P. Chekhov, his work. Having examined the most significant, in our opinion, works of the writer, we were convinced of their genius and, of course, the brilliant talent of the author himself. Using separate examples, we tried to outline the path of the writer, to show how, looking straight into the face of life, Chekhov affirmed faith in man, in the people. In addition, we tried to reflect the life of not only Chekhov the writer, but also Chekhov the doctor. “... If Chekhov had not been such a wonderful writer, he would have been an excellent doctor. Doctors who occasionally invited him for consultations spoke of him as an extremely thoughtful observer and a resourceful, insightful diagnostician ... "

"Chekhov! .. - said L.N. Tolstoy, - this is Pushkin in prose." However, he believed at the same time that Chekhov managed to create "new, completely new (...) forms of writing for the whole world ...".

Chekhov lived for forty-four years. Nowadays, forty-year-olds are almost considered young and still promise something. Chekhov left a huge literary heritage- a lot of stories and novels, a few big plays, a few vaudevilles, scientific book"Sakhalin Island", several thousand letters. He left an ever-growing fame, many myths and the experience of the existence of a person, touching which each of us has the opportunity to better understand the meaning and value of our own life aspirations.

More than a century has passed since the death of Chekhov, and his works continue to deliver artistic pleasure to readers; they cause laughter and sadness, make you think and feel deeply and truthfully, they teach, educate. Based on many of Chekhov's stories, films were created: "Intruder", "Burbot", "Man in a Case", "Anna on the Neck", "Wedding", "Lady with a Dog" and others. His plays do not leave the stage of theaters in many countries, his books are published in almost all languages ​​of the world. Chekhov had a great influence on the further development of Russian literature. The development of Chekhov's traditions was reflected in the prose of I.A. Bunin and A.I. Kuprin, in the dramaturgy of M. Gorky. The name of Chekhov is associated with the innovation of the Moscow Art Theatre. His work had a great influence on many writers in Europe, America, Asia.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Paperny Z. A. P. Chekhov. M., 1960. 301 p.

2. Russian writers. Bibliography words. in 2 hours. Part 2. M - I / Ed. P.A. Nikolaev. M., 1990. 446 p.

3. Chekhov A.P. Stories. Tales. M., 2002. 480 p.

4. Chekhov A.P. Collected Works. M., 1954. 512 p.

5. Shubin B.M. Dr. A.P. Chekhov. M., 1979. 160 p.

6. http://chehov.niv.ru/chehov/bio/biografiya.htm

Literature lesson summary

TOPIC OF THE LESSON: “LIFE AND WORK OF A.P. CHEKHOV"

The purpose of the lesson: to get acquainted with the life and work of the writer.

Equipment: portrait of the writer, presentation, works by A.P. Chekhov

During the classes:

1. Org. stage.

2. Material explanation:

Today in the lesson we will talk about the great writer and playwright.

The topic of our lesson: "The life and work of Chekhov Anton Pavlovich"

The purpose of the lesson: to get acquainted with the life and work of the writer.

Write the topic of the lesson in your notebook.

Our lesson plan:

Plan

1.Childhood of A.P. Chekhov. City of Taganrog.

2.Study at the gymnasium in the vocational school (1868-1879)

3. The era of the 80s. XIX century. Studying at the University.

The first period of creativity. Nickname "Antosha Chekhonte"

4. The second period of creativity (90-9001 years)

Trip to Sakhalin Island

Trip around the world

Manor in Melikhovo. Sakhalin Island book.

The story "Ward No. 6", stories: "Ionych", "The Lady with the Dog".

5.Dramaturgy of Chekhov. Last years of life.

Epigraph of our lesson:

The desire to serve the good must certainly be

the need of the soul, the condition of personal happiness ...

A.P. Chekhov

1.) Introductory speech of the teacher:

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is one of those writers who enter our lives from childhood and remain with us forever. Of course, you remember the adventures of Chekhov's "Kashtanka". Such a story could only be written by a person who loves people, loves animals, loving life. This love of Chekhov was very active.

Question:

How do you think this love was expressed? (He was a doctor and helped many people cope with the disease; he was a writer, and his stories and books helped and help to cope with the complexities of life, help to look at oneself from the outside. He did not just plant a tree, planted entire gardens, organized with his own money many libraries, schools, hospitals, without advertising his charity.He really did good.At the same time, he was a very cheerful, inexhaustible man.

2.) Message from students:

A.P. Chekhov was born on January 17, 1860. in Taganrog, both grandfathers - on the father's side and on the mother's side - were serfs who redeemed themselves and their families to freedom. God blessed with a large family - they had five sons and one daughter. Anton Pavlovich was the third son.

The writer's father - Pavel Yegorovich - opened his trading business, was a Taganrog merchant of the second guild, traded in groceries, enjoyed general respect and carried public - honorary, and therefore free - positions of a police ratman, and later a member of a trade deputation. He was reputed among fellow citizens for a wealthy man, but in fact he could hardly make ends meet, he was not distinguished by enterprise and soon went bankrupt.

The family lived hard. The children helped their father in the shop, sang in the church choir. His father's temper was heavy, but he loved art, he tried to give his children a good education. Caress and tenderness softened the life of the children of mother Evgenia Yakovleva. Later, Anton Pavlovich will say: "We have talent from the side of the father, and the soul from the side of the mother."

Teacher's word:

In 1868 Taganrog gymnasium.

Despite the difficulties, the writer did not lose interest in life. Chekhov early began to get involved in theater and literature; while studying at the gymnasium, he participated in the publication of a handwritten journal. I read a lot, was fond of both foreign and Russian literature.

The circle of reading is extensive: Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev, Goncharov, Cervantes, Belinsky, Dobrolyubov, Pisarev... On the stage of the Taganrog theater Chekhov first saw the plays of Shakespeare, Ostrovsky, Gogol. Antosha is fond of the theater, and at home he plays performances with his brothers, writes skits, fairy tales in verse, vaudeville.

The difficult situation of his father led to ruin, and in 1878 he had to move to Moscow with his family.

Anton remained in Taganrog alone to finish high school. He earns his living by doing odd lessons. These were years of relentless poverty. He sends small money transfers to his family in Moscow.

The gymnasium formed in Chekhov an aversion to hypocrisy and falsehood. Here he received his first literary pseudonym "Chekhonte", which he was awarded by the teacher of the Law of God Fyodor Pokrovsky. Here began his first literary and stage experiments.

Reading by the teacher of the story "Vacation work of the institute student NadenkaN" (composition)

What is this essay about?

What is the nature of this story? (Humorous)

Vocabulary work:Humor - cheerful laughter.

What makes the writer laugh at the reader? (A parody of a gymnasium composition).

The first drama "Fatherlessness" was written by 18-year-old Chekhov while studying at the gymnasium. The gymnasium period of Chekhov was an important period of maturation and formation of his personality, the development of its spiritual foundations. Gymnasium years gave Chekhov a huge amount of material for writing. The most typical and colorful figures will appear later on the pages of his works. Perhaps one of these figures was the mathematics teacher E. I. Dzerzhinsky, the father of the future first chairman of the Cheka.

How did his life develop further?

In 1879 he graduated from the gymnasium in Taganrog. In the same year, he moved to his parents in Moscow and entered the medical faculty of Moscow University, where he studied with famous professors: N. Sklifosovsky, G. Zakharyin and others.

In 1884 he graduated from the university course and began working as a district doctor in Voskresensk (now the city of Istra), in the Chita hospital, the head of which was famous doctor P.A. Arkhangelsk. Then he worked in Zvenigorod, where for some time he was in charge of the hospital.

Music, books awakened in young Chekhov the desire for creativity. The Taganrog theater, founded in 1827, played a major role in this. Anton visited the theater for the first time at the age of 13, watched Jacques Offenbach's operetta La Belle Helena and soon became a passionate admirer of the theatre. Later, in one of his letters, Chekhov would say: “The theater used to give me good things ... Before, there was no greater pleasure for me than to sit in the theater ... It is no coincidence that the heroes of his first works, such as Tropic, Konik ”, “Benefit performance”, “No wonder the chicken sang”, were actors and actresses.

Chekhov worked incredibly hard. In the literary day labor, many talents were strained and perished. Only Chekhov's amazing talent and purposefulness can explain why he did not break under these conditions.

The young Chekhov was attracted by literary interests. Together with his brother Nikolai, Anton Pavlovich began to collaborate in humorous magazines. The texts were illustrated by Nikolai.

Magazines: "Alarm clock", "Dragonfly", "New time", "Russian Vedomosti".

- "Prank", but it was not released, perhaps due to censorship difficulties. In 1884, a collection of his stories was published - "Tales of Melpomene" (signed "A. Chekhonte"); in 1887, a second collection appeared - "At Twilight", which showed that in the person of Chekhov, Russian literature acquired a new, thoughtful and subtly artistic talent. Under the influence of major success in the public and criticism, he completely abandoned his former genre of small newspaper essays and became mainly an employee of monthly magazines: Severny Vestnik (1888-1892) Books of the Week, Artist, Niva supplements, later Life , "Magazine for Everyone", etc. But he devoted most of his time to cooperation with "Russian Thought", in which "Ward No. 6", "The Man in a Case", "House with a Mezzanine" and many other stories were first published The success grew, especially the following works drew attention to themselves: "The Steppe", "A Boring Story", "Duel", "Ward No. 6", "The Story of an Unknown Man", "Men" (1897); "The Man in the Case" (1898), "In the ravine", "Children", from the plays: "Ivanov", "The Seagull", "Uncle Vanya", "The Cherry Orchard". Satirical miniatures by A.P. Chekhov's brilliant sketches of the most characteristic socio-psychological phenomena of the 80s of the nineteenth century. From satirical miniatures, the writer passes a rapid path to lyrical prose. In 1886, the collection "Colorful Stories" ("Thick and Thin"), ("Unter Prishibeev") was published.

How can you comment on Chekhov's words?

“I have no doubt,” Chekhov wrote, “the medical sciences had a serious impact on my literary activity; they significantly expanded the scope of my observations, enriched me with knowledge ...” (many plots were taken from the lives of patients).

Following the traditions of Russian literature, A.P. Chekhov, in depicting the most everyday phenomena of reality, showed the contradiction between human nature and the social structure of society.

Conversation on the works "Chameleon", "Death of an official" (the main characters Ochumelov and Chervyakov)

3) Work with the textbook

A.P. Chekhov is increasingly asserting that "a meaningful life without a definite worldview is not life, but a burden, a horror." Ascetics are needed like the sun, says A. Pavlovich Chekhov, society needs people of achievement, faith and a clearly conscious goal...

People who knew An. Pavlovich was also struck by his talent for humanity, spiritual sensitivity, the gift of communication. The Chekhovs' Moscow house on Sadovo-Kudrinskaya was always lively and crowded.

What period is next?

In the autumn of 1889, A.P. Chekhov begins to prepare for a trip to Sakhalin, where he is driven by a great desire to tell the truth about this place of "unbearable suffering, which only a free and involuntary person is capable of."

In the spring of 1890, almost 4500 miles on horseback, through the cold, spring thaw ... From the road A.P. send travel notes. Siberia, the mighty Yenisei, makes a huge impression: "I stood and thought: what a full and bold life will illuminate these shores with time!"

Who does he meet there? What will he learn?

The result of the trip was the book "Sakhalin Island", full of the writer's thoughts about the social structure of society, which gives rise to injustice and violence.

The heavy burden of Sakhalin experiences was the basis of, perhaps, the most tragic Chekhov's work, the story "Ward No. 6." "When I finished reading this story last night, I felt downright creepy, I could not stay in my room, I got up and went out. I have such a feeling, as if I were locked in ward No. 6 "- this is how V. I. Lenin conveyed his impression of the story.

What other works of the writer do you know?

The 90s were the heyday of the writer's work. One by one they appear wonderful stories"Ionych", "Gooseberry", "Man in a Case", "About Love". Chekhov showed how much beauty and kindness is inherent in people, and how imperceptibly and irreversibly all this can drown in the mire of the little things in life.

This period of life was also fruitful, which gave him the opportunity to give us unforgettable works. This period is followed by Melikhovo.

In 1892 Chekhov buys a small estate in the village of Melikhovo. "We need at least a piece of public and political life", - Anton Pavlovich explained his decision to leave for the village. In Melikhovo, A.P. Chekhov is a disinterested and selfless doctor, public figure, guardian of the needs of the people.

Based on Melikhovsky material, Chekhov writes the story "Men", where he paints a terrible picture of hopeless need, the plight of the people, the cruel truth of the collapse of all illusions "associated with the reform of 1861.

In Melikhovo, Chekhov creates "The Seagull". It was an experience of a new psychological drama. The premiere of the play took place in St. Petersburg on October 17, 1896. The play failed.

What other works are coming up?

In 1899, a new story by Chekhov appeared in print - "The Lady with the Dog". Impressed by what he read, Gorky wrote to Chekhov: "You are doing a great job with your little stories - arousing in people an aversion to this sleepy, half-dead life ..."

Yes, Chekhov is a master of short stories, which are always written at the right time. About his stories, he said "Brevity is the sister of talent." The skill of the playwright is also second to none.

What plays are the most famous? ("The Cherry Orchard", "The Seagull".)

The leading feature of Chekhov's dramaturgy is "internal action", that intense spiritual life of the characters, when they come to the insight of the truth of their own lives. Chekhov shows the real cause of the tragedy - the abnormal social structure of society and raises the question of personal responsibility for one's own destiny.

- "Seagull" - the only one contemporary play captivating me as a director and you are the only one contemporary writer, which is of great interest to the theater with an exemplary repertoire," wrote V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko to A.P. Chekhov.

In fact, the plays fell in love with the public, were a great success among readers.

A.P. Chekhov received news of the enormous success of his plays in Yalta, where he had to move due to a sharp deterioration in health.

At that time, L. N. Tolstoy lived in the Crimea, not far from Yalta. Chekhov often visited him. Mutual respect connected the two pillars of Russian literature. “Chekhov is Pushkin in prose,” said Lev Nikolaevich. “This is how everyone can find a response to their personal experience in Pushkin’s poems, everyone can find the same response in Chekhov’s stories”

Who else visited Chekhov?

M. Gorky was a frequent guest of Anton Pavlovich, who considered his acquaintance with Chekhov "the most valuable gift of fate."

In the spring of 1897 A.P. Chekhov began a sharp exacerbation of the tuberculous process, which had been undermining his health for a long time. Leo Tolstoy visited Chekhov in the hospital: "I had Lev Nikolaevich in the clinic, with whom we had an interesting conversation ... We talked about immortality."

The celebration that took place was a surprise for Chekhov. Addresses and telegrams were read with a feeling of sincere love for the writer.

A.P. Chekhov was seriously ill. The celebration was solemn and sad.

Russia, the entire progressive world remembers, reads, loves Chekhov.

Chekhov died on June 2, 1904 at three o'clock in the morning, in Germany, in Badenweiler, in the Hotel "Somer". There he went to the resort with his wife to improve his health. According to the testimony of his wife Olga Leonardovna: “At the beginning of the night, Chekhov woke up and for the first time in his life he asked to send for a doctor. After that, he ordered a glass of champagne to be served. calmly drank everything to the bottom, quietly lay down on his left side and soon fell silent forever.

Chekhov's grave is located at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

The monument on the grave of A.P. Chekhov was made in 1907-1908 in the Art Nouveau style according to the project of the artist L.M. Branlovsky.

Monument to Chekhov in Serpukhov, 2009

4) The results of the lesson:

Testing (mutual verification)

1.A.P. Chekhov was born:

a) in Moscow;

b) in St. Petersburg;

c) in Taganrog.

2. In the Chekhov family:

a) had two children;

b) had six children;

c) Anton was an only child.

3. Chekhov's father was:

a) a very rich man;

b) a big businessman;

c) a small trader.

4. Anton Pavlovich signs:

a) your name;

b) the name of his brother;

c) pseudonym.

5. Chekhov's stories:

a) very serious and sad;

b) humorous;

c) romantic.

What do you think Chekhov is talking about anyway? (Epigraph)

5) Grading. D/z: The content of the 1st act of the play "The Cherry Orchard".


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