Chekhov a. P

It is very symbolic. The characters in the play "The Cherry Orchard" are both the main characters and secondary persons. For example, they symbolize the old carefree landlord life. Their childhood and youth were measured and carefree. Their parents did not teach their children to thrift and work. Therefore, the characters become obsolete and become irrelevant. They are replaced by a symbol of a responsible, purposeful and successful person. In the play, this is the image of Lopakhin.

Ermolai Lopakhin, comes from a simple family. He grew up in front of Lyubov, which is also symbolic. Thanks to his perseverance, diligence and constant work, the man became rich. Although the image of the merchant is quite contradictory, but still, he symbolizes the limitless possibilities of people.

He was from an ordinary poor family, who had been in "slavery" all his life. After the abolition of serfdom, Yermolai, having an "entrepreneurial" streak, began to work hard. His labors were not in vain. Soon the man "put together" a decent fortune.

Chekhov immediately introduced readers to this character. Lopakhin, waiting for the return of Lyubov Ranevskaya, falls asleep in an armchair in one of the rooms. It shows that a physically tired person will fall asleep in almost any position.

Yermolai is also a symbol of innovation. He immediately offers a solution to the problem, but neither Gaev nor Ranevskaya are satisfied with this option.

The cherry orchard itself is symbolic. It is associated with Russia of that time, which is in decline. Reforms and changes are needed to improve the lives of citizens by an order of magnitude. Everyone needs to get rid of the cherry orchard, including Gaev, Ranevskaya, Lopakhin, and Trofimov. However, simply cutting it out will not be enough. In its place, there should be something that can replace the former beauty and bring financial well-being.

Ranevskaya's unwillingness to part with the estate in the play only means that the heroine has difficulty getting used to the new, being afraid of the unknown. No one wants to change the native way of life, but in this case it will need to be done, in the name of a new life and the well-being of future generations.

As for Peter, he is a symbol of inconsistency. On the one hand, the man advises to “get rid of the old” by throwing the keys into the well. In fact, he, not having his own housing, is therefore forced to be on the estate, which means that he is completely dependent on these same keys. The man claims that he does not cling to anything in this life. That all worldly problems are alien to a man, but he himself worries about his old lost ears and is very happy when Varya finds them and gives them back. The behavior of a man only exposes his petty soul. He tries to appear in the eyes of other people different, not like the rest. talks about another life, blooming and serene, which he himself had never seen. Only Anya responds to his "sermons". The girl personifies youth, naivety, purity and new opportunities.

Chekhov specially selected ambiguous heroes. No one can be said to be a positive or negative character. Perhaps because of this, the author was able to "fit" so many different characters in one work.

The final chord of the outgoing era

The symbol of the garden in the play "The Cherry Orchard" occupies one of the central places. This work drew a line under all the work of A.P. Chekhov. It is with the garden that the author compares Russia, putting this comparison into the mouth of Petya Trofimov: “All of Russia is our garden.” But why is the orchard cherry, and not apple, for example? It is noteworthy that Chekhov placed special emphasis on the pronunciation of the name of the garden precisely through the letter “Ё”, and for Stanislavsky, with whom this play was discussed, the difference between the “cherry” and “cherry” garden did not immediately become clear. And the difference, according to him, was that cherry is a garden that can make a profit, and it is always needed, and cherry is the guardian of the outgoing aristocratic life, blooming and growing to delight the aesthetic tastes of its owners.

Chekhov's dramaturgy tends to involve not only the characters, but also the environment around them: he believed that only through the description of daily life and routine affairs it is possible to fully reveal the characters' characters. It was in Chekhov's plays that "undercurrents" appeared, giving movement to everything that happens. Another feature of Chekhov's plays was the use of symbols. Moreover, these symbols had two directions - one side was real, and had a very substantive outline, and the second side was elusive, it can only be felt at the subconscious level. This is what happened in The Cherry Orchard.

The symbolism of the play lies in the garden, and in the sounds heard behind the stage, and even in Epikhodov's broken billiard cue, and in the fall of Petya Trofimov from the stairs. But of particular importance in Chekhov's dramaturgy are the symbols of nature, which include manifestations of the surrounding world.

The semantics of the play and the attitude of the characters to the garden

The meaning of the cherry orchard symbol in the play is by no means accidental. In many nations, flowering cherry trees symbolize purity and youth. For example, in China, spring flowering, in addition to the above meanings, correlates with courage and female beauty, and the tree itself is a symbol of good luck and spring. In Japan, the cherry blossom is the emblem of the country and the samurai, and signifies prosperity and wealth. And for Ukraine, cherry is the second symbol after viburnum, denoting the feminine. Cherry is associated with a beautiful young girl, and the cherry garden in songwriting is a favorite place for walking. The symbolism of the cherry orchard near the house in Ukraine is huge, it is he who drives away the evil force from the house, playing the role of a talisman. There was even a belief: if there is no garden near the hut, then devils gather around it. When moving, the garden remained untouched, as a reminder of the origins of its kind. For Ukraine, cherry is a divine tree. But at the end of the play, a beautiful cherry orchard goes under the axe. Isn't this a warning that great trials lie ahead not only for the heroes, but for the entire Russian Empire?

Not without reason, after all, Russia is compared with this garden.

For each character, the symbol of the garden in the comedy The Cherry Orchard has its own meaning. The action of the play begins in May, when the cherry orchard, whose fate is to be decided by the owners, blooms, and ends in late autumn, when all nature freezes. Flowering reminds Ranevskaya and Gaev of their childhood and youth, this garden has been with them all their lives, and they simply cannot imagine how it can not be. They love it, they admire and are proud of it, saying that their garden is listed in the book of sights of the area. They understand that they are capable of losing their estates, but they cannot figure out in their heads how it is possible to cut down a beautiful garden and set up some summer cottages in its place. And Lopakhin sees the profit that he can bring, but this is only a superficial attitude towards the garden. After all, having bought it for a lot of money, without leaving competitors at the auction the slightest chance to take possession of it, it is recognized that this cherry orchard is the best that he has ever seen. The triumph of the purchase is connected, first of all, with his pride, because the illiterate man, as Lopakhin considered himself, became the master where his grandfather and father "were slaves."

Petya Trofimov is most indifferent to the garden. He admits that the garden is beautiful, it delights the eye, attaches some importance to the life of its owners, but every twig and leaf tells him about hundreds of serfs who worked to make the garden flourish and that this garden is a relic of serfdom that needs to be put an end to. . He is trying to convey the same to Anya, who loves the garden, but not as much as her parent, ready to hold on to him to the last. And Anya understands that it is impossible to start a new life by preserving this garden. It is she who calls on the mother to leave in order to lay a new garden, implying that it is necessary to start another life that will fit into the realities of the time.

Firs is also closely connected with the fate of the estate and the garden, having served in it all his life. He is too old to start something anew, and he had such an opportunity when serfdom was abolished and they wanted to marry him, but getting freedom for him would be a misfortune, and he speaks directly about it. He is deeply attached to the garden, to the house, to the owners. He is not even offended when he finds that he was forgotten in an empty house, either because he no longer has the strength and is indifferent to him, or because he understands that the old existence has ended, and in the future there is nothing for him. And how symbolic the death of Firs looks to the sounds of a garden being cut down, this is due to the fact that in the final scene the role of symbols is intertwined - the sound of a broken string drowns in the sounds of ax blows, showing that the past has irretrievably gone.

The future of Russia: a contemporary view

Throughout the play, it is clear that the characters are connected with the cherry orchard, some more, some less, but it is through their attitude to him that the author tried to reveal their meaning in the temporary space of the past, present and future. The symbol of the cherry orchard in Chekhov's play is a symbol of Russia, which is at the crossroads of its development, when ideologies and social strata are mixed up and many people simply have no idea what will happen next. But this is so unobtrusively shown in the play that even M. Gorky, in whom the production did not arouse high appreciation, admitted that it aroused in him a deep and inexplicable longing.

An analysis of the symbolism, a description of the role and meaning of the main symbol of the play, which were performed in this article, will help 10th grade students when writing an essay on the topic “The symbol of the garden in the comedy “The Cherry Orchard””.

Artwork test

Essay plan
1. Introduction. Artistic originality of Chekhov's plays
2. The main part. Symbolic details, images, motives of A.P. Chekhov. Sound and color effects of the play
— The image of the cherry orchard and its meaning in comedy
— White color and its meaning in The Cherry Orchard
— The role and symbolism of artistic details. The image of the keys in the play
- Sound effects, musical sounds and their role in comedy
— The motive of deafness and its meaning in the play
— Symbolism of images
3. Conclusion. The meaning of symbolic details, motives, images in Chekhov

In the plays of A.P. Chekhov, it is not the external eventfulness that is important, but the author's subtext, the so-called "undercurrents". A major role for the playwright is given to various artistic details, symbolic images, themes and motifs, as well as sound and color effects.
In Chekhov, the very title of the play is symbolic. The image of the cherry orchard, which holds together the entire plot of the play, is filled with a special meaning for each of the main characters. So, for Ranevskaya and Gaev, this image is a symbol of home, youth, beauty, perhaps, all the best that was in life. For Lopakhin, this is a symbol of his success, triumph, a kind of revenge for the past: “The Cherry Orchard is mine now! My! (Laughs.) My God, Lord, my cherry orchard! Tell me that I'm drunk, out of my mind, that all this seems to me ... (Stomps his feet.) Don't laugh at me! If my father and grandfather had risen from their graves and looked at the whole incident, like their Yermolai, beaten, illiterate Yermolai, who ran barefoot in winter, how this same Yermolai bought an estate, more beautiful than which there is nothing in the world. I bought an estate where my grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen. I sleep, it only seems to me, it only seems to me ... ". Petya Trofimov compares the cherry orchard with the image of Russia: “All Russia is our garden. The earth is great and beautiful, there are many wonderful places on it. At the same time, this character introduces here the motive of misfortune, suffering, life at the expense of others: “Think, Anya: your grandfather, great-grandfather and all your ancestors were serfs who owned living souls, and is it really from every cherry in the garden, from every leaf, from human beings do not look at you from every trunk, do you really not hear voices ... To own living souls - after all, this has reborn all of you who lived before and now live, so that your mother, you, uncle no longer notice that you live in debt, on someone else's account, at the expense of those people whom you do not let further than the front ... ". For the author, it seems, a blooming cherry orchard is a symbol of beauty and purity, and cutting it down is a violation of the former harmony, an attempt on the eternal, unshakable foundations of life. The symbol of the cherry orchard itself in the comedy is the bouquet sent by the gardener (the first act). With the death of the garden, the heroes are deprived of their past, in fact, they are deprived of their homes and family ties.
The image of the cherry orchard introduces white color into the play as a symbol of purity, youth, past, memory, but at the same time as a symbol of impending doom. This motif sounds both in the replicas of the characters, and in the color definitions of objects, details of clothing, interior. So, in the first act, Gaev and Ranevskaya, admiring the flowering of trees, recall the past: “Gaev (opens another window). The garden is all white. Have you forgotten, Luba? This long avenue runs straight, straight, like a stretched out belt, it glitters on moonlit nights. Do you remember? Didn't forget? - “Lyubov Andreevna (looks out the window at the garden). Oh, my childhood, my purity! I slept in this nursery, looked from here at the garden, happiness woke up with me every morning, and then it was exactly like that, nothing has changed. (Laughs with joy.) All, all white! O my garden! After a dark, rainy autumn and a cold winter, you are young again, full of happiness, the angels of heaven have not left you ... ". Lyubov Andreevna sees "the late mother in a white dress" in the garden. This image also anticipates the coming death of the garden. The white color also appears in the play in the form of details of the characters' costumes: Lopakhin "in a white waistcoat", Firs puts on "white gloves", Charlotte Ivanovna in a "white dress". In addition, one of Ranevskaya's rooms is "white". As the researchers note, this color roll-call unites the characters with the image of the garden.
Symbolic in the play and some artistic details. So, first of all, these are the keys that Varya carries with him. At the very beginning of the play, he draws attention to this detail: "Varya enters, she has a bunch of keys on her belt." This is where the motif of the hostess, the housekeeper, arises. Indeed, the author endows this heroine with some of these features. Varya is responsible, strict, independent, she is able to manage the house. The same motif of keys is developed by Petya Trofimov in a conversation with Anya. However, here this motive, given in the perception of the hero, acquires a negative connotation. For Trofimov, the keys are captivity for the human soul, mind, for life itself. So, he urges Anya to get rid of unnecessary, in his opinion, connections, duties: “If you have the keys to the household, then throw them into the well and leave. Be free as the wind." The same motive sounds in the third act, when Varya, having learned about the sale of the estate, throws the keys on the floor in despair. Lopakhin, on the other hand, picks up these keys, remarking: “She threw the keys away, she wants to show that she is no longer the mistress here ...”. At the end of the play, all doors are locked. Thus, the rejection of the keys here symbolizes the loss of a home, the breaking of family ties.
Both sound effects and musical sounds acquire their special significance in the play. So, at the beginning of the first act, birds sing in the garden. This song of birds correlates in Chekhov with the image of Anya, with the major scale of the beginning of the play. At the end of the first act, a flute is played by a shepherd. These pure and gentle sounds are also associated in the viewer with the image of Anya, the heroine whom the author sympathizes with. In addition, they emphasize Petya Trofimov's tender and sincere feelings for her: “Trofimov (in tenderness): My sun! Spring is mine! Further, in the second act, Epikhodov's song sounds: "What do I care about the noisy light, what are my friends and enemies ...". This song emphasizes the disunity of the characters, the lack of real understanding between them. The climax (the announcement of the sale of the estate) is accompanied in The Cherry Orchard by the sounds of a Jewish orchestra, creating the effect of a "feast during the plague." Indeed, Jewish orchestras at that time were invited to play at funerals. Ermolai Lopakhin triumphs to this music, but Ranevskaya weeps bitterly to it. The leitmotif in the play is the sound of a broken string. Researchers (Z.S. Paperny) noted that it is this sound in Chekhov that unites the characters. Immediately after it, everyone starts thinking in the same direction. But each of the characters in their own way explains this sound. So, Lopakhin believes that “somewhere far away in the mines a bucket broke”, Gaev says that it is screaming “some kind of bird ... like a heron”, Trofimov believes that this is an “eagle owl”. For Ranevskaya, this mysterious sound gives rise to an indistinct alarm: "It's unpleasant for some reason." And finally, Firs seems to sum up everything said by the heroes: “Before the misfortune, it was the same: the owl screamed, and the samovar hummed endlessly.” Thus, this sound symbolizes the coming death of the cherry orchard, the heroes' farewell to the past, which is gone forever. The same sound of a broken string in Chekhov is repeated at the end of the play. Its meaning is repeated here, it clearly defines the border of time, the border of the past and the future. The sounds of the ax in the final take on the same meaning in The Cherry Orchard. At the same time, the sound of the ax is accompanied by music ordered by Lopakhin. Music here symbolizes the "new" life that his descendants should see.
The motif of deafness acquires symbolic meaning in the play. And it sounds not only in the image of the old servant Firs, who "does not hear well." Chekhov's heroes do not hear and do not understand each other. Thus, researchers have repeatedly noted that the characters in The Cherry Orchard each talk about their own, as if not wanting to delve into the problems of others. Chekhov often uses the so-called "passive" monologues: Gaev turns to the closet, Ranevskaya - to her room - "nursery", to the garden. But, even when addressing others, the characters actually only indicate their inner state, experiences, without expecting any response. So, it is in this perspective that in the second act Ranevskaya addresses her interlocutors (“Oh, my friends”), in the third act Pishchik addresses Trofimov in the same way (“I am full-blooded ...”). Thus, the playwright emphasizes the disunity of people in the play, their alienation, the violation of family and friendly ties, the violation of the continuity of generations and the necessary connection of times. The general atmosphere of misunderstanding is indicated by Ranevskaya, referring to Petya: "it must be said differently." Chekhov's characters live as if in different dimensions. Lack of understanding gives rise to many internal conflicts. As many researchers note, each of the characters has its own conflict. So, Ranevskaya is a loving mother, an easy, kind and delicate nature, subtly feeling beauty, in fact, she lets everyone around the world. Petya Trofimov keeps saying that “you need to work”, but he himself is an “eternal student”, who does not know real life and whose dreams are all utopian. Lopakhin sincerely loves the Ranevskaya family, but at the same time he triumphs at the wake of the cherry orchard. Chekhov's heroes seemed to be lost in time, each of them plays his own tragicomedy.
The characters themselves are symbolic in the play. So, Epikhodov symbolizes an absurd, funny person, a loser. That's what they called him - "twenty-two misfortunes." Ranevskaya and Gaev personify the past era, Petya Trofimov and Anya - a ghostly future. The old servant Firs, who is forgotten in the house, also becomes a symbol of the past in the play. This last scene is also symbolic in many respects. The connection of times is broken, the heroes lose their past.
Thus, the symbolism of artistic details, images, motifs, sound and color effects creates emotional and psychological tension in the play. The problems posed by the playwright acquire philosophical depth, are transferred from the temporal plane to the perspective of eternity. Chekhov's psychologism also acquires depth and complexity unprecedented in dramaturgy.

Content
Introduction ................................................ ................................................. ................3
1. Symbol as a literary phenomenon .............................................. .........................7
1.1 The concept of a symbol............................................... ...............................7
1.2 The formation of the concept of "symbol" .............................................. .................8
1.3 Symbol concepts............................................................... ...............................10
1.4 The study of the symbol in the work of A.P. Chekhov..............................14
2. Symbols in the drama of A.P. Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard" ..............................................16
2.1 Polysemy of the symbol of the garden in Chekhov's drama.................................................16
2.2 Symbolic details in Chekhov's drama……….................................................20
2.3 Sound Symbols in Drama............................................................... ......................22
Conclusion................................................. ................................................. ..........26
List of references .............................................................................. ....................28

Introduction
Chekhov is one of the most amazing phenomena of our culture. The appearance of Chekhov the classic was unexpected and somehow, at first glance, at first glance, unusual: in any case, everything in him contradicted the entire experience of Russian classical literature.
The work of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is devoted to many works of both domestic and Western dramaturgy. Russian pre-revolutionary and Soviet Czech studies have accumulated extensive experience in research, textual and commentary work. Already in the pre-revolutionary years, articles appeared in which Chekhov's prose and dramaturgy received a deep interpretation (articles by M. Gorky, V.G. Korolenko, N.K. Mikhailovsky, F.D. Batyushkov).
In Soviet times, a huge work was launched to collect and publish the literary heritage of A.P. Chekhov, to study his life and work. Here we should mention the works of S.D. Balukhaty (Questions of Poetics. - L., 1990), which substantiates theoretical approaches to the analysis of a new psychological-realistic drama. Book G.P. Berdnikov “A.P. Chekhov: Ideological and Moral Quests" from the series "The Life of Remarkable People" is today considered one of the most authoritative biographies of Chekhov. In addition, here the works of Chekhov are revealed in the context of public life in 18980-1900. In his other book, Chekhov the Playwright: Traditions and Innovation in Chekhov's Drama, G.P. Berdnikov focuses his attention on the history of the formation of Chekhov's innovative dramaturgy, as well as on the most important features of Chekhov's innovative dramatic system as a whole. At the same time, the book makes an attempt to clarify the living connection between Chekhov's dramaturgy and the traditions of Russian realistic theater. Thus, the main issue in the work is the question of tradition and innovation in the Chekhov theater and its place in the history of Russian realistic drama, more broadly - in the history of Russian realistic theater. The study is carried out sequentially chronologically, and each play is considered as a new stage in the formation of Chekhov's innovative dramatic system as a whole.
Articles by A.P. Skaftymov "On the unity of form and content in Chekhov's Cherry Orchard", "On the principles of the construction of Chekhov's plays" have already become classics. Here, as in his other works, the scientist recreates the personal creative truth and the spiritual, moral ideal of the artist through a holistic interpretation of the work of art. The above articles present a systematic analysis of the plot and compositional features of Chekhov's plays.
Z.S. Paperny, in his book “Against All Rules…”: Chekhov's Plays and Vaudevilles, speaks of the impossibility of saying everything about Chekhov's work. In the work of the Soviet literary critic, the artistic nature of Chekhov's plays and vaudevilles is studied in its connections with the contemporary reality of the writer.
Monographs A.P. Chudakov's "Chekhov's Poetics" and "Chekhov's World: Emergence and Approval" were a new word in Czech studies. And although the first work was published back in 1971, it already shows a break from the traditional formulations for Soviet literary criticism. The development of new approaches to the writer's work is developed in the next work of the researcher, in which the system-synchronous analysis of Chekhov's work was continued by the historical-genetic analysis.
In the book of V.I. Kamyanov "Time against timelessness: Chekhov and the present" contains a new approach to the analysis of the work of the Russian writer. The author proposes to consider Chekhov's works in an inseparable unity and, at the same time, from different points of view: the passage of time in stories, novels and plays, issues of religious faith in artistic coverage, the image of nature as the basis for the harmony of the world. At the same time, Kamyanov was one of the first to raise the question of the influence of Chekhov's work on Russian literature in the second half of the 20th century.
At present, the collections "Chekhov's Bulletin" and "Young Researchers of Chekhov" are regularly published, where articles by young Chekhov scholars are published. Mostly these studies of any individual aspects of the writer's work.
At the same time, there are no separate works devoted to the study of images-symbols in Chekhov's dramaturgy. At the same time, now in literary criticism much attention is paid to the study of unexplored levels of Chekhov's works. Therefore, we can talk about the relevance of this work.
The purpose of our study is to study the images-symbols in the dramaturgy of A.P. Chekhov (on the example of the play "The Cherry Orchard"), their place and role in the artistic system of works.
To achieve this goal, it is necessary to solve the following tasks:
1. Define the concept of "symbol" and present its basic concepts;
2. Identify the symbols most characteristic of A.P. Chekhov;
3. Determine the place and role of symbols in the artistic system of Chekhov's dramaturgy.
The historical and cultural method is the most suitable for solving the set tasks.
This work consists of an Introduction, two chapters, a Conclusion and a List of References, consisting of 51 titles. The first chapter of the work "Symbol as a literary phenomenon" considers the formation of a symbol as a literary, art and philosophical term. The same chapter characterizes the main approaches to the study of the symbol in the work of A.P. Chekhov.
In the second chapter “Symbols in the drama of A.P. Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard"" shows the role and meaning of symbols in Chekhov's dramaturgy, using the play "The Cherry Orchard" as an example.
The source for this work was the Collected Works of A.P. Chekhov in 12 volumes:
Chekhov, A.P. Collected works in 12 volumes. Vol. 9: Plays 1880-1904 / A.P. Chekhov. - M .: State publishing house of fiction, 1960. - 712 p.

1. Symbol as a literary phenomenon
1.1 Symbol concept
The concept of a symbol is multifaceted. It is no coincidence that M.Yu. Lotman defined it as "one of the most ambiguous in the system of semiotic sciences", and A.F. Losev noted: "The concept of a symbol both in literature and in art is one of the most vague, confused and contradictory concepts." This is explained, first of all, by the fact that the symbol is one of the central categories of philosophy, aesthetics, cultural studies, and literary criticism.
A symbol (Greek symbolon - a sign, an identifying sign) is a universal aesthetic category, revealed through comparison, on the one hand, with related categories of an artistic image, on the other hand, a sign and an allegory. In a broad sense, we can say that a symbol is an image taken in the aspect of its symbolism, and that it is a sign endowed with all the organicity and inexhaustible ambiguity of the image. S.S. Averintsev writes: “The objective image and deep meaning also act as two poles in the structure of the symbol, unthinkable one without the other, but also divorced from each other and generating a symbol. Turning into a symbol, the image becomes “transparent”: the meaning “shines through” through it, being given precisely as a semantic depth, a semantic perspective.
The authors of the Literary Encyclopedic Dictionary see the fundamental difference between a symbol and an allegory in the fact that “the meaning of a symbol cannot be deciphered by a simple effort of the mind, it is inseparable from the structure of the image, does not exist as some kind of rational formula that can be “inserted” into the image and then extracted from it” . Here one has to look for the specifics of the symbol in relation to the category of the sign. If for a purely utilitarian sign system polysemy is only a hindrance that harms the rational functioning of the sign, then the symbol is the more meaningful, the more it is polysemantic. The very structure of the symbol is aimed at giving a holistic image of the world through each particular phenomenon. Objects, animals, known phenomena, signs of objects, actions can serve as a symbol.
The semantic structure of the symbol is multi-layered and is designed for the active internal work of the perceiver. The meaning of a symbol objectively realizes itself not as a presence, but as a dynamic tendency; it is not given, but given. This meaning, strictly speaking, cannot be explained by reducing it to an unambiguous logical formula, but can only be explained by correlating it with further symbolic chains, which will lead to greater rational clarity, but will not reach pure concepts.
The interpretation of a symbol is dialogically a form of knowledge: the meaning of a symbol really exists only within human communication, outside of which only the empty form of the symbol can be observed. The "dialogue" in which the comprehension of the symbol is carried out can be broken as a result of the false position of the interpreter.
I. Mashbits-Verov notes that “the origin of the symbol is very ancient, although under specific historical conditions new symbols appear or the meaning of old ones changes (for example, the swastika is an ancient symbol of the tree of life, now it is a symbol of fascism)” .
1.2 The formation of the concept of "symbol"
Although the symbol is as ancient as human consciousness, philosophical and aesthetic understanding comes relatively late. The mythological worldview presupposes an undivided identity of the symbolic form and its meaning, excluding any reflection of the symbol, therefore, any view that comprehends the nature of the symbol is excluded.
A new situation arises in ancient culture after Plato's experiments in constructing a secondary, i.e. "symbolic" in the proper sense, philosophical mythology. It was important for Plato to limit, first of all, the symbol from the pre-philosophical myth. Despite the fact that Hellenistic thinking constantly confuses symbol with allegory, Aristotle created a classification of symbols: he divides them into conditional (“names”) and natural (“signs”).
In the Middle Ages, this symbolism coexisted with didactic allegorism. The Renaissance sharpened intuitive perception in its open polysemy, but did not create a new theory of the symbol, and the revival of the taste for learned book allegory was picked up by the Baroque and Classicism.
The separation of allegory and symbol finally took shape only in the era of romanticism. During periods of actualization of the opposition of allegory and symbol, and this is mainly romanticism and symbolism, the symbol is given the place of an artistic ideal. Significant observations on the nature of the symbol are found in the work of Carl Philipp Moritz. He owns the idea that beauty cannot be translated into another form: “We ourselves exist - this is our most sublime and noblest thought.” All the characteristic features of the manifestation of art are concentrated in a single concept, which the romantics later designated by the word symbol.
In the multi-volume work of F. Kreutzer "Symbolism and Mythology of Ancient Peoples ..." (1810-12), a classification of types of symbols was given ("a mystical symbol", which explodes the closedness of the form for the direct expression of infinity, and a "plastic symbol", striving to contain semantic infinity in closed form). For A.V. Schlegel’s poetic creativity is “eternal symbolization”, the German romantics relied in understanding the symbol on the mature I.W. Goethe, who understood all forms of natural human creativity as meaningful and speaking symbols of living eternal becoming. Unlike the romantics, Goethe connects the elusiveness and indivisibility of the symbol not with mystical otherworldliness, but with the vital organicity of the beginnings expressed through the symbol. G.W.F. Hegel, (opposing the romantics, emphasized in the structure of the symbol a more rationalistic, symbolic side (“a symbol is, first of all, a certain sign”) based on “conventionality”.
Understanding the symbol acquires a special role in symbolism. The Symbolists considered synthesis and suggestion to be one of the most important principles of symbolic poetry; a symbol should have these qualities. It seems paradoxical that, despite the absolutization of the concept of a symbol, symbolism did not give a clear idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe difference between a symbol and other categories. In the symbolist environment, the word "symbol" had many meanings. In particular, it has been confused many times with allegory and myth. The era of symbolism also gave impetus to the "academic", strictly scientific study of the symbol. To one degree or another, the scientific consciousness of the twentieth century develops the ideas of the symbol, reflected in the aesthetics of the symbolists.
1.3 Symbol concepts
The systematic study of symbolism, carried out by the direct successors of that era - the philologists of the next generation, can be considered the beginning of a proper scientific approach to the symbol. Here, first of all, we should mention the works of V.M. Zhirmunsky and other scientists of the St. Petersburg school.
V.M. Zhirmunsky defined a symbol in his work “Metaphor in the Poetics of Russian Symbolists” (June 1921) as follows: “A symbol is a special case of metaphor - an object or action (that is, usually a noun or verb) taken to denote emotional experience.” Later, he reproduced this formulation almost literally in the article “The Poetry of Alexander Blok”: “We call a symbol in poetry a special type of metaphor - an object or action of the external world, denoting the phenomenon of the spiritual or spiritual world according to the principle of similarity.” There is no doubt that V.M. Zhirmunsky was well aware that “a special kind of metaphor” is far from all that a symbol carries. The limitations of his formulation made themselves felt from the very beginning. And first of all stylistically. According to Zhirmunsky, the symbol is actually a pre-symbolist symbol that has existed for centuries both in folk song and in religious literature (liturgical poetry and even mystical lyrics).
One of the most detailed and generalizing concepts of the symbol in terms of its role and significance in human life, created largely under the influence of Russian symbolists, belongs to the German philosopher of the first half of the 20th century, E. Cassirer. In his work "Experience about man: An introduction to the philosophy of human culture. What is a man? (1945) he wrote: “In man, between the system of receptors and effectors that all animal species have, there is a third link, which can be called a symbolic system.” According to Cassirer, the symbolic space of human life unfolds and expands in connection with the progress of the race, with the development of civilization: “All human progress in thinking and experience refines and at the same time strengthens this network.”
As K.A. Svasyan, “the question of whether there is a reality apart from the symbol is characterized by Cassirer (as philosophically irrelevant and mystical.<...>Cassirer does not deny the intentional nature of the symbol as pointing to "something". However, by this “something” he means the unity of the function of the formation itself, that is, the rules of symbolic functioning. As if continuing the thoughts of Cassirer, a prominent linguist of the twentieth century, E. Sapir wrote in 1934: “... The individual and society, in an endless mutual exchange of symbolic gestures, build a pyramidal structure called civilization. There are very few “bricks” that underlie this structure.
A.F. Losev distinguishes between a symbol and other categories close to it. Let us dwell on the difference between a symbol and a sign and from an allegory. The symbol, according to Losev, is an infinite sign, i.e. a sign with an infinite number of meanings.
A.F. Losev believes that one of the main characteristics of a symbol is the identity of the signified and the signifier. The symbol is the arena of the meeting of the signifier and the signified, which have nothing in common with each other. The presence of the symbolized in the symbol at one time became one of the central ideas of P. Florensky's philosophy of the word. “The meaning transferred from one object to another merges so deeply and comprehensively with this object that it is no longer possible to distinguish them from one another. The symbol in this case is the complete interpenetration of the ideological imagery of the thing with the thing itself. In the symbol we necessarily find the identity, the mutual permeability of the signified thing and its signifying ideological imagery.
According to Losev, the symbol as an artistic image strives for realism. However, if we assume realism as the only criterion for a symbol, the line between the symbol and the artistic image will be erased. In fact, any image is symbolic.
Lotman's theory of the symbol organically complements Losev's theory. According to Lotman, "as an important mechanism of cultural memory, symbols transfer texts, plot schemes and other semiotic formations from one layer of culture to another" . A symbol can belong not only to individual creativity. This property of the symbol determines its proximity to the myth.
E.K. Sozina considers “the most perfect and at the same time generalizing that line of symbolology that, through Plato, stretches from ancient times to the present day”, the concept of M.K. Mamardashvili and A.M. Pyatigorsky, proposed by them in their 1982 work “Symbol and Consciousness. Metaphysical reflections on consciousness, symbolism and language". The authors seek to interpret the symbol "in the sense of consciousness." They understand a symbol as a thing, “which with one end “protrudes” in the world of things, and with the other end “is drowned” in the reality of consciousness” . At the same time, the symbol in their understanding is practically pointless: “any meaningfulness of the symbol acts as a completely empty shell, within which only one content is constituted and structured, which we call “the content of consciousness” ”. Due to the content of consciousness that fills the symbol, it is a thing. In addition, Mamardashvili and Pyatigorsky distinguish 2 main types of symbols: primary and secondary. The primary symbols (and the primary myths correlated with them) “lie at the level of the spontaneous life of consciousness and the spontaneous relation of individual psychic mechanisms to the contents of consciousness”, i.e. they correspond with the cosmic consciousness and do not have an adequate human expression. Secondary symbols “figure at the level of the mythological system, which, as a system itself, is the result of ideological (scientific, cultural, etc.) study, interpretation”, they arise in language, culture, and society. Mamardashvili and Pyatigorsky paid great attention to the problem of multiple interpretation of a symbol, related to the problem of "understanding - knowledge": "multiplicity of interpretations is a way of being (and not expressing!) The content that is symbolized" .
1.4 The study of the symbol in the work of A.P. Chekhov
For the first time, the problem of the symbol in the work of A.P. Chekhov was posed by A. Bely in the article "Chekhov" (1907). He notes that, despite the continuation of the traditions of Russian realists, in Chekhov's work "the dynamite of true symbolism is laid, which is capable of blowing up many intermediate currents of Russian literature" . Speaking about the pseudo-realistic and pseudo-symbolic tendencies of Russian literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Bely calls Chekhov's creative method "transparent" realism, involuntarily fused with symbolism.
Continues the assertion of Chekhov as a realist-symbolist A. Bely in the collection of essays "Green Meadow" (1910). Here, the main attention of the Russian symbolist is drawn to identifying common features in the work of Chekhov and Maurice Maeterlinck, but at the same time, Chekhov's symbols are “thinner, more transparent, less deliberate. They have grown into life, without a trace embodied in the real. In the same article, A. Bely proves that true symbolism coincides with true realism, because "a symbol is only an expression of experience, and experience (personal, collective) is the only reality."
D.P. also speaks about the closeness of Chekhov’s creative method to Maeterlinck. Mirsky. He also notes that all the works of the Russian writer "are symbolic, but in most of their symbolism is expressed not so concretely, bewitchingly vague<…>But Chekhov's symbolism reached its greatest development in his plays, starting with The Seagull.
A.P. Chudakov is probably one of the few in Soviet literary criticism who directly declared the symbolism of Chekhov's details. He also gives a brief description of these details-symbols: “He does not serve as symbols for some “special” objects that can be a sign of a hidden “second plan” already by their fixed or easily guessed meaning. In this capacity, ordinary objects of the everyday environment act. Chudakov also noted another important detail of the symbols: “Chekhov's symbolic object belongs to two spheres at once - the “real” and the symbolic - and neither of them is more than the other. It does not burn with one even light, but flickers - sometimes with a symbolic light, sometimes with a “real” one.
In modern literary criticism, the presence of symbols in the works of A.P. Chekhov is no longer disputed. At present, Chekhov scholars are interested in certain issues of symbolism in the writer's work.
Thus, the symbol is one of the oldest phenomena in culture and literature. Since ancient times, it has attracted the attention of both writers and researchers. The difficulty in studying the concept of "symbol" is caused by its ambiguity and multiple classifications. According to literary critics, in Russian realistic literature, with their emphasis on symbolic details, the works of A.P. Chekhov.

2. Symbols in the drama of A.P. Chekhov "The Cherry Orchard"
2.1 Polysemy of the garden symbol in Chekhov's drama
The main character of the play A.P. Chekhov is not a person, but a garden, and not just any, but the most beautiful garden on Earth, which is even mentioned in the Encyclopedic Dictionary. The visual symbolism of the garden determines the structure of the play, its plot, but the symbol of the garden itself cannot be interpreted unambiguously. The central core of the work is a cherry orchard - from the time of flowering to being sold by auction: “the plot covers about half a year from a long biography of the garden, mentioned even in an encyclopedia, - the last six months expiring along the course of the plot,” writes V.I. Kamyanov. The image of the cherry orchard is comprehensive; the plot, characters, and relationships are focused on it. The image of the cherry orchard is comprehensive; the plot, characters, and relationships are focused on it.
In Chekhov's last play, all the elements of the plot are concentrated on this symbol: the plot (“... your cherry orchard is being sold for debts, auctions are scheduled for August 22 ...”), the climax (Lopakhin's message about the sale of the cherry orchard) and, finally, denouement (“Oh, my dear, my gentle, beautiful garden! .. My life, my youth, my happiness, goodbye! ..”).
In The Cherry Orchard, the symbol is constantly expanding its semantics. He appears already on the first pages of the play, and, according to V.A. Koshelev, “the symbolic features of this image are initially presented in a “worldly” guise” . For Ranevskaya and Gaev, the garden is their past:
“Lyubov Andreevna (looks out the window at the garden). Oh, my childhood, my purity! I slept in this nursery, looked at the garden from here, happiness woke up with me every morning, and then it was exactly like that, nothing has changed. (Laughs with joy.) All, all white! Oh my garden! After a dark, rainy autumn and a cold winter, you are young again, full of happiness, the angels of heaven have not left you ... ".
The Cherry Orchard for Ranevskaya and her brother Gaev is a family nest, a symbol of youth, prosperity and former elegant life. The owners of the garden love it, although they do not know how to save or save it. For them, the cherry orchard is a symbol of the past.
In the first act, it is mentioned that Gaev is fifty-one years old. That is, during his youth, the garden had already lost its economic significance, and Gaev and Ranevskaya got used to appreciating it, first of all, for its unique beauty. The symbol of this generous natural beauty, which cannot be perceived in terms of profitability, is a bouquet of flowers, in the first act brought from the garden into the house in anticipation of the arrival of the owners. I.V. Gracheva recalls that Chekhov considered harmonious unity with nature "one of the necessary conditions for human happiness."
Ranevskaya, looking at the garden, comes into joyful admiration: “What an amazing garden! White masses of flowers, blue sky ... ". Anya, tired from a long journey, dreams before going to bed: “Tomorrow morning I will get up, run to the garden ...”. Even businesslike, always preoccupied with something, Varya for a moment succumbs to the charm of the spring renewal of nature: “... What wonderful trees! My God, air! The starlings sing!” . Nature appears in the play not only as a landscape, but as a socialized symbol of nature.
The cherry orchard is not only a symbol of perfect happiness, childhood and innocence, but also a symbol of fall, loss and death. A river flows through the cherry orchard, in which the seven-year-old son of Ranevskaya drowned:
Anna (thoughtfully). Six years ago my father died, and a month later my brother Grisha, a pretty seven-year-old boy, drowned in the river. Mom couldn’t bear it, she left, left without looking back ... ".
Lopakhin has a completely different attitude to the garden, whose father was a serf for his grandfather and father Gaev. The garden for him is a source of profit: “Your estate is located only twenty miles from the city, a railway passed nearby, and if the cherry orchard and the land along the river are divided into summer cottages and then leased out for summer cottages, then you will have the least twenty thousand a year income. He evaluates this garden only from a practical point of view:
"Lopakhin. The only remarkable thing about this garden is that it is very large. Cherry is born every two years, and there is nowhere to put it, no one buys it.
The poetry of the cherry orchard is not interesting for Lopakhin. V.A. Koshelev believes that “he is attracted by something new and colossal, like a “thousand acres” of the income-generating poppy.<…>The flowering of the traditional “garden” is not interesting for him precisely because it is “traditional”: the new owner of life is accustomed to looking for new twists and turns in everything - including aesthetic ones.
In the very construction of the play, the garden - the recognized sign of this "poetic" beginning of being - thus becomes an inevitable symbol associated with tradition. And as such, it appears throughout the rest of the play. Here Lopakhin once again recalls the sale of the estate: “I remind you, gentlemen: on August 22, the cherry orchard will be sold.”
He recently argued the unprofitability of this garden and the need to destroy it. The garden is doomed to destruction - and in this sense it also becomes a symbol, because the result of this destruction is nothing more than providing a better life for posterity: "We will set up summer cottages, and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will see a new life here ...". At the same time, for Lopakhin, the purchase of the estate and the cherry orchard becomes a symbol of his success, a reward for many years of work: “The cherry orchard is mine now! My! (Laughs.) My God, Lord, my cherry orchard! Tell me that I'm drunk, out of my mind, that all this seems to me ... (Stomps his feet.)<…>I bought an estate where my grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen. I sleep, it only seems to me, it only seems to me ... ".
Another meaning of the symbolic image of the garden is introduced in the play by student Petya Trofimov:
"Trofimov. All Russia is our garden. The earth is great and beautiful, there are many wonderful places on it. Think, Anya: your grandfather, great-grandfather and all your ancestors were serf-owners who owned living souls, and is it possible that from every cherry in the garden, from every leaf, from every trunk, human beings do not look at you, do you really not hear voices ... Own living souls - after all, this has reborn all of you who lived before and are living now, so that your mother, you, uncle, no longer notice that you live on credit, at someone else's expense, at the expense of those people whom you do not let further than the front. ..” .
Z.S. Paperny notes that “where Ranevskaya sees her dead mother, Petya sees and hears tortured serf souls;<…>So why pity such a garden, this feudal vale, this realm of injustice, the lives of some at the expense of others, the destitute. From this point of view, the fate of the whole of Russia, its future, can be seen in the fate of Chekhov's cherry orchard. In a state where there is no serfdom, there are traditions and remnants of serfdom. Petya, as it were, is ashamed of the country's past, he calls "first to redeem our past, to end it, and it can only be redeemed by suffering" in order to go towards the future. In this context, the death of the cherry orchard can be perceived as the death of Russia's past and movement towards its future.
The garden is an ideal symbol of the characters' feelings; external reality corresponding to their internal essence. A blossoming cherry orchard is a symbol of a pure, immaculate life, and cutting down a garden means departure and the end of life. The garden stands at the center of the collision of various mental warehouses and public interests.
The symbolism of the garden is due to its tangible embodiment, and it disappears after the garden is cut down. People are deprived not only of the garden, but also through it - of the past. The cherry orchard is dying, and its symbolism is dying, linking reality with eternity. The last sound is the sound of a breaking string. The image of the garden and its death is symbolically ambiguous, not reducible to visible reality, but there is no mystical or unreal content here.
2.2 Symbolic details in Chekhov's drama
In Chekhov's last comedy, a detail clearly comes to the fore - the dominant of the character's appearance. Particularly important is the detail that accompanies his first appearance, since it is precisely this detail that becomes an ideological sign, a kind of allegory of the character's attitude to the world. E.S. Dobin believes that "the detail becomes the core of the psychological characteristics and even the course of events." Being plot significant, everyday details become symbolic.
So, at the beginning of the play, Chekhov points to a seemingly insignificant detail in the image of Varya: “Varya enters, she has a bunch of keys on her belt.” In the above remark, Chekhov emphasizes the role of the housekeeper, housekeeper, mistress of the house, chosen by Varya. At the same time, it is through the symbol of the keys that the connection between Vari and the house is transmitted. She feels herself accountable for everything that happens on the estate, but her dreams are not connected with the cherry orchard: “I would go to the desert, then to Kiev ... to Moscow, and so I would go to holy places ... I would go would have walked. Grace! .. ".
It is no coincidence that Petya Trofimov, calling Anya to action, tells her to throw away the keys: “If you have from the household, then throw them into the well and leave. Be free as the wind."
Chekhov skillfully uses the symbolism of the keys in the third act, when Varya, having heard about the sale of the estate, throws the keys on the floor. Lopakhin explains this gesture of hers: “She threw the keys, she wants to show that she is no longer the mistress here ...”. According to T.G. Ivleva, Lopakhin, who bought the estate, took away her housekeepers.
There is another symbol of the owner in the drama. Throughout the play, the author mentions Ranevskaya's purse, for example, "looks in the purse." Seeing that there is little money left, she accidentally drops it and scatters the gold. In the last act, Ranevskaya gives her wallet to the peasants who came to say goodbye:
"Gaev. You gave them your wallet, Luba. You can not do it this way! You can not do it this way!
Lyubov Andreevna. I could not! I could not!" .
At the same time, only in the fourth act does the wallet appear in Lopakhin's hands, although the reader knows from the very beginning of the play that he does not need money.
Another important detail characterizes the image of Lopakhin - a watch. Lopakhin is the only character in the play whose time is scheduled by the minute; it is fundamentally concrete, linear and, at the same time, continuous. His speech is constantly accompanied by the author's remarks: "looking at the clock." T.G. Ivleva believes that “The situational - psychological - meaning of the remark is due to the imminent departure of the character, his natural desire not to miss the train; this meaning is explicated in Lopakhin's remarks. The ideological semantics of the remark is largely predetermined by the specifics of the very image of the watch as an allegory established in the human mind. It is noteworthy that it is Lopakhin who tells Ranevskaya the date of the sale of the estate - the twenty-second of August. Thus, Lopakhin's watch becomes not just a detail of his costume, but a symbol of time.
In general, time is constantly present in Chekhov's drama. The perspective from the present to the past is opened by almost every actor, although to different depths. Firs has been muttering for three years now. Six years ago, her husband died and Lyubov Andreevna's son drowned. About forty-fifty years ago, they still remembered how to process cherries. The closet was made exactly one hundred years ago. And the stones, which were once gravestones, are quite reminiscent of the gray-haired antiquity. Petya Trofimov, on the contrary, constantly talks about the future, the past is of little interest to him.
Insignificant details in the artistic world of Chekhov, being repeatedly repeated, acquire the character of symbols. Combining with other images in the work, they go beyond the scope of a specific play and rise to the universal level.
2.3 Sound symbols in drama
A play by A.P. Chekhov is filled with sounds. A flute, a guitar, a Jewish orchestra, the sound of an axe, the sound of a broken string - sound effects accompany almost every significant event or image of a character, becoming a symbolic echo in the reader's memory.
According to E.A. Polotskaya, the sound in Chekhov's dramaturgy is "a continuation of poetic images that have been realized more than once" . At the same time, T.G. Ivleva notes that "the semantic significance of the sound remark in Chekhov's last comedy becomes, perhaps, the highest" .
The sound creates the general mood, the atmosphere of any particular scene or action as a whole. Such, for example, is the sound that ends the first act of the piece:
“Far beyond the garden, a shepherd is playing his flute. Trofimov walks across the stage and, seeing Varya and Anya, stops.<…>
Trofimov (in emotion). My sun! Spring is mine! .
The high, clear and gentle sound of the flute is here, first of all, the background design of the tender feelings experienced by the character.
In the second act, the sound of the guitar becomes the leitmotif, and the mood is created by the sad song played and sung by Epikhodov.
An unexpected sound also serves to build up the atmosphere - “as if from the sky, the sound of a broken string”. Each of the characters in their own way tries to determine its source. Lopakhin, whose mind is occupied with some things, believes that it was far away in the mines that a tub broke off. Gaev thinks that this is the cry of a heron, Trofimov - an owl. The author’s calculation is clear: it doesn’t matter what kind of sound it was, it’s important that Ranevskaya became unpleasant, and he reminded Firs of the times before the “misfortune”, when the owl also screamed, and the samovar screamed endlessly. For the South Russian flavor of the area in which the action of The Cherry Orchard takes place, the episode with the torn off bucket is quite appropriate. And Chekhov introduced it, but deprived it of everyday certainty.
And the sad nature of the sound, and the uncertainty of its origin - all this creates some kind of mystery around it, which translates a specific phenomenon into the rank of symbolic images.
But the strange sound appears more than once in the play. The second time "the sound of a broken string" is mentioned in the final remark to the play. Two strong positions assigned to this image: the center and the final - speak of its special significance for understanding the work. In addition, the repetition of the image turns it into a leitmotif - according to the meaning of the term: a leitmotif (a repeated image that "serves as a key to revealing the writer's intention").
The repetition of the sound at the end of the piece in the same expressions frees it even from the supposed everyday interpretation. For the first time, the remark corrects the versions of the characters, but so far it itself appears only as a version. For the second time, in the finale, in the remark about the “distant sound”, all earthly motivations are eliminated: there can not even be an assumption about any fallen “tub” or the cry of a bird. "The author's voice in this case does not specify, but cancels all other positions, except for its own, final one: the sound seems to come from unearthly spheres and goes there too" .
A broken string acquires an ambiguous meaning in the play, which cannot be reduced to the clarity of any abstract concept or fixed in one, precisely defined word. A bad omen heralds a sad end, which the actors - contrary to their intentions - cannot prevent. Chekhov shows how little opportunity for action remains for a person in a historical situation, when the external determining forces are so crushing that internal impulses can hardly be taken into account.
The changing meaning of the sound of a broken string in The Cherry Orchard, its ability to do without everyday motivation, separate it from the real sound that Chekhov could hear. The variety of meanings turns the sound in the play into a symbol.
At the very end of the play, the sound of a broken string obscures the sound of an ax, symbolizing the death of noble estates, the death of old Russia. The old Russia was replaced by an active, dynamic Russia.
Next to the real blows of an ax on cherry trees, the symbolic sound “as if from heaven, the sound of a broken string, fading, sad” crowns the end of life on the estate and the end of a whole strip of Russian life. Both the harbinger of trouble and the assessment of the historical moment merged into one in The Cherry Orchard - in the distant sound of a broken string and the sound of an ax.

Conclusion
Chekhov is one of the most beloved and widely read classics of Russian literature. A writer who most closely matched the dynamism of his time. The appearance of Chekhov the classic was unexpected and somehow, at first glance, unusual; everything in him contradicted the entire experience of Russian literature.
Chekhov's dramaturgy was formed in an atmosphere of timelessness, when, together with the onset of reaction and the collapse of revolutionary populism, the intelligentsia found itself in a state of impassability. The public interests of this environment did not rise above the tasks of partial improvement of life and moral self-improvement. During this period of social stagnation, the worthlessness and hopelessness of existence was most clearly manifested.
Chekhov discovered this conflict in the lives of people in the environment known to him. Striving for the most correct expression of this conflict, the writer creates new forms of dramaturgy. He shows that not events, not exclusively prevailing circumstances, but the usual everyday everyday state of a person is internally conflicting.
The Cherry Orchard is one of the most harmonious, integral works of Chekhov, in the full sense of the final creation of the artist, the pinnacle of Chekhov's dramaturgy. And at the same time, this play is so ambiguous and even mysterious that from the first days of its existence to the present day, a well-established, generally accepted reading of this play does not exist.
However, in order to better understand the content of Chekhov's plays, it is not enough to confine ourselves to analyzing only its external plot. Details play a huge role in the artistic space of Chekhov's works. Repeatedly repeated in the text of the play, the details become leitmotifs. Repeated use of the same detail deprives it of everyday motivation, thereby turning it into a symbol. So, in Chekhov's last play, the sound of a broken string combined the symbolism of life and the motherland, Russia: a reminder of its immensity and time flowing over it, about something familiar, eternally sounding over Russian expanses, accompanying countless comings and goings of new generations. .
The cherry orchard becomes the central image-symbol in the analyzed play by Chekhov. It is to him that all the plot threads are drawn. Moreover, in addition to the real meaning of the cherry orchard, this image has several more symbolic meanings: a symbol of the past and former prosperity for Gaev and Ranevskaya, a symbol of beautiful nature, a symbol of loss, for Lopakhin the garden is a source of profit. You can also talk about the cherry orchard as an image of Russia and its fate.
That is, in the play of the same name, the image of the cherry orchard rises to a poetic symbol of human life and is filled with a deep, symbolic meaning.
Thus, images-symbols play an important role in understanding the work of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov.

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The Cherry Orchard is a complex and ambiguous image. This is not only a specific garden, which is part of the estate of Gaev and Ranevskaya, but also an image-symbol. It symbolizes not only the beauty of Russian nature, but, most importantly, the beauty of the life of the people who grew this garden and admired it, that life that perishes with the death of the garden.

The image of the cherry orchard unites all the heroes of the play around itself. At first glance, it seems that these are only relatives and old acquaintances who, by chance, gathered at the estate to solve their everyday problems. But it's not. The writer connects characters of different ages and social groups, and they will have to somehow decide the fate of the garden, and hence their own fate.

The owners of the estate are Russian landowners Gaev and Ranevskaya. Both brother and sister are educated, intelligent, sensitive people. They know how to appreciate beauty, they feel it subtly, but due to inertia they cannot do anything to save it. For all their development and spiritual wealth, Gaev and Ranevskaya are deprived of a sense of reality, practicality and responsibility, and therefore are not able to take care of themselves or their loved ones. They cannot follow Lopakhin's advice and rent out the land, despite the fact that this would bring them a solid income: "Dachas and summer residents - it's so vulgar, sorry." They are prevented from going to this measure by special feelings that connect them with the estate. They treat the garden as a living person, with whom they have a lot in common. The cherry orchard for them is the personification of a past life, a bygone youth. Looking out the window at the garden, Ranevskaya exclaims: “Oh my childhood, my purity! I slept in this nursery, looked at the garden from here, happiness woke up with me every morning, and then it was exactly like that, nothing has changed. And further: “O my garden! After a dark rainy autumn and a cold winter, you are young again, full of happiness, the angels of heaven have not left you ... ”Ranevskaya speaks not only about the garden, but also about herself. She seems to compare her life with "dark rainy autumn" and "cold winter." Returning to her homestead, she again felt young and happy.

The feelings of Gaev and Ranevskaya are not shared by Lopakhin. Their behavior seems strange and illogical to him. He wonders why they are not affected by the arguments of a prudent way out of a difficult situation, which are so obvious to him. Lopakhin knows how to appreciate beauty: he is fascinated by the garden, "more beautiful than which there is nothing in the world." But he is an active and practical man. He cannot simply admire the garden and regret it without trying to do something to save it. He sincerely tries to help Gaev and Ranevskaya, constantly convincing them: “Both the cherry orchard and the land must be leased for summer cottages, do it now, as soon as possible - the auction is on the nose! Understand! But they don't want to listen to him. Gaev is only capable of empty oaths: “By my honor, whatever you want, I swear that the estate will not be sold! By my happiness, I swear! ... then call me a trashy, dishonorable person if I let me go to the auction! I swear with all my being!”

However, the auction took place, and Lopakhin bought the estate. For him, this event has a special meaning: “I bought an estate where my grandfather and father were slaves, where they were not even allowed into the kitchen. I’m sleeping, it only seems to me, it just seems ... ”Thus, for Lopakhin, the purchase of an estate becomes a kind of symbol of his success, a reward for many years of work.

He would like his father and grandfather to rise from the grave and rejoice at how their son and grandson succeeded in life. For Lopakhin, the cherry orchard is just land that can be sold, mortgaged or bought. In his joy, he does not even consider it necessary to show an elementary sense of tact in relation to the former owners of the estate. He starts cutting down the garden without even waiting for them to leave. In some ways, the soulless footman Yasha is akin to him, in which there are completely no such feelings as kindness, love for his mother, attachment to the place where he was born and raised. In this he is the direct opposite of Firs, in whom these qualities are unusually developed. Firs is the oldest person in the house. For many years he faithfully serves his masters, sincerely loves them and is fatherly ready to protect them from all troubles. Perhaps Firs is the only character in the play endowed with this quality - devotion. Firs is a very integral nature, and this integrity is fully manifested in his attitude towards the garden. The garden for an old lackey is a family nest, which he seeks to protect in the same way as his masters. Petya Trofimov is a representative of a new generation. He does not care at all about the fate of the cherry orchard. “We are above love,” he declares, thereby confessing his inability to have a serious feeling. Petya looks at everything too superficially: not knowing true life, he tries to rebuild it on the basis of far-fetched ideas. Outwardly, Petya and Anya are happy. They want to go to a new life, decisively breaking with the past. The garden for them is "the whole of Russia", and not just this cherry orchard. But is it possible, without loving your home, to love the whole world? Both heroes rush to new horizons, but lose their roots. Mutual understanding between Ranevskaya and Trofimov is impossible. If for Petya there is no past and no memories, then Ranevskaya grieves deeply: “After all, I was born here, my father and mother lived here, my grandfather, I love this house, without a cherry orchard I don’t understand my life ...”

The cherry orchard is a symbol of beauty. But who will save beauty if people who are capable of appreciating it are unable to fight for it, and energetic and active people look at it only as a source of profit and profit?

The Cherry Orchard is a symbol of the past dear to the heart and the native hearth. But is it possible to go forward when the sound of an ax is heard behind your back, destroying everything that was previously sacred? The cherry orchard is a symbol of goodness, and therefore such expressions as “cut roots”, “trample a flower” or “hit a tree with an ax” sound blasphemous and inhuman.

Chekhov gave his last play a subtitle - a comedy. But in the first production of the Moscow Art Academic Theatre, during the life of the author, the play appeared as a heavy drama, even a tragedy. Who is right? It must be borne in mind that drama is a literary work designed for stage life. Only on the stage will drama acquire a full-fledged existence, reveal all the meaning inherent in it, including genre definition, so the final word in answering the question will belong to the theater, directors and actors. At the same time, it is known that the innovative principles of Chekhov the playwright were perceived and assimilated by theaters with difficulty, not immediately.

Although the Mkhatov’s, consecrated by the authority of Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko, the traditional interpretation of The Cherry Orchard as a dramatic elegy was entrenched in the practice of domestic theaters, Chekhov managed to express dissatisfaction with “his” theater, their dissatisfaction with their interpretation of his swan song. The Cherry Orchard depicts the farewell of the owners, now former, with their family noble nest. This topic was repeatedly covered in Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century and before Chekhov, both dramatically and comically. What are the features of Chekhov's solution to this problem?

In many ways, it is determined by Chekhov's attitude to the nobility that is disappearing into social oblivion and the capital that is coming to replace it, which he expressed in the images of Ranevskaya and Lopakhin, respectively. In both estates and their interaction, Chekhov saw the continuity of the bearers of national culture. Noble nest for