Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (17 (29) January 1860, Taganrog, Russia - 2 (15) July 1904, Badenweiler, Germany) - a great Russian writer and playwright, a classic of world literature, one of the most famous playwrights in the world. A doctor by profession. His works have been translated into more than a hundred languages. His plays, especially The Seagull, The Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard, have been staged in many theaters around the world for more than a hundred years.
During 25 years of creativity Chekhov created more than five hundred different works (short humorous stories, serious stories, plays), many of which became classics of world literature. The most famous are: “Steppe”, “Boring Story”, “Duel”, “Chamber No. 6”, “House with Mezzanine”, “Guy”, “Jumping”, “The Story of an Unknown Man”, “Men”, “Man in a Case”, “In a Ravine”, “Children”, “Drama on the Hunt”; from the plays: “Ivanov”, “The Seagull”, “Uncle Vanya”, “Three Sisters”, “Cherry Orchard”.
In addition to his literary and medical work, Chekhov attached great importance to charitable activities in the field of assistance to the hungry, children, peasants, and the sick, was the Commissioner of the Board of the Yalta Charitable Society, organized fundraising for the needy and regularly published in newspapers texts on the situation of socially vulnerable groups in Russia.
You want my biography? There she is. I was born in Taganrog in 1860. In 1891 he toured Europe, drinking fine wine and eating oysters. He began writing in 1879. He sinned in the dramatic part, albeit moderately. I prefer Tolstoy from writers, and Zakharyin from doctors. But it's all nonsense. Write anything. If there are no facts, replace them with lyrics.
Anton Chekhov's letter to his editor, 1892
Chekhov was one of the first classic writers who completely denounced vulgarity, unwillingness to live a full, rich life. In Chekhov’s works we see a moral appeal to the inner freedom of man, to spiritual purification.
No one understood so clearly and subtly as Anton Chekhov, the tragedy of the trifles of life, no one before him could so ruthlessly, truthfully paint people a shameful and dreary picture of their lives in the dim chaos of petty-bourgeois everyday life. His enemy was vulgarity; he struggled with it all his life, ridiculed it and portrayed it with a dispassionate, sharp feather, able to find the charm of vulgarity even where at first sight everything seemed to be arranged very well, conveniently, even with brilliance.
Maxim Gorky
Chekhov’s artistic discoveries had a huge impact on the literature and theater of the XX century. His dramatic works, translated into many languages, have become an integral part of the world’s theatrical repertoire. His plays do not descend from the stage of theaters around the world, and stories and novels are reprinted in large editions and included in school programs.
Cherry Orchard
I am a developed person, I read various wonderful books, but I can not understand the direction of what I actually want to live or shoot myself, in fact. . .
Semyon Panteleevich Epihodov
My soul and yours have no common ground.
Anya
Get in a pack, bark, wag your tail.
Simeonov-Pyshchik Boris Borisovich
A hungry dog believes only in meat. . .
Simeonov-Pyshchik Boris Borisovich
It's nice and sensitive, but it's not clear.
Dunyasha
I am such a delicate girl, I love tender words terribly.
Dunyasha
It's true. We have to be honest, life is stupid.
Lopakhin Yermolai Alekseevich
Three Sisters
Happy is he who does not notice whether it is summer or winter.
Masha.
What seems serious, significant, and very important to us will be forgotten or unimportant. . . .
Vershinin
Well? If they don't give us tea, let's at least philosophize.
Vershinin
What trifles, what stupid little things sometimes become important in life, all of a sudden.
Tuzenbach Nikolai Lvovich
Uncle Vanya
Everything should be beautiful in a person: face, clothes, soul, and thoughts.
Astrov Mikhail Lvovich
When there is no real life, they live in mirages. Better than nothing.
uncle Vanya
A woman can be a friend of a man only in this sequence: first a friend, then a mistress, and then a friend.
Astrov Mikhail Lvovich
When you talk to me about your love, I kind of get dumb and don't know what to say. I'm sorry, I can't tell you anything. Good night.
Elena Andreevna
A wonderful day today. Either go for tea or hang yourself.
(A revised statement from the play "Uncle Vanya": Voynitsky argues with his mother (where he says "I was a bright person, from whom no one was light"), and to the remark of Elena Andreevna "And the weather is good today..." Not hot... He said, “It’s good to hang yourself in this weather.” . )
Seagull
I'm too simple to understand you!
Nina Mikhailovna Zarechna
- Why do you always wear black?
- It's mourning my life.
Masha - Semyon Semenovich Medvedenko
If you ever need my life, come and take it.
Boris Alekseevich Trigorin
All nonsense. Hopeless love is only in novels. Nothing. You don’t just have to let yourself go and wait for something, wait for the weather by the sea. If you have love in your heart, get it out.
Masha.
A house with a mezzanine
A good upbringing is not that you won’t spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won’t notice if someone else does.
Belokurov
From various activities
In this world from the female sex a lot of evil and all evil. Not only we sinners, but also holy men have been corrupted.
- "Babies" Matvey Savvich
A woman is an intoxicating product, which has not yet been guessed to impose an excise duty.
“A woman from the point of view of a drunkard”
Where art is, where talent is, there is no old age, no loneliness, no disease, and death itself is halfway there.
- "Swan Song" ("Kalkhas") Svetlovidov
Nature has invested in the Russian man an extraordinary ability to believe, experiencing the mind and the gift of thinking, but all this is broken into dust about carelessness, laziness and dreamy frivolity.
- "On the way."
And you were right: a sturgeon with a sweetness!
- "Lady with the Dog"
Vodka is white, but it paints your nose and blackens your reputation.
"Fruits of long reflection"
Russian people like to remember, but do not like to live
- Steppe.
One pain always reduces another. Step on the tail of a cat that has toothache and it will feel better.
"Tosca" (one of the variants of the story)
The shorter and less you write, the more and more often you are printed.
“Rules for Beginner Authors”
That's who I am. I'm petty, incompetent, blind, but you, Professor, are not an eagle! And at the same time, all the county, all the women see me as a hero, an advanced man, and you are famous all over Russia.
- "Leshi"
He was married three times, and therefore had three pairs of beautiful, branching horns.
- Flying Islands
(Oxygen) Chemists make up spirit. They say it's impossible to live without him. Nothing. You can't live without money.
- Flying Islands
... Doctors, private bailiffs and ladies' hairdressers have the right to invade privacy.
- "The Night Before Court"
The glow covered a third of the sky, shines in the church cross and in the windows of the Lord’s house, shines in the river and in puddles, trembles in trees; far, far away against the background of dawn, a flock of wild ducks flies somewhere to spend the night ... And the backpack, chasing cows, and the surveyor, riding in a brig across the dam, and walking gentlemen - all look at the sunset and every one of them find that it is terribly beautiful, but no one knows and will not tell what beauty is here.
- "Beauties."
Male logic can never be mastered by female logic.
— “Ninochka” Pavel Sergeevich Vikhlenev
Life is given once, and you want to live it cheerfully, meaningfully, beautifully.
"The Story of an Unknown Man"
If I had a desire to order a ring, I would choose this inscription: "Nothing passes." I believe that nothing goes unnoticed and that every step we take is meaningful for the present and the future.
- "My life"
Some kind of connection, invisible but significant and necessary, exists... between everyone, everyone; in this life, even in the wilderness, nothing is accidental, everything is full of one common thought, everything has one soul, one goal, and in order to understand this, to think little, to reason little, one must also probably have the gift of penetration into life, a gift that is obviously not given to everyone.
- "Official Affairs"
You like to look wide, and you try to swim smaller. Look at the grass, in the grain of sand, in the snap... all life, drama, tragedy! In every piece, in every pig, drama!
Two Newspapers, 1886
Prose remains prose even when the head is dizzy and the senses waltz.
Prose toast
Better a depraved canary than a pious wolf.
"Not pernicious thoughts."
It is good where we are not; the past is no longer there, and it seems beautiful.
Steppe. Lead. Stories
The peace and contentment of man is not outside himself, but in himself.
"Chamber 6."
True happiness is impossible without loneliness. The fallen angel betrayed God, probably because he wanted solitude that angels do not know.
"Chamber 6."
To pain I answer with cry and tears, to meanness with indignation, to abomination with disgust. In my opinion, this is actually called life.
Quotes from works. Notebooks. Diaries.
_______________________________
Reciprocity is probably the best thing that can happen to a person.
It is not a matter of pessimism or optimism, but that ninety-nine out of a hundred have no mind.
If a person does not smoke or drink, you will inevitably wonder if he is a bastard.
Going to Paris with your wife is like going to Tula with your samovar.
There are people who always say only smart and good words, but feel like they are stupid people.
Healthy and normal only ordinary, herd people.
If your wife cheated on you, then be glad that she cheated on you, not your country.
They say that in the end the truth will prevail, but it is not true.
In order to feel happiness in oneself without interruption, even in moments of sorrow and sorrow, one must: (a) be able to be content with the present, and (b) enjoy consciousness, which could be worse.
When a splinter hits your finger, rejoice: “It’s good that it’s not in the eye!”
Only fools and charlatans know and understand everything.
He who is alien to life, who is incapable of it, has no choice but to become an official.
You can't put a loaded gun on the stage if no one wants to shoot it.
Hundreds of versts of deserted, monotonous, burnt-out steppes cannot cause such despondency as one man when he sits, speaks, and when he leaves is unknown.
If you want to have little time, do nothing.
If a lot of funds are offered against a disease, it means that the disease is incurable.
Don't stop people from going crazy.
“Cynic” is a Greek word, translated into your language, meaning a pig who wants the world to know that she is a pig.
If all people conspired and suddenly became sincere, everything would go to hell.
A talented person in Russia cannot be clean.
If your actions upset someone, it does not mean that he is stupid.
You can't ask dirt not to be dirt.
“Know thyself” is excellent and useful advice; it is a pity that the ancients did not know how to use this advice.
Leaving people is suicide.
There is nothing good on earth that is not ugly in its original source.
Life, in fact, is a very simple thing and a person needs to make a lot of effort to spoil it.
For most of our ladies, there is no one to marry just to get out.
If you want to get your imagination, hold your hand.
When you love, you discover such wealth in yourself, so much tenderness, affection, it is hard to believe that you can love so much.
A good man is ashamed even in front of a dog.
Children are holy and pure. You can’t make them a toy of your mood.
Writers whom we call eternal or simply good, and who make us drunk, have one thing in common and a very important characteristic: they are going somewhere and they are calling you there. The best of them are real and write life as it is, but because each line is soaked in a sense of purpose, you, besides life as it is, still feel the life as it should be, and this captivates you.
The husband and wife are happy or unhappy, no one can say. This is a mystery that three people know: God, he and she.
(according to the memoirs of Boris Alexandrovich Lazarevsky)
People who live alone always have something on their hearts that they would like to tell.
You need to squeeze a slave out of you.
What writers-nobles took from nature for nothing, the Raznochins buy at the price of youth. Write a story about how a young man, the son of a serf, a former shopkeeper, a gymnasium and a student, brought up on veneration, kissing priestly hands, worshipping other people's thoughts, squeezes a slave out of himself drop by drop and how he, waking up one fine morning, feels that in his veins no longer flows slave blood, but real human blood.
- from a letter to A.S. Suvorin (January 7, 1889)
While it is still students and students – this is an honest, good people, this is our hope, this is the future of Russia, but as soon as students and students go on the road on their own, become adults, our hope and the future of Russia turns into smoke, and only doctors-owners, insatiable officials, stealing engineers remain on the filter.
From notebooks.
Go and walk up the ladder, which is called civilization, progress, culture - go, sincerely recommend, but where to go? One ladder is worth living for.
- Notebooks (1897)
It is not true that all love passes over time. True love does not pass away, but comes with time. Not immediately, but gradually realize the joy of getting closer to your beloved woman. It's like good old wine. You need to get used to it, you need to drink it for a long time to understand its beauty.
From notebooks.
What we experience when we are in love may be our normal state. Falling in love tells a person what he should be.
From notebooks.
Well, undress, but resist a little.
Quotes from articles
_______________________________
Is not the privilege given to Ivan to the detriment of Peter?
- “Our Beggarship” (New Time, 1888, No. 4587, December 4, pp. 1–2)
One must be mentally clear, morally pure and physically neat.
He who cannot take caress will not take severity.
If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry.
The more cultured, the more unhappy.
Women without male companionship fade, and men without female companionship become stupid.
There is no freak who does not find a mate, and there is no nonsense who does not find a suitable reader.
—published in the journal “Alarm clock”, 1885, No. 12
Quotes from letters
_______________________________
No one wants to love an ordinary person in us.
From a letter to A. S. Suvorin, November 24 or 25, 1888
It smells like autumn. I love Russian autumn. Something unusually sad, friendly and beautiful. I'd go somewhere with the cranes.
From a letter to A. S. Suvorin, July 29, 1891
Beware of fine language. The language should be simple and elegant.
— Al. P. Chekhov, May 8, 1889
Be aware of your insignificance, you know where? Before God, perhaps, before the mind, beauty, nature, but not before men. People need to be aware of their dignity.
— M. P. Chekhov, April 1879
Loneliness in creativity is hard. Better bad criticism than nothing.
— Al. P. Chekhov, May 10, 1886
... I drank so much that I should be proud of Russia.
— A. S. Suvorin, February 20, 1890
Dear Lika, you have extracted the word egoism from the dictionary of foreign words and treat me with them in every letter. Call your dog by that word.
— L. S. Mizinova, September 1, 1893
It is interesting to marry only for love; to marry a girl just because she is pretty is like buying an unnecessary thing in the bazaar just because it is good.
From a letter to M. P. Chekhov, October 26, 1898 yalta
Bibliography
Plays
1878 - Fatherless
1884 - On the High Road
1886 The Dangers of Tobacco
1887 – Swan Song (Kalhas)
1887 - Ivanov
1888 - The Bear
1889 A sentence (a joke in one act)
1889 Tragic involuntarily
1889 - Wedding
1889 - Lesch
1889 - Tatiana Repina
189 - The Night Before the Trial
1891 - Jubilee
1896 - Seagull
1896 - Uncle Vanya
1900 - Three Sisters
1903 - Cherry Orchard
Tales
1882 - Unnecessary victory
1882 - Lady
1882 - Living Commodities
1882 - Flowers Late
1884 - Drama on the Hunt (The True Incident)
1888 - Steppe
1888 - Lights
1889 - A Boring Story
1891 - Duel
1891 - Wife
1892 - Chamber No. 6
1893: The Story of an Unknown Man
1894 – Black Monk
1895 - Three years
1896 - My life
1897 - Men
1899 - In the ravine
1900 Men (Chapters X, XI, unfinished novella)
Resources
State Literary and Memorial Museum-Reserve of A.P. Chekhov "Melikhovo"
A well-opened compositional film. I recommend it. :)🤓
