Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - biography

short biography

His father's name was Pavel Egorovich, and his mother's name was Evgenia Morozova. The couple had six children, and the famous writer was born third.

In 1868–1879 (from the age of 8) he studied at the Taganrog gymnasium (now Gymnasium No. 2 named after A.P. Chekhov). There, at the gymnasium, one of the teachers suggested to him the literary pseudonym “Chekhonte” (in total he had about fifty pseudonyms).

In 1876, his father went bankrupt and his family left for Moscow. Chekhov did not go with his family and was left alone. He continued his studies at the gymnasium and earned his living by tutoring (he was 16 years old at the time).

He then entered the medical faculty of Moscow University (in 1879). In one of the letters to his editor (dated 1892), the writer himself said that he began writing in the same 1879.

In 1880, his first works were published in such Moscow magazines as:

• Dragonfly (for example, “Letter to a Learned Neighbor”)
• Alarm
• Shards, etc.

In 1884 he graduated from the university and began medical practice.

In 1890 the writer made a trip to Sakhalin. There he studies their life and takes a census of the settlers (convicts and exiles). To do this, the writer communicates with them, which was prohibited by the local administration at that time. As a result of this trip in 1893–1894. he creates the book “Sakhalin Island”.

After Sakhalin (either in the same 1890, or in 1891), the writer again went to travel, but this time around Europe. He visited Vienna, Paris, Bologna, Venice, Naples, etc.

Two years later (in March 1892) he buys an estate near Moscow in the village of Melikhovo on the Lopasna River (now the city of Chekhov).

He lived there until 1899 (7 ​​years), and during these years he:

• built three schools and a bell tower at his own expense,
• collected donations for the starving people in the village of Melikhovo,
• participated in the general population census,
• was engaged in social activities: during the cholera epidemic, he worked on his site, where there were 25 villages, 4 factories, a monastery, he also organized 2 medical centers and 5 cholera barracks.

At the same time, he managed to write such works as:

• Ward No. 6 (1892)
• Three years (1895)
• House with Mezzanine (1896)
• My Life (1896)
• Seagull (1896)
• Men (1897)
• Uncle Vanya (1897)
• On the Cart (1897)
• Man in a Case (1898)
• New dacha (1899)
• On business (1899)
• Three Sisters (1900), etc.

Personal life

In 1901, Chekhov married the actress of the Moscow Art Theater Olga Leonardovna Knipper (after the marriage of Knipper-Chekhov). She was the prima of the troupe and could not leave Moscow for a long time, and the couple corresponded a lot. They were married until his death and had no children.

Death of Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich fell ill with tuberculosis in his youth and, due to the exacerbation of the disease, at the insistence of doctors in 1902 he moved to Yalta. His last work was the play “The Cherry Orchard” (comedy), which was written in 1903.

The following year, 1904, he went to Germany (the city of Badenweiler) for treatment of his lungs for tuberculosis. According to his wife, that night (from July 1 to July 2, old style) he himself asked to call a doctor and said: “I haven’t drunk champagne for a long time...”. Chekhov drank a glass, turned on his side, fell asleep again, and never woke up again.

According to research in 2021, the cause of the writer’s death was stroke (cerebral hemorrhage). This was concluded by scientists who used new forensic methods to analyze the writer’s shirt in which he died.

He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery.

Biography of Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on January 17 (29), 1860 in Taganrog. Chekhov's grandfather and father were serfs of the landowner Chertkov, father of V.G. Chertkov, friend and follower of L.N. Tolstoy. Chekhov's grandfather, Yegor Chekhov, a man of remarkable abilities and strong character, bought his freedom for a lot of money that he had accumulated over many years. After that, he entered the service of Countess Platonova on her estates - the steppe settlements Krepkaya and Knyazhaya and rose there to the position of manager. In his early youth, the future writer visited these steppe settlements more than once, partly as a guest of his grandfather, partly as his employee. These trips to steppe places were later reflected in several of Chekhov's stories.

At the time of Anton Pavlovich’s birth, his father, Pavel Egorovich, was the owner of a grocery store in Taganrog; the children helped him in his trade. Pavel Egorovich adhered to harsh and patriarchal methods of education; he had to work a lot and hard. At the same time, Pavel Yegorovich was not devoid of intellectual interests and even some education; he read Koltsov by heart, drew and played the violin.

At the age of seven, Chekhov was sent to a Greek school, where he spent two years. Pavel Yegorovich had to do business with local Greeks; he strove to ensure that his sons Nikolai and Anton, whom he thought would be identified by trade, knew Greek. That's why Chekhov ended up in this educational institution. Completely illiterate teachers taught there.

In 1869, Chekhov entered the Taganrog classical gymnasium. It was an ordinary provincial government gymnasium, which you can get an idea of ​​from Chekhov’s story “The Man in a Case.” The teacher of law, Archpriest Pokrovsky, gave Chekhov the playful nickname Chekhonte, which became his literary pseudonym.

Already in his high school years, Chekhov gave the impression of a rich, gifted young man.

In 1876, Chekhov's father, whose trade affairs had been shaken, was forced to close his shop and move to Moscow, where by that time his eldest sons were located. Anton Pavlovich remained in Taganrog without a family along with his brother Ivan. Particularly difficult times came for Chekhov. He had to study and at the same time earn a living not only for himself, but also for his desperately needy family. He continued to live in the house that was his own, but had now passed into the wrong hands. Around the corner that the new owner of the house gave Chekhov, he was supposed to study with his nephew for free. In addition, he had to look for other penny lessons for himself; almost all his free time from classes was spent on tutoring. This period of need and deprivation contributed at the same time to the development of Chekhov's sense of independence and self-esteem. He not only highly values ​​this feeling, but also strives to instill it in his younger brother Mikhail.

In 1879, Chekhov graduated from high school and entered Moscow University to study medicine. He took up medicine very seriously, no less seriously than literary activity.

Natural sciences played a very important role in shaping Chekhov's views on life. The natural sciences contributed to the maturation of Chekhov's high idea of ​​life, the formation of the ideal of a natural person, with various intellectual inclinations, a reasonable person in the highest sense of the word.

In 1884, Chekhov graduated from the university. By this time he was already a writer, a prominent employee of humorous publications. Published in the magazines “Dragonfly”, “Alarm Clock”, “Spectator”, “Worldly Talk”, “Moscow”, “Light and Shadows”, “Sputnik”. In 1882, Chekhov's collaboration began in Oskolki, the best humorous magazine of that time.

Chekhov's work in the 80s:

1880 – story “Letter to a learned neighbor.” 1882 - story “Unnecessary Victory”, “Green Braid”. 1883 – essay “Two in One”, story “Death of an Official”, “Confession”. 1884 – story “Chameleon”, fairy tale “Self-Deception”, sketch “Young Man”. 1885 – sketch “The Whistlers”, story “The Horse and the Trembling Doe”, “After the Benefit Performance”, sketch “On the High Road”. 1886 – story “Heavy People.” 1887 – stories “At Home”, “Typhoid”, “Happiness”. 1888 – story “Name Day”, “Steppe”. 1889 – play “Leshy”.

The second half of the 90s and the beginning of the new century were marked in Chekhov’s life by some events and facts that introduced new features into his biography.

The year 1898 brought Chekhov the brilliant triumph of his “The Seagull” at the Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov firmly linked his destiny as a playwright with the Art Theater and established friendly relations with its actors and directors, which did not prevent him, however, from sometimes disagreeing with the “artists” in the interpretation of his own plays.

In 1900, Chekhov was elected an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1901, Chekhov married Olga Leonardovna Knipper, an artist of the Moscow Art Theater, but due to consumption, the first symptoms of which appeared in him back in 1884 , he was often forced to live apart from his wife: she was connected with Moscow, and Chekhov, on the advice of doctors had to settle in Yalta. The Yalta period marked the beginning of Chekhov's great work in preparing a collection of his works.

Chekhov's work in the 90-900s:

1891 – story “Duel”. 1892 – stories “The Jumper”, “Fear”. 1893 – “The Story of an Unknown Man.” 1894 – “Rothschild’s Violin”, “The Black Monk”, stories “Student”, “Woman’s Kingdom”. 1895 – story “Three Years”. 1895-1896 – play “The Seagull”. 1896 – stories “My Life”, “House with a Mezzanine”, play “Uncle Vanya”. 1897 – stories “On the Cart”, “In the Native Corner”, “Men”. 1898 – stories “Case from Practice”, “Ionych”. 1899 – story “On Business Matters”, “New Dacha”. 1900 – story “In the Ravine”, play “Three Sisters”. 1903 – play “The Cherry Orchard”.

From cheerful laughter at the incongruities of life in the early period of activity, from sad surprise at the glaring incongruities and illogicalities of the way of life in the middle period - to the feeling of the need and opportunity to “turn life around” in the last years of the 19th century and in the first years of the 20th century - such is the sequence and logic Chekhov's creative development.

In 1904, due to a sharp deterioration in his health, Chekhov went for treatment to Germany, to the resort of Badenweiler. Here on June 2 (15 NS) he died.

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Chekhov's pseudonyms

He had several dozen pseudonyms that he used when publishing his works. Some of them:

• Antosha Chekhonte
• Anche
• Schiller Shakespeareovich Goethe
• Champagne
• My brother's brother
• Doctor without patients
• Hot tempered man
• A man without a spleen
• Nut No. 6
• Nut No. 9
• Rook
• Akakiy Tarantulov
• Someone
• Arkhip Indeikin
• Vasily Spiridonov Svolachev
• Zebula
• Propter
• Uncle
• G. Baldastov
• Makar Baldastov, etc.

Aliases (nicknames) of Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov loved to give nicknames to everything. And this is verified information. He had funny names for everything, including his professional field, which Chekhov called “wife.” For a writer, writing was a “mistress.” Chekhov also referred funnyly to the cupboard with sweets located in his house. He was called “respected and dear.” Rumor has it that even the term “Antonovka”, applied to the numerous fans of Anton Pavlovich, was invented by Chekhov himself, but this data was not confirmed.

Chekhov's love for nicknames was born early in his life, when, while working on his book characters, he was looking for interesting surnames for them. Every acquaintance with a person with a funny surname was an important event for the writer. He recorded all his “finds” in a notebook. It is difficult to say whether Chekhov used this material when inventing pseudonyms for himself, but he had many of the latter. Over the course of his entire life, Chekhov composed about 50 of these, which can be called a kind of record for masters of the pen. It is interesting that Chekhov’s first pseudonym is his first nickname, the nickname “Chekhonte”, which he received from his comrades during his years at the gymnasium in his small homeland.

Chekhov rarely put his real name behind his own creations. They were often published under funny pseudonyms:

1. Nuts No. 9;
2. Arkhip Indeikin;
3. A man without a tear;
4. Uncles;
5. My brother's brother, etc.

Even this seemingly insignificant detail allows people to realize the beauty of Chekhov’s language, consisting not only of the depth of judgment, but also of irony and, of course, the amazing sense of humor inherent in Anton Pavlovich. Despite the fact that Chekhov was a serious person, he loved to joke about himself and those around him. And his many nicknames serve as proof of this.

Interesting Facts

1. Anton Chekhov was born into a bourgeois family, although his father Pavel was born a serf. When Pavel was a teenager, the writer’s grandfather bought him his freedom.
2. In his letters, Chekhov said that among writers he prefers Tolstoy. To meet, in 1895, Chekhov went to Tolstoy’s estate (Yasnaya Polyana). Leo Tolstoy also treated him with respect, appreciated his work and once called him “an incomparable artist of life.”
3. In 1891, he toured Europe, where, in the words of the writer himself, he “drank fine wine and ate oysters.”

Learn also about Leo Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

Chekhov's childhood! BRIEFLY!

Chekhov's childhood! BRIEFLY!!!

• Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born on January 17, 1860 in Taganrog, in the family of a former clerk who became the owner of a small shop. Pavel Egorovich, Anton Pavlovich’s father, was a “businessman,” as he respectfully called himself, by profession and an artist by heart. His talent was versatile. He self-taught himself to play the violin and was fond of painting. He painted with paints and was engaged in icon painting. Anton Pavlovich spoke about himself and about his brothers and sister: “We have talent from our father’s side, and our soul from our mother’s side.” Perhaps Pavel Yegorovich’s strongest passion was the church choir he created, which took up a lot of his time to the detriment of his commercial affairs. With his characteristic persistence and meticulousness, he ensured that his choir was the best in the city. He recruited singers from among the blacksmiths; the treble and viola parts were performed by his sons. It was this choir, and not trade, that constituted the real interest of his life. When Anton Pavlovich said: “I had no childhood as a child,” he meant a lot by this. First of all, the very regime of life of Pavel Yegorovich’s children was not very childish - it was almost a hard labor regime. Pavel Yegorovich's shop traded from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Pavel Yegorovich often entrusted the care of it entirely to his sons. His children's day was divided between the shop, the gymnasium, the shop again, endless rehearsals and rehearsals and the same endless church and home prayers. In addition, the children learned a craft, Antosha learned tailoring. From an early age, Antosha had to be accustomed to counting, and most importantly, to the art of trading, which included respectful treatment of customers and knowledge of the techniques of “measuring, weighing and all kinds of petty commercial trickery,” as Anton Pavlovich’s elder brother wrote in his memoirs - Alexander Pavlovich. “The late Anton Pavlovich went through this merciless forced-force school entirely and remembered it with bitterness all his life. As a child he was an unhappy man." Pavel Egorovich raised his children despotically. Spankings were a common occurrence in the family. And, however, it would be wrong to paint the life of Pavel Yegorovich’s family only in 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 only negative. Pavel Egorovich wanted to make his children educated people. He wanted the children to be happier than him. He sent them all to a gymnasium, hired a music teacher for them, and began teaching them languages ​​early; the eldest sons already spoke French fluently in their adolescence. And yet, the positive that was in the nature of Pavel Yegorovich and in his attitude towards children - all this was terribly distorted by philistinism, eccentricity, tyranny, distorted by the severity of life. In 1889, in a letter to his brother Alexander, reproaching him for autocracy and imbalance in his attitude towards his children and wife, Anton Pavlovich wrote: “I ask you to remember that despotism and lies ruined your mother’s youth. Despotism and lies have distorted our childhood to such an extent that it is sickening and scary to remember. Despotism is criminal three times...” The reality surrounding Antosha Chekhov was an attack on his freedom.