The early stories of antosha chekhonte. From "Antosha Chekhonte" to A.P. Chekhov. Sickness and death

And Anton Chekhov, a writer with a medical education, created more than 300 works. Nowadays, his plays are staged and filmed not only in Russia, but also abroad. In his texts, Chekhov raised the most different topics, but he did not like to write about himself. As he once said: "I have a disease - autobiographobia."

On the porch of Korneev's house, on Sadovo-Kudrinskaya street in Moscow, spring, 1890. Standing: A.Ivanenko, I.P. Chekhov, P.E. Chekhov, A.Korneev. Sitting: M.Korneeva, M.P. Chekhov, L.S.Mizinova, M.P. Chekhova, A.P. Chekhov, E.Ya. Chekhova. Photo: anton-chehov.info

From left to right, standing: Ivan, Anton, Nikolai, Alexander and MG Chekhov (the writer's uncle); sitting: Mikhail, Maria, P. E. Chekhov, E. Ya. Chekhova, L. P. Chekhova (the writer's aunt), Georgy Chekhov (the writer's cousin). Photo by S. Isakovich, Taganrog, 1874. Photo: anton-chehov.info

Anton Chekhov was born in big family in Taganrog. His father, Pavel Yegorovich, first drove to sell bulls from the Voronezh province to Moscow, and in 1858 he became a merchant of the third guild. In a marriage with Evgenia Morozova, they had six children, Anton himself was the third.

In 1890, Anton Chekhov again went to travel, this time along Western Europe... The writer visited Vienna, Bologna, Venice, Naples, where he climbed Mount Vesuvius, Paris and other cities.

I can say one thing: I have never seen cities more wonderful than Venice in my life. This is sheer charm, brilliance, joy of life.

From a letter from Anton Chekhov to his brother Ivan, 1891

In March 1892, Chekhov bought an estate in Melikhovo near Moscow. There he opened a medical center, built three schools and a bell tower, helped build the highway and, of course, treated the sick. During the famine that raged in Melikhovo during these years, the writer collected donations for the hungry, and during the cholera he worked as a sanitary doctor from the zemstvo: there were 25 villages, four factories and a monastery in his area.

Medical practice took a lot of time and energy, but it was in Melikhovo that Chekhov wrote his most famous works: the play "The Seagull", the story "Ward No. 6", the stories "House with a Mezzanine" and "A Man in a Case" - about 40 significant works in total.

... Seven years of "Melikhov's sitting" were not in vain for him. They left their special imprint, special flavor on his works of this period. He himself recognized this influence. Suffice it to recall his "Men" and "In the Ravine", where Melikhov's paintings and characters can be seen on every page.

From the memoirs of the brother of the writer Mikhail Chekhov

Contemporaries often called Chekhov "The Poet of Twilight." His work was considered by many to be pessimistic and decadent, there was even a term “Chekhov's moods”. The writer was surprised by such comments as he recalled: “What kind of“ gloomy person ”I am, what kind of“ cold blood ”I am, as the critics call me? What kind of "pessimist" I am? After all, of my things, my favorite story is "The Student". And the word is nasty: "pessimist" ... "

"The incomparable artist of life"

From a letter from Anton Chekhov to his editor, 1892

V last years In his life, Chekhov's tuberculosis worsened, so the doctors insisted on moving the writer to the South. At first he lived in Nice, then in Paris, and in September 1898 he settled in Yalta. There he built a dacha, worked in the local Guardianship for Visiting Patients.

In the same year, the writer met his future wife, actress Olga Knipper. He first saw her at a rehearsal at the Moscow Art Theater. They got married in 1901. The actress was the prima ballerina of the Moscow Art Theater, so she could not leave Moscow for a long time. All Chekhov's acquaintances, friends and publishers were there, but he remained in Yalta and worked on the play Three Sisters, the story The Lady with the Dog and the story In the Ravine. Chekhov maintained a warm and reverent relationship with his wife by correspondence - they sent each other more than 800 letters and telegrams.

My dear, hello! In your letter you are angry that I am writing to you little by little. But on the other hand, I write to you often!<...>Write to me more often, do not be stingy. For this I will reward you, I will love you fiercely, like an Arab. Goodbye, Olya, be healthy and cheerful. Do not forget, write and remember your Antoine more often.

My dear Knipshits, the last issue of Niva depicts your theater, by the way, you, Maria Fed. and Savitskaya. You came out better than anywhere else. This number is worth it to buy and hide as a keepsake. By the way, you will find academicians there; me with a very thick nose.<...>Oh, my darling, my darling darling! I expected to sit down at the table without you and start working, but I still don't do anything and I don't feel very important. Keep in mind, I'll be there soon, be good. I kiss you hard. Your Antonio.

The playwright's last work was The Cherry Orchard. In the summer of 1904, he went to a mountain resort in the German city of Badenweiler to treat his lungs. But a local doctor found that the writer's heart condition had deteriorated significantly. According to his wife's recollections, on the night of July 1-2, Chekhov woke up, for the first time in his life he asked to send for a doctor and said: "I haven't drunk champagne for a long time ..." After which the writer went to bed again - and did not wake up. On the morning of July 5, the coffin with Chekhov's body was sent to Moscow. He was buried at Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow. Olga Knipper-Chekhova survived her husband by 55 years.

A.P. Chekhov was destined to remain a mystery to his contemporaries, in front of whom something extremely strange was happening. Veselchak Antosha Chekhonte, an employee of humorous newspapers and magazines, some of whose titles set up an ironically condescending mood (Alarm Clock, Dragonfly, Shards, Mirskaya Tolk, Wave, Entertainment), became sadly focused Chekhov, the ruler of the thoughts of an entire generation.

The writer has performed under many pseudonyms. Some kept the warmth of the hearth and were understandable only to close people: "Antosha" (that was his name in the family), "Chekhonte" (the nickname of Chekhov, still a teenager, in the Taganrog gymnasium), "My brother's brother" (a hint of his older brother Alexander, who introduced him to literature). Others ("The Man Without Spleen", "The Doctor Without Patients") reflected a passion for medicine. Still others were the result of inexhaustible play of the imagination: "The Prose Poet", "The Old Sinner", "The Fiery Man", "Rook", "Nettle", "Gadget", "Ulysses", "Laertes", "Champagne", "Young Old Man" , "Makar Ballastov" and simply "G. (mister) Ballastov". In the "Rules for Beginning Authors" (1885) number 15 read: "After writing, sign. If you are not chasing fame and are afraid that you will not be beaten, use a pseudonym."

However, already in the early work of Chekhov, a certain duality is noticeable. Chekhonte is not as simple as it seems. The well-known researcher of the writer's legacy ZS Paperny says: "This is Chekhonte, but still Chekhov." True, these are words about Chekhov's drama, but the same should be said about his early prose. Young energy is in full swing here. The images are crowded with a motley and cheerful crowd. The author is not averse to laughing at the hairdresser, who, upon learning that his bride is married to another, leaves the client's head half-cut, and he walks around until his hair grows out ("In the barber shop"), or recalls the scene on the train, when she returned to Petrovna learns that her bag with things has just been thrown out the window by a friend, a restless old woman, who has decided that she has lagged behind the train ("In the carriage"), or tell how a young man, a petty official, not remembering himself from happiness, excited , runs around the city and reads aloud to relatives and friends a short note from the scandalous chronicle section, which mentions how he was drunk and hit by a cabman's horse and was hit on the back of the head with a shafts; there is no limit to his joy: still, now "all of Russia will know about him!" ("Joy"),

However, it is worth taking a closer look, as notes of bitterness and protest clearly slip through this seemingly carefree fun. Indeed, it was in the early years that such masterpieces of Chekhov's humor as "Death of an Official", "Fat and Thin", "Daughter of Albion", "Mask", "Chameleon" appeared, his "downtrodden people" appeared, humiliated, pitiful victims of the surrounding rudeness, stupidity, servility, treachery, arrogant and shameless power of money, tyranny and arbitrariness.

Legends about Chekhov

Upon close examination of the early work of the writer, exceptionally stable versions still living, for example, about late Chekhov's transition "to seriousness," as he said, that is, about his desire for acute socially important topics. The idea of ​​the Chekhonte period is often associated with pure, harmless humor, not burdened with sadness and sorrowful notes of mature thought. N.K. Mikhailovsky, a literary critic of the populist persuasion, believed that this author did not set himself any serious goals and was going "no one knows where, no one knows why," while the other famous researcher literature of Chekhov's time, A. M. Skabichevsky, classified the writer as a "newspaper clown" throwing ridiculous knees for the amusement of the public, considered his activity a "suicide" of talent and predicted that he would die like a lemon in complete oblivion somewhere "under the fence".

Meanwhile, in many works already at an early time, themes and images that were significant in their ideological content were clearly outlined, which would be developed by Chekhov at a later time. In 1882 published "Lady", the story is dark, harsh, ending with the murder and collapse of a young peasant family due to the whims of a depraved lady. In the descriptions of the village with its poverty and cruelty, the features of future stories are recognized "Guys"(1897) and "In the ravine"(1900). V "The colors of the belated"(1882) Doctor Toporkov, recounting greasy banknotes and buying up tenement houses, concluded the fate of Dmitry Ionych Startsev, a hero "Ionycha", (1898). V "Thief"(1883) long before the trip to Sakhalin, an image of the link appears, anticipating the works of the 1890s. Story "Oysters"(1884) - a kind of rough sketch of a tragic situation that makes you remember the unfortunate Varka from the story "I want to sleep"(1888), a tortured little nanny who strangles a child in a fit of insanity; only in the early story the hallucinations are caused by hunger, but here - exhausting work and insomnia. "Willow" and "Autumn"(both stories in 1883) are prototypes of Chekhov's future lyric and dramatic short stories, but even they contain a ruthless criticism of the covetous, thieving bureaucracy and a bitter mockery of the squandering nobility: the master in a tavern begs for alms from the peasants who were once in his service ...

They expected a joke from Chekhonte, and he talked about important problems of life, they wanted to see in him an exclusively comedic talent, and he suddenly suddenly began to talk about writers carrying the heavy burden of responsibility on their shoulders, doing their job, no matter what: "If we if we leave and leave our field even for a minute, then we will immediately be replaced by jesters in stupid caps with horse bells, we will be replaced by bad professors, bad lawyers and cadets, describing their ridiculous love affairs at the command: left! right! " At the same time, the writer expresses these serious thoughts in an anecdotal story in its plot situation with an absurdly humorous title - "Marya Ivanovna"!

The rapid maturity of the young writer was not by chance. He built his own destiny. In 1884, the first modest collection of funny "theatrical" stories appeared "Tales of Melpomene" unnoticed by the general public, a year later "Colorful stories" already had undoubted success and evoked sympathetic responses from critics, and the collection of stories "At dusk"(1887) was awarded the Pushkin Prize. Chekhov's literary name was consolidated, but he was so modest, so little appreciated what he created, that even at the end of the 1880s. he saved his name, in his own words, for serious works in medicine and still preferred to appear under pseudonyms (in 1884 he conceived the idea of ​​a dissertation for the degree of doctor of medicine "Medical Business in Russia"),

The listed facts of Chekhov's creative growth are inexplicable from the point of view of another long-standing legend - about "frivolous" attitude to the writer's work and about his imaginary "cursive writing".

Finally, another version, as stable as the others, had in mind the volatility aesthetic supports in the writer's choice of his creative strategy.

Naturally, the evolution of Chekhov's personality also remained a mystery and secret. A vulgar environment in childhood and adolescence, poverty, a wretched intellectual environment - and the highest spirituality: Stanislavsky called Chekhov the best of people. The writer has developed in himself the type of a truly free person: free from prejudices, from blind faith in generally accepted teachings and doctrines, from the "parties of the minute." He traveled an enormous path of self-improvement. He did not tolerate despotism, no matter where it came from: whether from government spheres, from literary-critical circles or from high authorities in the art world. This amazing spiritual growth, as well as the rapid rise of his literary fame, Chekhov owes only to himself.

Story: Intruder

Before the magistrate stands a small, extremely skinny peasant in a motley shirt and patched ports. His face, overgrown with hair and riddled with mountain ash, and his eyes, barely visible from behind thick, overhanging eyebrows, have an expression of sullen sternness. On his head is a whole hat of long unkempt, tangled hair, which gives him an even greater, spider-like severity. He's barefoot.

Denis Grigoriev! - the investigator begins. - Come closer and answer my questions. On the seventh of this July, the railway watchman Ivan Semyonov Akinfov, walking in the morning along the line, at the 141st verst, found you unscrewing the nut, with which the rails are attached to the sleepers. Here it is, this nut! .. With which nut he detained you. Was it so?

Was it all like this, as Akinfov explains?

I know it was.

Good; well, why did you unscrew the nut?

Throw this "FAQ", and answer the question: why did you unscrew the nut?

If I didn’t need it, I wouldn’t unscrew it, ”Denis wheezes, looking sideways at the ceiling.

Why did you need this nut?

A nut? We make sinkers out of nuts ...

Who are we?

We, the people ... Klimovsk men, that is.

Listen, brother, do not pretend to be an idiot to me, but speak plainly. There is nothing to lie about the sinkers!

When I was born I didn’t lie, but here I’m lying… ”Denis mutters, blinking his eyes. - Yes, nothing, your honor, can I do without a sinker? If you put a live bait or a fish on a hook, then why will it go to the bottom without a sinker? I'm lying ... - Denis grins. - Damn it in it, in a live bait, if it will float on top! Perch, pike, burbot always go to the bottom, and if it swims on top, then only the shilishper will grab that one, and even then it is rare ... The shilishper does not live in our river ... This fish loves space.

Why are you telling me about the shillishpera?

FAQ? Why, you ask yourself! Our gentlemen are so caught. The very last boy will not catch you without a sinker. Of course, whoever does not understand, well, he will go to catch without a sinker. The law is not written for a fool ...

So you're saying that you unscrewed this nut in order to make a sinker out of it?

And then what? Don't play with money!

But for a sinker, you could take lead, a bullet ... a nail of some kind ...

You can't find lead on the road, you have to buy it, but a carnation is not good. Better not to find nuts ... Both heavy and there is a hole.

What a fool he pretends to be! Precisely yesterday he was born or fell from the sky. Do you not understand, silly head, where this unscrewing leads? Do not look at the watchman, because the train could have derailed, people would have been killed! You would kill people!

God save, your honor! Why kill? Are we not baptized or what villains? Glory to those Lord, good lord, they lived their century and not only to kill, but there were no such thoughts in my head ... Save and have mercy, Queen of Heaven ... What are you, sir!

Why do you think train crashes happen? Unscrew two or three nuts, here's the wreck!

Denis grins and blinks at the investigator in disbelief.

Well! How many years the whole village has been unscrewing the nuts and God kept it, but here the wreck ... killed the people ... If I had carried off the rail or, for example, put a log across its path, well, then, perhaps, the train would have turned off, otherwise ... ugh! screw!

But understand, the rail is attached to the sleepers with nuts!

We understand this ... We do not unscrew everything ... we leave everything ... We do not do it without a mind ... we understand ...

Denis yawns and crosses his mouth.

Last year, a train derailed here, - says the investigator. - Now it is clear why ...

What will you please?

Now, I say, it is clear why the train derailed last year ... I understand!

That's why you are educated, to understand, our merciful ... The Lord knew whom he was giving the concept ... So you figured out how and what, and the watchman, the same man, without any idea, grabs the collar and drags ... You judge, and then drag it! It has been said - peasant, peasant and mind ... Write down also, your honor, that he hit me twice in the teeth and in the chest.

When they searched your house, they found another nut ... Where did you unscrew this one and when?

Are you talking about that nut that lay under the red chest?

I don’t know where you had it, but they just found it. When did you unscrew it?

I didn't unscrew it, Ignashka gave it to me, Semyon's crooked son. This is me about the one under the chest, and the one in the yard in the sleigh, together with Mitrofan we unscrewed.

What Mitrofan?

With Mitrofan Petrov ... Have you ever heard of it? Our net does it and sells it to the masters. He needs a lot of these same nuts. For each seine, read, about ten ...

Listen ... Article 1081 of the Code on Punishments says that for any deliberate damage to the railway, when it could endanger the transport following this road and the guilty one knew that the consequence of this must be misfortune ... do you understand? knew! And you could not but know where this unscrewing leads ... he is sentenced to exile in hard labor.

Of course, you know better ... We are dark people ... don't we understand?

You understand everything! You are lying, pretending!

Why lie? Ask in the village, if you don’t believe ... Without a sinker, they only catch bleak, and what is worse than a gudgeon, and he will not go to you without a sinker.

Tell me more about the shilishpera! - the investigator smiles.

We don't have a shilishper ... We put the line without a sinker on top of the water on the butterfly, there is a chub, and even that is rare.

Well, shut up ...

There is a silence. Denis shifts from foot to foot, looks at the table with a green cloth and blinks his eyes intensely, as if he sees in front of him not a cloth, but the sun. The investigator writes quickly.

Should I go? - asks Denis after some silence.

No. I have to take you into custody and send you to jail.

Denis stops blinking and, raising his thick eyebrows, looks inquiringly at the official.

That is, how can you go to jail? Your Honor! I have no time, I need to go to the fair; get three rubles for lard from Yegor ...

Shut up, don't bother.

To jail ... If there was something, I would go, otherwise ... you live well ... For what? And he did not steal, it seems, and did not fight ... And if you doubt about the arrears, your honor, then do not believe the elder ... You ask the indispensable member of the gentleman ... There is no cross on him, on the elder ...

I am already silent ... - Denis mutters. - And what the headman said in the register, I was at least under oath ... We are three brothers: Kuzma Grigoriev, therefore, Yegor Grigoriev and I, Denis Grigoriev ...

You're bothering me ... Hey, Semyon! - shouts the investigator. - Take him away!

There are three brothers of us, ”Denis mutters as two stalwart soldiers take and lead him out of the cell. - A brother is not a defendant for his brother ... Kuzma does not pay, and you, Denis, answer ... Judges! The deceased master-general, the kingdom of heaven, died, otherwise he would have shown you, the judges ... We must judge skillfully, not in vain ... Although they were whipped, but for the cause, in good faith ...

Horse and quivering doe

Three o'clock in the morning. The Fibrovs are not sleeping. He tosses and turns from side to side and now and then spits, she, a small thin brunette, lies motionless and pensively looks at the open window, through which the dawn is unsociable and stern ...

Can't sleep! she sighs. - Are you sick?

Yes, a little.

I don’t understand, Vasya, how you don’t get tired of coming home like this every day! Not a night goes by without you being sick. Ashamed!

Well, I'm sorry ... I did it by accident. I drank a bottle of beer in the editorial office, but at Arcadia I did it a little. Sorry.

Why excuse me? You yourself should be disgusting and disgusting. Spits, hiccups ... God knows what he looks like. And this is every night, every night! I don't remember when you came home sober.

I do not want to drink, but it somehow drinks by itself. The post is so anathema. You scour the city all day. There you will drink a glass, in another place of beer, and there, lo and behold, a drinking friend has met ... it is impossible not to have a drink. And sometimes you will not get information without cracking a bottle of vodka with some pig. Today, for example, it was impossible not to have a drink with an agent in the fire.

Yes, damn post! sighs the brunette. - You should have thrown her, Vasya!

Give up? How can you!

It is very possible. I wish you were a real writer, you would write good poems or stories, otherwise, some kind of reporter, you write about thefts and fires. You write such trifles that sometimes you are ashamed to read. It would be nice, perhaps, if I earned a lot, that way, two or three hundred rubles a month, otherwise you get some unfortunate fifty rubles, and even then it is sloppy. We live poorly and dirty. The apartment smelled like a laundry room, all the artisans and depraved women were living around. All day long you only hear indecent words and songs. We have no furniture, no linen. You are dressed indecently, poorly, so that the hostess pokes at you, I am worse than any milliner. We eat worse than any day laborers ... You are somewhere on the sidelines in taverns eating some kind of rubbish, and that is probably not on your account, I ... God alone knows what I eat. Well, if we were some kind of plebeian, uneducated, then I would have made peace with this life, otherwise you are a nobleman, graduated from the university, you speak French. I graduated from the institute, spoiled.

Wait, Katyusha, they will invite me to the Chronicle Department to keep chronicles, then we will live differently. I'll take the number then.

You promise me this for the third year. What is the use of being invited? No matter how much you get, you will drink it anyway. You can't stop keeping company with your writers and actors! Do you know what, Vasya? I would write to Uncle Dmitry Fedorich in Tula. He would have found you a wonderful place somewhere in a bank or government institution. Okay, Vasya? You would go to the service as people, you would receive every 20th salary - and there will be little grief! We would have rented ourselves a mansion house with a yard, sheds, and a sennik. There you can rent an excellent house for two hundred rubles a year. They would buy furniture, dishes, tablecloths, hire a cook and have dinner every day. You should come home from service at three o'clock, look at the table, and on it are neat cutlery, radishes, and a variety of snacks. We would have got ourselves chickens, ducks, pigeons, we would have bought a cow. In the provinces, if it is not luxurious to live and not drink, all this can be had for a thousand rubles a year. And our children would not have died of dampness, as now, and I would not have to drag myself to the hospital every now and then. Vasya, I pray to you, let's go live in the province!

There you will die of boredom with the savages.

Is it fun here? We have no society, no acquaintance ... With clean, more or less decent people you have only a business acquaintance, and you are not familiar with anyone in your family. Who is with us? Well, who? This Cleopatra Sergeevna. In your opinion, she is a celebrity, she writes musical feuilletons, but in my opinion, she is a kept woman, a dissolute woman. Well, can a woman drink vodka and take off a corset in front of men? She writes articles, constantly talks about honesty, but as she borrowed a ruble from me last year, she still does not give it back. Then, this favorite poet of yours comes to see you. You are proud to know such a celebrity, but judge by conscience: is he worth it?

The most honest man!

But there is very little fun in it. He comes to us just to get drunk ... He drinks and tells obscene jokes. The day before yesterday, for example, I got drunk and slept here on the floor all night. And the actors! When I was a girl, I adored these celebrities, since I married you, I cannot look at the theater indifferently. They are always drunk, rude, do not know how to behave in female company, arrogant, walk in dirty boots. Terribly difficult people! I don’t understand what fun you find in their anecdotes, which they tell with a loud, hoarse laugh! And you look at them somehow ingratiatingly, as if these celebrities are doing you a favor that they know you ... Fi!

Leave it, please!

And there, in the provinces, officials, gymnasium teachers, officers would come to us. The people are all well-mannered, gentle, without pretensions. They will drink tea, drink a glass, if you will, and leave. No noise, no jokes, everything is so sedate, delicate. They sit, you know, on armchairs and on the sofa and talk about different differences, and here the maid serves them tea with jam and crackers. After tea, they play the piano, sing, dance. Ok, Vasya! At twelve o'clock, a light snack: sausage, cheese, roast, what's left of lunch ... After dinner, you go to the ladies to see off, and I stay at home and clean up.

Boring, Katyusha!

If at home it’s boring, then go to a club or for a walk ... Here you will not meet a familiar soul at a walk, you will involuntarily get drunk, and there you have met anyone, everyone is familiar to you. With whom you want, talk to that ... Teachers, lawyers, doctors - there is someone smart word say ... They are very interested in educated people, Vasya! You would be one of the first there ...

And Katyusha dreams aloud for a long time ... The gray-lead light outside the window gradually turns into white ... The silence of the night imperceptibly gives way to morning animation. The reporter does not sleep, listens and now and then lifts his heavy head to spit ... Suddenly, unexpectedly for Katyusha, he makes a sharp movement and jumps out of bed ... His face is pale, sweat is on his forehead ...

Damn it makes me sick, - he interrupts Katyusha's dreams. - Wait, I am now ...

Throwing a blanket over his shoulders, he quickly runs out of the room. An unpleasant incident occurs with him, so familiar from his morning visits to drinking people. Two minutes later he comes back pale, languid ... He is shaken ... On his face is an expression of disgust, despair, almost horror, as if he just now understood all the external ugliness of his life. Daylight shines in front of him the poverty and filth of his room, and the look of hopelessness on his face grows even more vivid.

Katyusha, write to your uncle! he mutters.

Yes? Do you agree? - the brunette triumphs. - Tomorrow I'll write and I give you my word of honor that you will get a wonderful place! Vasya, are you ... not on purpose?

Katyusha, please ... for God's sake ...

And Katyusha starts dreaming out loud again. To the sound of her voice, she falls asleep. She dreams of a mansion house, a courtyard in which her own chickens and ducks walk solidly. She sees pigeons looking at her from the dormer window, and hears a cow mooing. Everything is quiet around: no neighbors, no residents, no hoarse laughter, not even that hateful, hurrying creak of feathers. Vasya walks decorously and nobly near the front garden to the gate. It is he who goes to work. And her soul is filled with a sense of peace, when nothing is desired, little thought ...

By noon she wakes up in the finest mood of spirit. Sleep had a beneficial effect on her. But now, wiping her eyes, she looks at the place where Vasya had been tossing and turning so recently, and the feeling of joy that enveloped her falls off her like a heavy bullet. Vasya left to return late at night drunk, as he did yesterday, the day before yesterday ... always ... Again she will dream, again disgust will flicker on his face.

There is no need to write to Uncle! she sighs.

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on a note (stories about Chekhov)

When publishing his stories and "humores" in magazines, Chekhov "acted" under pseudonyms. By hiding the author's real name, they also entertained the reader, giving the works a greater comic effect. Chekhov's fantasy knew no bounds: Shiller Shakespearevich Goethe, Champagne, Uncle - whatever “nicknames,” as Chekhov called them, did he sign his works.

In total, Chekhov had about 50 pseudonyms, the most famous of them, without a doubt, is "Antosha Chekhonte". With this pseudonym, Chekhov signed not only many humorous stories, but also his first two collections - "Tales of Melpomene" (1884) and "Colorful stories" (1886).

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Copyright: Anton Chekhov

A pseudonym is a signature with which the author replaces his real name. Translated from Greek, the word pseudonym (pseudos and onyma) means "bearing a fictitious name." Many writers and poets, for various reasons, published their works under a pseudonym. The most inventive in inventing pseudonyms was Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, who wrote to the writer Bilibin: “I gave my surname to medicine, which I will not part with until the grave. Sooner or later I will have to part with literature. Secondly, medicine, which thinks itself to be serious, and the game of literature should have different nicknames. " (from the book: Dmitriev V.G. Hidden their name. - M .: Nauka, 1980).

None of the writers had as many "middle names" as Chekhov. In total, over 50 Chekhov's pseudonyms are known.

The index of Chekhov's pseudonyms contains the following: A.P .; Antosha; Antosha Chekhonte; A-n Ch-those; An. H .; An, Ch-e; Anche; An. Che-in; A.Ch; A. Che; A. Chekhonte; G. Baldastov; Makar Baldastov; My brother's brother; Doctor without patients; Hot-tempered person; Nut No. 6; Nut No. 9; Rook; Don Antonio Chekhonte; Uncle; Kislyaev; M. Kovrov; Nettle; Laertes; Prose poet; Colonel Kochkarev, Purselepetanov; Ruver; Ruver and Revur; S. B. Ch .; Ulysses; Ts; Ch. B S .; Ch. Without S.; A man without a spleen; C. Honte; Champagne; Young old man; "... in"; Z. Chekhov's humorous signatures and pseudonyms: Akaki Tarantulov, Someone, Schiller Shakesperovich Goethe, Arkhip Indeykin; Vasily Spiridonov Svolachev; Known; Indeikin; N. Zakharieva; Petukhov; Smirnov.

The first place among the pseudonyms used by the writer is taken by the signature of Antos Chekhonte. He became the main pseudonym for Chekhov the humorist. It was with this signature that the young medical student sent his first works to humorous magazines. He not only used this pseudonym in magazines and newspapers, but also put it on the cover of the first two author's collections (Tales of Melpomene, 1884, and Motley Stories, 1886). Researchers of the writer's literary heritage believe that the pseudonym of Antosha Chekhonte (variants : Antosha Ch ***, A-n Ch-te, Anche, A. Chekhonte, Chekhonte, Don Antonio Chekhonte, Ch. Honte, etc.) arose when Chekhov studied at the Taganrog gymnasium, where the teacher of the law Pokrovsky liked to alter the names of the students. Chekhov's comic letter to the editorial office of Oskolkov was signed by “Colonel Kochkarev” (a hybrid of Colonel Koshkarev from “ Dead souls"And Kochkarev from Gogol's" Marriage "). In order not to create confusion Chekhov on the title page of his book "At Dusk" (1887) wrote a surname with updated initials: "An. P. Chekhov ". And then my brother's brother began to sign. The rest of Chekhov's pseudonyms were, as a rule, short-lived and were used exclusively for comic effect: Makar Baldastov, Doctor without patients, Nut No. 6, Nut No. 9, Nettle, Prose poet, Ruver, Champagne, etc. NS.

And only the pseudonym Man without a spleen had a serious semantic component of a "medical" nature. Chekhov used it for more than ten years. Under this pseudonym (and its variants: Ch. Without S., Ch.B.S., S.B.Ch.) 119 stories and humoresques and 5 articles and feuilletons were published. Scientists believe that this unusual Chekhovian pseudonym originated at the medical faculty of Moscow University, where the most difficult course was considered the course of anatomy, with which, perhaps, the combination of Man without a spleen is associated.

I got acquainted with the work of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov in elementary school, when my mother presented me with a collection of selected works from the Lenizdat school literature series. I read the stories "Kashtanka", "Defenseless creature", "Horse surname", "Remedy for binge", "Intruder", "Thick and thin", "Death of an official", "I want to sleep", "Joy", "Vanka Zhukov " and etc.
We can say that these stories shaped my love of reading.
At school we were presented with Chekhov as an example of a highly moral person, a fighter against spirituality and philistinism. But to me personally, Chekhov always seemed mysterious, from a feeling of understatement and ambiguity.
Until now, not all the mysteries of Chekhov's life have been solved. The complete collection of his works in 30 volumes is by no means complete; not all Chekhov's materials have been published. Some Chekhov scholars doubt the need to present Chekhov's archives to the public in their entirety.
The question is, WHY?
This year I was on vacation in Crimea and visited the house-museum of Chekhov "Belaya Dacha" in Yalta. There I tried to find an answer to the question that tormented me: why is Chekhov still in demand?
One girl answered me: "Until now, the problems he raised are relevant."
Another added, "He brings moral lessons to our lives."
I made a short video, which I bring to your attention.

Every time I want to write about an outstanding person, I have no thought to discredit the bright image, there is only a desire to get to the bottom of the truth. However, in the process of "digging" such facts are discovered that turn the investigation into a semi-detective story (and sometimes a detective story).

Under the USSR, Chekhov was the official "icon" of the Soviet intelligentsia. The Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee adopted a secret resolution prohibiting the publication of some Chekhovian notes and letters in order to avoid "discrediting and vulgarizing the image of the Russian classic."

To date, about five thousand letters from Chekhov have been published, some of them with ruthless cuts. The writer's sister Maria Pavlovna removed from Chekhov's notes everything that could compromise the bright image of the highly moral writer of the Russian land.

What was the secret decree of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee hiding? and what exactly did Sister Mary cross out from her brother's diaries? Why are these documents still not made public?

Maybe they do not want to deprive us of the bright image of the highly moral Chekhov, which we were fed at school and are still being treated to?

In Russia, as you know, there have always been difficulties with moral ideal... The classics of Russian literature served as an example of a highly moral person. Their lives were idealized, although in reality they were far from ideal people.
But there were no other ideals and there are no other ideals. With whom should adolescents take an example?

“Everything in a person should be beautiful: face, clothes, soul, and thoughts,” they taught us at school, pointing to the portrait of Chekhov. We were persuaded to “squeeze the slave out of ourselves, drop by drop,” citing Anton Pavlovich as an example. Although this phrase is taken out of the context of Chekhov's letter to A.F. Suvorin and carries a slightly different meaning than what the teachers suggested to us.
The truth about Chekhov's real life was hidden from us.

I have always wondered why Chekhov wrote under a pseudonym? Why he didn't write a great novel and remained a master short story?
One of the many pseudonyms of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was "Antosha Chekhonte" - this is how the teacher of the gymnasium Fyodor Platonovich Pokrovsky called the future writer.

What is the secret of Antosha Chekhonte?

You cannot hear the truth from Chekhovedov and museum workers. They cannot cut the branch on which they sit.
One of the first to talk about the secret sides of the writer's life was Yuri Bychkov, director of the Chekhov Museum in Melikhovo. For the truth he said about Chekhov, Bychkov was fired. And he just told about the fact that Chekhov himself pointed out in his autobiography - how at the age of 13 he visited a brothel for the first time with his friends.

Many books and biographies have been written about Chekhov. The most famous: Donald Rayfield - "The Life of Anton Chekhov"; A. Truaya - "Chekhov"; E. Simmons - “Chekhov. Biography"; R. Hingley - "The New Life of Anton Chekhov"; V. Pritchet - "Chekhov: the liberated spirit" and others.
But Chekhov's riddle has not yet been solved. Many materials from the archives of A.F. Suvorin, Chekhov's correspondence to this day are hidden in foreign and private archives.

Chekhov created about 900 different works, many of which have become classics of world literature. Chekhov's works have been translated into more than 100 languages. And in the 21st century, he remains one of the most famous playwrights in the world. His plays, especially The Seagull, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard, have been staged in many theaters around the world for over 100 years. Chekhov's works have survived over 200 adaptations.

I do not consider myself a Chekologist. Chekhov is not my favorite writer at all. I like Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy better. Therefore, I do not pretend to have a complete and objective opinion about Chekhov as a writer and playwright, but I want to express my understanding of his secret of the skill of a short story.

“Brevity is the sister of talent,” Chekhov said. - "The art of writing is the art of shortening."
Chekhov is apolitical. The main theme of his stories is the relationship between a man and a woman.
The main character of Chekhov is himself! - a confused intellectual-loser, for whom suicide is the best way out of this situation. He looks at death without fear, rather with the hope of deliverance.

Chekhov is a singer of pessimism and melancholy. In his stories, there are almost no happy people, people who have found spiritual harmony, optimists; they are not looking for an answer to the "damned questions" of life, like the heroes of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.

In Chekhov's prose, I personally lack philosophical, religious depth and metaphysics. Yes, Chekhov does not impose any philosophy on the reader, leaving the right to draw his own conclusions. But what could he teach based on his personal experience? Today his teachings seem naive. Nowadays, no one remembers philistinism, and intelligence seems to be an almost forgotten word.
Yes, and next to Leo Tolstoy it was difficult to be a teacher of life.

As a child, I enjoyed watching the films "Bear", "Wedding", "Kashtanka", "Jumping", "Anna on the neck", "Swedish match", "In the city C", "Darling", "These different, different faces "," Lady with a Dog ", etc.
In the process of writing this article, I re-read the story "Drama on the Hunt", watched once again the films "My affectionate and gentle animal", "The Lady with the Dog", "Black Monk", "Unfinished Piece for the Mechanical Piano".

In my youth, I was shocked by the words from the film "Unfinished Piece for a Mechanical Piano", created by Nikita Mikhalkov based on the works of Chekhov.
"I am thirty five years old! Everything is lost! Everything is lost !! Thirty-five years! ... I am zero, I am nothing! I am thirty five years old! Lermontov had been in the grave for eight years! Napoleon was a general! And I have not done anything in your damned life, nothing! You ruined my life! I am nothing! By your grace! Where am I, incompetent cripple? Where are my strengths, intelligence, talent ?! Life is lost! .. "

This is Chekhov himself! He was not a happy person, and therefore he could not truly portray happy people. But unhappy people, disillusioned with life, Chekhov's pessimists turned out convincingly. After all, he wrote his heroes from himself.

Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin in the article "What does an author need?" says: "... The Creator is always depicted in creation and often against his will."
Through the lips of Gurov (the hero of the story "The Lady with the Dog") Chekhov confesses: "All these years I converged, parted, but never once loved. There was anything but love. "

Love is the quintessence of a person's personality traits. Love can tell a lot about a person. Chekhov dreamed of Great love, wrote about her, but was afraid of her, realizing that love would require a sacrifice from him. And he has already sacrificed himself entirely to literature.

The first sexual experience, as psychologists say, forms the so-called "love map" - programming future sexual behavior. Perhaps Chekhov's attitude to the female sex was formed after visiting a brothel at the age of 13. All his life Chekhov used the services of "affordable women" and always refused to marry.

“The role of my husband scares me, there is something harsh in it, like in the role of a commander. Due to my laziness, I prefer a lighter role. "

In the story "The Black Monk" Chekhov tries to substantiate why it is not necessary to marry. He believed that a woman is always a burden, encroaching on his freedom and his work.

“I don’t want to marry, and I don’t want anyone. Yes, and a fool with him. It would be boring for me to mess with my wife. And falling in love would not hurt very much. It's boring without strong love. "

Love, but rather love, but not strong, not interfering with creativity, Chekhov needed to create fresh plots, for inspiration. "Love is young, lovely, poetic, taking you into the world of dreams - on earth, only she can give happiness!"

Anton Pavlovich avoided beautiful and smart girls, joking or fooling them with platonic love. And he found sexual satisfaction in brothels. There Chekhov was a regular customer, and he was not at all shy about admitting it. In letters to friends, he describes in detail his communication with prostitutes.

Was there a great love in Chekhov's life?

One literary critic remarked: “Imagine how much we do not rummage, but we do not find a woman in Chekhov's life. No love. There is no serious love. "

Although Anton Pavlovich had about thirty women. Former director of the Melikhovo Museum-Estate, Yuri Bychkov, believes: “Chekhov treated women, to put it mildly, condescendingly. They looked after him, sought, and he found a way to get away from them. His novels did not replace each other, and some lasted 10-12 years with several women at the same time. "

Chekhov did not have the best opinion of the beautiful field. Apparently, the first experience affected, or, perhaps, the "love map" influenced. Perhaps, knowing about his illness, Chekhov, as it were, protected himself from strong passion.

Chekhov's first attempt to marry was at the age of 26, when he fell in love with Evdokia Efros. But the engagement was upset - the groom ran away.
When Chekhov was 27 years old, twelve-year-old Nina Korsh, the daughter of the owner of the first private theater in Russia, fell in love with him.
“It is interesting to marry only for love; to marry a girl just because she is pretty, it's like buying yourself in the bazaar unnecessary thing just because she's good. "

At the age of 28, Chekhov met nineteen-year-old Lika Mizinova, with whom he had a long romance and extensive correspondence. "Beautiful Face", "hellish beauty" - this is what Chekhov called her in his letters. Contemporaries spoke of Lika as a girl of extraordinary beauty - "a real Swan Princess from Russian fairy tales."

Lika Mizinova became the prototype for Nina Zarechnaya in the play The Seagull.
“No woman with beauty can pay her husband for her emptiness,” Chekhov wrote.

When fifteen-year-old Lena Shavrova brought Chekhov the manuscript of her own story, the writer advised the girl to continue to create. Elena fell in love, but did not dare to confess her feelings.
When Chekhov was 32 years old, the children's writer Lydia Alekseevna Avilova fell in love with him.

Young Chekhov was loving. Returning from the island of Sakhalin, the steamer on which Chekhov traveled, made anchorage on the island of Ceylon. There, Chekhov admitted, “at one time I had a relationship with a black-eyed Hindu. And where? In a coconut plantation on a moonlit night. What a beauty these colored women are! "

Women liked Chekhov, but all his life he lived alone, having married, being already terminally ill. Chekhov met his future wife Olga Knipper in September 1898 while reading his new play The Seagull. He was 38 years old, she had just turned 30. Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko contributed to this novel, used the writer, wanting to tie him to the Moscow Art Theater.

Chekhov did not want to get married. "I am not capable of such a difficult and difficult to understand business as marriage, and the role of a husband scares me," Chekhov wrote. - "Give me a wife who, like the moon, will appear in my sky not every day."

But when Knipper delivered an ultimatum, Chekhov agreed.
Ivan Bunin made the following conclusion: “… yes, this is suicide! worse than Sakhalin ... They (sister Maria and wife Knipper - N.K.), passionately and selflessly loving him, will put him in a coffin in the sweetest way. "

Evil tongues claimed that Olga Leonardovna deliberately married the writer in order to get the main roles in his plays and to provide her lover Nemirovich-Danchenko with a repertoire. Indeed, in every play by Chekhov, which were staged at the Moscow Art Theater, Olga played the main role.

“He and she fell in love, got married and were unhappy ...” For almost all five years of his marriage, Chekhov lived away from his wife. “If you are afraid of loneliness, then do not marry,” he wrote.
From 1899 to 1904 Chekhov and Knipper sent each other about 400 letters. Chekhov writes Knipper: "Dusik, I don't remember whether you are brunette or blonde, I only remember that I once had a wife." Nemirovich let Knipper go to see her husband only 2 times a year for 3-4 days.

Olga Knipper's life took place in Moscow - she could not live without a stage, applause, benefit performances and bohemian evenings with champagne. Olga Leonardovna was an emancipated woman and saw no sin in treason.

Chekhov wrote to his wife: “I received an anonymous letter that you were carried away by someone in St. Petersburg, fell head over heels in love. Yes, and I myself have long suspected, you Jew, curmudgeon. And you stopped loving me, probably because I, an uneconomical person, asked you to splurge on one or two telegrams ... ”.

Chekhov and Knipper really wanted to have children, but Olga's first pregnancy in 1901 ended in a miscarriage. Later, while on tour in St. Petersburg, Olga Knipper fell unsuccessfully and underwent surgery, losing her child. She did not inform Chekhov about this. He learned about the loss of the child from the correspondence with doctor Olga and realized that the child could not be from him in any way.

Donald Rayfield, in his detailed biography of Chekhov, writes that conception did not occur when the writer and actress were together. Olga came to Chekhov in Yalta for a week so that everyone would think that the child was from her husband.

In Chekhov's notes there are lines: "The cheating wife is a big cold cutlet that I don't want to touch, because someone else was already holding it in her hands."

In the story "The Lady with the Dog" Chekhov puts his thoughts into the lips of the heroes.
"How to get rid of these unbearable bonds?" - reflects Gurov. “Sometimes it seems to me that a little more and everything will change, a way out will be found. Then a new wonderful life will begin ... "
“In essence, if you think about it, everything is beautiful in this world. Everything except what we ourselves think and do when we forget about the highest goals, about our human dignity. "

Chekhov's new discovery was the film “My affectionate and gentle animal” directed by Emil Loteanu, based on the story “Drama on the Hunt”. The motion picture is very beautiful and many people liked it. The only pity is that in the final there is no confession of Kamyshev, how and why he killed Olga. Although to me personally, the motive for the murder and Kamyshev's remorse seem far-fetched.
The performer of the role of Kamyshev, Oleg Yankovsky, believed that his hero did not love Olga.

Chekhov has practically no stories of happy love. Perhaps because he himself was not happy in love. The main character of his stories is an unfaithful wife, a windy lover, a cheating wife. But how can you blame a beautiful young woman for wanting to go to Petersburg and shine with her beauty? You can understand Olenka ("Drama on the Hunt") when she says: "I don't want to be a beggar, I don't want to be downstairs."

Another discovery of Chekhov was for me the film "The Black Monk" by Ivan Dykhovichny and the film "The Story of an Unknown Man" (directed by Zhalakyavichyus Vytaustas Pranovich).

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the writer's birth, a documentary film by Sergei Medvedev “Chekhov. Unpublished Life ". It presents some facts from the life of the classic of Russian literature, which became a revelation for many.

It turns out that, left without parents (who, due to debts from Taganrog, fled to Moscow), young Anton and his friends went “all bad”: he drank, played cards and even visited a brothel. He studied reluctantly, often skipped classes in the gymnasium.

Already in the gymnasium, Anton began to write humorous stories. The first drama "Fatherlessness" "was written by 18-year-old Chekhov while studying at the gymnasium. When, at the age of 13, Anton first saw the operetta “ Beautiful Elena”, He became a passionate fan of the theater.
"Talent is in us from the father's side, and the soul is from the mother's side," Chekhov said.

Chekhov's father, a deeply religious man, owned a small grocery store, but later went bankrupt. The children were supposed to help their father in the trade, as well as sing in the church choir he organized. As Chekhov himself said: "As a child, I had no childhood."

After graduating from high school, in 1879 Chekhov entered Moscow University, where he studied to be a doctor. In his spare time, he moonlights by publishing satirical feuilletons and humoresques in various magazines under the pseudonyms "Antosha Chekhonte", "Baldastov", "Man without a spleen." There are about fifty aliases in total, and sometimes even without it.

Chekhov wrote a story a day, difficult and thorough. Several hundred stories have been written in five years. At the same time, Chekhov called his writing "sheer nonsense" and did not consider himself a writer. Therefore, he signed his stories with pseudonyms.
Chekhov never took his literary work seriously. He dreamed of becoming a famous doctor, even preparing for exams for the title of doctor of medicine.

Chekhov hesitated for a long time in choosing his vocation. “Medicine is my legal wife, and literature is my mistress,” Chekhov said. "When one gets bored, I spend the night at the other."
Medicine, on the one hand, was a source for stories, and on the other hand, it became a hindrance to literary studies.

Anton writes to his brother Alexander (also a writer): “Do not envy me, brother. Scripture gives me nothing but twitching. One hundred rubles, which I receive a month, go into the womb. There is no strength to change the greyish obscene coat for something less shabby. "

When the publisher of the Novoye Vremya newspaper, Aleksey Suvorin, offered to pay one and a half times more per line, but demanded to sign with his own name, Chekhov became thoughtful. The pseudonym gave him a certain freedom.

After Chekhov began to sign the texts with his own name, they began to recognize him in public places and even in buffets. And Chekhov visited not only buffets, but also brothels. Fame made life difficult for him. Women began to fall in love with the famous writer, some of them even cheated on their husbands.

Anton Chekhov was tall, 186 cm, handsome. Brown hair, brown eyes. According to AI Kuprin, he had "the most beautiful and delicate, most spiritual face that I have ever met in my life."

As soon as Anton decided to quit his studies in literature, he received a letter from Petersburg from famous writer Grigorovich. “You have real talent. A talent that propels you far from the circle of the new generation of writers. You are, I am sure, called upon to write some excellent truly artistic works. You will commit a great moral sin if you do not live up to such expectations. "

In the fall of 1887, mentions of work on the novel "in 1500 lines" appeared in Chekhov's letters. It lasted two years, when Chekhov, burdened by the work of such big size finally abandoned his plan. “I am glad,” he wrote to Suvorin, “that 2-3 years ago I did not listen to Grigorovich and did not write a novel! I can imagine how much good I would have ruined if I had obeyed ... "

The format of the personality also determined the format of the writer's work. Anton Pavlovich wanted to write a great novel, but he could not. But he remained the unsurpassed master of the short story. In the resolution of the academic commission, which awarded the Pushkin Prize to Chekhov in 1888, it was written: "The stories of Mr. Chekhov, although they do not fully satisfy the requirements of the highest art criticism, are nevertheless an outstanding phenomenon in our modern fiction literature."

Chekhov understood: “A work of art must certainly express some kind of great thought. Only that is beautiful, that is serious. " Therefore, in 1889, Chekhov went to Sakhalin, where he planned to collect material for a great novel. For several months of the census, he interviewed almost 10 thousand people.

For five years Chekhov worked on the book Sakhalin Island. This text did not become a novel. But the book has become an artistic document of the era. Chekhov even wanted to use it as material for the defense of his dissertation.
Chekhov was extremely interested in all sorts of deviations of the so-called soul. In his opinion, he would have become a psychiatrist if he had not become a writer.

To write a great novel, you need a big idea, a plan. “In poetry, passion is needed, your idea is needed, and certainly a pointing finger, passionately raised. Indifference and the real reproduction of reality is worth absolutely nothing, and most importantly, it does not mean anything ... ”, wrote Dostoevsky.

Chekhov avoided the "pointing finger". He did not claim to be a prophet and did not consider himself a genius, he was free from the desire to teach or preach someone. According to Chekhov, the role of the author is to ask questions, not answer them. Chekhov provides an opportunity for the reader himself to assess and draw conclusions.
“If you want to become an optimist and understand life, then stop believing what they say and write, but observe and understand yourself.”

Although Chekhov is a writer of everyday life, in his works one can find a diagnosis of society and the human personality. Anton Pavlovich believed that a person can to some extent correct his personality and relationships with others. But he cannot change himself and his role in this life, no matter how alien this role is to him.

Later stories are permeated through and through with an inner spiritual cry: "It's impossible to live like this anymore!" Chekhov understood that people found themselves on the edge of a bottomless, gaping abyss and did not see a way out. Like many of his contemporaries, Chekhov did not divide Russian society into the elite (“progressive intelligentsia”) and the people. "We are all people," Chekhov said, "and all the best that we do is a matter of the people."

Was Chekhov a believer?
He was a believer, but not religious. “If non-religious people were admitted to monasteries and if it was possible not to pray, then I would go to a monk,” the writer admitted.

Whether Chekhov believed in God or did not believe, it is impossible to answer concretely. Chekhov once said that life after death is sheer nonsense. At other times he admitted that after death we will not disappear anywhere; the immortality of the soul is a fact. "Death is terrible, but the consciousness that you will live forever and never die would be even more terrible."

In the play "Uncle Vanya" Sonya says: "... there, behind the grave, we will say that we suffered, that we cried, that we were bitter, and God will take pity on us, and you and I ... dear uncle, we will see a bright life, beautiful, graceful, we will be delighted, and we will look back at our present misfortunes with tenderness, with a smile, and we will rest ... We will hear the angels, and we will see the whole sky in diamonds ... and our life will become quiet, tender, sweet, like a caress. .. ".

In the story "The Black Monk" you can read the following lines:
- But is eternal truth accessible and necessary to people if there is no eternal life?
“There is eternal life,” said the monk.
- Do you believe in the immortality of people?
- Oh sure. A great, brilliant future awaits you humans. And the more there are people like you on earth, the sooner this future will come true. Without you, the servants of the higher principle, living consciously and freely, humanity would be insignificant; developing naturally, it would have waited a long time for the end of its earthly history. You will introduce him into the kingdom of eternal truth several thousand years earlier, and this is your great merit. You embody the blessing of God that rested on people. "

Where did Chekhov find the plots of his stories?
Yes, in life itself, including in your own. Most of his heroes are sick with consumption or die of consumption.
The story "The Lady with the Dog" was written by Chekhov under the impression of his trip to Yalta, as well as meeting with last love writer Olga Knipper. The story describes the actually existing church and pew in Oreanda, the confectionery of Y.I. Verne, and others.

Leo Tolstoy sharply condemned the story "The Lady with the Dog". “People who have not developed a clear outlook on the world that separates good and evil. Before they were shy, they were looking; now, thinking that they are on the other side of good and evil, they remain on this side, that is, they are almost animals. "

Maxim Gorky, on the contrary, praised the story: "You are doing a great job with your little stories - arousing in people disgust for this sleepy, half-dead life - damn it!"

Chekhov is one of the most popular playwrights in the world. His plays are attractive to directors because they are free for any interpretation, they can be filled with any interpretation.
The innovation of Chekhov's creative method lies in the subtext invented by him - the so-called "undercurrent", when behind the outwardly everyday episodes there is an intimate lyrical "stream of consciousness", and behind seemingly insignificant words and events hides drama, tragedy.

I remember that at school we were asked to write an essay on the topic of "underwater current" in Chekhov's play "The Cherry Orchard". But few chose this topic. I only remember: "All Russia is our garden."
Now it turned out that everything that Chekhov said a hundred years ago was repeated. New Lopakhins came, privatized, sold, cut down, built cottages. History repeats itself!

Chekhov's biography, in a sense, is the history of his illness. But what exactly was Chekhov sick for twenty years is still not completely clear. The diagnoses were different.

What disease poisoned the life of Anton Pavlovich for twenty years until his death?

Recently, a history of Chekhov's illness was found, which was filled out in the clinic by the attending physician of the writer Maxim Maslov. According to this story, in his gymnasium and student years, Chekhov suffered from tuberculous inflammation of the peritoneum, but he felt "pressing in the sternum" at the age of 10 ...

A strange illness manifested itself back in 1884, when 24-year-old Anton Chekhov graduated from the medical faculty of the university. "If the hemoptysis that I had in the District Court was a symptom of the onset of consumption, then I would have been in the afterlife for a long time, this is my logic."

As a physician, Chekhov could not help but understand the true cause of the bleeding. His cousin and other relatives suddenly died of tuberculosis.
Anton Pavlovich was ill, and very seriously. Already in 1891, the writer clearly realized that he had consumption. In a letter to Vladimir Tikhonov, he confessed: "Well, my friend, I have consumption, not otherwise."

For twenty years Chekhov was ill and practically did not receive treatment, he did not spare himself. He went on a long and difficult journey through Siberia to Sakhalin, knowing that for him it could end in death. Perhaps, if he was not looking for death, then he did everything in order to bring it closer. People close to Chekhov saw the reason for the "sudden burning of the writer" only in his personal life.

Obviously, Chekhov's morbidity was reflected in his worldview (as was the case with Friedrich Nietzsche). Before reaching thirty, the writer felt like an elderly man doomed to die. After bullying and criticism, he even dreamed of committing suicide.
"Critics are usually those people who would be poets, historians, biographers, if they could, but having tried their talents in these or other areas and having failed, decided to take up criticism."

Chekhov often conveyed personal feelings associated with illness to the heroes of his works. So the hero of "The Story of an Unknown Person" coughed dully all night, as it often happened with Chekhov. The hero of the story "The Black Monk" also dies of consumption.

“My friend, only ordinary, herd people are healthy and normal. Considerations for a nervous age, overwork, degeneration, etc. can seriously concern only those who see the purpose of life in the present, that is, herd people. ... I repeat: if you want to be healthy and normal, go to the herd. "

Chekhov understood that he was seriously ill and could die. However, he avoided not only a medical examination, but even a medical examination - he was afraid to receive confirmation of his guesses. When Chekhov and Alexei Suvorin dined at the Moscow Hermitage on March 21, 1897, blood suddenly gushed out and, despite all the efforts of the called doctor, it was possible to stop it only towards morning. Chekhov underwent a serious examination for the first time in the famous Moscow clinic of Professor Ostroumov. They said that the tops of both lungs were affected, and if he did not want to die in the very near future, he had to change his lifestyle.

Chekhov had to radically change his entire way of life, relations with friends, with women, with loved ones.
“How happy Buddha and Mohammed or Shakespeare are that good relatives and doctors did not treat them for ecstasy and inspiration! ... Doctors and good relatives will eventually do something that makes humanity stupid, mediocrity will be considered a genius and civilization will perish. "

Doctors advised Chekhov to settle in Yalta. In 1898, the writer sold his estate in Melikhovo and bought a piece of land in Yalta. For 10 months, a house was built on the site according to the project of the architect L.N. Shapovalov. On September 9, 1899, Chekhov moved to Yalta with his sister Maria Pavlovna and mother Evgenia Yakovlevna. It was here that such famous works as the story "The Lady with the Dog", the play "Three Sisters" and "The Cherry Orchard" were written.

In Yalta, women pursued Chekhov throughout the city. They were also called "Antonovs". But Chekhov already avoided the female sex due to illness.
In the spring of 1904, Chekhov's illness worsened so much that he could barely walk. Doctors diagnosed pleurisy and intestinal catarrh. The wife persuades him to go to Germany for treatment. In Berlin, doctors actually signed Chekhov's death warrant.

The writer died on July 2 (15), 1904 in Badenweiler, Germany. Dr. Erik Schwerer, who treated Chekhov in Badenweiler, wrote in a local newspaper after his death: "He is, apparently, a wonderful writer, but a very bad doctor, if he decided on various relocations and trips .... He ruined himself ..."

“The Russian man is a big pig. If you ask why he doesn’t eat meat and fish, then he justifies himself by the lack of imports, means of communication, etc., while vodka, meanwhile, is available even in the most remote villages and in any quantity ”. (A.P. Chekhov)

"Name me at least one luminary of our literature who would have become known before the glory passed through the earth, that he was killed in a duel, lost his mind, went into exile, does not play cards cleanly!" (A.P. Chekhov)

"The trouble is not that we hate enemies, of whom we have few, but that we do not love our neighbors, of whom we have a lot, even a dime a dozen."

“A good upbringing is not that you don’t spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you don’t notice someone else doing it.”

“What we experience when we are in love, perhaps, is a normal state. Falling in love shows a person what he should be. "

"The more expensive labor is paid, the happier the state, and each of us should strive to ensure that labor is paid more expensively."

"Whoever has experienced the pleasure of creativity, for that, all other pleasures no longer exist."

"Behind the door happy person someone should stand with a hammer, constantly knock and remind that there are unfortunate people and that after a short time of happiness, unhappiness comes. "

"The higher a person is in mental and moral development, the freer he is, the more pleasure life gives him."

“I believe that nothing goes without a trace and that every smallest step has a meaning for the present and future life.”

“The task is not to achieve the ideal - it is unattainable; the main thing is to achieve

There can be no single track to the Truth, everyone goes their own way

The process of the search for Truth itself is important, the path for the sake of the path itself

The ultimate goal of cultivation is love for everything.

To thank, to thank for everything - this is the secret of happiness

Life does not end with death

You have to be yourself and do what your heart calls you

Open your heart, forget about your mind, and you will feel how to live, what is right and what is wrong

Perhaps the purpose of life is to learn to love, to love no matter what

Everything that we do, what we strive for, what we have achieved in this world is measured only by the state of our soul, the desire to create love.

LOVE TO CREATE A NECESSITY ".
(from my novel-true story "The Wanderer" (mystery) on the site New Russian Literature

I presented as a gift to the A.P. Chekhov Museum in Yalta "Belaya Dacha" my novel-reality "The Wanderer" (mystery), which I had been writing for seven years. For the sake of writing a novel, I traveled deep into Siberia to Lake Tiberkul, walked through remote Siberian villages, where people still live without electricity. The text of my novel can be downloaded for free on the New Russian Literature website.

And in your opinion, what is the SECRET OF ANTOSHA CHEKHONTE?

© Nikolay Kofyrin - New Russian Literature -