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            Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is often regarded as “the last great figure of 19^th century Russian literature[i].”  Chekhov’s literary career began when he was still in his late teens simply as a way to help his family by earning an income.  He worked hard to get short stories published, and eventually many of his humorous short stories and sketches appeared in Russian literary magazines such as Dragonfly, Alarm Clock, and Spectator.  Hoping to earn as much money as possible, his stories were sometimes written in less than an hour, and because of such his “sketches were broadly humorous…and if some are less juvenile than others, and a few make one smile, none of them are distinguished[ii].”  Chekhov earned some critical attention when he began writing more serious fiction, but he did not gain his widespread fame until he became a playwright.  Chekhov’s plays, most notably Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard were successful because they reflected Russian society and everyday life so realistically.

            Chekhov was born on January 17, 1860 in Taganrog into a very average life.  His grandfather had been a serf who worked hard to purchase his own and his family’s freedom.  Being freed from serfdom left an impression on Chekhov’s father, who saved money for years and opened his own small shop.  Chekhov’s mother devoted her time to raising her six children (a seventh was born but died by the age of two) in a close-knit family.  In perhaps the most famous biography of Chekhov, Ernest J. Simmons states, “Very few of Russia’s foremost writers emerged from this kind of environment.  The familiar pattern was the secure, cultured, and often idyllic gentry background that produced Pushkin, Turgenev, and Tolstoy[iii].”  It is believed that Chekhov’s ability to present everyday life on stage stems from this average upbringing.

            Chekhov helped usher Realism into modern theatre.  His plays illustrated “that real life, as we see it every day, can be made just as interesting on stage as… catastrophes or…difficulties[iv].”  It is well known that Chekhov’s plays are dialogue driven with very little action.  Chekhov’s dialogue is so convincing that “it is impossible to read half a dozen sentences in any of [Chekhov’s] tales without beginning to feel that all was only scripted gossip about people with whom the author and reader are personally acquainted[v].”  The characters who speak this dialogue in Chekhov’s plays come from all walks of life.  Harvey Pitcher states that “it seems…that the best of Chekhov’s dramatic characters are quite ordinary people, leading unremarkable lives,…and are neither complex nor unusual[vi].”

            These ties to everyday average life and the ordinary members of society are present in the plays Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard.  These three plays are among Chekhov’s most famous.  While he was alive, Chekhov’s popularity was pretty much contained to Russia.  Chekhov has reached into the future, however, and now influences people around the world.  In today’s theatre world, “Anton Chekhov...has become second only to Shakespeare in reputation and in frequency of production[vii].”

Uncle Vanya

            Chekhov’s play, Uncle Vanya, was his successful adaptation of an earlier unsuccessful play, The Wood Demon.  If one were to read both, parallels could be easily drawn between characters in both plays.   Also, some monologues were even taken from Demon and used in Vanya almost verbatim.  Uncle Vanya was performed in small provincial theaters before Chekhov submitted it for consideration at Russia’s oldest theater, the imperial Maly Theater.  The play was accepted tentatively under the conditions that many changes were to be made.  Chekhov withdrew it from the Maly Theater and instead gave it to the Moscow Art Theater where it was accepted as is and it proved to be a success with its first performances in 1899[viii].  Ernest Simmons stated that “Uncle Vanya…became a permanent fixture in the Moscow Art Theater[ix].”

            Uncle Vanya takes place on the estate of Professor Serebryakov.  Serebryakov has returned home with his young second wife, Yelena.  The country doctor, Astrov, has come to treat Serebryakov’s case of gout.  Voynitsky a.k.a. Uncle Vanya, is the brother of Serebryakov’s first wife and has been taking care of the estate.  Voynitsky feels that Serebryakov has been slowly destroying his beautiful estate.  Astrov helps Voynitsky realize that he is jealous of Serebryakov, especially in regards to his marriage to Yelena.  When he gets the chance, Voynitsky confesses to Yelena that he loves her, but she quickly rejects him.  Sonya is Serebryakov’s daughter and is in love with Astrov but she eventually finds out that he does not love her.  Sonya dislikes Yelena for marrying her father even though Yelena did not love Serebryakov, but the two women reconcile.  It turns out that Astrov is infatuated with Yelena, but Voynitsky has not given up his attempts to seduce Yelena.  Serebryakov announces that he is going to sell his estate, which puts Voynitsky over the edge because he feels Serebryakov’s decision will completely ruin the estate.  Voynitsky attempts to shoot Serebryakov twice, but misses both times.  Voynitsky then feels worthless and as if he has gone mad and wants a new life with Astrov’s help.  Voynitsky and Serebryakov eventually reconcile, and then Serebryakov and Yelena leave.  Astrov leaves too, and Voynitsky and Sonya are left to discuss their misery and how all they can do is wait for death[x].

            In Uncle Vanya, the characters “feel trapped…within the humdrum life of a landowning family, whose estate is deeply embedded somewhere in the heart of rural Russia and encircled by the primitive life of the Russian villages[xi].”  Voynitsky attempted to break away from his old life by proclaiming his love for Yelena.  Sonya does the same by confessing her love for Astrov.  Even Serebryakov and Yelena want to escape by selling their estate and leaving.  Serebryakov and Yelena lived lives of privilege, but did nothing to help the lives of others.  Ernest Simmons states that “realism is raised to the level of inspired symbolism in the striking contrast between the idleness and futility of the lives of [Serebryakov] and his parasitic wife [Yelena] and the useful work performed by Uncle Vanya, Sonya, and Astrov[xii] .”  However useful their work may have been, Voynitsky, Sonya, and Astrov fail in their attempts to create new lives.

            Uncle Vanya is subtitled “Scenes from Country Life in Four Acts.”  The play illustrates several types of Russian country life.  Serebryakov and his wife represent the landowning class.  They also reflect how the landowning class does not know how to react to the lower classes who are trying to improve their status.  Voynitsky most reflects the Russians who are trying to improve their status.  He gave up his life to tend Serebryakov’s estate and preserve nature, but then could not create a new life for himself.  Astrov is a country doctor who tries to help others, but he also wants to improve his life by winning the love of Yelena.  The failure of the characters to make decisions that improve their lives show a “special satirical point [that] is also familiar [in Chekhov’s plays]: Chekhov’s Russians are chronically indecisive people[xiii].”  There are also many smaller characters in the play that represent a broad spectrum of Russian life.

            In his book, The Chekhov Play: A New Interpretation, Harvey Pitcher states, “If I had to choose one quotation…to convey the spirit of Uncle Vanya, I would be tempted to [choose]…Astrov’s remark to Sonya in Act II, when he says: ‘I’m fond of life as a whole, but this petty, provincial life of ours in Russia—that I can’t stand, I despise it utterly[xiv].”  Pitcher argues that this could be seen as Chekhov attempting to prove that provincial Russian life caused the sadness in the lives of not only his characters, but also actual Russians.  But then Pitcher also puts forward that because none of his characters are exceptional people, Chekhov is showing sympathy for people everywhere whose lives are full of sadness and frustration through no fault of their own.  Pitcher finishes his argument by stating “in spite of all [Astrov’s] dissatisfaction…he is ‘fond of life as a whole’; and this combination—of profound dissatisfaction, together with an absence of bitterness—seems to me very characteristic of Uncle Vanya[xv].”

The Three Sisters

            The Three Sisters was first produced by the Moscow Art Theater in 1901.  It proved quickly to be a success.  Because Chekhov had worked with Moscow Art Theater before, he wrote several of the play’s characters with actors in mind, most notably his future wife Olga Knipper.  Like all of Chekhov’s plays, The Three Sisters is dialogue driven.  It is because of this that it has been said “in most plays, action builds towards a major crisis.  In Three Sisters, it might be compared to the drip of a faucet in a water basin[xvi].”

            The play begins one year after the death of the Prozorov’s father, but the characters are upbeat and energetic.  The Prozorov sisters, Olga, Masha, and Irina, along with their brother, Andrey, live a dull existence in a small provincial garrison town. The officers of the garrison, along with the dream of someday moving to Moscow, help keep the sisters living day-to-day. Andrey has had dreams of becoming a professor, but makes the bad decision to marry Natalya.  This marriage keeps him from reaching his goal and adds to the troubles of his sisters. Masha is married to Kulygin, who is a schoolmaster.  She is unhappy in her marriage, and tries to find happiness in an affair with the also married officer Vershinin, whose regiment is in town. The youngest sister, Irina, marries Baron Tuzenbakh, another officer, in hopes of escaping her ordinary life. Before Irina’s marriage, the surly Solyony also sought her affection.  The regiment is called to leave the town, and Vershinin has to leave with it.  Masha cannot run away with him because, as noted earlier, Vershinin is married.  Irina’s husband, Tuzenbakh, is killed in a duel with Solyony, so her plans of creating a better life are also dashed.  Nobody from the Prozorov family leaves the town for Moscow despite all the talk of doing so.  At the close of the play, the three sisters and Andrey are left as they were in the beginning, living in a small provincial town still clinging to their hopes for a better life[xvii].

            When one looks at The Three Sisters, it is easy to see it “is a profoundly sad play…Yet whatever the overall sadness of the sisters’ situation, Chekhov will not allow it to subdue the moment-to-moment life of his characters, which has often an attractive, and even occasionally comic buoyancy[xviii].”  So then what are the social implications of the play?  Theatre professor Laurence Senelick states that Chekhov wrote The Three Sisters “to sum up a way of life.  With all the benefits of education, a loving home and creature comforts, the sisters stagnate, not simply because they live in the sticks, but because they have established nothing of value to give meaning to their existence[xix].”  So even though the sisters are of the educated and semi-wealthy class, their lives are still dull and grow stagnant.  The social implication of this fact is that the educated class is “in a state of crisis, slowly disintegrating from within[xx].”  The members of the educated class need to grow and adapt in order to have meaning in their lives.  This social tension of necessary change illustrates that “Three Sisters, then, is less concerned with the outside threat to civilized standards…than with the paradoxical—and tragic—vulnerability of civilization to weakness within itself[xxi].”

The Cherry Orchard

            Chekhov’s final play, The Cherry Orchard, premiered on his birthday January 17, 1904 at the Moscow Art Theater.  It was very successful and gained critical acclaim quickly.  Nemirovich-Danchenko, of the Moscow Art Theater, “described the play as Chekhov’s finest, the characters as new, interesting, and rich in substance, and the social content as not new but freshly apprehended, original, and poetic[xxii].”  The play was supposed to be Chekhov’s finest comedy, but many directors present it as a tragedy with some comic moments.  It is said that “what always surprised [Chekhov]…was that The Three Sisters and [especially] The Cherry Orchard were considered as gloomy dramas of Russian life.  He was sincerely convinced that they were gay comedies, almost vaudeville[xxiii].”

            Madame Ranevskaya and her daughter, Anya, return to their estate after spending several years in Paris wantonly spending money.  She can no longer afford her estate, with a large cherry orchard, and finds out that it will be auctioned due to her debts.  Her brother Gaev is also irresponsible with money.  Ranevskaya’s stepdaughter, Varya, is the only one in the family who is financially responsible, but her influence on the family is minimal.  A former serf turned successful businessman, Lopakhin, suggests to Ranevskaya that she should cut down the cherry orchard and sell off their land in lots.  This would give Ranevskaya a substantial income that would easily support any kind of lifestyle she could possibly want.  Family pride, not wanting to take the advice of a former serf, and fondness for the cherry orchard stopped the family from utilizing Lopakhin’s plan.  The family drifts along waiting for the day of the auction, not taking any direct action to improve their situation, when a sum of money is sent to the family by their grandmother.  It proves to be too little too late, and Lopakhin ends up purchasing the estate.  With the estate sold, Ranevskaya plans to move to Paris and live off the money the grandmother sent.  Gaev takes a job in a bank, Varya becomes a housekeeper, and Anya accepts the fact that she will have to become independent.  The cherry orchard is starting to be cut down as the play ends, because Lopakhin is going to enact his plan[xxiv].

            One of the themes expressed in The Cherry Orchard is that “hard work [is] the key to future happiness[xxv].”  Madame Ranevskaya and her brother Gaev failed to work hard, and because of this they lost their home.  In the end, Gaev gets a job in a bank, so there is the possibility that he will learn the lesson that hard work can bring future happiness.  Madame Ranevskaya, however, simply moves to Paris to live off the money that was sent to her in hopes of saving the estate.  One can only assume that she will not work for money, and once what she has is gone she will probably pester her family for support.  Lopakhin is the epitome of the hardworking person ensuring himself a good future.  His father and grandfather were serfs on the property he purchased from Ranevskaya.  Lopakhin worked extremely hard to become a successful businessman.  He had enough money to purchase the cherry orchard, and decided to carry out his plan of chopping it down to sell lots of land and make even more money.

            Had Ranevskaya taken Lopakhin’s advice, she could have had enough money to live with for the rest of her life.  This is another theme of The Cherry Orchard, the old order, the gentry, needs to evolve and utilize new ideas regardless of where they come from.  David Magarshack states that “the main theme of the play is generally taken to be the passing of the old order, symbolised(sic) by the sale of the cherry orchard.  But…what is new about this theme is the comic twist Chekhov gave it[xxvi].”  Chekhov found it profoundly humorous that a former serf of the estate was purchasing the estate.  He also found it humorous that what could have saved Ranevskaya’s estate was the advice of a former serf, which she would not accept because of from where it came.  This goes back to how the gentry needs to reform and accept ideas no matter where they originate.

            This play contains yet another theme that captivated the Russian people and helped propel The Three Sisters to the fame it has enjoyed.  This theme is, as David Magarshack states, “one of the recurrent themes in Chekhov’s plays: the destruction of beauty by those who are utterly blind to it[xxvii].”  This is perhaps the main theme of The Wood Demon, was carried over into Uncle Vanya with Voynitsky’s rants that Serebryakov has ruined his estate, and appears in The Cherry Orchard with Ranevskaya’s fondness of the orchard.  The orchard had been a fixture in Ranevskaya’s and Gaev’s childhoods, and because of this they cannot comprehend cutting it down.  Lopakhin simply sees the orchard as a place where he and his family for generations had worked.  It is because of this failure to see the beauty of nature that he chopped down the orchard.

Last modified: 01/21/06