Chekhov, Anton (Pavlovich) biographical name (born Jan. 29,
1860, Taganrog, Russiadied July 14/15, 1904, Badenweiler, Ger.)
Russian playwright and short-story writer. The son of a former
serf, he supported his family by writing popular comic sketches
while studying medicine in Moscow. While practicing as a doctor,
he had his first full-length play, Ivanov (1887), produced, but
it was not well-received. He took up serious themes with stories
such as The Steppe (1888) and A Dreary Story (1889); later
stories include The Black Monk (1894) and Peasants (1897). He
converted his second long play, The Wood Demon (1889), into the
masterpiece Uncle Vanya (1897). His play The Seagull (1896) was
badly received until its successful revival in 1899 by
Konstantin Stanislavsky and the Moscow Art Theatre. He moved to
the Crimea to nurse his eventually fatal tuberculosis, and there
he wrote his great last plays, Three Sisters (1901) and The
Cherry Orchard (1904), for the Moscow Art Theatre. Chekhov's
plays, which take a tragi