CHEKHOV'S
BIOGRAPHY

    Born on January 29, 1860, in Taganrog, Russia, Anton

Pavlovich Chekhov would eventually become one of

Russia's most cherished storytellers. Especially fond of

vaudevilles and French farces, he produced some

hilarious one-acts, but it is his full-length tragedies that

have secured him a place among the greatest short story

writers.  Chekhov began writing short stories during his

days as a medical student at the University of

Moscow.After graduating in 1884 with a degree in

medicine, he began to freelance as a journalist and writer

of comic sketches. Early in his career, he mastered the

form of the one-act and produced several masterpieces of

this genre including The Bear in which a creditor hounds

a young widow, but becomes so impressed when she

agrees to fight a duel with him, that he proposes

marriage, and The Wedding in which a bridegroom's

plans to have a general attend his wedding ceremony

backfire when the general turns out to be a retired naval

captain "of the second rank". During Chekhov's final

years, he was forced to live in exile from the intellectuals

of Moscow. In March of 1897, he had suffered a lung

hemorrhage, and although he still made occasional trips

to Moscow to participate in the productions of his plays,

he was forced to spend most of his time in the Crimea

where he had gone for his health. He died of tuberculosis

on July 14, 1904, at the age of forty-four, in a German

health resort and was buried in Moscow. Since his death,

Chekhov's plays have become famous worldwide and he

has come to be considered the greatest Russian

storyteller and dramatist of modern times.
 
 
 
 

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