Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich

Though originally trained as a doctor, Anton P. Chekhov is known as a very productive Russian playwright and author of many short stories.

Biography
Anton P. Chekhov was born in 1860 in Taganrog in Southern Russia.

In 1876, the father - a shop owner, son of a former serf - was declared bankrupt, and the family moved to Moscow, leaving the young Chekhov in Taganrog, where he supported himself giving private lessons and writing for the paper. He joined the family in 1879 and entered Moscow University to study medicine, continuing his writing to support the family.

Though finishing his medical education in 1884, he only worked as a physician for a short time before he was hired by the newspaper Novoe Vremya, where he made his living. In the time that followed, Checkhov became well known in the literary circles of Moscow.

In 1887, he travelled to Ukraine to recover from illness, which inspired him to write several well-known works.

In 1890, Chekhov took a longer trip to Sakhalin, where he spent some time in the penal colony. This period had a great personal influence, and he published a work more in the genre of social science in 1893 & 1894 about his thoughts and experiences in Sakhalin.

In 1892, Chekhov bought an estate at Melikhovo, where he went into organising relief for famine and disease for the peasants, and he offered medical assistance, though he himself suffered from tuberculosis. Many of Chekhov's playes and stories feature the character of the country doctor, and he wrote several of his more famous plays while at Melikhovo.

As his illness progressed, he was sent to a clinic, and in 1898 he bought land in Yalta on the Crimea to have a place for his recovery. Impatient with living in the country, he continued writing plays for the Moscow Art Theatre.

In 1901, he married Olga Knipper, who was an actress working with Constantin Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theatre. She continued working there while he stayed in Yalta.

He passed away in 1904.

*Dates added - 01.29.1860-06.15.1904 - are of the new style, but Russia didn't adopt that until 1918, so one will often encounter the dates 01.17.1860-07.02.1904.*