RU-A006-2001

Great Russian Writers -- LOCATED IN I.A.S. OFFICE

Video

VHS

International Studies

No

Available

An illuminating biography filmed where the author lived and worked. Anton Chekhov, short-story and dramatist, is unquestionably one of the greatest writers in Russian literary history. Chekhov was born Jan. 29, 1860 in Taganrog, Ukraine, and was educated in medicine at the University of Moscow. He rarely practiced medicine because of his success as a writer, and because he had tuberculosis. Modern critics consider Chekhov one of the masters of the short-story form. Using themes relating to the everyday life of middle class, Chekhov portrayed the pathos of life in Russia before the 1905 Revolution. He depicted the futile, boring, and lonely lives of people unable to communicated with one another. In Russian theater, Chekhov's plays, like his stories, are studies of the spiritual failure of characters in an aristocratic society that is disintegrating. His most famous play include, The Sea Gull (1896), Uncle Vanya (1899), The Three Sisters (1901), and The Cherry Orchard (1904). Chekhov developed and new dramatic technique, which he called "indirect action." In a Chekhov play important dramatic events take pplace offstage. Some of his plays were originally rejected in Moscow, but his technique has become accepted by modern playwrights and audiences. Chekhov died while at a spa in Germany on July 15,1904. Director: Anton Chekhov. Color. Country: Russia. -- LOCATED IN I.A.S. OFFICE (I.A.S. now located in Old McMillan 254.)