Anton Chekhov

Playwright and master of the short story, born in Taganrog, SW Russia. He studied medicine at Moscow, and began to write while a student. His first book of stories (1886) was successful, and gradually he adopted writing as a profession. His early full-length plays were failures, but when Chayka (1896, The Seagull) was revived in 1898 by Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theatre, it was a great success. He then wrote his masterpieces: Dyadya Vanya (1900, Uncle Vanya), Tri sestry (1901, The Three Sisters), and Vishnyovy sad (1904, The Cherry Orchard). Meanwhile he continued to write many short stories, the best of which are unsurpassed in their medium. In 1897 he fell ill with tuberculosis and lived thereafter either abroad or in the Crimea. In 1901 he married the actress Olga Knipper (1870-1959), who remained for many years the admired exponent of female roles in his plays.