Writer-physician who treated the poor for free

Compiled by Ishara Mudugamuwa
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Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian short story writer and playwright. He was born in Taganrog, Southern Russia, on 29 January 1860.He was the third of six surviving children.His father, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov was a son of a former serf and ran a Grocery store in south Russia.

Chekhov’s mother, Yevgeniya was an excellent storyteller who entertained the children with tales of her travels with her cloth-merchant father all over Russia. Chechov remembered “our talents we got from our father, but our soul from our mother.”

Chekhov attended a school for Greek boys, followed by the Taganrog Gymnasium, now renamed the Chechov Gymnasium, where he was kept down for a year at fifteen for failing a Greek exam.

In 1876, Chekhov’s father was declared bankrupt after over-extending his finances on building a new house, and to avoid imprisonment fled to Moscow, where his two eldest sons, Alexander and Nikolai, were attending university.

The family lived in poverty in Moscow, Chekhov’s mother was physically and emotionally broken. Chekhov was left behind to sell the family possessions and finish his education.

Chekhov had to pay for his own education, which he managed by doing odd jobs such as private tutoring and selling short sketches to the news papers. He sent every ruble he could spare to Moscow, along with humorous letters to cheer the family up. During this time he read widely and analytically,including Cervantes, Turgener,Goncharov,and Sehopenhauer, and wrote a full-length comedy drama.

In 1879, Chekhov completed his schooling and joined his family in Moscow. In 1884, Chekhov qualified as a physician, which he considered his principal profession though he made little money from it while also treating the poor for free. 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 became a freelance journalist and writer of comic sketches. Ivaonov, Chekhov’s first full-length play was, a fairly immature piece of work compared to his later plays. His next play, The Wood Demon was also fairly unsuccessful as well as The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard. In 1901 he married actress Olgar Knipper,the interpreter of many of his characters. Anton Chekhov died of Tuberculosis at the health spa of Badenweiler, Germany, on 15 July 1904.