"swnsg10" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chekhov Anton)

CONTENTS

Introduction
Chronological List of Works
The Swan Song




INTRODUCTION

ANTON TCHEKOFF

THE last years of the nineteenth century were for Russia tinged
with doubt and gloom. The high-tide of vitality that had risen
during the Turkish war ebbed in the early eighties, leaving
behind it a dead level of apathy which lasted until life was
again quickened by the high interests of the Revolution. During
these grey years the lonely country and stagnant provincial towns
of Russia buried a peasantry which was enslaved by want and toil,
and an educated upper class which was enslaved by idleness and
tedium. Most of the "Intellectuals," with no outlet for their
energies, were content to forget their ennui in vodka and
card-playing; only the more idealistic gasped for air in the
stifling atmosphere, crying out in despair against life as they
saw it, and looking forward with a pathetic hope to happiness for
humanity in "two or three hundred years." It is the inevitable
tragedy of their existence, and the pitiful humour of their
surroundings, that are portrayed with such insight and sympathy
by Anton Tchekoff who is, perhaps, of modern writers, the dearest
to the Russian people.

Anton Tchekoff was born in the old Black Sea port of Taganrog on
January 17, 1860. His grandfather had been a serf; his father
married a merchant's daughter and settled in Taganrog, where,
during Anton's boyhood, he carried on a small and unsuccessful
trade in provisions. The young Tchekoff was soon impressed into
the services of the large, poverty-stricken family, and he spoke
regretfully in after years of his hard-worked childhood. But he
was obedient and good-natured, and worked cheerfully in his
father's shop, closely observing the idlers that assembled there,
and gathering the drollest stories, which he would afterward
whisper in class to his laughing schoolfellows. Many were the
punishments which he incurred by this habit, which was
incorrigible.

His grandfather had now become manager of an estate near