In 1879 Chekhov entered the Moscow University Medical School. At the age of 16, Chekhov became independent and remained for some time alone in his native town, supporting himself through private tutoring. The family was forced to move to Moscow following his father's bankruptcy. He attended a school for Greek boys in Taganrog (1867-68) and Taganrog grammar school (1868-79). 'When I think back on my childhood,' Chekhov recalled, 'it all seems quite gloomy to me.' His early years were shadowed by his father's tyranny, religious fanaticism, and long nights in the store, which was open from five in the morning till midnight. Yevgenia Morozova, Chekhov's mother, was the daughter of a cloth merchant. He also taught himself to read and write.

Chekhov's grandfather was a serf, who had bought his own freedom and that of his three sons in 1841. The family was forced to move to Moscow fol Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (Russian: Антон Павлович Чехов) was born in the small seaport of Taganrog, southern Russia, the son of a grocer.

There is a sense in which, to him, life remains a game, a diversion, a series of moves where the outcome isn’t especially important (as his casual approach to finding a solution to the family’s financial trouble reveals).īut what makes The Cherry Orchard such a rich and enjoyable piece of drama is the faint hint of the absurd in such details, so that they simultaneously operate on a symbolically true, but also borderline farcical, level.Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (Russian: Антон Павлович Чехов) was born in the small seaport of Taganrog, southern Russia, the son of a grocer. Other symbolic touches are easier to decipher: Gaev’s obsession with miming billiards and describing tricky moves in the game is symptomatic of the sort of life he has led: unlike Lopahin and other (former) serfs, he has enjoyed a life of leisure and hasn’t had to work hard for a living.

As Pennington and Unwin note, this is a comic moment, but it is comic because it foreshadows later twentieth-century plays by Pinter and Beckett, being almost proto-absurdist in its tone. By the same token, Ranevskaya, for all her attachment to the house and the cherry orchard, nevertheless leaves it at the end having forgotten Firs, her loyal servant, leaving him behind on his own.

The cherry orchard by anton chekhov