Anton Chekhov – Timeline 1860-1904

1860 - Born January 29 in Taganrog, Russia.

1876 – Chekhov’s father declares bankruptcy and flees to Moscow where his two eldest sons are living. He takes the whole family with him apart from Anton (Chekhov) whom he leaves behind to finish his education and sell off remaining possessions.

1879 - Chekhov re-joins his family in Moscow, having gained a place at Moscow Medical University. Having settled in Moscow Chekhov assumes reponsibility for the family and supports both them an himself through writing short stories.

1887 – Chekhov wins the Pushkin Prize for “best literary production distinguished by high artistic worth.”

1894 – Chekhov starts writing The Seagull in his country villa in Melikhovo

1896 – The Seagull premiers at the Alexandrinsky Theatre and is a fiasco booed by the audience and rediculed by critics. Chekhov renounces theatre.

However the play catches the attention of another playwright Nemirovich-Danchenko who is so impressed by it he convinces Constantin Stanislavski to direct it for the innovative Moscow Art Theatre in 1898. Stanislavski's attention to psychological realism and ensemble playing coaxed the buried subtleties from the text and restored Chekhov's interest in playwriting. The Art Theatre commissioned more plays from Chekhov and the following year staged Uncle Vanya, which Chekhov had completed in 1896. Chekhov and Stanislavski become great collaborators and work together for the rest of Chekhov’s life.

1897 – Chekhov suffers a major lung haemorrhage of the lungs and with great diffculty is admitted to hospital. The doctors diagnose tuberculosis in the upper part of his lungs and order a change of lifestyle.

1898 – Chekhov’s father dies and he buys a villa in Alushta near Yalta and moves there with his sisters and mother. He plants trees there and keeps dogs and tame cranes. He entertains Tolstoy there, and with great difficulty writes Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard for the Art Theatre which each take him over a year to write.

1901- 25 May Chekhov marries Olga Knipper an actress a former protegée and sometime lover of Nemirovich-Danchenko whom he had first met at rehearsals for The Seagull. They share a peculiar marital arrangement whereby she stays in Moscow to persue her acting career and he largely in his villa in Yalta. Of marriage he wrote, “give me a wife who, like the moon, won't appear in my sky every day.”

1904 – Chekhov dies finally from tuberculosis on holiday with his wife Olga in Germany. He is 44 years old. She wrote of the event:

“Anton sat up unusually straight and said loudly and clearly (although he knew almost no German): Ich sterbe. The doctor calmed him, took a syringe, gave him an injection of camphor, and ordered champagne. Anton took a full glass, examined it, smiled at me and said: "It's a long time since I drank champagne." He drained it, lay quietly on his left side, and I just had time to run to him and lean across the bed and call to him, but he had stopped breathing and was sleeping peacefully as a child...” www.wikipedia.com