Talk:Anton Chekhov/Archive 1

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Second paragraph

The second paragraph seems to restate a number of things said in the first paragraph. I'm not qualified to make any changes, but anyone who feels like they are should clean that part up. 2.12.06

"Exclamation Mark"?

Didn't he write a short story called the Exclamation Mark? It's not mentioned here, I would add it but I don't know the date of publication. Anyone heard of it?--Mattyw 01:22, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Dutch spelling

Deleting the Dutch spelling of the name. Why do we care? This is the English Wikipedia. Only the English and Russian spellings need to be here. If you want to include the Dutch spelling, please do it on the Dutch Wikipedia.

Lir, is this a backdoor attempt leading up to a revival of your previous campaign to rename Christopher Columbus? RickK 04:44, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I can't think of a reason why one would want to include the Dutch spelling (aside from the fact that it is noteworthy), Im simply trying to revert back to some links that Wik removed without any reason that I can see. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Cleanup tag?

Should I add a cleanup sign to the article. Looks like this article has good use for cleanup and research. Chekhov is important. Mandel 07:21, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

I added an attention headline to this article. I'm not an expert on Chekov, but know enough to know that the current article needs to be redone. The "Influences" section is substandard. The fact that Kevin Spacey has acted in Chekov plays is not releveant. A good biography of the man, his relation to the Moscow Art Theatre and a brief overview of his plays would be far more apropos. I mean, c'mon- it's Chekov! 24.126.118.203 09:11, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)Japhy

Carver

I added the part on Carver, I was very suprised to find that he wasn't mentioned at all in the article.

Awful

Let me join the chorus, this article is AWFUL. It should be completely removed. I know (next to nothing) about chekhov, but there must be someone on wikipedia that wrote a thesis on the guy. protohiro 05:13, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The attention tag & the list of productions

I tried to help after seeing the notes above. My edits were done in stages so they can be easily traced. If you feel anything that I edited out is worth restoring, please do it. In addition to a lot of duplicate info, I found a lot of unsubstantiated, unattributed or tendentious text or useless trivia (like the last words "I die"), IMHO not fit for a serious encyclopedia. I also think the following long and hopelessly partial list doesn't belong in the article, so I took the liberty to shorten it down.

  • German theater director Peter Stein, the artistic director of the politically radical Berlin Schaubühne, included in his final productions for the Schaubühne Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters (1984).
  • French film director Louis Malle's last film, Vanya on 42nd Street (1994), follows a rehearsal in New York City of Uncle Vanya, a play by Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. Starring the same two principle actors of My Dinner with André, Vanya on 42nd Street blurs the distinction between life and theatrical performance.
  • The American theater critic and educator Robert Brustein has adapted numerous plays, including works by Chekhov and Ibsen.
  • Master of the short story, the British author Victor Sawdon Pritchett's short stories are prized for their craftsmanship and comic irony and have been compared to those of Anton Chekhov.
  • Playwright and character actor Wallace Shawn has played in the film made from the Anton Chekhov play Vanya on 42d Street (1994), where he played Vanya.
  • Belgian-born American playwright Jean Claude Van Italliehas also adapted works by Chekhov and other Russian writers in English dramatic versions.
  • Lanford Wilson is one of the most prolific playwrights in contemporary American theater. His version of Anton Chekhov's The Three Sisters was produced in New York City in 1997.

Let's work together to get rid of that cleanup tag. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 09:07, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There was no edits or discussions for a couple of weeks, taking off that tag. Restore it if you feel it is still necessary. ←Humus sapiens←Talk 16:46, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
I have restored the tag - clearly the article is far from finished - plus I would urge User Humus sapiens not to make some edits and changes of writing style to streamline the article in the way he or she deems fit, without consulting or considering previous editors' inputs. Yes, when the article is chaotic or incoherent, feel free to change - but not when the original is clear enough. For example, he or she constantly changes dashes to commas, garbling the punctuation, or reword a previous edit with no clear gain in clarity but merely flatten the meaning prosaically. It is exasperating to write a paragraph and then have it reworded for no reason, and with the emphasis changed.
Furthermore, some of his or her edits are obviously POV. Chekhov's stories are never considered "brilliant" (dictionary meaning of brilliant: "extremely clever technically"). It is a poor choice of description for what Chekhov writes. He or she then adds, oddly, that Chekhov merely "considered his writing a hobby". This is simply misleading - Chekhov's writing is a rich source of income for his family and he takes it seriously enough for them to call it his "mistress" - he is not a mere dilettantish.
Many other edits are baffling. Why put the Russian term for physician in brackets, for instance? This, after all, is not a cultural-specific term, and is completely superfluous.
In short, please refrain from making corrections to other editors' hard work without a clear idea of what you're doing. I understand you have good intentions, but we might all do better with a little more respect in Wikipedia. Mandel 19:27, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)

Odd assessment

I have been rereading some Chekhov these few days. There are some odd maintenance about his plays in this article though.

His plays commonly feature the struggle of a sensitive individual to maintain his integrity against the temptations of worldly success.

Unless I am reading a different playwright, I fail to see how this is the case. Neither of his four major plays show this. Mandel 20:12, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)

Completely agree. In particular, that "worldly success" looks absolutely inappropriate. Cmapm 00:00, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Copyright! - removed

It is often said that nothing happens in Chekhov's stories and plays, but he compensates for any lack of outward excitement by his original techniques for developing internal drama. His main themes are work and love, but his characters find lasting satisfaction in neither activity. His younger characters are usually portrayed as victims of illusion, the older ones as victims of disillusionment. The passage of time is a constant preoccupation, as are the trivialities of life and the desultory and unsuccessful search for its meaning. (Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia) Mandel 22:51, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Good Job

I'm going to see my first Chekov play this weekend, and I really enjoyed this Wikipedia article. I found it very helpful, well-organized, and NPOV. Maybe it's time to take the "edit this article" sticker off? It's certainly much better than the discussion contributors make it out to have been two years ago.

130.132.231.50 00:02, 25 October 2005 (UTC)Jason Green-Lowe, amateur Wikipedia user

Copyvio

I am not an expert on Chekhov, but I am an admirer of his work. And: This Chekhov article has passages lifted directly out of "Encyclopedia Britannica." Here's one that's a direct lift:

"Though already celebrated by the Russian literary public at the time of his death, Chekhov did not become internationally famous until the years after World War I, by which time the translations of Constance Garnett (into English) and of others had helped to publicize his work. Yet his elusive, superficially guileless style of writing—in which what is left unsaid often seems so much more important than what is said—has defied effective analysis by literary critics, as well as effective imitation by creative writers."

Wikipedia has just begun to garner legitimacy from the Scientific community--the magazine Nature has published an article this month adjuding Wikipedia as a repository of "accurate" and reliable information--and such lapses as in the Chekhov article are cause for concern. Granted, the magazine has assessed only Wiki scientific content, but surely the Humanities deserve to be up to par?

Is there not a Chekhov expert out there who could revamp and rewrite this article, for God's sake in her/his own words or paraphrases, instead of unacknowledged, plagiarized sentences and passages? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pchalla (talk • contribs) 01:26, December 19, 2005 (UTC).

I do not know of a way to see the article on Britannica, so I don't know which parts to remove - their website only gives a small snipplet of the article. If you wish, please be bold and remove the offending content yourself. Wikipedia already does not accept such copied content, since that is a copyright violation, so there is no need to plead.
Alternately, you can link us to a copy of the Britannica article. --AySz88^-^ 01:42, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I just found a way to access the article using Google's cache. I'm not familiar with Chekhov, but I might try to remove the offending content. I'm not sure it can even be used as a source, as technically I don't think this is supposed to be accessible. http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:p3w9CF_CLLMJ:www.britannica.com/eb/print%3FtocId%3D9022754%26fullArticle%3Dtrue --AySz88^-^ 01:45, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
A quick, though not fully reliable, diff (achieved by editing the article, copying and pasting the Britannica article in, and pressing "show changes") shows only that one paragraph to be a violation. It originated from an anonymous edit way back in February 2004. I'll go paraphrase that paragraph, though some of it seems to be somewhat dubious or opinionated anyway. --AySz88^-^ 01:54, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Done. If there are any other exceprts of concern, feel free to leave another message. --AySz88^-^ 02:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

The second paragraph seems to restate a number of things said in the first paragraph. I'm not qualified to make any changes, but anyone who feels like they are should clean that part up.

External link

Hi, I would like to add an external link to the World of Biography entry

  • probably the most famous portal of biography to this article. Does anybody have any objections?

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jameswatt (talk • contribs) 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Note: This user has added similar requests to link to biographies hosted on the same site to about 50 different articles. Although I believe that these requests were made in good faith, adding the links to all of the articles would be spamming. In addition, the biographies tend to be not very insightful and/or minimally informative, and the webpages contain Google AdSense links.
A fuller explanation of my own opinion on these links can be found here, if anyone wishes to read it.
Hbackman 23:39, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

The Butterfly

I have removed The Butterfly from the short story section because The Butterfly and The Grasshopper are one in the same story. The original Russian title for the story was Poprygun'ia, which tanslates in English most commonly as The Grasshopper, but some times as The Butterfly and The Dragonfly as well. The Halo (talk) 22:00, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Premiere of 'The Seagull'

It is erroneous to attribute the disastrous audience response to The Seagull's opening performance to "the audience was expecting a comedy". After all the name of the play is 'The Seagull: a Comedy in Four Acts'. Too often Chekov is interpreted as monotone gloom. More accurately, the role of Irina was played by a famous farceuse, and so the audience expected a farce. They were shocked by the realism of the play.

External links removed and placed here for scrutiny

I took out the following as not particularly helpful or professional; I present them here in case anyone disagrees and wants any of them back in. The Taganrog site is unnecessary, in my opinion. The "in-depth" review of Chekhov's stories is in my opinion not professional (it seems rambling and badly written), and Wikipedia:External Links suggests not linkiing to pages that contain unverified original research. Faina Ranevskaya is neither an external link nor very relevant. The collection of short stories had an uncomfortable layout (words all the way across the screen); and we already have links to Gutenberg, which has all the works, and to another set of short stories.

qp10qp 00:57, 31 October 2006 (UTC)


Propose deletion of "Trivia" section

I propose that the "Trivia" section on this page be deleted, for two reasons: first, none of the information in it is relevant or necessary; second, I think "Trivia" sections generally are undesirable. Honestly, an encyclopedia entry on Chekhov has no reason to mention that some TV show once made a joke about him. Fumblebruschi 17:43, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

While I agree that the item about the Family Guy isn't really notable and the same goes for the improv group and the book signing, but I do think the other two items are notable. Changing the heading to "Cultural references" would certainly change the tone of the section, as well as put it into prose. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 18:11, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
OK. I deleted the section and moved the relevant info into the text of the article. I removed the Family Guy, book signing, and improv group entries entirely, since I don't think they add anything to the article. Fumblebruschi 17:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Bit in lead

The stuff in the lead about him being incomparable etc. is a bit POV. I know it's referenced, but it's not a particularly good reference as its an opinion piece. If anyone doesn't object here, I'll remove it and replace it. HornetMike 14:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not an opinion piece but a review of Chekhov's early stories by George Steiner, a heavyweight literary critic, from the Observer, which has a serious literary section (you may be put off by the title, which is unSteinerlike and was probably written by a headings writer). The lead of the present article is bound to contain superlatives because Chekhov is held in ridiculously high esteem, both as a playwright and as a short-story writer, by writers, actors, and literary critics. I can easily replace this with similar statements, if you want me to do so, referenced to other leading writers, but I do not see how one can provide a lead critical of Chekhov or containing criticisms of Chekhov referenced to leading authorities, unless I pick out a critical comment by, say, Nabokov (who, even then, generally eulogises Chekhov). I chose the Steiner reference ahead of others because I felt it was intrinsically pithy and because it could be verified online. The lead is obliged to point to the subject's significance; see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies).
I do however intend to lengthen the lead at some point, so that it is a summary of the article. Maybe the critical praise for Chekhov that must be referred to in the lead will stand out less then. qp10qp 16:21, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Hiya. Just read the article, sorry, only skim-read it last time. Anyway, the lead is obliged to point out the subjects significance, yes, but there's a difference between what we have in the lead and pointing out his significance. Literary FAs such as Rudyard Kipling, Issac Asimov and Natalie Clifford Barney have referenced comments in their leads stating their significance.
E.g. in Asimov. "Asimov is widely considered a master of the science-fiction genre and, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, was considered one of the "Big Three" science-fiction writers during his lifetime.[2]" is more encycylopedic and particularly less superlative than "His best short stories are among the supreme achievements in prose narrative and regarded as world classics, while his brief playwriting career produced at least three plays which are incomparable and have altered the history of the theatre". I'm not saying suggesting scrap the statment of importance - I know very well how important Chekov is! - just it needs to be toned down a bit. HornetMike 19:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
The trouble with the "generally considered" formula is that it's more cumbersome to reference; you'd need about ten sources to back the claim up and the claim would have to be put in dreary neutral language or the individual references wouldn't back the specific wording. "Generally considered" also implies that "a minority do not consider". It's surprisingly difficult to find authoritative sources for the contrary view, however. What criticisms I have found of Chekhov have been specific criticisms within a framework of general praise. There are novel criticsms of Chekhov as a person in Rayfield, but not of his work. I'm aware of a vague notion that Chekhov's plays are boring and that nothing happens in them, but I can't find any authority actually saying that.
However, give me a few days. I propose to redraft the opening anyway (it does have the fault of being too short) and may be able to meet your substantive objection; but please spare us the dreary stodge that introduces so many author biographies on Wikipedia. qp10qp 23:25, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it is a poor introduction and suffers from peacock terms "that merely show off the subject of the article without imparting real information. Let the facts speak for themselves. If the (writer) is worth the reader's time, it will come out in the facts. Insisting on (his) importance clutters the writing and adds nothing." Cacophony 04:24, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm close to replacing the opening with a longer, more detailed intro; I've even, with some difficulty, found a few downers to balance the praise. The present wording will go, with the Steiner wording whittled down. Work in progress is at: User:Qp10qp/Sandbox The present structure I have in mind is: opening para on birth, death, sentence on what he's known for. Paragraph on plays. Paragraph on stories. Paragraph balancing critical opinion. qp10qp 04:50, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
I've now put up a rewritten version of the opening paragraph, and, despite the syntactical obstacles of the Russian names and old and new style dating, I don't think it's too stodgy. There still may seem too much praise for Chekhov, but I'm hoping to slip in a couple of downers in the next paragraph or two, including Tolstoy's lovely comment "You know, I cannot abide Shakespeare, but your plays are even worse". qp10qp 04:03, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I've finished a rewrite of the whole lead, which is now of a good size. Although the praise for Chekhov is still heavy, I've largely submerged the superlatives in the notes. As well as referencing modern critics, I've tried to seek out the views of heavyweight writers, including Tolstoy, Gorky, Woolf, Joyce, and Carver, so that we don't have "a crow in peacock's feathers", to use an expression of Chekhov's. qp10qp 03:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Hullo, forgot about this. Looks good! HornetMike 01:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

ISBN -> OCLC

I'm working on cleaning up ISBNs tagged as being in error, and came across this from this article:

<blockquote>But is it the end, we ask? We have rather the feeling that we have overrun our signals; or it is as if a tune had stopped short without the expected chords to close it. These stories are inconclusive, we say, and proceed to frame a criticism based upon the assumption that stories ought to conclude in a way that we recognise. In so doing we raise the question of our own fitness as readers. Where the tune is familiar and the end emphatic—lovers united, villains discomfited, intrigues exposed—as it is in most Victorian fiction, we can scarcely go wrong, but where the tune is unfamiliar and the end a note of interrogation or merely the information that they went on talking, as it is in Tchekov, we need a very daring and alert sense of literature to make us hear the tune, and in particular those last notes which complete the harmony.<ref>Woolf, Virginia, ''The Common Reader: No.I'', The Hogarth Press, 1925, ISBN 07012026371925 {{Please check ISBN|07012026371925 (too long)}}, p 223.</ref></blockquote>

Looking at WorldCat, it is unclear to me whether this reference is referring to this. or this

Being semi-bold, I am going to pick the latter, and re-cite the above block quote with the OCLC rather than the invalid ISBN. Kind Regards, Keesiewonder 18:11, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks. It's actually quite an easy quote for readers to check, because the book has often been republished and quoted. Checking on Amazon Search Inside Books, this quote comes up on page 172 of ISBN 015602778X.
Ah ... If that is the case, maybe we should switch to an ISBN citation since I believe ISBNs are generally better known than OCLCs. I was thinking that there was something special about the 1925 Hogarth edition.
By the way, if you are an ISBN expert, maybe you can tell me what happens now that the ISBN system is changing to a 13-figure format? Should we add numbers to all the ISBNs or leave them as they are? qp10qp 18:30, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not really an expert. There's some talk of this at this page. My sense is that it is going to take a good long time for the cataloging world to catch up with 13 digit ISBNs, and that just because the 13s exist, the 10s aren't immediately invalid. Also, it is a great job for a computer or a Bot to go through all the WP articles and convert the 10s to 13s. In fact, I believe this has already happened at least once. So, I'd say if you want to list only 1 ISBN, list the 10 unless only the 13 is available. You could also list both the 10 and 13. Just my 2 cents ... I'm relatively new here. Kind Regards, and Happy New Year! Keesiewonder 18:38, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I see. I don't think it matters what edition that quote is referenced to. As far as I recall, the Hogarth Press was a hand-printed affair in which Virginia and Leonard Woolf used to wind off the copies by hand in a shed; and so there's probably not much point quoting the first edition, which will be so valuable that no-one can actually get their hands on it to check. Anyway, thanks for your help (and on the Luther article, which I've also had to do with in the past). qp10qp 18:50, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Removal of The Seagull and Stanislavsky/Art Theatre section to The Seagull article

I disagree with that very strongly. This article is not too long, and the information was crucial to an understanding of why Chekhov became the playwright he did. What happened was that the fiasco of the performance made him give up playwriting; but then the Art Theatre, under Nemirovich-Danchenko and Stanislavsky, took up the play and entirely revived Chekhov's interest in the stage and its possibilities. Without these events The Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard would never have been written.

Donald Rayfield, in his biography of Chekhov, has a whole chapter titled The Flight of the Seagull, the only work to which he devotes a chapter. It wasn't just a crucial play for Chekhov but for the history of theatre, since it launched Stanislavsky and stimulated his innovations.

The most important thing about Chekhov is his works, which is why references to them are interwoven with biographical facts in this article. But the events surrounding The Seagull are particularly biographical. Without them, the article at that point begins to give more weight to where he lived etc. than to what he wrote, in my opinion, something I wanted to avoid. I intend to restore this integral material in a week or two's time unless reasonable objections to it are provided here, which anyway should be the done thing.

I'd add that in time I intend to rewrite The Seagull article — more than enough material exists to ensure a long and detailed article on that seminal play and the dramatic events surrounding its first performances, without need of depleting this article. qp10qp 07:24, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I've just looked at The Seagull article. It's not enough to transfer the notes without the references. What, for example, does "Allen, p 11" mean on its own? The books need to be fully listed. They took hours and hours to read and research, so lets not waste them. qp10qp 07:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Passed GA

This article surpasses the good article criteria, and is a fine example of Wikipedia's sometimes-overlooked articles on literature and literary figures. The authors and editors are to be commended. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Ambiguity in Early life section

The following sentence is ambiguous:

Chekhov was left behind to sell the family possessions and finish his education.

Is this talking about Pavel, or Anton? Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 06:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, I read the sentence wrong the first time I read it. I was bold and fixed it, though. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 06:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Good stuff in the 19th century Russians

Some of Checkov's plays are so magnificently tormented and depressing that I used to deliberately immerse myself in them in order to find solace and comfort from my own constant horrors of existence. --Francesco Franco aka Lacatosias 13:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

This quote is copyrighted and must be cited with the proper attribution.

We just started to read him

LOL, this is fun. We just started to read about him in our "Russian 310 - Russian Literature in English" class (April 10, 2007). He was the last notable author before the soviet period and wrote mostly short stories and plays. I think only one of his writings was long enough to not be a short story but still be too short to be considered a novel. Killer Swath 15:16, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Which school? Brutannica 01:58, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
California State University, Long Beach Killer Swath 02:06, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Religion

He's put in the "Russian Orthodox Christians" category, but I think a couple of quotes could be woven into the text to expound on this aspect:

"The critical eye Chekhov brings to Christianity by no means makes of him its sworn detractor. Certainly the oft-cited lines from his letters - 'I no longer have religion' 'when you perform an autopsy, even the most / inveterate spiritualist has to wonder where the soul is' - establish an absence of formal church allegiance. They provide, however, slim grounds upon which to prove that Chekhov was an atheist, or, in any event, that he was antagonistic toward religion." - Julie W. De Sherbinin, Chekhov and Russian Religious Culture: The Poetics of the Marian Paradigm, pp. 3-4. Northwestern University Press, 1997, ISBN 0810114046

"It was not that Chekhov was an atheist - although in the last years of his life he claimed to have no faith. His religious attitudes were in fact very complex and ambivalent. Chekhov had grown up in a religious family and throughout his life he retained a strong attachment to the rituals of the Church. He collected icons. At his house in Yalta there was a crucifix on his bedroom wall. He liked reading about the Russian monasteries and the lives of saints. From his correspondence we learn that Chekhov loved to hear church bells, that he often went to church and enjoyed the services, that he stayed at monasteries, and that on more than one occasion he even thought of becoming a / monk himself. Chekhov saw the Church as an ally of the artist, and the artist's mission as a spiritual one. As he once said to his friend Gruzinsky, 'the village church is the only place where the peasant can experience something beautiful' [...] Chekhov himself had religious doubts - he once wrote that he would become a monk if the monasteries took people who were not religious and he did not have to pray. But he clearly sympathized with people who had faith or spiritual ideals. [...] Chekhov was not overly concerned with the abstract question about the existence of a God. As he told Suvorin, a writer should know better than to ask such things. But he did embrace the concept of religion as a way of life - a basic moral code - which is what it was for him and what he thought it was for the simple Russian man." - Orlando Figes, Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia, pp. 346-7. Picador, 2003, ISBN 0312421958 . Biruitorul 16:10, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

It's an extremely difficult aspect to mention in the article without going into disproportionate detail or analysis. Chekhov said, for example: "I squandered away my faith long ago and never fail to be puzzled by an intellectual who is also a believer." From my reading of the stories, I would say that Chekhov didn't believe in anything or that life had any particular meaning; and for that reason, I am certain he was not a practising Christian. On the other hand—and this is one of the great beauties of Chekhov, I think—the very fact that he believed life was meaningless and all dreams, hopes, and longings futile seems to have been what gave him his compassion for human beings: he never begrudges anyone their consolations, nor has the arrogance to claim that he knows any more about what is right than they do.
He constantly refers to God in his letters and stories, perhaps out of tact towards his correspondents or empathy with his readers and characters, but also, of course, because he'd had such a religious upbringing. Janet Malcolm has said: "Whenever a Chekhov character undergoes a remarkable transformation, an allusion to religion appears in its vicinity, in the way mushrooms grow near certain trees in the forest."
As your quotes above show, his work reveals a deep fascination with and knowledge of Orthodox Christianity. But some critics, particularly Michael Finke and Louis Jackson, have detected not just an instinctive but a calculated network of religious symbolism in Chekhov's stories. (Julie de Sherbinin, for example, reads The Teacher of Literature—about a man who idolises and then is disillusioned with his wife—as a symbolic evocation of the two Marys of Russian Orthodoxy.) I have to say that I'd prefer not to place theories of that sort up front in the article, since Chekhov is surely more subtle than that. By all means, though, do make some edits (we already have a paragraph on The Steppe, probably one of Chekhov's most religiously symbolic stories—water is struck from a rock; the exodus theme; Moisey, the grass, the deluge—and we could perhaps insert something there to the purpose .qp10qp 23:08, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for those insightful comments. If you feel more needs adding, I'll defer to you, as you have a better sense of the overall flavour the text should have. Biruitorul 04:54, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


"Shambolic"

What would a 'shambolic' theater production be, if "shambolic" were a word? Did the writer mean it was a shambles? Not knowing about the historic production, I'm unable to supply a real adjective. --Wetman 16:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

OED defines it as "colloq. Chaotic, disorderly, undisciplined."; M-W as "chiefly British : obviously disorganized or confused". So it definitely is a word. Biruitorul 17:19, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I've inserted a link to shambolic on Wiktionary. ShadowHalo 19:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
It's more of a word than you thought, but possibly less of a word than I thought (I had no idea this was a purely British usage). It is certainly informal, but I wouldn't call it slang (it's not in my slang dictionaries, but they are British-edited). I suspect it's a word that will become more acceptable soon (it is used so much in the newspapers); but for the time being, OK, I will try to think of something else.
On the other hand, I don't see why Wetman needed to change joky into jokey, since they are both legitimate variants. Joky is the regular spelling, I suspect, and jokey the irregular (we don't have pokey or smokey, thank goodness—except when it comes to the bandits.) No matter. qp10qp 23:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Hey, I like "shambolic"! It's quite evocative, more potent, and I think more suitable than something plain like "disastrous" or "chaotic". Biruitorul 04:54, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

If anyone wants to do some wikithesaurusing to find the mot juste, here are some extracts from Chekhov's letter to his brother describing the first performance of Ivanov:

Well, the first performance is over. I will tell you all about it in detail. To begin with, Korsh promised me ten rehearsals, but gave me only four, of which only two could be called rehearsals, for the other two were tournaments in which messieurs les artistes exercised themselves in altercation and abuse. Davydov and Glama were the only two who knew their parts; the others trusted to the prompter and their own inner conviction....

Act Four, Scene One. The curtain goes up. Fine: The groomsmen come out: they are drunk, and so you see they think they must behave like clowns and cut capers. The horseplay and pot-house atmosphere reduce me to despair. Then Kiselevsky comes out: it is a poetical, moving passage, but my Kiselevsky does not know his part, is drunk as a cobbler, and a short poetical dialogue is transformed into something tedious and disgusting: the public is perplexed. At the end of the play the hero dies because he cannot get over the insult he has received. The audience, grown cold and tired, does not understand this death (the actors insisted on it; I have another version). There are calls for the actors and for me. During one of the calls I hear sounds of open hissing, drowned by the clapping and stamping.

I'm glad I looked that up, because I've just noticed for the first time that the death at the end was not Chekhov's idea. I'd always thoughtlessly assumed that he wrote the stock death because he'd not matured as a playwright yet. Now I think about it, though, he was already writing subtle short stories by this time. qp10qp 13:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Surprised - FA?

I'm very surprised this article clinched FA. It reads more like an incomplete essay than an encyclopedic entry and does not conform to Wikipedia standards (the dates for example). It's a little too POV, both in use of language, which is slangy (jokey, shambolic), and the choice of views. The writer often uses POV opinions from Chekhov's biographers: "dictionary of Chekhov's poetics", "The letters Chekhov wrote during the two-and-a-half month journey to Sakhalin are considered among his best". These are subjectivities which are difficult to justify objectively. "His best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics." - may I say "high esteem" is an understatement.

At the rate of one long quote every two sentences, there are too many quotations. The article reads jauntily. Quotes are alright for book-length biographies; here they confuse. The quotes throw up more quizzical questions than illuminate. "Everyone who saw him secretly thought the end was not far off," Mihail Chekhov recalled, "but the nearer Chekhov was to the end, the less he seemed to realize it." Yes, this begs the question: why? Why did Chekhov have a "horror of weddings"? What is a "submerged life in the text"?

The flow is weird: what need is there to mention Tolstoy several times in the lead paragraph? Tolstoy is neither representative nor influential as a critic. Then the choices of trivia: "kept dogs and tame cranes" (how many writers rear dogs? Hemingway, Tolstoy?), he "wrote serenely, the way I eat pancakes now" (did Chekhov have a pancake fetish?), "In his last letter, he complained about the way the German women dressed" (is this important? - was Chekhov anti-German?). My feel is that this article veers around too much with little focus. There is no examination (I mean an analysis, not a collection of quotes) into Chekhov's technique; his theater revolutions are not adequately represented, the rest are strung together by quotes. Could any voters of its current FA status justify their support? 121.6.217.80 13:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

It's difficult to write an article about a literary figure, which is why there are so few featured articles about them. "Held in high esteem" might seem like an understatement, but if you look higher up this page you will see that I was criticised for overemphasizing his quality. So I opted to use a careful but true statement and add references that would show how highly regarded he was by certain writers and critics.
I decided to use lots of quotes because Chekhov is a writer, and one who documented his life extensively in letters, diaries and notebooks. I don't believe that the article is like an essay, because it makes no arguments of its own. Where you might have a point is that in places I have repeated the opinions of critics and writers, which, as you say, are subjective; in this I have adhered to Wikipedia policy, but the question does arise "why this point?", "why that critic?" I tried to counter this by often multiple-referencing. If you look in the footnotes you will see that often one point in the text is referenced to more than one source. And I made sure I didn't pick idiosyncratic observations by biographers, but rather ones that were echoed elsewhere.
I tried to construct an article that didn't just provide a biography of Chekhov but one which also made an attempt to convey a feeling of his work: this is very tricky to do, and given the amount Chekhov wrote, it is impossible to do adequately. I made a decision to keep the article to a relatively short length rather than turning it into a wikitome, which would have ben very easy to do. I hope it provides an introduction to Chekhov, but it can't be comprehensive.
When you say, what is "a submerged life in the text", as Styan called it, you are touching on one of the key characteristics of Chekhov's writing, "subtext". I believe that this is fully addressed in the article and the notes. Which aspects of his "theatre revolutions" do you feel haven't been treated? I would be willing to look into any I may have overlooked.
I am happy to remove the two words you feel are slang, but I'm confident you couldn't make a long list of slang expressions in the article, because I dislike slang, and if I have used it, it was inadvertent.
I don't agree that Tolstoy was mentioned several times in the lead. He may appear to be mentioned twice, but he is actually mentioned in consecutive sentences to assist transition from one paragraph to another, from talk of the plays to talk of the stories. Tolstoy may not be influential as a critic, but he is influential as a writer, and I tried to mix the views of writers and critics throughout the article, since Chekhov is very highly rated among writers and enormously influential on many of them.
When you say there is no analysis of his theatre technique, I rather disagree. You need to read both the article text and the notes to get an idea of what makes him original as a playwright.
Yes I did make a decision to include some trivia (something his critics and biographers also do), like his keeping of dogs and cranes. Reading his biographies, I noticed how he loved his dogs. One of his most famous stories "The Lady and the Dog" has a dog in the title, and he wrote stories from the point of view of dogs, for example Kashtanka. He was also interested in bizarre pets such as cranes and mongooses. The reason I don't think these trivial touches are inappropriate in the article is because Chekhov didn't seem to think them inappropriate in his stories. It's very easy to forget that Chekhov was a comic writer. He often combines trivia with tragedy, and so I echoed that in the article by mentioning that in his last letter he criticised the dress sense of German women, and that his corpse was carried in a refrigerated carriage for oysters, and that some of the people at his funeral followed the wrong procession. (He was not anti-German (his wife had German parents): but he was in a German health spa at the time, which had been mentioned.) His last letters really are extraordinary: here is a man dying (and despite his jokiness and optimistic remarks to cheer people up, I think he knew he was dying) yet he is making the most trivial remarks imaginable about the women and the food. This is Chekhov.
The article sets out to say, look, here's a summary of Chekhov's life, these are some things he wrote, and here is what some writers and critics think of them and consider his special qualities. I tried to cover those aspects at reasonably short length while following Wikipedia policies as best I could (if I have formatted the dates wrongly in some way, please do change them). qp10qp 22:25, 19 April 2007 (UTC)


With respect for all, I agree on all points with the person (original poster) who pointed out the many ways this article can be improved and brought up to Wikipedia standards of objective, relevant, accurate information, concisely and clearly presented, without elaboration, opinion, point-of-view, or irrelevance. The writer(s) and researcher(s) of the article have done their job; I feel it is now the job of editors to clean it up and make it perfect. Softlavender (talk) 06:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal: List of works

where is the list over his work? This is missing from the article

You didn't notice this, then, I take it? DionysosProteus 19:21, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
That page is indicated under See Also. Unfortunately, one cannot add it or parts of it to this page since it is not of featured standard. The trouble is that Chekhov wrote hundreds and hundreds of stories. They have been given lots of different names and have been collected in all sorts of different volumes ever since, translated into many languages. There's therefore no room or possibility for a full list of his works on this page. The External Links section, however, will take the reader to various selected editions of his works. A list of selected works on this page might be a good idea, but it would require tremendous scholarship, I suspect. It would be original thought just to provide a list according to one's tastes or according to what one has read.qp10qp 19:30, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
On the contrary, I was disappointed to see my merger proposal dismissed out of hand without discussion when I suggested incorporating a list of his works into the main article. Criteria for a featured list are only that it be useful, comprehensive, factually accurate, stable, uncontroversial and well-constructed. Could you explain why including a list of his works would fail in any of these categories? I understand your concern regarding length, but the only reason I can think of to make an argument regarding length would be if adding a particularly long section would give undue weight to it within the larger article. An article about an author is hardly complete without a list of his works, and it would seem strange to argue that a list of an author's works gives undue burden to them. Bsherr 00:29, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
It is you who has to make the argument; and you should be prepared to reference the bibliography if you care about this. Those who wish to include the information must justify it. The reasons I removed the tag, which you have reinstated, are twofold: firstly, such a blaring template unnecessarily undermines the reader's faith in the article, and secondly, there is a bibliography of Chekhov, however faulty, on its own page, to which we link. In my opinion, this should be discussed on the talk page; we shouldn't have a merge tag on the article before we have compiled a page that is good enough to merge with this one.
I do not oppose the addition to the article of a selected scholarly bibliography of the best editions of Chekhov's works in English translation. I do oppose merging that very bad, unreferenced bibliography page (random, inaccurate in places; needs publication details because names vary from translation to translation) with this good page. The sort of list we need is something like the one at Mary Wollstonecraft#List of works, though Chekhov's would need to be much longer and the translation aspect would make it more difficult to achieve. That sort of list takes a great deal of work to compile; but if it is done, then, of course, the result would be a valuable addition to this article.
qp10qp 17:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)
After this interval, I would now like to try and remove the tag again. The lack of comments on the matter suggests to me that no one would be interested enough to spend the time to compile and reference the list. I have felt unhappy these past two months that the article is blotted by what I feel is an unnecessary tag. It does nothing to build the reader's faith in the article if it is tagged as if in development, which it isn't: the place for such proposals is surely on this page. If people want to look up Chekhov's work, they have the External links section for online editions and the separate bibliography article. qp10qp (talk) 14:25, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

About the Chekhov bibliography

Although not a Chekhov expert, I created the etexts of all 203 Chekhov stories translated by Constance Garnett used by Project Gutenberg. I have since used Russian collected editions to track down 601 of the stories. Some of these were very short pieces written for humor magazines.

Obviously a bibliography of all 601 stories and 17 plays would be beyond what an encyclopedia would need. However, I would be willing to put together a bibliography of the most commonly cited stories. The Garnett titles, were available, are considered standard in English.

Opinions? Jrusk (talk) 00:52, 31 December 2007 (UTC)


OK, I revised the Short Stories and Novellas. I noted that the list is only of the best-known stories, and I also included the Russian title in transliterated characters.

Jrusk (talk) 17:11, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

That is very useful. I still think it is best on the bibliography page. Before moving it to this page, it would need referencing, translators, alternative names, etc. It is obviously focused on your work with the Constant Garnett versions, and the readers of the main article do have an external link to those on Gutenberg. The stories mentioned in the article have individual links to the Constant Garnett versions too. Of course, later translations sometimes have different names. The plays are given in a template at the bottom of the article. qp10qp (talk) 23:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Rambling mess

While somewhat informative, I have to say that this article seems a rambling mess. The second and third (now third and fourth) paragraphs are misplaced. There needs to be VERY LARGE section devoted solely to his writings (as opposed to his personal affairs/life and his moves), possibly with separate sections on his plays and his short stories. Then there needs to be a section on "Legacy" and then a separate one on critical responses. I hope I'm not ranting; I don't have time to fix the thing and it's quite large and unwieldy as it is. At the very least, the over-long sections about his various locations need to have subheadings denoting what he wrote during those sojourns.

EDIT: Got rid of the offending early paragraphs by creating an "Overview" section. Softlavender (talk) 06:47, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

There doesn't need to be an overview section ("overview" isn't a word I've come across in books about Chekhov) or discrete sections, because there is more than one way of constructing this type of article. The style chosen was a biography with works treated chronologically. You are welcome to do better, but because he wrote so many small pieces, I felt that Chekhov suited the style adopted. I don't agree that the article rambles: look again and you will se that it is concise. When you say that a "very large" section needs to be added, I hope you don't intend to make this article too big. At the moment, I feel that it is a good length for an encyclopedia article.
You're right, there doesn't necessarily need to be a section called "Overview" -- the two-paragraph section on his writings could possibly simply follow the lead paragraph, but with the intervening info about his medical career, it's too much of a change of topic. If you want to remove the title of "Overiew," then I suggest moving the sentence about his medical career somewhere else. Alternatively, move the two paragraphs about his writing to the "Legacy" section. However, it is appropriate for any Wikipedia biography of any artist to have a brief, extremely objective overview of their style and work in the beginning of the article. The reason a lengthy article of this sort needs headings and subheadings like "Overview" is that it is an encyclopedia, not a book or a biography. People come to an encyclopedia to get information as quickly and as clearly and as concisely presented as possible. That's what headings and subheadings help to do. Also, since Chekhov is known for his writings, not for his moves, travels, health, personal happenstances, or medical career, the article needs to remain focussed around that -- because that is what people look to the article for -- however that is to happen. Anyone who wants to know his year-to-year happenstances can get a book/biography. I'm not saying this detailed biographical info needs to be removed, but it should not overshadow the writings and when they were written. Softlavender (talk) 05:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)


Your present edits have shortened the lead to factual biographical material, but criticism should be reflected in the lead too. qp10qp (talk) 12:22, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
No, critical responses belong at the bottom of the article, as they do for any work or any artist. Softlavender (talk) 05:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)


If you can do the reading and write a good extra section on criticism, the article would surely benefit. But please don't just move existing critical commentary around until it is all together. It has been placed in context and dovetailed into the text; there is also a danger of losing touch with the context of the original articles and books from which the points were selected (and which I have read). qp10qp (talk) 13:03, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I acknowledge that someone spent a whole lot of time creating and researching this article; in fact, it almost seems like a research article, thesis, or biography of some sort, not necessarily written specifically for Wikipedia. The thing is, one should not post information on Wikipedia unless one is willing to have it edited, encyclopedia-ized, and Wikified, as painful as that may feel. If someone gives adequate and encyclopedic reasons for proper edits, that must also be taken into consideration. The final allegiance must, in all cases, be to the reader of the article, not to any single Wikipedia author or editor. That's all I ask; and as a professional editor, I'd like to see this article much clearer and more accessible. I have done the courtesy of revealing that I removed some sentences, and where exactly they and their references can easily be found. The only information not currently in the article are Tolstoy's idiosyncratic opinions. If still deemed important enough for the article, those can be added in the "Legacy" section or in a new "Critical appraisal" section. The rest of the information is still in the article. Lastly, as florid as the prose of this article is, it is not as encyclopedic as it should be in my opinion, and again, as painful as it may be to have beautiful prose (and exhaustive research) edited, that is the nature of an encyclopedia. Softlavender (talk) 05:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I have no problem with your improving or suggesting improvements to the article: that goes without saying. But "improvement" is the criterion.
To addres some of your points: the lead, as far as I know, isn't an overview, but a pocket article reflecting the main article. This is because many people (I find myself doing this with many articles) read only the lead. Therefore, if there is a critical section in the article, there must be one in the lead. As far as Tolstoy goes, it is surprisingly difficult to find remarks critical of Chekhov, and if you check higher up this page (or archive), you will see that the lead was formerly accused of being too pro-Chekhov. On the question of whether the biography should go first, there is no hard-and-fast rule on that, but, on the whole, Wikipedia articles on literary figures tend to place the biographical material first. (I'm on my break, so I'll respond to your further points later). qp10qp (talk) 10:46, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
On the question of it seeming almost "like a research article, thesis, or biography of some sort, not necessarily written specifically for Wikipedia"—well, a research article and a biography are two different things. I assure you that it was written especially for Wikipedia. The idea was to introduce Chekhov's life and works to the readers of the encyclopedia. The article proposes no particular view or theory of Chekhov, so on that basis, for me, it lacks any characteristics of a research article or thesis; but it does conform to a biographical structure, as do many articles on Wikipedia—this is normal.
Could you point out where the prose is "florid". As a lover of Chekhov, I am an opponent of florid prose. Unfortunately, one is never able to objectively evaluate one's own prose, so I cannot address this without examples. qp10qp (talk) 21:42, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
In response to your point that "anyone who wants to know his year-to-year happenstances can get a book/biography", I would only say that biographies of Chekhov are huge. His is a particularly well-documented life, and what we have here is a very small representation of it. He lived in four places that affected his writing markedly: Tagenrog, Moscow, Melikhovo, and Yalta. Since a sense of place is so important in his work, it seemed to me appropriate to mark these four iconic locations out in the article; the two journeys, to Sakhalin and Badenweiler, are the other section markers. qp10qp (talk) 22:02, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Created "Overview" section and deleted a couple of sentences

I created an "Overview" section from the misplaced leading paragraphs, and in so doing deleted a few sentences which were inappropriate for a lead section: Tolstoy's negative (and positive) comments; Chekhov's renunciation of the theatre and the reversal of that renunciation; and the assertion that Chekhov originally wrote short stories "only for the money." I mention this in case someone wants to add those sentences back in, somewhere else in the article -- they do not belong at the top in my opinion. If someone wants to add them to the body of the article in appropriate places, they can be found by clicking "history" of the article, and checking the version of May 4, 2008, and then clicking "Edit this page" to collect the verbiage plus references. Softlavender (talk) 07:29, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I would just ask you to consider that this is an FA before overdoing the surgery you believe is needed. Yes, the article is unconventional in some ways, but this is permissible according to Wikipedia's principles. qp10qp (talk) 12:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi, being a featured article doesn't mean it can't stand improvement. Anyway, I have not moved anything, plus all the information remains in the article, except for Tolstoy's rather impertinent comments. I've addressed the other concerns above under the previous heading ("Rambling mess"), just now, so in order not to repeat myself I'll ask you to read my two new longer comments there. Softlavender (talk) 05:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)


Why do you think that Chekhov's renunciation of the theatre and the fact that he first wrote only for the money do not belong in the lead? qp10qp (talk) 12:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
The complex information about the specific theater and so forth is irrelevant to the lead of the article; it's far too specific and belongs in the biography section in my opinion, where it already is. If it bears mentioning upfront that he renounced the theater at one point, then that should go after the summary of his work and style, because it is less important. As far as short-story writing, "only for the money" is way too POV, and belies this: " ... early manuscripts reveal that he often wrote with extreme care, continually revising." Also the phrasing "as his ... ambition grew" is way too POV as well. What is more accurate is that he received critical praise from a mentor and then took his writing even more seriously than he had. If you want to mention, in the same hypothetical paragraph after the writing summary, that he began story-writing to help support his family, then that is accurate and appropriate. Softlavender (talk) 05:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with your removal of the information in the lead about the renunciation of the theatre and the production at the Art Theatre. (It went like this: '"Chekhov renounced the theatre after the disastrous reception of The Seagull in 1896; but the play was revived to acclaim by Constantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre, which subsequently also produced Uncle Vanya and premiered Chekhov’s last two plays, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard.") That to me does not seem "complex". It is unacceptable, in my opinion, for the lead not to mention the Art Theatre. The Moscow Art Theatre is one of the most famous in the world: without it, Chekhov would not have written Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard or rewritten The Wood Nymph as Uncle Vanya. Chekhov had renounced the theatre, and it was only the taking up by the Art Theatre of The Seagull that changed his mind. The meeting between Meyerhold and Stanislavski's theatre (with its new ideas) and Chekhov's play is therefore one of the most seminal in theatre history. I am surprised I have to argue this. I propose that the information be restored. qp10qp (talk) 22:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I believe the fact that Chekhov wrote at first only for the money is highly significant. I can't think of another great literary writer who started out as a mere hack, with no literary pretensions at all. Unfortunately, the material he published while still in Taganrog has not survived, and neither have his first attempts in Moscow (or at least, among the thousands of anonymous bits and bobs, jokes, news reports etc, in those papers, his have not been identified). The comment about the way he wrote the early material that does survive does not apply to his first pieces, obviously; but if that was the impression given, I can tweak the wording. (There is no contradiction, however, between writing out of financial necessity and attending to one's craft.) Removing from the lead the fact that Chekhov at first wrote only for the money deprives the lead of any commentary at all on why he first began to write: this seems to me to me unhelpful. qp10qp (talk) 22:45, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
On the issue of POV, I disagree with you. You say that it is "way too POV" to say that at first he wrote only for the money, and that the phrasing "as his ambition grew" is also way too POV. There are many ways to interpret the Neutral POV policy, parts of which I helped word; you obviously have a different interpretation from me, and I do not believe these phrasings or points are POV.
The statement that he first wrote only for the money is a standard critical view that is, for our purposes, neutral. Ernest Simmons (P. 65), for example, says: "Unlike many of the great literary artists at the beginning of their careers, Chekhov did not experience any compelling inner urge to express himself. He had no new word to say to a disturbed and expectant world, nor did moral and social problems agitate his mind and cry out for solution in artistic form. Chekhov began quite simply because he had to earn money". The comment that he revised his work does not "belie" this but balances it—which is the reason for including it.qp10qp (talk) 23:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
The phrasing "as his ambition grew", which you have also removed, is not POV but a statement of fact, backed up by the source and by all sources. Chekhov consciously (he spoke of this in letters) began writing as a literary artist and sought innovations in form. qp10qp (talk) 23:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I happened by this conversation, decided to read about Chekhov, and I have a few comments. (Incidentally I chose to read a Feb 21 version, "as of" some edits by the editor who appears to have written most of it.)

  • The lead was better before. Softlavender, you may not be familiar with how the introductory portion of (long) articles is written on Wikipedia?—this is detailed at WP:LEAD, and there is no need for an immediately following section called "Overview". I don't know what the intrinsic merit of such a section would be for this article, regardless of how it's usually done on Wikipedia. I am going to put back the material in that section into the "lead" proper.
  • I don't find the article to be written in a "non-encyclopedic" tone, nor to be non-neutral in POV. Maybe there are one or two places; the only one that caught me was "with a little string-pulling by Grigorevich". A few names should be introduced to the reader: Tomsk, Shcheglov, Donald Rayfield, Stanislavski's 'system'.
  • I agree there are a few too many quotes. I'd remove, for example, "They began to go to bed...".
  • Structurally I think it's fine. Of course it would be desirable to say a bit more about the writing and literary criticism. Every lit bio gets away with its own amount of this; but work lists can be boring (see how this approach was abandoned at the now-featured Mario Vargas Llosa—then and now), and I think a decent job is done of talking about the works in the context of the bio.

In summary, I am writing to say that while of course there is room for tweaking, filling out of thoughts, maybe even expansion—much is good here, and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. –Outriggr § 05:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Edit to Bartlett point

Of all your edits, Softlavender, the following is the one that troubles me the most, because it strays beyond opinion into misrepresentation.

You have changed Chekhov is now the most popular playwright in the English-speaking world after Shakespeare

to

Chekhov is one of the most popular playwrights in the English-speaking world after Shakespeare.

You justify this change in your edit summary by saying "added 'one of' -- the opinion of a professor of Russian is unsourced, unproven, and unobjective".

But do you realise that by not sourcing the change yourself, you have now referenced a point to Bartlett that she didn't actually make? Bartlett quite plainly states that Chekhov is the most popular playwright after Chekhov in the English-speaking world (this is a generally known fact, by the way, derived from the number of productions mounted). Her claim to authority here is not as a professor of Russian, as such, but as the editor of scholarly editions of Chekhov and as the author of the marvellous Chekhov: Scenes from a Life, which I have read. You may disagree with her, but she is an impeccable source. qp10qp (talk) 23:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Infobox image

I have reverted the infobox image back to the previous version. Please see this edit summary and make a response before restoring the Braz image. Thanks. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 16:53, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

"There is a frequently reproduced portrait of Chekhov by an artist named Joseph Braz that is remarkable for its complete failure to capture Chekhov's likeness. (Chekhov said it made him look as if he were sniffing horseradish.)" - Malcom, Janet (2001). Reading Chekhov. New York: Random House. p. 96. ISBN 0-375-50668-3. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 18:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Tomsk?

I don't understand the prominence/weight given to this city, i.e. as part of a section title and the inclusion of the related anecdote. C. spent only a few days there on his way to Sakahlin island and by all reports didn't think much of it. Although the city's response is humorous, is this relevant enough to merit inclusion in an encyclopedia, with the addition of a photo as well? Photo space is precious on this page. I'd like to remove this stuff and add in more info on Sakahlin but I'm stating my intention here first. Any thoughts? ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 19:41, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Tomsk should be in the title of the section; but the reason for its prominence here is that we only have detailed documentation for Chekhov's journey to Sakhalin and not for his activities there, his report being more of a sociological study. Presumably, he did not have time to write many letters from Sakhalin, where he was very busy. We have to remember that Chekhov was a writer, and that his letters on this journey are said to be among his best. The comic events of his stay in Tomsk are very Chekhovian. It is also hard to find much criticism of Chekhov, and the article has at times been accused of favouring him too much: the Tomsk incident shows him in a rather unfavourable light, for once, which adds balance. However, the material on Sakhalin could certainly be expanded.qp10qp (talk) 19:56, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Short Stories

Should we add a list of short stories + summaries that Chekhov wrote? Maybe make an article for some of them too? --71.58.29.180 (talk) 23:58, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes. --BDD (talk) 03:50, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Rosamund Bartlett article

This citation is, to put it lightly, bullshit. We can't take the word of one biographer who makes such inflationary claims. She says Chekhov is the second most popular playwright in the English-speaking world after Shakespeare. Based on what criteria? Her opinion, no doubt. Even more egregious is this statement:

And, of course, if you ask any writer whom they revere as the founder of the modern short story, the chances are the answer will be Chekhov.

What the hell? Is she not aware that both Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne were born, wrote, and died before Chekhov even came into this world? And that's just American authors I can think of off the top of my head. I propose this Guardian article be removed as a citation and its exaggerations removed from this encyclopedic work. Who's with me? --BDD (talk) 03:50, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I am indifferent on the matter. I assume that Bartlett bases the point on number of productions rather than a guess, and I have come across it before. (Have just checked on Google Books, and a similar point is made by others: somebody must have done a quantitive survey of English-speaking productions.) However, I have changed the sentence to "Despite Chekhov's eminence as a playwright, some writers believe his short stories represent the greater achievement". I've removed the Bartlett ref there, but she is retained as the source for the Carver quote, which doesn't depend on her scholarship.
We should be clear that the quotation in italics above is in the Guardian article and not the Wikipedia article. Our article has additional references and quotations for Chekhov's seminal contribution to the short story. Believe it or not, the general adulation of Chekhov among writers has been toned down in this Wikipedia article; it is remarkably difficult to come across critical commentary that denies his importance to the modern short story. Joyce and Woolf—two of the key modernists—gave Chekhov, not Poe or Hawthorne, as their precursor.qp10qp (talk) 15:49, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

About Chekhov's ethnicity

This must be an act of vandalism to mention Chekhov as Ukrainian. The provided link leads us to an article by some Olena Chekan who insists Chekhov claimed to be "Little Russian" (Maloros) during general census in 1890. Where is the real document? This is just ridiculous.ISasha (talk) 19:49, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree he is not Ukrainian. He was from Tagenrog, Russia. His grandmother was Ukrainian, he had Ukrainian relatives on her side, and he spent holidays in Ukraine and later lived there. But he was Russian. qp10qp (talk) 02:50, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Isn't the fact that his grandma was Ukrainian not enough at least to mention in the infobox his Ukrainian ethnicity? It's not a problem to include also another one, if there are reliable sources that he had Russian-ethnic, Tatar-ethnic, German-ethnic etc ancestors too. It's just usual thing to have not only one ethnicity, but more because of mixed blood. Even Tahanrih city lies among Ukrainian-populated and Ukrainian-speaking land (roughly extending till Rostov-on-Don).--Riwnodennyk ✉ 11:40, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
There are enough sources about Chekhov's ethnicity on the internet and it's a well-known fact. [1] [2] The main link given in the article is the Ukrayinsky Tyzhden magazine, one of the most reliable mass-media in Ukraine. Chekhov's father was born in Vilkhovatka village in Sloboda Ukraine. [3] Ukraine itself was an important subject area in Chekhov's works. --Riwnodennyk ✉ 11:03, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Stop spamming the article. And stop your accusation of fascism. It doesn't matter where his father was born. It was a part of the Russian Empire anyway. Chekhov studied in a Greek school, later in a Russian gymnasium. Himself, his relatives spoke only Russian, his works were all written in Russian. Nobody denies that he might have some distant Malorossian relatives, but it does not make him an ethnic Ukrainian.
What do u think can make person ethnic “someone”?--Riwnodennyk ✉ 12:05, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Ethnic traditions, the language, ancestral rituals, religion, culture. Maybe something else. ISasha (talk) 12:14, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Now, as to your "serious references" - it is a fashion now in Ukraine to promote Ukrainian culture and heritage. I will also give you some links - http://h.ua/story/76090/ , http://observer.sd.org.ua/news.php?id=13201 - this one claims that Jesus Christ prayed in Ukrainian, the second http://kp.ua/daily/150508/41874/ - makes Achilles a Ukrainian hero. And the third one - http://h.ua/story/74967/ - claims that Jewish tsar David danced hopak. These are also very reliable mass-media of the Ukraine. ISasha (talk) 11:17, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I have to say that these fake articles you suggest are from the trash resources (h.ua and observer.sd.org.ua), where anyone can write what he imagines, like blogs. Another one (kp.ua) is a type of yellow press. The links I provided about Chekhov are not a kind of this. --Riwnodennyk ✉ 11:28, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
I see no difference in the quality of articles. To me it sounds the same as imagining Jesus pray in Ukrainian language. Chekhov cannot be identified with Ukrainian ethnic group because he studied in a Greek school and in a regular Russian Chekhov Gymnasium, at home his family spoke Russian, he wrote all of his literature in Russian. Thus there is no reason even to discuss it.ISasha (talk) 11:54, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
Three of Chekhov's grandparents were Russian and one was Ukrainian. Chekhov's father Pavel is described as Russian by biographers writing in English, and sources in English are favoured for Wikipedia. Anton Chekhov was born and brought up in Taganrog, which, however close to Ukraine, was in Russia. He wrote for a Taganrog paper in Russian. Yes, part of his background was Ukrainian—and he was proud of it—but by all normal definitions, he was Russian. qp10qp (talk) 14:30, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Naturalism & symbolism

According to the Oxford ED, "[Chekhov's] work, which portrays upper-class life in prerevolutionary Russia with a blend of naturalism and symbolism, had a considerable influence on 20th-century drama." I noticed there's no mention of naturalism or symbolism at all in this article, should there be?—DMCer™ 07:59, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

White Dacha

I hope it is OK to put this here. There is a new article on Chekhov's White Dacha in Yalta that needs a bit of help if it is to make it to the Did You Know. Can anyone help? Best wishes (Msrasnw (talk) 15:46, 25 January 2010 (UTC))

New WikiProject: Russian literature

Hello,

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Russian literature. Yann (talk) 03:49, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

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