Anton Chekhov

Though a playwright out and out, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, popularly known as Anton Chekhov, is remembered the best for his short fiction. The short stories by Anton Chekhov are the landmarks in literature and the Russian originals have been translated into different languages of the world on a mass scale. He wasn’t only the writer of his region and age; he immortalised himself by the class of writing that he produced. He was a great writer and his legacy is enough to pose him on a pedestal just below one of the greatest in Russia, Leo Tolstoy.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in Taganrog (Russia) on 29 January 1860. He lived a short life and could live only until 1904. Chekhov was a primarily a physician only to be rarely known as one… His life would only be remembered as a writer of some quality short fiction.

Talking about the literary career, he produced a novel, novellas, short stories, plays and also some non-fiction work. His only published novel was titled The Shooting Party which appeared in 1884. He produced many plays out of which the popular ones can be lined up as follows:

A Marriage Proposal
The Wood Demon
The Seagull
Three Sisters and
The Cherry Orchard

The major share of fame is born by the short stories written by Anton Chekhov. He wrote many short stories and almost all of them are epitomes in the literary line of short fiction today… however, there are some of the best that the critics agree to. Here is a list of his best short stories:

The Grasshopper
The Bet
Oysters
The Chameleon
The Huntsman
Vanka
The Lady with the Dog
The Bride
The Death of a Government Clerk

and the list goes on… as you please!

The remarkable thing about the short stories by Chekhov is that they don’t let you rest as the simple fiction readers. They communicate with you; the talk to you; they convey… the stories of Chekhov aren’t mere silent texts – they make noise! Nevertheless, his short stories aren’t filled with bombastic metaphors or similes. He writes in simple terms and conveys his ideas simply. Writing on him, Maxim Gorky, another great Russian, once wrote:

“Beautifully simple himself, he loved everything simple, genuine, sincere, and he had a peculiar way of making other people simple.”

True; Anton Chekhov was a writer who believed in communicating to the readers by the means of his wit involved in producing literature. The Death of a Government Clerk is the short story which will let you sneak in into the minuteness of Chekhov’s thought process. There are seldom the people in the literary fraternity who disapprove of the qualities that Anton Chekhov possessed as a short story writer. The Grasshopper tells us the simple difference between the world we live in and the world are fancy… it’s an eye opener… abstract cannot be the real!

In short and to conclude, in his rather short life span, Anton Chekhov lived a life which made him a forever living thought… he won the Pushkin Prize for his literary productions. His short stories will always be there as the benchmarks for good ones.