When Anton Tchekhof first came to the fore, no less an authority than
Tolstoy said: "Russia has given birth to another Turgenev." The estimate
was not overdrawn. Tchekhof was indeed a modern Turgenev. Perhaps not as
universal, because Turgenev, having lived in western Europe, in close
contact with conditions outside of Russia, dealt with more variegated
aspects of life. But as a creative artist Tchekhof is fitted to take his
place with Turgenev.
Tchekhof is preëminently the master of short stories. Within the limits
of a few pages he paints the drama of human life with its manifold
tragic and comic colors, in its most intimate reflex upon the characters
who pass through the panorama. He has been called a pessimist. As if one
could miss the sun without feeling the torture of utter darkness!
Tchekhof wrote during the gloomiest period of Russian life, at a time
when the reaction had drowned the revolution in the blood of the young
generation,--when the Tsar had choked the very breath out of young
Russia. The intellectuals were deprived of every outlet: all the social
channels were closed to them, and they found themselves without hope or
faith, not having yet learned to make common cause with the people.
Tchekhof could not escape the atmosphere which darkened the horizon of
almost the whole of Russia. It was because he so intensely felt its
oppressive weight that he longed for air, for light, for new and vital
ideas. To awaken the same yearning and faith in others, he had to
picture life as it was, in all its wretchedness and horror.
This he did in "The Seagull," while in "The Cherry Orchard" he holds out
the hope of a new and brighter day.