A. P. Chekhov

Reflecting on the place of one of the main characters of A. P. Chekhov’s comedy “Cherry Orchard”, Ermolai Lopakhin, in the life and oeuvre of A. P. Skaftymov, the author shares his observations on the delicate inner link that exists between the object of close literary focus and complex life collisions of the scientist himself.

The rich motive of absentmindedness that pervades the last comedy by A. P. Chekhov «The Cherry Orchard» is regarded in this article from the perspective of the Parisian theme forbidden in the household and closely related to innermost passionate anxieties of Lyubov Andreevna Ranevskaya.

The article considers the image of I. N. Arkadina from the point of view of the acting phenomenon. An actress not only by her profession, but throughout her life, Arkadina constantly changes types, acts a part, does everything ostentatiously, which other «non-theatrical» characters behaving naturally put into even sharper relief.

In the process of studying drama, direct contacts between characters outlined by the author deserve special attention. Such contacts help to clearly identify the characters’ dispositions, the nature of their relationship, features of the mise-en-scène pattern. The article focuses on the role of such contact motives in A. P. Chekhov’s comedy The Seagull.

The article presents a systematic analysis of A. P. Chekhov’s early stories (1880–1884) in which the topic of medicine in the contemporary society is featured, as well as the images of doctors and patients, motives of illness and treatment. It is shown how Chekhov’s personal experience as a general practitioner influenced the problem range and poetics of the stories with this topic. Their genre and idea evolution has been traced in the author’s movement towards maturity.

The approaches to ‘thematic motives’ of F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel The Idiot outlined by A. P. Skaftymov in the 1920s unintentionally shed light on how the scientist comprehended the motives of love in A. P. Chekhov’s comedy The Cherry Orchard.

The article presents a wide panorama of consistent types of readerscharacters (in V. G. Belinsky’s terminology – shallow people and Old Believers, people of action and children of a certain doctrine), who on the pages of A. P. Chekhov’s prose and drama works with a different degree of expertise (affectedly, presumptuously, in a silly way, artlessly, passionately) judge the characters, works, literary craftsmanship of I. S. Turgenev, whose life has already expired.

The article focuses on studying the motives of the first canto of Inferno in A. P. Chekhov’s story Student. Possible allusions to the first canto are evident in Chekhov’s choice of the time and place of where the character experiences his spiritual drama, in the semantics and function of the locuses, and key motives highlighting the character’s path. The author assumes that Dante’s ideals might have given rise to Chekhov’s idea of the unity of life in the world.

In this article one of the metapoetic principles of A. I. Solzhenitsyn is analyzed – ‘a dialogue with a classic writer’. In his sketch Immersing into Chekhov Solzhenitsyn renders the pleasure of aesthetic insights from the encounters with Chekhov, enters into a conversation with him, argues with Chekhov’s world outlook. Thereby Solzhenitsyn’s own ‘creative lab’ is revealed to the reader.

In A. P. Chekhov’s prose such characters as journalists, reporters, news reporters, newspaper readers, and newspaper contributions themselves are introduced. The type of Chekhov’s reporter is studied, whose stereotypical behavior and character become a specialty of a kind. With the transition from comic stories to the ‘dull stories’ of the characters, with the enhancement of the underlying message, the reporters with their single-line depiction disappear from Chekhov’s works.