«Вишнёвый сад»

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.

A viewpoint is presented that Chekhov’s comedy may be considered as a polyphonic (in the musicological understanding of the term) reunion of melodic voices of different characters with whom the voice (self-awareness, behavior, squeamish and sneering attitude to other people) of the young footman Yasha is conspicuously and ominously discordant.

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 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.