Where was Chekhov born? The great Russian playwright and master of small prose is known throughout the world, but not everyone can boast of knowledge of important information from his biography. About where Chekhov was born, how his childhood and youth flowed, is briefly described in this article.
Merchant City
What constitutes the writer’s personality is first and foremost his work. In the work of the Russian classic, children's impressions played a significant role.
In the second half of the 19th century, in the city where Chekhov was born, economic power was in the hands of merchants and merchants. As one of the most famous authors of dramatic works in world culture admitted, money in the lives of people, among whom he spent his childhood and youth, played an “ugly big role”. And yet, what settlement are we talking about? Where was Chekhov born? The hometown of which the author of The Cherry Orchard and Three Sisters spoke so unflatteringly is the southern picturesque Taganrog.
However, the critical view of the lifestyle that was characteristic of the main population did not extend to the writer’s attitude to the city itself. He loved Taganrog, although he once said that a small homeland ranks second in his heart after Moscow.
Children's impressions
The satire of the Russian classic was aimed, first of all, at the "petty penny bastard." Similar elements prevailed where Chekhov was born. The city of childhood has long been associated with the writer with severe trials and humiliating needs. The hardships caused by the ruin of his father, the lies, vulgarity and Pharisaism of the powerful of this world are all that left an indelible mark on the writer’s soul, but gave rise to a number of brilliant stories.
Moscow and Taganrog
A gloomy atmosphere reigned in the family where Chekhov was born. It is hard to say in which city the moral and spiritual formation of the hero of our story took place. After all, at the age of nineteen, he left his native home and went to Moscow. But it can be stated with accuracy that a true writer is born not only in works and continuous searches, but primarily in suffering. At least this is evidenced by the biographies of the great Russian authors. Chekhov's worldview began to form in childhood. And due to the difficult family situation, he was accustomed to work and discipline from adolescence. And so the Zemstvo doctor once left medicine and began to write. He had something to say to the townsfolk.
Already in the gymnasium years, Chekhov saw the difference between humility and the realization of his insignificance. He was a descendant of serfs, but strove for spiritual emancipation. The city where A.P. Chekhov was born taught him to hate slavish worship and humiliation of human dignity. But Taganrog also taught him love.
The image of the motherland
For the writer, his native places became holy and dear in a high national-patriotic sense. For him, his native city was an image of his homeland. Here he first read the books of Belinsky, Dobrolyubov and Herzen. And it was a small provincial town where Chekhov was born and lived in the most important period in his moral and spiritual formation, was associated with the first creative steps.
Chekhov arrived in Moscow with prevailing aesthetic and ethical views. They constantly deepened, but basically remained unchanged throughout life. And this is the importance that Taganrog acquired in the writer's work.
Two Taganrogs
The city where Anton Chekhov was born is a part of the southern Russian province. But it was thanks to the creator of the great works of prose and dramaturgy that he became legendary. The writer selflessly loved Taganrog. Chekhov's main dream was to see his native city culturally and reasonably arranged. He did his utmost to help his countrymen, but at the same time openly despised those who deprived ordinary Taganrozhites of basic living amenities and cultural goods.
The backwardness of some sections of the population was perceived by Chekhov with great bitterness, which served as the reason for the formation of an unfair opinion that the writer despised his hometown. This position was taken by many critics, while not making any clarifications about which Taganrog in question.
In one, there were clubs and theaters, gymnasiums and luxurious concert halls, periodical literary publications and well-equipped residential neighborhoods, in the other - prisons and monasteries, taverns and noisy taverns, there was "everything is unenviable and bad."
The first Taganrog was the birthplace of a great writer. The second is a city of innkeepers, shopkeepers, hypocrites and bigots. Chekhov had sincere sons feelings for one city; he treated others with deep disgust.
Taganrog in general, as something abstract, was never noble or merchant. It was a port city with developed trade, subordinated for the most part to the interests of representatives of the merchants, who had substantial power here but did not at all represent the main population. He was also a provincial town with small industry, and the indigenous inhabitants - cabmen, fishermen, movers, office workers, commoners and intellectuals - represented his true face.
Favorite city
While still in high school, Chekhov, as his comrades testified, took an active part in public life, protested against the violence of the gymnasium authorities. And once, together with classmates, he refused to take pictures with officials representing the local education system. Many years later, becoming a famous writer and visiting his native city, he did everything possible to avoid any meetings with high-ranking Taganrozh residents.
Soviet critics loved to write that, arriving in Taganrog, Chekhov invariably strolled along the working outskirts, touched the factories, poor embankments, and impoverished fishing villages. He loved to visit blacksmiths, and talked for a long time with the cabmen and his father's old friends. And then he spoke with heartfelt warmth about these people, emphasizing their hard work, hospitality, gentleness and talent. Perhaps it was so. But it should be said that at the sunset of life, every person who has lived for many years in another city begins to yearn for a small homeland. And Chekhov's admiration for the representatives of the working people was rather caused by nostalgia, and not by love for the working class.
The house where Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born, became in 1921 a branch of the museum dedicated to the life and work of the writer. In Taganrog, there are more than twenty memorial sites associated with the name of the Russian classic, which is extremely surprising for such a small provincial town.