Small collected works. Chekhov A.

If modern Russia disappeared from the face of the Earth, then, according to Chekhov’s works, one could restore the picture of Russian life at the end of the 19th century in the smallest details, ”D. S. Merezhkovsky predicted in 1906. According to E. I. Zamyatin, "to study Russian life in this era, everything written by Chekhov is such a document as the annals of Nestor to study the beginning of Rus'." Nevertheless, Chekhov, whose work has had such a powerful influence on world culture, is often called the writer of the 20th century - and this is fair. He largely updated the poetry of prose, made a revolution in the theater, proposed a special type of relationship between the author and the reader: on equal terms, without obvious prophecy and teaching. In the works of Chekhov, the formula “speak different languages” ceased to be a metaphor, and this also became a discovery. In the reproduction of conflicts based on a misunderstanding of words, deeds of the behavior of another, even the closest person, Chekhov is as inexhaustible as in comic plots: an adult - a child, a man - a woman, a husband, a wife, the people - the intelligentsia, finally, a misunderstanding of himself. But apparently, in some respects, Chekhov argued with the 20th century. Maybe that's why the world of “gloomy people” created by Chekhov in the 20th century already seemed a lost paradise.