SOURCE: "Anton Chekhov," in A Panorama of Russian Literature, Barnes & Noble, 1973, pp. 175-86.

In the following excerpt, Lavrin investigates Chekhov's "method of showing the tragic nature of everyday existence in its ordinary everyday conditions. "

The impact of Chekhov on world literature seems in some respects stronger than that of any other modern Russian author after Dostoevsky. This applies to his plays even more than to his stories,¹ since he happens to be one of the reformers of the modern theatre and drama. Chekhov himself proclaimed (in one of his letters) the theatre of his time a 'skin disease, a world of muddle, of stupidity and high-falutin' which should be swept away with a broom.' He did not mind being such a broom even in the late 1880s when the only conspicuous reformer in this respect was Henrik Ibsen. Chekhov's inauguration of drama devoid of traditional plot and...