ABSTRACT
Anton Chekhov’s first published work consisted of feuilletons which were sketches from the life of his time, and his later work developed out of them. With hardly any exceptions he took his subjects from contemporary Russia, and aimed at making his pictures completely convincing in their representative quality. Turning from the geographical location of ‘Chekhov’s Russia’ to its place in history, we may note a few landmarks at least by which to take our bearings. It is the Russia of the ‘eighties and ‘nineties of the nineteenth century, an empire with an unbroken tradition of autocratic rule extending back for centuries. The civilising influence of Byzantium did not however survive the end of the Eastern Empire, as that of Rome lived on in the West, and Russia was relatively isolated culturally during the first centuries of the Tsardom of Muscovy.
