ARTicles vol. 7 i. 3: Timeline of Checkhov’s Life

1860 – Anton Pavlovich Chekhov is born in the port town of Taganrog, the third son of shopkeeper Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov and Yevgeniya Yakolevna Morozova.

1876 – Chekhov’s father goes bankrupt and moves the family to Moscow, except Anton, who remains in Taganrog to finish his schooling.

1877 – Anton Pavlovich visits his family in Moscow, to find them living in poverty.

1879 – Chekhov completes high school and moves to Moscow, where he enrolls in the medical school at the University of Moscow on a scholarship.

1880 – Chekhov’s first short story is published in the comic journal The Dragon-fly. For the next seven years, he will write for various comic journals in Moscow and St. Petersburg, under various pseudonyms: Antosha Chekhonte, the Man without a Spleen, Doctor Who’s Lost His Patients, and My Brother’s Brother.

1881 – Chekhov writes the untitled play known today as Platonov. It is turned down by the Maly Theatre.

1884 – Chekhov finishes his medical studies and opens a general practice outside Moscow. He writes his only novel, The Shooting Party. He is diagnosed with tuberculosis.

1887 – Ivanov, Chekhov’s first full-length play, opens at Korsh’s Theatre in Moscow to mixed reviews.

1889 – The Wood Demon, an early version of Uncle Vanya, plays at Abramova’s Theatre in Moscow.  Critics pan Chekhov for “blindly copying everyday life and paying no attention to the requirements of the stage.”

1892 – Chekhov purchases a small farmstead in Melikhovo, just outside Moscow, and makes his home there. Here he heads the district sanitary commission in the midst of a cholera epidemic; he treats the poorest peasants for free.

1893 – Chekhov is romantically involved with Lika Mizinova, who later considers herself a prototype of Nina in The Seagull.

1895 – Chekhov’s health worsens. He writes The Seagull.

1896 – The Seagull premieres at the Alexandrinski Theatre in St. Petersburg. It is a total failure and Chekhov flees during Act Two.

1897 – The Moscow Art Theatre is founded by Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko. Chekhov is hospitalized and must travel to France for treatment.

1898 – On December 17, Stanislavski’s new production of The Seagull opens at the Moscow Art Theatre to rave reviews.

1899 – Uncle Vanya opens in the provincial cities of Kiev, Kharkov, and Nizhny Novgorod. The Maly Theatre in Moscow turns it down, considering it offensive to intellectuals. Chekhov sells all rights to his works and has a house built in Yalta, a balmy coastal city in the south. He moves there to help ease his tuberculosis.

1901 – The Moscow Art Theatre premieres Three Sisters to considerable acclaim. Four months after, Chekhov marries Olga Knipper, the actress who had played Arkadina in the Moscow Art Theatre’s production of The Seagull.

1902 – Chekhov’s complete works are published in eleven volumes. Olga Knipper suffers a miscarriage.

1903 – Chekhov finishes The Cherry Orchard. Chekhov’s health is deteriorating. He publishes his last short story, “Betrothed.”

1904 – The Cherry Orchard premieres at the Moscow Art Theatre on January 17. A celebration is held at the theatre in Chekhov’s honor. Chekhov dies six months later, in Badenweiler, Germany.

1909 – Chekhov is performed in English for the first time: The Seagull, at the Glasgow Repertory Theatre.

Brendan Shea is a first-year dramaturgy student at the A.R.T./MXAT Institute for Advanced Theatre Training.