Chekhov´´ s Self-Assessment and Assessments of His Work by His Contemporaries

Abstract

The author addresses the question of how Chekhov's assessments of his work diverged or, on the contrary, coincided with the assessments of his contemporaries. Chekhov was equally characterized by personal modesty and sobriety of judgment, and therefore his reviews of his own work were often excessively harsh. On the other hand, the phenomenon of the rejection of early Chekhov by contemporary critics is well known. Before the writer became a "living classic", critics found many shortcomings in his stories and plays, but after recognition by the mass reader, the same critics often saw only virtues in the same texts. The Symbolists played a special role in establishing Chekhov's literary reputation, such as Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Andrei Bely. These Symbolist poets, acting as critics, no longer reproach Chekhov for the lack of a unifying “general idea” and do not see his merit in the fact that he expresses “longing” for such a social idea. They note completely different qualities that are close to themselves: a feeling of uncertainty and understatement, close to the influence of music (Dmitry Merezhkovsky), or a “thinning of reality” almost to a symbol (Andrei Bely). These and other properties of Chekhov’s world, after the performances of the Moscow Art Theater, received the name “Chekhov’s mood” that became entrenched in the public consciousness.