WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.919 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are opening 00:00:02.919 --> 00:00:05.780 up the files on a man who might just be the most 00:00:05.780 --> 00:00:08.300 misunderstood figure in the history of literature. 00:00:08.640 --> 00:00:11.560 And I know that sounds like a massive exaggeration 00:00:11.560 --> 00:00:14.179 to kick things off with, but honestly, once you 00:00:14.179 --> 00:00:17.280 dig into the reality of his life versus the reputation 00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:20.920 he has, the gap is enormous. It is a bold claim, 00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:23.320 but I think the evidence backs it up completely. 00:00:23.440 --> 00:00:25.760 The public perception of this guy has been, you 00:00:25.760 --> 00:00:28.899 know, frozen in amber for about 100 years. And 00:00:28.899 --> 00:00:32.039 it's mostly wrong. I think so, too. Yeah. Because 00:00:32.039 --> 00:00:35.240 if I ask you or really. anyone listening right 00:00:35.240 --> 00:00:37.960 now, to picture at Anton Chekhov, what is the 00:00:37.960 --> 00:00:40.399 immediate mental image that pops up? Oh, it's 00:00:40.399 --> 00:00:42.439 always the same. It's usually pantsnake glasses, 00:00:42.740 --> 00:00:46.539 a neatly trimmed goatee, and a bunch of aristocrats 00:00:46.539 --> 00:00:48.679 sitting in a drawing room staring out a window, 00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:50.960 sighing about how boring their lives are. A grandfather 00:00:50.960 --> 00:00:53.700 of gloom. That's the standard caricature. We 00:00:53.700 --> 00:00:55.960 tend to think of him as this delicate, intellectual 00:00:55.960 --> 00:00:59.520 master of the moody silence. The guy you read 00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:01.740 when you want to feel sophisticated, but, you 00:01:01.740 --> 00:01:04.980 know. Kind of depressed. Yeah, exactly. But the 00:01:04.980 --> 00:01:07.879 stack of research articles and biographies we 00:01:07.879 --> 00:01:10.719 have on the table today tells a story that is 00:01:10.719 --> 00:01:14.579 almost violently different from that image. We 00:01:14.579 --> 00:01:18.140 are looking at the life of a man who didn't start 00:01:18.140 --> 00:01:21.459 as a high -minded artist, but as a guy. writing 00:01:21.459 --> 00:01:24.659 like dirty jokes for tabloids just to keep his 00:01:24.659 --> 00:01:27.299 family from being evicted. A man who was a practicing 00:01:27.299 --> 00:01:30.540 doctor his entire adult life. His whole life. 00:01:30.700 --> 00:01:33.239 Literally treating cholera outbreaks and conducting 00:01:33.239 --> 00:01:35.780 autopsies while writing literary masterpieces 00:01:35.780 --> 00:01:39.340 in his spare time. It's unbelievable. And a man 00:01:39.340 --> 00:01:41.760 who, at the very height of his fame, decided 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:43.959 to travel thousands of miles across a frozen 00:01:43.959 --> 00:01:46.819 wasteland to interview convicts in a penal colony 00:01:46.819 --> 00:01:48.859 just because he felt guilty that he wasn't doing 00:01:48.859 --> 00:01:51.219 enough. And perhaps most famously, a man who 00:01:51.219 --> 00:01:53.400 lived this intense double life. There's that 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:55.219 famous quote of his that really sets the stage 00:01:55.219 --> 00:01:56.799 for everything we are going to discuss today. 00:01:56.939 --> 00:01:59.140 Oh, yeah. It just establishes the core conflict 00:01:59.140 --> 00:02:02.200 of his existence. He said, medicine is my lawful 00:02:02.200 --> 00:02:05.010 wife and literature is my mistress. Which is 00:02:05.010 --> 00:02:08.169 just such a fantastic line. It feels very naughty 00:02:08.169 --> 00:02:10.830 for the 19th century. But it wasn't just a metaphor 00:02:10.830 --> 00:02:12.969 for him, was it? No, not at all. He literally 00:02:12.969 --> 00:02:15.870 lived that duality until the day he died. So 00:02:15.870 --> 00:02:19.430 our mission today is to explore how this grocer's 00:02:19.430 --> 00:02:22.090 son, who wrote purely to keep his family from 00:02:22.090 --> 00:02:24.969 starving, ended up inventing the modern short 00:02:24.969 --> 00:02:28.430 story, revolutionizing the way actors act, all 00:02:28.430 --> 00:02:30.710 while hiding a fatal illness from everyone he 00:02:30.710 --> 00:02:33.250 loved. It is a story of incredible resilience 00:02:33.250 --> 00:02:35.930 and honesty. A massive amount of hustle. Yes. 00:02:36.069 --> 00:02:37.990 This isn't a story about a guy waiting for a 00:02:37.990 --> 00:02:40.110 muse in a garden. It's about a guy grinding it 00:02:40.110 --> 00:02:42.449 out against impossible odds. So let's rewind. 00:02:42.610 --> 00:02:44.150 We have to start with the origin story because 00:02:44.150 --> 00:02:46.669 Chekhov's childhood, well, looking at the notes 00:02:46.669 --> 00:02:49.590 here, it sounds absolutely brutal. It's not the 00:02:49.590 --> 00:02:51.990 aristocratic upbringing people assume he had, 00:02:52.110 --> 00:02:54.250 given the subject matter of his plays. Not even 00:02:54.250 --> 00:02:57.250 close. It really frames his later obsession with 00:02:57.250 --> 00:03:00.789 human dignity. Anton Chekhov was born in 1860 00:03:00.789 --> 00:03:04.240 in Taganrog. This is a port city in southern 00:03:04.240 --> 00:03:07.620 Russia on the Sea of Azov. And you have to picture 00:03:07.620 --> 00:03:10.460 this place. It's dusty. It's full of grain merchants 00:03:10.460 --> 00:03:14.099 and smugglers. It's hot. It is definitely not 00:03:14.099 --> 00:03:17.360 the cultural hub of St. Petersburg. And the family 00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:21.629 dynamic seems... Volatile, to put it mildly. 00:03:21.650 --> 00:03:23.629 So putting it politely, complicated is the word 00:03:23.629 --> 00:03:26.669 usually used in textbooks, but abusive is probably 00:03:26.669 --> 00:03:29.370 more accurate. Right. His father, Pavel Chekhov, 00:03:29.490 --> 00:03:31.849 was the son of a former serf. He had bought his 00:03:31.849 --> 00:03:34.530 own freedom. He ran a grocery store. But his 00:03:34.530 --> 00:03:37.030 real passion, his obsession, really was the church 00:03:37.030 --> 00:03:39.650 choir. Right, the choir. This seems like such 00:03:39.650 --> 00:03:42.030 a weird detail to be traumatic, but it was. Oh, 00:03:42.050 --> 00:03:45.229 it was. Pavel was a devout Orthodox Christian, 00:03:45.389 --> 00:03:47.930 extremely strict. And he was the director of 00:03:47.930 --> 00:03:49.830 the church choir. He forced his sons, including 00:03:49.830 --> 00:03:52.409 Anton, to sing. He treated it like a military 00:03:52.409 --> 00:03:54.909 drill. The research mentions this anecdote that 00:03:54.909 --> 00:03:57.150 really stuck with me. To the congregation looking 00:03:57.150 --> 00:03:59.430 up at the choir loft, these boys looked like 00:03:59.430 --> 00:04:02.590 little angels. It was this perfect image of piety 00:04:02.590 --> 00:04:05.409 and family unity. But Chekhov later recalled 00:04:05.409 --> 00:04:07.490 that they didn't feel like angels at all. No, 00:04:07.610 --> 00:04:10.289 he said they felt like little convicts. That 00:04:10.289 --> 00:04:13.009 phrase, little convicts, that's heavy for a kid. 00:04:13.289 --> 00:04:16.689 It implies a total lack of freedom. It is. And 00:04:16.689 --> 00:04:19.410 it's so telling. In a letter later in life, he 00:04:19.410 --> 00:04:22.009 actually described his childhood as a time of 00:04:22.009 --> 00:04:25.350 suffering. Wow. He recalled the horror and disgust 00:04:25.350 --> 00:04:27.410 he felt when his father would throw a tantrum 00:04:27.410 --> 00:04:29.209 at dinner just because there was too much salt 00:04:29.209 --> 00:04:32.490 in the soup. He would scream. He would call Chukov's 00:04:32.490 --> 00:04:35.910 mother a fool. It was a household ruled by despotism 00:04:35.910 --> 00:04:39.009 and lying. And physically abusive, too. Yes. 00:04:39.420 --> 00:04:42.240 The father believed in the rod. Yes. Beatings 00:04:42.240 --> 00:04:45.040 were common. Pavel believed in the old school, 00:04:45.300 --> 00:04:48.939 spare the rod, spoil the child mentality. So 00:04:48.939 --> 00:04:51.459 you have this sensitive, observant boy growing 00:04:51.459 --> 00:04:53.500 up in a house where he's constantly walking on 00:04:53.500 --> 00:04:55.860 eggshells, trying to anticipate his father's 00:04:55.860 --> 00:04:58.910 moods. But the mother, Eugenia. She was the counterweight 00:04:58.910 --> 00:05:01.310 in this equation, wasn't she? She was. She was 00:05:01.310 --> 00:05:03.970 a cloth merchant's daughter. And unlike the father 00:05:03.970 --> 00:05:07.149 who was rigid and intensely local, she had traveled 00:05:07.149 --> 00:05:09.269 all over Russia as a child with her father. She 00:05:09.269 --> 00:05:11.370 was an excellent storyteller. Ah, so that's where 00:05:11.370 --> 00:05:13.129 you get some of it. Chekhov always said they 00:05:13.129 --> 00:05:15.170 got their talent from their father because Pavel 00:05:15.170 --> 00:05:17.889 did have an artistic side, however twisted, but 00:05:17.889 --> 00:05:20.310 they got their soul from their mother. She was 00:05:20.310 --> 00:05:22.470 the warmth in that cold shot. So you have this 00:05:22.470 --> 00:05:25.870 sensitive kid in a volatile house, singing hymns 00:05:25.870 --> 00:05:29.089 he hates, dodging his father's temper, working 00:05:29.089 --> 00:05:32.490 in the grocery store hauling oil and tea. But 00:05:32.490 --> 00:05:36.709 then, in 1876, the bottom falls out completely. 00:05:36.949 --> 00:05:39.649 The crisis. This is the moment that changes the 00:05:39.649 --> 00:05:42.410 trajectory of the entire family. Pother, the 00:05:42.410 --> 00:05:44.709 father, had overextended himself building a new 00:05:44.709 --> 00:05:47.189 house. He wanted to look successful. You know, 00:05:47.189 --> 00:05:49.449 he wanted to be a big shot in Tigenrog. Keeping 00:05:49.449 --> 00:05:51.949 up appearances. But he was actually cheated by 00:05:51.949 --> 00:05:54.790 a contractor. The debts piled up. And in Russia 00:05:54.790 --> 00:05:57.269 at that time, debtor's prison was a very real 00:05:57.269 --> 00:05:59.509 threat. It wasn't just declare bankruptcy and 00:05:59.509 --> 00:06:02.310 restart. It was a hole you got thrown into. So 00:06:02.310 --> 00:06:04.930 what does Pavel do? Does he face the music? No, 00:06:04.949 --> 00:06:07.649 he runs. He runs. He flees to Moscow where his 00:06:07.649 --> 00:06:09.970 two older sons were studying, effectively hiding 00:06:09.970 --> 00:06:12.189 from his creditors. The mother and the younger 00:06:12.189 --> 00:06:14.589 kids followed him shortly after to escape the 00:06:14.589 --> 00:06:18.009 shame and the bailiffs. But not Anton. No. And 00:06:18.009 --> 00:06:20.029 this is a part that feels like a movie script 00:06:20.029 --> 00:06:23.769 where the protagonist is tested. At 16 years 00:06:23.769 --> 00:06:27.149 old, Anton is left behind in Tigenrog. All alone. 00:06:27.629 --> 00:06:30.829 All alone. Why? Why leave a 16 -year -old behind? 00:06:31.610 --> 00:06:33.730 Well, he had to finish his schooling. That was 00:06:33.730 --> 00:06:36.129 the practical excuse. But more importantly, someone 00:06:36.129 --> 00:06:38.709 had to deal with the mess. He had to sell off 00:06:38.709 --> 00:06:41.029 the family's household possessions to pay off 00:06:41.029 --> 00:06:43.670 the immediate creditors. He was basically the 00:06:43.670 --> 00:06:46.290 liquidator of his own childhood. Imagine that. 00:06:46.370 --> 00:06:49.310 You're 16. Your family vanishes to the big city 00:06:49.310 --> 00:06:52.709 to escape prison. And you are left in the empty 00:06:52.709 --> 00:06:54.790 shell of your house, which isn't even yours anymore. 00:06:55.069 --> 00:06:57.889 Right. The house was taken by a man named Selivanov. 00:06:58.129 --> 00:07:00.509 He was actually a lodger who had bailed the family 00:07:00.509 --> 00:07:02.350 out previously, but then he bought the house 00:07:02.350 --> 00:07:04.490 for a fraction of its value. Oh, that's brutal. 00:07:04.709 --> 00:07:07.029 And Anton actually had to pay rent to this guy 00:07:07.029 --> 00:07:09.269 to keep living in a corner of his own childhood 00:07:09.269 --> 00:07:11.889 home. That sounds incredibly familiar. If you 00:07:11.889 --> 00:07:14.050 know Chekhov's place, specifically the Cherry 00:07:14.050 --> 00:07:17.670 Orchard. That scenario rings a huge bell. A businessman 00:07:17.670 --> 00:07:20.430 buying out the family estate and the family being 00:07:20.430 --> 00:07:23.550 displaced. It's almost autobiography. Chekhov 00:07:23.550 --> 00:07:25.490 lived that loss of home before he could even 00:07:25.490 --> 00:07:28.129 grow a beard. He understood what it meant to 00:07:28.129 --> 00:07:30.290 lose your place in the world. And he didn't just 00:07:30.290 --> 00:07:32.730 sit there and feel sorry for himself. This is 00:07:32.730 --> 00:07:34.829 where that hustle you mentioned comes in. The 00:07:34.829 --> 00:07:37.910 source material lists the jobs he took to survive. 00:07:38.920 --> 00:07:41.480 Private tutoring, obviously helping younger kids 00:07:41.480 --> 00:07:44.259 with their Latin and math. But there's one detail 00:07:44.259 --> 00:07:47.500 here that I absolutely love. Catching and selling 00:07:47.500 --> 00:07:50.519 goldfinches. Goldfinches. It just shows you the 00:07:50.519 --> 00:07:53.040 level of scrappiness. He was out there trapping 00:07:53.040 --> 00:07:55.699 birds to sell at the market for pennies. And 00:07:55.699 --> 00:07:58.699 here is the kicker. He wasn't just supporting 00:07:58.699 --> 00:08:01.279 himself. No. He was sending money to his family 00:08:01.279 --> 00:08:04.430 in Moscow. Because they were destitute. Absolute 00:08:04.430 --> 00:08:06.430 poverty. They were living in basements, changing 00:08:06.430 --> 00:08:08.790 apartments, constantly freezing in the Moscow 00:08:08.790 --> 00:08:12.610 winter. So this teenager living alone in Taganrog 00:08:12.610 --> 00:08:15.870 is sending them cash. And crucially, he's sending 00:08:15.870 --> 00:08:18.610 them funny letters. He's writing humor to cheer 00:08:18.610 --> 00:08:20.889 them up while he's effectively an orphan in his 00:08:20.889 --> 00:08:23.790 own hometown. That period, those three years 00:08:23.790 --> 00:08:27.189 alone, must have forged some serious steel in 00:08:27.189 --> 00:08:29.740 him. It created an independence that defined 00:08:29.740 --> 00:08:32.799 him forever. He learned that he couldn't rely 00:08:32.799 --> 00:08:34.639 on his father. He couldn't rely on the system. 00:08:34.960 --> 00:08:37.480 He had to be the adult. He became the parent. 00:08:37.580 --> 00:08:39.379 He essentially became the father figure to his 00:08:39.379 --> 00:08:42.259 own father. He wrote a letter to his cousin during 00:08:42.259 --> 00:08:44.559 this time saying, I have learned to paint a smile 00:08:44.559 --> 00:08:49.419 on my face. So fast forward to 1879. He finally 00:08:49.419 --> 00:08:52.340 finishes school, catches a train to Moscow, and 00:08:52.340 --> 00:08:54.500 reunites with the family. He gets into medical 00:08:54.500 --> 00:08:56.980 school at Moscow University. You'd think, OK, 00:08:57.139 --> 00:09:00.120 he's made it. He's on the path. But the reality 00:09:00.120 --> 00:09:02.960 of their life in Moscow was grim. Grim is an 00:09:02.960 --> 00:09:05.360 understatement. His father couldn't find steady 00:09:05.360 --> 00:09:08.279 work. He was too proud, too difficult and, frankly, 00:09:08.399 --> 00:09:11.679 broken by the bankruptcy. So Anton, the student, 00:09:11.779 --> 00:09:14.120 takes on the burden. And this is where the double 00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:17.059 life really begins. To put food on the table 00:09:17.059 --> 00:09:19.779 and pay his medical tuition, he starts writing. 00:09:20.220 --> 00:09:21.659 And we need to be clear here. We aren't talking 00:09:21.659 --> 00:09:24.340 about high art. He wasn't sitting down to write 00:09:24.340 --> 00:09:26.399 the great Russian novel to compete with Tolstoy. 00:09:26.440 --> 00:09:28.759 Not at all. This is the Antosha Chakante era. 00:09:29.200 --> 00:09:31.659 Antosha Chakante. That was his main pseudonym. 00:09:31.720 --> 00:09:35.320 He also wrote as Man Without Spleen, which is 00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:37.840 just a fantastic name for a medical student writer. 00:09:38.019 --> 00:09:41.039 I love that. Man Without Spleen. i'd read that 00:09:41.039 --> 00:09:43.159 blog today or sometimes my brother's brother 00:09:43.159 --> 00:09:45.960 he was writing for the equivalent of like buzzfeed 00:09:45.960 --> 00:09:49.659 lists or tabloid gossip pages short humorous 00:09:49.659 --> 00:09:52.379 sketches of russian street life for weekly papers 00:09:52.379 --> 00:09:55.519 jokes about mother -in -laws drunk merchants 00:09:55.519 --> 00:09:58.080 corrupt officials the volume of work he produced 00:09:58.080 --> 00:10:00.120 during this time is staggering he was writing 00:10:00.120 --> 00:10:03.600 daily he admitted later that he wrote mechanically 00:10:03.600 --> 00:10:06.600 half consciously He said he cared nothing about 00:10:06.600 --> 00:10:09.320 the reader or himself. It was purely a transaction. 00:10:09.639 --> 00:10:13.080 Words for rubles. He was churning out vignettes 00:10:13.080 --> 00:10:15.519 about chaotic weddings and confused peasants 00:10:15.519 --> 00:10:17.919 just to buy bread. If he didn't write a joke, 00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:20.159 the family didn't eat. It's the classic 10 ,000 00:10:20.159 --> 00:10:22.080 hours principle, isn't it? He didn't think he 00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:23.779 was making art. He was just trying to get paid. 00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:26.340 But in doing so, he was learning how to sketch 00:10:26.340 --> 00:10:28.820 a character in three sentences because he didn't 00:10:28.820 --> 00:10:32.279 have space for four. Precisely. The strict word 00:10:32.279 --> 00:10:34.419 limits of these cheap papers forced him to be 00:10:34.419 --> 00:10:37.059 concise. He couldn't ramble like the big novelists. 00:10:37.080 --> 00:10:39.820 He had to hit the joke and get out. By 1882, 00:10:40.179 --> 00:10:43.799 he's writing for Oskolki, or Fragments, which 00:10:43.799 --> 00:10:46.220 was a leading humor magazine. But the tone was 00:10:46.220 --> 00:10:49.620 harsh. He was satirical, sometimes cruel. He 00:10:49.620 --> 00:10:52.299 hadn't found that famous Chekhovian empathy yet. 00:10:52.360 --> 00:10:55.019 He was just trying to survive the grind. That 00:10:55.019 --> 00:10:58.100 shift happens with a specific event. I love this 00:10:58.100 --> 00:11:00.200 part of the story. It's like the call to adventure 00:11:00.200 --> 00:11:02.720 in a hero's journey. The Grigorovich letter. 00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:06.379 1886. This is the turning point. Dmitry Grigorovich 00:11:06.379 --> 00:11:08.659 was a literary celebrity at the time. He was 00:11:08.659 --> 00:11:11.039 an old man, very respected, kind of the elder 00:11:11.039 --> 00:11:13.299 statesman of Russian letters who had discovered 00:11:13.299 --> 00:11:16.080 Dostoevsky decades earlier. A deal. A huge deal. 00:11:16.240 --> 00:11:18.519 He happens to read a story by Chekhov called 00:11:18.519 --> 00:11:21.100 The Huntsman. And The Huntsman isn't a joke story. 00:11:21.379 --> 00:11:24.440 No, it's a bit sadder, a bit deeper. It's about 00:11:24.440 --> 00:11:26.679 a hunter who meets his estranged wife in the 00:11:26.679 --> 00:11:29.460 woods. And Grigorovich is floored. He writes 00:11:29.460 --> 00:11:32.100 a letter to this young, unknown hack writer. 00:11:32.340 --> 00:11:34.600 And he basically tells him, stop wasting your 00:11:34.600 --> 00:11:38.480 time. He told him, you have real talent. He said 00:11:38.480 --> 00:11:40.159 it was a talent that placed him in the front 00:11:40.159 --> 00:11:42.740 rank of the new generation. But he gave him a 00:11:42.740 --> 00:11:46.220 stern warning. Stop doing this hack work. Stop 00:11:46.220 --> 00:11:49.299 rushing. You are sinning against your gift. Respect 00:11:49.299 --> 00:11:52.360 your talent. Imagine getting a DM from, I don't 00:11:52.360 --> 00:11:54.580 know, Stephen King or Hemingway today telling 00:11:54.580 --> 00:11:57.179 you that your blog posts are genius, but you 00:11:57.179 --> 00:12:00.539 need to get serious. How did Chekhov react? He 00:12:00.539 --> 00:12:02.980 said the letter struck him like a thunderbolt. 00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:06.139 He wrote back a confession. He admitted that 00:12:06.139 --> 00:12:07.879 he had been writing his stories the way reporters 00:12:07.879 --> 00:12:10.519 write up notes about fires, just getting it done 00:12:10.519 --> 00:12:22.980 mechanically. He said, But, and this is the key 00:12:22.980 --> 00:12:24.779 to understanding him, he didn't quit his day 00:12:24.779 --> 00:12:27.559 job. Never. He qualified as a doctor in 1884. 00:12:27.860 --> 00:12:30.340 And even as he started winning awards, like the 00:12:30.340 --> 00:12:33.259 Pushkin Prize in 1888, he kept practicing medicine. 00:12:33.559 --> 00:12:35.889 And often for free. He treated the peasants, 00:12:35.970 --> 00:12:38.149 the poor. This is crucial for understanding his 00:12:38.149 --> 00:12:40.570 writing. You have to realize most Russian writers 00:12:40.570 --> 00:12:43.970 of that time were aristocrats. Turgenev, Tolstoy. 00:12:44.129 --> 00:12:46.429 They observed the peasantry from the window of 00:12:46.429 --> 00:12:48.529 a carriage or from the balcony of their estate. 00:12:48.990 --> 00:12:52.190 They had a romanticized view of the people. But 00:12:52.190 --> 00:12:54.450 Chekhov was touching them. Literally. He was 00:12:54.450 --> 00:12:56.909 smelling the sickness, lancing the boils, delivering 00:12:56.909 --> 00:12:59.610 the babies in dirt floor huts. He saw the ugly 00:12:59.610 --> 00:13:02.029 bodies, the disgusting death. There's a story 00:13:02.029 --> 00:13:04.830 mentioned in the notes. Peasants. It's brutal 00:13:04.830 --> 00:13:08.009 in its honesty. It is. He describes the cramped, 00:13:08.090 --> 00:13:10.490 unhealthy living conditions with a clinical eye. 00:13:10.769 --> 00:13:14.669 There is no noble savage myth in Chekhov. He 00:13:14.669 --> 00:13:17.389 once wrote in his notebook, aristocrats, the 00:13:17.389 --> 00:13:20.710 same ugly bodies, the same toothless old age 00:13:20.710 --> 00:13:23.929 as with market women. Wow. The doctor in him 00:13:23.929 --> 00:13:26.370 saw the biological reality of humans. We all 00:13:26.370 --> 00:13:29.429 bleed. We all rot. Class is just a costume. That 00:13:29.429 --> 00:13:31.710 medical detachment combined with human empathy 00:13:31.710 --> 00:13:35.029 is his secret sauce. That clinical eye brings 00:13:35.029 --> 00:13:38.110 us to his specific style. Because once he started 00:13:38.110 --> 00:13:40.149 taking writing seriously after that letter, he 00:13:40.149 --> 00:13:42.490 changed the game. He didn't write like the people 00:13:42.490 --> 00:13:44.389 before him. No, he moved away from what we call 00:13:44.389 --> 00:13:46.789 the event plot. The event plot. In traditional 00:13:46.789 --> 00:13:49.350 Victorian fiction, or even earlier Russian fiction, 00:13:49.590 --> 00:13:53.049 stories were about big things happening. A murder, 00:13:53.330 --> 00:13:57.210 a marriage, a lost inheritance, a shocking revelation. 00:13:57.330 --> 00:14:02.059 The plot twists. The cliffhangers. Exactly. Chekhov 00:14:02.059 --> 00:14:04.259 started writing about life as it is actually 00:14:04.259 --> 00:14:06.759 lived. And let's be honest, in real life, we 00:14:06.759 --> 00:14:09.399 don't have a climax every Tuesday. Most life 00:14:09.399 --> 00:14:12.460 is just happening. It's eating dinner. It's being 00:14:12.460 --> 00:14:14.860 bored. It's misunderstanding someone. There's 00:14:14.860 --> 00:14:17.279 a great quote from Virginia Woolf in the source 00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:19.899 material about this. She was a huge fan. She 00:14:19.899 --> 00:14:22.100 said that reading Chekhov feels like you've overrun 00:14:22.100 --> 00:14:24.850 your signals. It's a brilliant observation. She 00:14:24.850 --> 00:14:26.889 says the tune stops short without the expected 00:14:26.889 --> 00:14:29.230 chords. You get to the end of a Chekhov story 00:14:29.230 --> 00:14:31.490 and you think, wait, is that it? Right. Because 00:14:31.490 --> 00:14:33.629 he doesn't give you a tidy conclusion. He gives 00:14:33.629 --> 00:14:35.909 you a question mark. Which feels very modern. 00:14:36.009 --> 00:14:38.330 It's like watching an indie movie where the screen 00:14:38.330 --> 00:14:40.389 cuts to black while the couple is just sitting 00:14:40.389 --> 00:14:42.370 there in a diner. You don't know if they break 00:14:42.370 --> 00:14:45.289 up or stay together. Exactly. He trusts the reader 00:14:45.289 --> 00:14:48.360 to figure it out. And this brings us to one of 00:14:48.360 --> 00:14:50.779 the most famous concepts associated with him, 00:14:50.860 --> 00:14:53.460 which people use all the time but often get wrong. 00:14:54.620 --> 00:14:58.019 Chekhov's gun. Oh, yes. Let's untack this. Because 00:14:58.019 --> 00:15:00.429 usually when I hear Chekhov's gun. I think of 00:15:00.429 --> 00:15:03.409 an action movie rule. If you show a gun, someone 00:15:03.409 --> 00:15:06.250 has to get shot. Right. The principle is, if 00:15:06.250 --> 00:15:08.250 you say in the first chapter that there is a 00:15:08.250 --> 00:15:10.929 rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third 00:15:10.929 --> 00:15:13.450 chapter, it absolutely must go off. So people 00:15:13.450 --> 00:15:15.389 think that means there has to be violence or 00:15:15.389 --> 00:15:17.769 action. But it's not about violence. It's about 00:15:17.769 --> 00:15:21.440 narrative economy. It means... Don't put anything 00:15:21.440 --> 00:15:24.700 in the story that isn't necessary. If you describe 00:15:24.700 --> 00:15:27.460 the gun, the gun must matter to the plot. If 00:15:27.460 --> 00:15:29.340 it's not going to be used, take it out. Don't 00:15:29.340 --> 00:15:31.279 describe the curtains if the curtains don't tell 00:15:31.279 --> 00:15:33.580 us something about the character. It was his 00:15:33.580 --> 00:15:35.799 way of stripping away the clutter of the 19th 00:15:35.799 --> 00:15:37.820 century novel, which was often full of irrelevant 00:15:37.820 --> 00:15:40.159 descriptions. So it's about focus. He wanted 00:15:40.159 --> 00:15:41.960 to focus purely on the internal state of the 00:15:41.960 --> 00:15:44.220 characters. Exactly. Take the lady with the dog, 00:15:44.320 --> 00:15:47.679 for example. Nabokov, who was a very harsh critic 00:15:47.679 --> 00:15:50.480 and hated almost everyone. called this one of 00:15:50.480 --> 00:15:52.659 the greatest stories ever written. Wow. Okay, 00:15:52.720 --> 00:15:54.940 so give us the synopsis. It's deceptively simple. 00:15:55.240 --> 00:15:58.980 A man, Gurov, and a woman, Anna, meet in Yalta 00:15:58.980 --> 00:16:01.840 on vacation. They are both married to other people. 00:16:02.019 --> 00:16:04.240 They have what they think is a casual holiday 00:16:04.240 --> 00:16:07.539 fling, standard affair territory. Sure. But then 00:16:07.539 --> 00:16:10.220 they both go back to their regular lives, him 00:16:10.220 --> 00:16:13.159 to Moscow, her to a provincial town, and they 00:16:13.159 --> 00:16:17.019 realize they are profoundly unhappy. They can't 00:16:17.019 --> 00:16:19.100 forget each other. But the ending isn't a typical 00:16:19.100 --> 00:16:20.799 romance ending. They don't run away together 00:16:20.799 --> 00:16:22.860 into the sunset. They don't die in a suicide 00:16:22.860 --> 00:16:25.840 pact like Romeo and Juliet. No. They meet secretly 00:16:25.840 --> 00:16:28.720 in Moscow. They realize they are in love. And 00:16:28.720 --> 00:16:30.779 the story ends with them sitting together, realizing 00:16:30.779 --> 00:16:32.899 that the most complicated and difficult part 00:16:32.899 --> 00:16:35.179 of their journey is just beginning. That's the 00:16:35.179 --> 00:16:37.240 end. That's it. There is no solution. They can't 00:16:37.240 --> 00:16:38.799 be together publicly, but they can't be apart. 00:16:39.039 --> 00:16:41.879 That is the Chekhovian state. The unresolved 00:16:41.879 --> 00:16:44.759 tension of real life. He captures that feeling 00:16:44.759 --> 00:16:47.799 of being stuck and he leaves the reader with 00:16:47.799 --> 00:16:50.360 that feeling. Speaking of being stuck or rather 00:16:50.360 --> 00:16:53.919 not being stuck, we have to talk about 1890. 00:16:54.960 --> 00:16:57.419 Because right when he is becoming a literary 00:16:57.419 --> 00:16:59.820 superstar, when he could just sit in Moscow and 00:16:59.820 --> 00:17:02.440 enjoy the fame, Chekhov does something that seems 00:17:02.440 --> 00:17:04.759 completely irrational. The Sakhalin journey. 00:17:04.920 --> 00:17:07.599 This is the moment that proves Chekhov was, I 00:17:07.599 --> 00:17:10.549 don't know. A saint as well as an artist? He 00:17:10.549 --> 00:17:13.190 decides to travel across Siberia to a penal colony. 00:17:13.369 --> 00:17:15.430 It baffled his friends. They thought he was crazy. 00:17:15.950 --> 00:17:18.430 Sakhalin Island was a frozen hellscape north 00:17:18.430 --> 00:17:20.849 of Japan where the Russian Empire sent its worst 00:17:20.849 --> 00:17:23.730 convicts, murderers, political prisoners. It 00:17:23.730 --> 00:17:25.670 was the end of the world. And this wasn't a luxury 00:17:25.670 --> 00:17:27.769 trip. We aren't talking about a sleeper car on 00:17:27.769 --> 00:17:29.450 the Trans -Siberian because the Trans -Siberian 00:17:29.450 --> 00:17:32.309 didn't exist yet. No. He traveled by horse -drawn 00:17:32.309 --> 00:17:35.569 carriage and river steamer. It took months. He 00:17:35.569 --> 00:17:38.089 was slogging through mud, up to the axles, freezing 00:17:38.089 --> 00:17:40.890 cold, getting soaked in rain, risking his health, 00:17:40.990 --> 00:17:43.309 which we know wasn't good. He already had symptoms 00:17:43.309 --> 00:17:46.390 of tuberculosis. So why? Why did he do it? Why 00:17:46.390 --> 00:17:49.109 leave the comfort of literary Moscow for that? 00:17:49.480 --> 00:17:52.099 He was restless. His brother Nikolai had just 00:17:52.099 --> 00:17:54.339 died of tuberculosis, which shook him deeply. 00:17:54.559 --> 00:17:57.740 And he was obsessed with prison reform. He felt 00:17:57.740 --> 00:17:59.920 that sitting in comfortable rooms writing stories 00:17:59.920 --> 00:18:02.759 wasn't enough. He said he wanted to engage with 00:18:02.759 --> 00:18:06.180 the extreme limits of man's degradation. He wanted 00:18:06.180 --> 00:18:09.119 to pay his debt to medicine. And he certainly 00:18:09.119 --> 00:18:12.119 found degradation. He conducted a one -man census. 00:18:12.220 --> 00:18:14.299 He interviewed thousands of convicts face to 00:18:14.299 --> 00:18:17.599 face. He saw floggings. He saw forced prostitution. 00:18:17.640 --> 00:18:21.440 He saw officials embezzling supplies meant for 00:18:21.440 --> 00:18:24.460 the prisoners. He saw a society that had completely 00:18:24.460 --> 00:18:27.000 failed its most vulnerable members. There is 00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:29.859 one image from his notes that is just haunting. 00:18:30.519 --> 00:18:33.400 He describes a convict on a steamer who had murdered 00:18:33.400 --> 00:18:35.700 his wife. He was wearing fetters -heavy chains 00:18:35.700 --> 00:18:37.839 on his legs. And his six -year -old daughter 00:18:37.839 --> 00:18:39.859 was with him. Yes, holding on to his fetters. 00:18:39.960 --> 00:18:41.980 Scrambling after him, holding the chains so she 00:18:41.980 --> 00:18:43.940 wouldn't get lost in the crowd. And at night, 00:18:43.960 --> 00:18:46.000 she slept in a heap with the convicts and soldiers. 00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:49.599 That image, a little girl holding on to the chains 00:18:49.599 --> 00:18:51.359 of a herder because he's the only parent she 00:18:51.359 --> 00:18:53.900 has, it breaks you just hearing about it. And 00:18:53.900 --> 00:18:57.250 that is what Chekhov wanted to document. He didn't 00:18:57.250 --> 00:18:59.650 write a novel about Sakhalin. He wrote a book 00:18:59.650 --> 00:19:02.750 of social science, The Island of Sakhalin. He 00:19:02.750 --> 00:19:05.130 concluded that charity wasn't the answer. The 00:19:05.130 --> 00:19:07.670 government had a legal and moral duty to treat 00:19:07.670 --> 00:19:10.349 these people humanely. So he proved he wasn't 00:19:10.349 --> 00:19:12.849 just an art -for -art sick guy. Not at all. He 00:19:12.849 --> 00:19:15.390 had a profound social conscience. He used his 00:19:15.390 --> 00:19:17.650 fame to shine a light on a place everyone wanted 00:19:17.650 --> 00:19:20.089 to forget. So he comes back from this harrowing 00:19:20.089 --> 00:19:22.329 trip, and you'd think he might take a break. 00:19:22.450 --> 00:19:26.220 But instead, he buys a country estate. and throws 00:19:26.220 --> 00:19:29.119 himself into two things, gardening and theater. 00:19:29.359 --> 00:19:32.359 And medicine, still. He was treating peasants 00:19:32.359 --> 00:19:34.880 for miles around his estate. He actually built 00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:36.740 schools for peasant children with his own money. 00:19:36.960 --> 00:19:39.480 Unbelievable. But yes, this is the period where 00:19:39.480 --> 00:19:42.160 the playwright Chekhov emerges. The Chekhov that 00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:44.900 drama students today are terrified of. But it 00:19:44.900 --> 00:19:47.960 wasn't a smooth start. The premiere of The Seagull 00:19:47.960 --> 00:19:51.589 in 1896 sounds like a nightmare. A total disaster. 00:19:51.990 --> 00:19:54.589 It was at the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. 00:19:55.069 --> 00:19:57.089 You have to understand, the audience was used 00:19:57.089 --> 00:20:00.190 to melodrama. They wanted clear heroes and villains. 00:20:00.470 --> 00:20:03.269 They wanted a woman to faint and a man to pull 00:20:03.269 --> 00:20:06.150 a pistol. They didn't get it. What happened? 00:20:06.250 --> 00:20:08.410 They booed. They hissed. They laughed at the 00:20:08.410 --> 00:20:10.930 wrong parts. The lead actress lost her voice 00:20:10.930 --> 00:20:13.950 from nerves. Oh, no. Chekhov was so humiliated, 00:20:13.970 --> 00:20:16.349 he hid backstage and then fled the theater before 00:20:16.349 --> 00:20:19.450 the final curtain. He swore he would never write 00:20:19.450 --> 00:20:22.009 a play again. He wrote to a friend, I have failed. 00:20:22.150 --> 00:20:24.900 I am not a playwright. But he was saved by the 00:20:24.900 --> 00:20:27.779 Moscow Art Theater. Specifically by Vladimir 00:20:27.779 --> 00:20:30.880 Nemirovich Donchenko and Konstantin Stanislavski. 00:20:31.019 --> 00:20:33.599 These are the giants of theater history. They 00:20:33.599 --> 00:20:35.960 saw what the first audience missed. They realized 00:20:35.960 --> 00:20:37.960 that Chekhov's plays couldn't be acted in the 00:20:37.960 --> 00:20:39.619 old style. You couldn't just stand there and 00:20:39.619 --> 00:20:42.019 project your voice. This brings us to the theater 00:20:42.019 --> 00:20:45.740 of mood. What made his plays so different that 00:20:45.740 --> 00:20:48.519 people actually booed them at first? How do you 00:20:48.519 --> 00:20:50.680 explain this change to someone who doesn't study 00:20:50.680 --> 00:20:53.230 theater? Okay, think of a soap opera or a standard 00:20:53.230 --> 00:20:55.769 play of that time. If a character was angry, 00:20:55.950 --> 00:20:59.109 they yelled. If they were sad, they gave a soliloquy 00:20:59.109 --> 00:21:01.369 about being sad. Everything was on the surface. 00:21:01.529 --> 00:21:04.710 I am betrayed. I am ruined. Very literal. Exactly. 00:21:05.109 --> 00:21:07.450 In Chekhov, the characters talk about the weather. 00:21:07.589 --> 00:21:09.910 They talk about the tea being too cold. They 00:21:09.910 --> 00:21:12.029 argue about whether to sell a cherry orchard 00:21:12.029 --> 00:21:15.150 or play billiards. But underneath those trivial 00:21:15.150 --> 00:21:18.069 lines... their lives are falling apart. This 00:21:18.069 --> 00:21:21.049 is the birth of subtext. Exactly. Stanislavski 00:21:21.049 --> 00:21:23.369 famously said that in Chekhov, the characters 00:21:23.369 --> 00:21:25.769 often feel things not expressed in the lines. 00:21:25.990 --> 00:21:28.910 This forced actors to change how they acted. 00:21:29.029 --> 00:21:30.769 They couldn't just read the lines. They had to 00:21:30.769 --> 00:21:33.470 develop an internal life. They had to know what 00:21:33.470 --> 00:21:35.349 the character was thinking while they were stirring 00:21:35.349 --> 00:21:37.630 their tea. Which essentially creates modern acting. 00:21:37.829 --> 00:21:40.490 It is the root of method acting. You don't get 00:21:40.490 --> 00:21:43.190 Marlon Brando or Robert De Niro or Meryl Streep 00:21:43.190 --> 00:21:44.910 without Stanislavski trying to figure out how 00:21:44.910 --> 00:21:47.460 to play Chekhov. He realized that real drama 00:21:47.460 --> 00:21:50.779 happens in the silences, in the pauses. And the 00:21:50.779 --> 00:21:53.859 big four plays. The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three 00:21:53.859 --> 00:21:58.279 Sisters, The Cherry Orchard. They are all masterpieces 00:21:58.279 --> 00:22:01.579 of this style. But there was this funny ongoing 00:22:01.579 --> 00:22:04.099 argument between Chekhov and Stanislavski about 00:22:04.099 --> 00:22:06.299 what genre they actually were. Oh, they fought 00:22:06.299 --> 00:22:08.900 about this constantly. It's hilarious. Chekhov 00:22:08.900 --> 00:22:11.920 insisted they were comedies, even farces. He 00:22:11.920 --> 00:22:14.160 thought they were funny. Funny. Uncle Vanya's 00:22:14.160 --> 00:22:16.859 heartbreaking. Three sisters ends with them trapped 00:22:16.859 --> 00:22:19.420 in a town they hate. Chekhov didn't think so. 00:22:19.500 --> 00:22:23.299 He'd say, I wrote a vaudeville. But Stanislavski 00:22:23.299 --> 00:22:26.099 directed them as tragedies. He had the actors 00:22:26.099 --> 00:22:29.660 crying and sighing and pausing for long moments. 00:22:29.960 --> 00:22:32.160 And Chekhov hated that. He would get so annoyed, 00:22:32.220 --> 00:22:34.259 he'd say, I wrote a comedy. Why is everyone weeping? 00:22:34.440 --> 00:22:36.059 Why did you think they were comedies? Because 00:22:36.059 --> 00:22:38.700 he saw the absurdity of people who complain about 00:22:38.700 --> 00:22:41.339 their lives but do nothing to change them. Take 00:22:41.339 --> 00:22:43.259 the cherry orchard. You have these aristocrats 00:22:43.259 --> 00:22:45.380 who are losing their family home. All they have 00:22:45.380 --> 00:22:47.420 to do to save it is lease the land for summer 00:22:47.420 --> 00:22:49.680 cottages. It's a simple business decision. But 00:22:49.680 --> 00:22:51.980 they don't do it. But they refuse because it's 00:22:51.980 --> 00:22:54.599 vulgar, so they lose everything. Chekhov thought 00:22:54.599 --> 00:22:56.259 that was ridiculous. He thought their inaction 00:22:56.259 --> 00:22:59.259 was funny. I think about the character Lopakhin 00:22:59.259 --> 00:23:01.859 in The Cherry Orchard. He's the son of a serf 00:23:01.859 --> 00:23:04.369 like Chekhov's father. who ends up buying the 00:23:04.369 --> 00:23:06.450 aristocratic estate where his father was a slave. 00:23:07.210 --> 00:23:10.230 That's a heavy, tragic thing for the aristocrats 00:23:10.230 --> 00:23:13.690 losing the house. But for Lopakhin, it's a triumph. 00:23:13.869 --> 00:23:17.250 And it's a parallel to Chekhov himself. Lopakhin 00:23:17.250 --> 00:23:20.089 is the practical, hardworking man replacing the 00:23:20.089 --> 00:23:23.829 dying, ineffective aristocracy. Chekhov wasn't 00:23:23.829 --> 00:23:26.250 sentimental about the old ways. He knew that 00:23:26.250 --> 00:23:28.089 the cherry orchard had to be cut down for the 00:23:28.089 --> 00:23:30.859 future to happen, even if it was sad. He saw 00:23:30.859 --> 00:23:32.880 the absurdity in the aristocrats crying over 00:23:32.880 --> 00:23:35.160 a house they were too lazy to save. That's the 00:23:35.160 --> 00:23:37.700 comedy. It's the comedy of human folly. While 00:23:37.700 --> 00:23:40.599 all this artistic revolution is happening, Chekhov's 00:23:40.599 --> 00:23:42.819 personal clock is ticking. We mentioned earlier 00:23:42.819 --> 00:23:45.599 that he hid his illness. Tuberculosis. It was 00:23:45.599 --> 00:23:47.559 the scourge of the 19th century. He had been 00:23:47.559 --> 00:23:50.319 coughing up blood since 1884. And he was a doctor. 00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:52.880 He knew what that meant. Of course he knew. He 00:23:52.880 --> 00:23:55.440 described the blood in clinical terms, but he 00:23:55.440 --> 00:23:58.099 practiced a form of cognitive dissonance. He 00:23:58.099 --> 00:24:00.539 refused to be examined by his colleagues. He 00:24:00.539 --> 00:24:03.200 brushed it off as bronchitis. He kept working. 00:24:03.259 --> 00:24:06.640 He kept traveling. And amidst this, he finally 00:24:06.640 --> 00:24:09.200 falls in love. Or at least he finally gets married. 00:24:09.339 --> 00:24:12.380 He was known as the elusive bachelor for a long 00:24:12.380 --> 00:24:15.559 time. He valued his independence immensely. He 00:24:15.559 --> 00:24:17.619 once wrote to his friend Suvaran that he would 00:24:17.619 --> 00:24:20.440 only marry if his wife, like the moon, won't 00:24:20.440 --> 00:24:23.759 appear in my sky every day. Which is not the 00:24:23.759 --> 00:24:25.859 most romantic proposal I've ever heard. I'll 00:24:25.859 --> 00:24:27.539 marry you as long as I don't have to see you 00:24:27.539 --> 00:24:30.460 every day. It sounds cold, but he found someone 00:24:30.460 --> 00:24:33.380 who fit the bill. Olga Nipper. She was the leading 00:24:33.380 --> 00:24:35.680 actress at the Moscow Art Theater. She played 00:24:35.680 --> 00:24:38.160 the lead in his plays. Oh, okay. They met at 00:24:38.160 --> 00:24:41.200 rehearsals. They married in 1901. And the circumstances 00:24:41.200 --> 00:24:43.619 forced them into exactly the arrangement he wanted. 00:24:43.759 --> 00:24:46.500 Yes. Because he was sick, he had to live in Yalta, 00:24:46.660 --> 00:24:49.539 in the warm south. For his lungs. And she had 00:24:49.539 --> 00:24:51.819 to live in Moscow for her acting career. So they 00:24:51.819 --> 00:24:54.660 had the world's first famous long -distance relationship. 00:24:55.160 --> 00:24:57.299 They wrote hundreds of letters. It was a marriage 00:24:57.299 --> 00:25:00.180 of words. And in a way, it was perfect for him. 00:25:00.279 --> 00:25:03.559 He had his intimacy. He loved her deeply. But 00:25:03.559 --> 00:25:06.220 he also had his solitude to write. Although the 00:25:06.220 --> 00:25:08.180 letters show that he missed her terribly towards 00:25:08.180 --> 00:25:11.180 the end. But the disease eventually caught up. 00:25:11.200 --> 00:25:15.460 It's 1904. He's only 44 years old. That is shockingly 00:25:15.460 --> 00:25:17.660 young for the amount of work he produced. It 00:25:17.660 --> 00:25:21.180 is. He goes to a spa town in Germany, Baden -Weiler, 00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:24.259 with Olga. He's very weak. And the story of his 00:25:24.259 --> 00:25:26.440 death is one of the most famous scenes in literary 00:25:26.440 --> 00:25:29.759 history. It's almost too perfect. Like, he wrote 00:25:29.759 --> 00:25:31.440 it himself. Walk us through it. It's the middle 00:25:31.440 --> 00:25:33.799 of the night. He wakes up and sits up unusually 00:25:33.799 --> 00:25:36.160 straight. He requests a doctor. When the doctor 00:25:36.160 --> 00:25:38.880 arrives, Chekhov looks at him and says, in German, 00:25:38.980 --> 00:25:42.539 ich sterbe, I am dying. And the doctor? Doesn't 00:25:42.539 --> 00:25:44.660 give him oxygen. Doesn't try to revive him. No. 00:25:44.759 --> 00:25:47.319 The doctor checks his pulse, realizes it's the 00:25:47.319 --> 00:25:51.000 end, and orders a bottle of champagne. Champagne? 00:25:51.099 --> 00:25:53.619 That seems so strange to us now. It was an old 00:25:53.619 --> 00:25:56.460 medical tradition for a dying colleague. A way 00:25:56.460 --> 00:25:58.720 to ease the passing when there was no hope left. 00:25:59.220 --> 00:26:02.319 Chekhov takes the glass, turns to Olga, smiles, 00:26:02.619 --> 00:26:05.680 and says, It's a long time since I drank champagne. 00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:08.980 He drains the glass, lies down on his left side, 00:26:09.079 --> 00:26:13.740 and stops breathing. It's so quiet. It's so Chekhovian. 00:26:13.759 --> 00:26:16.420 No big speech about the meaning of life. Just 00:26:16.420 --> 00:26:19.039 a small observation about champagne and then 00:26:19.039 --> 00:26:21.619 silence. But then, and this is my favorite part, 00:26:21.839 --> 00:26:24.700 reality intrudes with a detail that Chekhov would 00:26:24.700 --> 00:26:27.700 have absolutely put in a play. His body had to 00:26:27.700 --> 00:26:29.880 be transported back to Moscow for burial and 00:26:29.880 --> 00:26:32.519 it was sent in a refrigerated railway car. Okay, 00:26:32.559 --> 00:26:34.420 that makes sense. It was summer. But the car 00:26:34.420 --> 00:26:36.839 wasn't a hearse. It was a freight car. And on 00:26:36.839 --> 00:26:39.059 the side, in big letters, it said, for oysters. 00:26:39.500 --> 00:26:42.420 For oysters. Yes. Maxim Gorky, another famous 00:26:42.420 --> 00:26:44.440 writer and a friend of Chekhov, was furious. 00:26:44.539 --> 00:26:47.200 He thought it was disrespectful. He was ranting 00:26:47.200 --> 00:26:49.700 about the indignity of it. But Chekhov. I think 00:26:49.700 --> 00:26:51.740 Chekhov would have appreciated the irony. The 00:26:51.740 --> 00:26:53.980 tragedy of a great writer's death mixed with 00:26:53.980 --> 00:26:56.119 the ridiculous banality of an oyster wagon. That 00:26:56.119 --> 00:26:58.579 mixture of the sad and the funny is exactly what 00:26:58.579 --> 00:27:01.319 his writing was about. Life isn't a pure tragedy 00:27:01.319 --> 00:27:04.460 or a pure comedy. It's just life. It's messy. 00:27:04.579 --> 00:27:07.160 It's sublime. And it's ridiculous all at once. 00:27:07.259 --> 00:27:09.519 So looking back at his legacy, he died at 44. 00:27:10.799 --> 00:27:14.259 But he left this massive footprint. Huge. James 00:27:14.259 --> 00:27:17.039 Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Hemingway, Tennessee Williams. 00:27:17.339 --> 00:27:20.940 They all owe a debt to him. He changed the fundamental 00:27:20.940 --> 00:27:23.920 DNA of how we tell stories. He taught us that 00:27:23.920 --> 00:27:26.119 a story doesn't need a hero or a villain. It 00:27:26.119 --> 00:27:28.599 just needs people. And he taught us that it's 00:27:28.599 --> 00:27:31.099 okay not to have the answers. That is his ultimate 00:27:31.099 --> 00:27:33.910 philosophy. He believed the role of the artist 00:27:33.910 --> 00:27:36.869 is to ask questions correctly, not to provide 00:27:36.869 --> 00:27:40.349 the answers. In a world that is constantly screaming 00:27:40.349 --> 00:27:43.589 opinions at us, especially on social media, Chekhov 00:27:43.589 --> 00:27:46.410 invites us to sit in the silence, to look at 00:27:46.410 --> 00:27:48.849 the subtext of our own lives. Which is a pretty 00:27:48.849 --> 00:27:51.269 powerful thought to leave on. Maybe the most 00:27:51.269 --> 00:27:53.190 important things in our lives aren't the things 00:27:53.190 --> 00:27:55.269 we're shouting about, but the things we're not 00:27:55.269 --> 00:27:57.230 saying while we're drinking our tea. Exactly. 00:27:57.230 --> 00:27:58.970 Sometimes the gun on the wall doesn't need to 00:27:58.970 --> 00:28:00.990 go off. Sometimes it just hangs there and that's 00:28:00.990 --> 00:28:03.140 the story. That's it for this deep dive into 00:28:03.140 --> 00:28:05.920 Anton Chekhov. Thanks for listening, and we'll 00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:06.539 see you next time.