About the author
Mikhail V. Stroganov (Tver, Russia), DSc in Philology, Professor, Leading Research Fellow, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Science; Professor of the Department of General and Slavonic Arts, Institute of Slavonic Culture, A.N. Kosygin Russian State University (Moscow).
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/000-0002-7618-7436
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Abstract
The characteristic plot in the drama of A.P. Chekhov is associated with a sense of tragedy of provincial life, and the writer’s positive characters are torn from the estate, which under his pen begins to be perceived as part of the Russian province. The DOI: 10.22455/978-5-9208-0627-7-218-227 219 characters in Chekhov’s dramas are divided into the indigenous inhabitants of the estate (autochthons) and its transit visitors returning to where they came from. The opposition autochthonous / transit оnе implements the archetypal relationship of the wanderer and the homebody, which were ethically balanced figures in Russian literature of the first half of the XIX century. However, Chekhov, who portrayed the historical and cultural situation in Russia at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries, depicts transit heroes less attractive than autochthons. Believing that in the modern conditions of destruction of the “estate culture” it is impossible to live fully in the estate on a permanent basis, Chekhov nevertheless settled there the most sympathetic of his heroes. Escaping from the estate, they saved their lives, but they did it at the cost of betrayal of family shrines and lofty ideals.