Anton Chekov
1860–1904

Anton Chekhov, Russian novelist and dramatist, born at Taganrog, studied medicine at Moscow, but took to literature, and won his way into the front rank with tragi-comedies ‘of inaction’ – Ivanov (1889), Uncle Vanya, The Seagull, The Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard (1904), and short stories of Russian life, showing great psychological penetration.