A Chekhov Circus

A guide to the short stories of Anton Chekhov

Category: Story publication date

  • No. 16 – Agafya

    “Agafya” is a portrait of rural life pressured by Russia’s changing economy. It is set in a village where justice is served via a peasant court that metes out punishment in the medieval fashion, with floggings and who knows what other cruelties. But in this seemingly medieval society, many of the men ride trains to…

  • No. 15 – The New Villa

    This is one of the occasional Chekhov stories that is explicitly about social tensions in Russia. It’s a compelling tale and an interesting peephole into the ways that the rich and poor lived–and their sometimes fraught relationships. The story: A bridge is being built outside a small village. We’re never told why the bridge is…

  • No. 14 – The Party

    This story is just about perfect. The party of the title is a name-day celebration for Pyotr, a handsome, self-satisfied, possibly philandering, and definitely pompous aristocrat of less-than significant means. His wife, Olya, is pregnant and miserable, not only because of Pyotr’s bloviating and flirting, but also because she is painfully encased in a corset…

  • No. 13 – Betrothed

    This was Chekhov’s final story, published about a year before he died. Death hovers over the story: One of the characters is in poor health and ultimately dies of tuberculosis, the disease that felled Chekhov himself. The story: Nadya is engaged to be married to a well-off local man, but as the wedding day approaches,…

  • No. 12 – Peasant Wives

    Of the hundreds of Chekhov stories I have read, this is the one I have thought back on most often, so astounding are the characterizations, so complete the world created by the writer, and so cruel the lives he describes. The story is complicated, considering how brief it is. The opening pages are presented almost…

  • No. 10 – The Schoolmistress

    This is a beautiful, concise tale of a lonely and loveless woman, a teacher in a rural school. Her work is largely unappreciated, if not completely ignored, by the local government and population. On a regular basis she must travel to town to collect her pay, and on one of these trips she meets a…

  • No. 52 – Vanka

    This is a frightful tale of suffering. Vanka, a child of nine, has been left alone on Christmas Eve by the shoemaker to whom he is apprenticed. For once left alone, Vanka gets some paper and ink and composes a letter to his only living relative, his grandfather, begging him to rescue him. Vanka describes…

  • No. 11 – Enemies

    “Enemies” begins, like half-a-dozen other Chekhov stories, with a doctor being summoned to attend to a sick patient. In this case, though, the doctor, Kirilin, has just suffered a devastating loss: The death of his son, at age six, of diphtheria. In a miasma of grief, the doctor is visited by a stranger, Abogin, from…

  • No. 9 – The Bishop

    This beautiful, brief portrait is one of Chekhov’s best stories. Bishop Pyotr is someone who has “risen above his station,” transcending his modest roots. He is a good man, caring, modest, and cautious.  There is not much in the way of plot. His mother comes to visit him and he is filled with joy; he…

  • No. 8 – Frost

    “Frost” is a delicate portrait of a small town winter party.  The title refers to bitter cold weather the town experiences on the day of the party: “28 degrees of frost.” (Which to an American reader translates, I think, to 4 degrees fahrenheit.)  Some of the towns’ leaders wonder if the festival should be canceled;…