The Project Gutenberg EBook of Swan Song, by Anton Checkov

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Title: Swan Song

Author: Anton Checkov

Release Date: February 21, 2006 [EBook #1753]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SWAN SONG ***

Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger

SWAN SONG

by Anton Checkov

Plays By Anton Tchekoff

Translated From The Russian, With An Introduction By Marian Fell

CONTENTS
Introduction
Chronological List of Works
The Swan Song

INTRODUCTION

ANTON TCHEKOFF

THE last years of the nineteenth century were for Russia tinged with
doubt and gloom. The high-tide of vitality that had risen during the
Turkish war ebbed in the early eighties, leaving behind it a dead
level of apathy which lasted until life was again quickened by the high
interests of the Revolution. During these grey years the lonely country
and stagnant provincial towns of Russia buried a peasantry which
was enslaved by want and toil, and an educated upper class which was
enslaved by idleness and tedium. Most of the "Intellectuals," with no
outlet for their energies, were content to forget their ennui in
vodka and card-playing; only the more idealistic gasped for air in the
stifling atmosphere, crying out in despair against life as they saw it,
and looking forward with a pathetic hope to happiness for humanity in
"two or three hundred years." It is the inevitable tragedy of their
existence, and the pitiful humour of their surroundings, that are
portrayed with such insight and sympathy by Anton Tchekoff who is,
perhaps, of modern writers, the dearest to the Russian people.

Anton Tchekoff was born in the old Black Sea port of Taganrog on
January 17, 1860. His grandfather had been a serf; his father married
a merchant's daughter and settled in Taganrog, where, during Anton's
boyhood, he carried on a small and unsuccessful trade in provisions.
The young Tchekoff was soon impressed into the services of the large,
poverty-stricken family, and he spoke regretfully in after years of his
hard-worked childhood. But he was obedient and good-natured, and worked
cheerfully in his father's shop,