Uncle Vanya Research Articles

Reception of Anton Chekhov's play "Uncle Vanya" in China

This paper examines several important translations of the play from the play's first appearance in China in 1930 to the present day, as well as research and analyses of the play by Chinese scholars. The author uses comparative-typological, comparative-historical, and interpretive methods as the leading research methods. Through the comparative-historical method the dependence between the socio-cultural conditions of the state and the peculiarities of the work's reception is established. The difference in the viewpoints of literary scholars and critics on the poetics and imagery of the play is explicated by the author of the work through the use of comparative-typological method. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that some articles and books by Chinese critics and literary critics considering the peculiarities of the figurative structure and ideological content of A. P. Chekhov's play "Uncle Vanya" are the first to be included in the research turnover, allowing to establish the dependence of the perception of the work by Chinese readers on the socio-cultural conditions of the country. As a result, the author has shown that the perception of "Uncle Vanya" in China is closely connected with the social and political factors of the country, changing over time. The study showed that in the 21st century, more and more attention is paid to the artistic and literary aspects of the work.

Under the Influence: Adaptation, Adultery, and Acceptance in Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car

Under the Influence: Adaptation, Adultery, and Acceptance in Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Drive My Car

100th anniversary of Anton Chekhov’s death in Barcelona

The interest towards Anton Chekhov’s theatre entered a new phase in the end of the seventies of the 20th century in Barcelona. A quarter of century after Franco’s death the translations of Chekhov’s plays into Catalan and representations thereof recorded a new growth: translators and artists were trying to fill the gap resulting from the cultural crisis suffered under the dictatorship by introducing into the national cultural system some of the most recognized authors of the world, already considered classics in the western neighbour countries (France, Great Britain, Germany). The 100th anniversary of Chekhov’s death offered a perfect occasion to pay tribute to the Russian author’s memory. The present research sums up the principal events dedicated to the centenary of Chekhov’s death in 2004 in Barcelona and focuses on the staging of “Uncle Vanya” by Joan Ollé, one of the most memorable interpretations of this play in Catalonia, in order to evaluate the reception thereof through the analysis of periodical issues. Based on Hans-Robert Jauss’s approach to the literature as a constant interaction between the work of art, the public and the author, the study sheds light on the reception of Chekhov’s theatre in Catalonia and its evolution from the first direct translation of the play until a key staging which, in turn, became a reference for the following generations. The analysis concludes that the centenary of Chekhov’s death may be considered an inflection point in the history of his reception in Catalonia. Thanks to the production of the first canonical staging of “Uncle Vanya” in Catalan, Chekhov’s name stopped being associated exclusively with popular performances produced by foreign companies.

Exploring the intersection of Anton Chekhov and Haruki Murakami: a slow reading analysis of “Drive My Car”

The study aims to employ the method of slow reading to analyze the short story authored by Haruki Murakami. Intertextuality is the predominant feature of the narrative, the references to the Beatles’ song and Ernest Hemingway’s collection of stories add to the subtext of the story. However, it is the allusion to Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” in the Meiji-era adaptation (translated by Senuma Kayō) that stands out among others as the basis for deeper understanding of the story’s nuances. The characters in the 2014 story encounter similar challenges as those in Chekhov’s 1890s play, where the inability to comprehend others raises a crucial question of how to continue living and for what purpose. Misaki’s articulation of the answer echoes Sonya’s words from “Uncle Vanya”, emphasizing the necessity of enduring difficulties and persevering in one’s trained and most proficient area. The literary work “Drive My Car” epitomizes the characteristic style of Haruki Murakami, as evidenced by his fondness for music and incorporation of songs and musical elements, his propensity for employing allusions, quotations, and other forms of intertextuality. The story is similar to Chekhov’s play in the melancholic tone of the narration, lack of action, loose plot structure, a metaphorical employment of mundane life events, the choice of words the text is made of. Chekhov and Murakami stand together in their refusal to judge or blame their characters, in their acceptance of life in all of its most complicated manifestations.

희곡의 진화

Chekhov's play “The Wood Demon” was written in 1889, and was adapted as “Uncle Vanya” in 1896. This study compares the event and structure of the two works, explores the compositional causes that made the differences between the two plays, and identifies the evolution of Chekhov's playwriting and its aesthetic characteristics.
 When writing “The Wood Demon”, Chekhov took a critical attitude towards the conventions of contemporary theater. He thought it inappropriate to show dramatic events on stage, which belong to exceptional phenomena in everyday life. On the other hand, he was of the opinion that theater should express aspects of real life, in which various human emotions are revealed. To represent real life instead of dramatic events in his plays, Chekhov had to create a new form of his play. His attempt resulted in the creation of “The Wood Demon”, which could not be positively evaluated in the world of contemporary theater.
 “The Wood Demon” is a play with a dual structure in which daily life in the countryside and the motif of love coexist: The expression of daily life hinders the dramatic development of events, and the events reduce the space for detailed description and presentation of social aspects. Chekhov tried to create a play with a new aesthetic, but contemporary critics only saw the absence of traditional conventions instead of something new in his play. His intention to add novelty to the play turned out to be a failure. He was neither faithful to the existing theatrical technique nor completely abandoned it. His comedy “The Wood Demon” ended up being an eclectic work of the new and the old.
 The adaptation of “The Wood Demon” made it possible for Chekhov to completely get out of the traditional theatrical technique centered on dramatic development of events and create a play “Uncle Vanya” with the new conventions and form. The genre of the new play became ‘scene’, and instead of ‘the event of Love’, ‘the event of Arrival and Departure’ became the center of the content.
 If the unity of time and space was maintained in “The Wood Demon”, Chekhov gave up temporal structuring and chose spatial structuring in the play “Uncle Vanya”. As a result, the new play shows various aspects of a space, not the causal flow of events: Fragmentary words and actions with weak causality become the content of each act. While “The Wood Demon” is built on the time structure and maintains the causality, consistency, and sequentiality of time, “Uncle Vanya” uses space instead of time as the compositional principle of the play, opening a new horizon for theater.

Безотцовщина/безматерщина

The text attempts to conceptualize the four late plays of A. P. Chekhov – “The Seagull”, “Uncle Vanya”, “Three Sisters” and “The Cherry Orchard”, written between 1895 and 1904, as a cycle. The common places and problems in them are noted with the following regularity: once introduced, a given motif is not limited to the relevant drama in which it appears, but is reinterpreted until it exhausts its possibilities. In this sense, the article suggests the dramatical strategies of the mature Chekhov, betting on themes and characters with serious poetic potential, forming a recognizable, precisely Chekhovian macroplot. The semiotic center in it is fatherlessness, understood not so much as the absence of the father and, respectively, the disintegration of the patriarchal community, but also as destitution, uncertainty, pathlessness, lack of a stable perspective and the related fears for the upcoming – near or more distant – ruin. However, the missing father is not at all compensated by the presence of the mother – on the contrary, the primal matriarchy in which the Russian mythological mentality resides is also denied.

Paradoxes of personal being in Chekhov’s plays “The Seagull” and “Uncle Vanya”

Paradoxes of personal being in Chekhov’s plays “The Seagull” and “Uncle Vanya”

고전 희곡 “바냐 삼촌”의 두 가지 형태의 리텔링 연구

This thesis is an attempt to convergely research retelling as text and retelling of class cases and apply it to the literary interpretation aspect and literature education methodology. In this thesis, two types of retelling were studied, targeting the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's play “Uncle Vanya”. In Chapter 1, I studied literary writers' retelling of literary works through the play “Russian Jam” written by Ulitskaya in 2006, and in Chapter 2, I studied 'ACT', a liberal arts class at the university where I am teaching, the students studied Chekhov's play “Uncle Vanya” on the process and results. Through these two cases, a literary work can be interpreted in a wide variety of perspectives through retelling, and when applied to actual class cases, students can actively enjoy the class, breaking away from the one-sided lecturer- centered class. In particular, it is suggested that retelling in literature class can be actively used in literature class methodology because it contributes to students' various creativity, active reading.

Alienation as a trait of personality of doctors in literary works of A.P. Chekhov

The purpose of this study was to identify how alienation in the works of A.P. Chekhov is associated with the images of doctors. With the help of systematic, comparative-historical methods and the method of artistic analysis, the images of doctors in the stories "Wife" and "Enemies", in the play "Uncle Vanya" and other works were considered. Alienation, understood as the impossibility of full contact with other people, distance from society and from loved ones, loss of the ability to sympathize with other people's problems, was one of the most important motives for A.P. Chekhov, through the prism of which images of a variety of characters were perceived. In the context of the images of doctors, alienation acquired a special sound. The scientific novelty of the study consists in the fact that it for the first time examines the images of doctors created by A.P. Chekhov in the context of alienation, reveals the influence of alienation on the personal and professional development of a doctor. The writer believes that a doctor has no right to experience alienation, to distance himself from people. Alienation is disastrous for a doctor and leads to his degradation as a person and a professional; he ceases to feel sympathy and loses the ability to help people by treating them physically and spiritually. The reason for alienation can be negative social factors: hard work, constant fatigue, material need. In the story "Enemies", A.P. Chekhov shows how alienation is born, in the play "Uncle Vanya" – how a doctor who has succumbed to alienation degrades. In the story "The Wife", Dr. Sobol relieves the alienation of the main character, engineer Asorin. The humanistic nature of the medical profession, according to the writer, cannot be combined with alienation.

Negative transformations of the image of a doctor in the literature of A.P. Chekhov

The object of the study is the images of doctors in the works of A.P. Chekhov from the point of view of the dynamics of their personal qualities. The subject of the study is the nature of these changes, which in most cases are negative for the writer for the professional and personal level of the doctor. The purpose of the article is to describe the phenomenon of personal degradation of a doctor in the literature of A.P. Chekhov: the novels "Ionich", "Belated Flowers", the plays "Uncle Vanya", "Three Sisters". The study was conducted using descriptive, cultural-historical, historical-typological methods, which allowed a comprehensive approach to the problem under study and noted the various features of the personality of doctors in the writer's work in dynamics. The scientific novelty of the study consists in the fact that the degradation of doctors in these works has been revealed. In the story "Ionich", the vulgar, philistine life slowly but inexorably sucks in the main character, Dr. Startsev. Toporkov in the "Flowers of the Belated" sought to get out of poverty, earn as much as possible, but he was powerless in front of greed and became indifferent to people. Astrov in "Uncle Vanya", under the influence of the surrounding county life, became indifferent to people, he does not love anyone, does not want anything. But at the same time, he plants forests, believes that they have a great beneficial effect on people's lives, he utters high words about a person. Abstract love for humanity and indifference to the people who are with him coexist in his soul. The philosophy of doctor Chebutykin in "Three Sisters" is of great importance for understanding the play. It is concluded that the degraded person in the works of A.P. Chekhov is usually a doctor, with the help of whose image the writer seeks to create a contrast between the noble mission of the doctor and his personality.

Democracy and Theatre in Catalonia Since 1975

Democracy and Theatre in Catalonia Since 1975

Evadarea personajelor cehoviene prin religie

In a study that involves the interpretation of such complex characters as those in the sphere of Russian writing, I inevitably reached issues like faith, soul, religion, suffering and aspirations. Considering that mysticism underlies the Russian soul, I tried to understand the human dimension of the characters from Chekhov’s plays, “Three sisters”, “Uncle Vanya”, “The Cherry Orchard” and ”The Seagull”. Thus, I analyzed the abyssal Slavic soul through the ideas of Russian mystical school and its representatives, Paul Evdokimov, and Nikolai Berdiaev, starting from the image of Christ in Russian thinking. For Chekhov, one must be faithful or go in search of faith, otherwise his life will be deserted.

Драмы Чехова как образная основа пьес «Любовь в Крыму» Славомира Мрожека и «Уход» Вацлава Гавела

The play by Slavomir Mrozhek “Love in Crimea” (1993) and Vaclav Havel's “Leaving” (2007) are based on themes and images of the plays by A. P. Chekhov. Slavic playwrights portray Chekhov's style, fill their plays with direct quotes, reminiscences, and allusions from his plays. This paper traces the connections between “Love in Crimea” by Mrozhek and “Leaving” by Havel with Chekhov's plays “The Seagull”, “Uncle Vanya”, “Three Sisters” and “The Cherry Orchard”. “Three Sisters” and “The Cherry Orchard” by Chekhov became the basis for the creation of Mrozhek's play “Love in the Crimea”. In the first act of the play (1910) the atmosphere of Chekhov's drama, some Chekhov's heroes, the style of the Russian playwright are recreated, and in the last act (1990s) Chekhov's images are transformed and testify to the destruction of Russian life and culture. In the play “Leaving” Vaclav Havel relies mainly on the images and symbols of Chekhov's “The Cherry Orchard", transferred to the 21st century and politically shaped to fit the new realities. The image of time will turn out to be the key: Mrozhek and Havel address the Chekhov's drama to show the connection between times, to reflect in a historical perspective the conflict between the moral and therefore the lonely person and the pragmatic world.

Chekhov’s Poetic Wisdom of “Drama as Life”: Aesthetic Resonating Criticism of Uncle Vanya

Chekhov’s Poetic Wisdom of “Drama as Life”: Aesthetic Resonating Criticism of Uncle Vanya

Vladimir Nabokov’un Ada ya da Arzu romanındaki Çehov’un köksapının çevirisi

The literary works of Vladimir Nabokov are often discussed in terms of intertextuality, since the writer is a known master of literary games and puzzles with numerous allusions, direct or hidden (mis)quotations, dialogues, names, and themes, echoing with multilingual works of world literature. The concept of a rhizome appears as a productive way of interpreting the architecture of Nabokov’s works (Strelnikova 2018). As described by Deleuze and Guattari (1987), rhizome in its application to literature is a design with several cores and many intertwining branches of different authorships, forming the unique texture of a new narrative. Proffer (1974) in his Ada as Wonderland: A Glossary of Allusions to Russian Literature depicts more than twenty examples of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, The Seagull, and The Three Sisters weaved into Nabokov’s Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle. These examples constitute the basis of textual analysis in this work. The Turkish translation by Fatih Özgüven (2002) is not presented as an annotated translation and appeals to a reader who would rather perform his/her own literary investigation independently. This strategy is also in line with Nabokov’s idea of an “admirable reader”. An annotated translation, on the other hand, would offer a detailed map for Nabokov’s inter- and sub textual terrain, for a readership with such expectation.

Adaptation and Nation: Theatrical Contexts for Contemporary English and Irish Drama

Adaptation and Nation: Theatrical Contexts for Contemporary English and Irish Drama

ПРОГУЛКА В ГЛУБИНУ САДА (ОБ ОДНОЙ МЕТАФОРЕ ПЬЕСЫ ЧЕХОВА «ДЯДЯ ВАНЯ»)

The metaphor «depth of the garden» introduced in the stage direction of the first act of «Uncle Vanya» is analyzed. It is proved that both entities of the genitive metaphor have a metaphoric meaning. The metaphoric meaning of the lexeme ‘garden’ is connected with units of legal semantics. The lexeme ‘depth’ is connected with water metaphors in the text. ‘The depth of the garden’ points to the degree of Serebryakov’s doomness in his search for God’s mercy, which is depicted through water images. The analysis of the metaphor with its complex relations, including phonetic ones, demonstrates Chekhov’s poetic style, that gives the word specific weight and lends the language a leading role in depicting the world. A fragment of the world – Serebryakov’s walk in the garden – looks like predestination of professor’s fate, made up of his missteps.

IRONIJSKI MODUS HEROJA U DRAMAMA A. P. ČEHOVA / THE IRONIC MODE OF HEROES IN PLAYS BY A. P. CHEKHOV

The aim of this paper is to investigate the model of the figure of the hero in the plays of Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. In analyzing the model of the figure of the hero, four of the most significant plays by A. P. Chekhov were analyzed in consultation with the literature on the poetics of 20th century drama in order to gain a clearer understanding of how the dramatic world of characters was constructed. Specifically, the focus is on four dramas in four acts: "Three Sisters", "Ivanov", "Seagull" and "Uncle Vanya". For the sake of placing love in the key context of this work, the subject of research is not the drama "Cherry." The paper is entitled thesis on the functioning and construction of characters in dramas based on the principle of irony, and thus sets the goal of examining and proving the title thesis. In doing so, it is very interesting to deal with such a model of hero placed in dramatic situations from the perspective of A. P. Chekhov, a writer who writes his characters as a writer-analyst.

Trends in modern theatrical interpretation of A. P. Chekhov's play “Uncle Vanya”

This article is dedicated to the analysis of trends in interpretation of A. P. Chekhov's play “Uncle Vanya” in modern theater. The subject of this research is the four theatrical productions of the play on the national stage: by Rimas Tuminas in Vakhtangov Theatre (2009), by Andrei Serban in Alexandrinsky Theater (2009), by Andrei Konchalovsky in Mossovet State Academic Theatre (2009) by Stéphane Braunschweig in the State Theatre of Nations (2019). These productions reflect the eternal existential questions raised in A. P. Chekhov’s play, as well as the relevant transformations in modern perception of the play. Examination of the aforementioned productions, as well as their analysis in the context of Chekhov's play and modern life realities in comparison with such in the XIX century, has not previously become a separate object of research. The scientific novelty consists in comprehension of the message delivered by play written in the late XIX century for the XXI century, as well as in determination of problems relevant to a contemporary person that are raised in the play. Using the meaning-making topics of the play, stage directors imply death of kindness, deterioration of nature and human, human disunity and misunderstanding. Therefore, the play “Uncle Vanya” indicates its timeliness and everlasting lifelikeness for the XXI century.

Woods as a Prime Motive for the Refinement of Manners in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya

Scholars have always shown interest in Chekhov's Uncle Vanya but a majority of them studied it from traditional perspectives, concerning style, theme, structure and the conflict among characters. None has embarked on applying the ecocritical approach to this play, especially how the beauty of nature would not only moderate the climate but also refine one's character and manners for a better dealing with nature and others. Furthermore, man's dealing with nature would lead to the refinement of manners particularly in dealing with women and in setting an optimistic vision about life. This is what distinguished the character of Astroff, the wood demon of the play. Ian M. Matley in his essay Chekhov and Geography refers to this idea but he does not develop it. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to consider how the direct dealing with nature improves man's manners with others and how it makes him/her more optimistic than others who put themselves in isolation of nature and its beauty through adopting the analytical critical method. It is an eco-critical reading of Uncle Vanya from a moral perspective, so to speak