Chekhovian response to Anna Karenina and The Death of Ivan Ilyich: analysis of Leo Tolstoy's artistic influence on Anton Chekhov's life and works

Abstract

In the context of Russian literature, the name Anna Karenina is widely renowned among the worldwide readers of classic texts. It remains a hallmark of Russian classics, being one of the greatest books of all time. Similar to the name of Leo Tolstoy as a novelist, in the realm of Russian short stories, Anton Chekhov is invincible till today. Throughout his literary career and his life, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina remained a source of major inspiration. This paper attempts to make an effort in addressing the literary and artistic relationship between Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov, where the novel Anna Karenina played the role of a catalyst. In an attempt to provide dimensions to the purpose of this paper, Chekhov’s major short stories that have been written in response to Anna Karenina and The Death of Ivan Ilyich will be analyzed. The artistic differences will be pointed out by using Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of author-character relationship later on in this paper.