«Literature that Teaches how to Escape from Prison»: Doctors in the Prose of A. P. Chekhov of the 1890s

In his lifetime, A. P. Chekhov was often reproached by the critics for his pessimism, and yet they were lauding him as «the Russian Maupassant». While borrowing certain techniques and motives of the French writer, Chekhov seemed to have started an undercover polemics with him in the mid-1890s. This occurs in Chekhov’s novella A Woman’s Kingdom (1894), in which the principal character praises Maupassant’s novel Our Heart and his work in general. In addition, A Woman’s Kingdom is a variation on the theme of Maupassant’s novel Life. Yet Chekhov’s character believes that the French writer’s work, same as «all the new literature», is a proof of the death of Human in the modern world. Still, this novella by Chekhov, as well as his 1898 stories A Medical Case and On Official Duty, seems to offer the ways to save the Human.