5/24/2023 0 Comments Chekhov three sistersMeanwhile the Emancipation of the Serfs meant the land-owning class went into rapid decline as new industrialists rose to power, and both peasants and former serfs flocked to the cities for work in the factories. Alexander II’s assassination in 1881 spawned a period of reaction under Alexander III and Nicholas II, the last Russian Czar, during which they both tried to root out terrorism in their midst. This led in the 1870s to a movement of young intellectuals who went out into the countryside to “infiltrate among the people”, share their lives, educate them, and attempt to activate discontent along revolutionary lines. In 1866 there was an attempt on Czar Alexander II’s life, and he became increasingly conservative with the state becoming more oppressive. In 1861 Czar Alexander II freed the serfs, an act comparable to our own Emancipation Proclamation in 1865, ushering in a brief period of freedom of expression, even as the Russian Empire continued its expansion into the Caucasus, Turkistan, and East Asia. The final fertile two decades of Chekhov’s life and art during which he wrote his principal works were ones of extreme governmental oppression in Russia. The three other mature plays on which his fame as a playwright rests: Seagull (1896), Uncle Vanya (1896), and The Cherry Orchard (1903) were all written within a twenty year period. Anton Chekhov wrote Three Sisters in 1901.
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