Short stories by Anton Chekhov3,: About truth, freedom and love - Bk. 3

Chekhov dedicated considerable amount of time writing the 3 stories in this trilogy and was very particular about his intention to release them as once piece. This is evident from his correspondence with his publisher. But his wishes were ignored during his lifetime and the first story had been published separately.

The story received colossal amount of attention from both professional critics and general public and resonated so strongly that readers were compelled to write long letters to Chekhov (in some cases over 20 pages in length) praising him for being so truthful, for enlightening and reflecting the reality of their lives.

Many prominent critics of the time such as Lyatsky attacked Chekhov for attempting to generalise life in a bubble which he claimed was more of a pathological exception than a rule.

Lyatsky also accused Chekhov of only showing the dreadful sides of life and never providing the reader with an answer of how to improve it.

Leo Tolstoy disagreed with Lyatsky after reading the second story. Happiness does not exist and should not exist. And if there is purpose in life, this purpose should not be our personal happiness, it should be about something more intelligent, something more divine, from Tolstoy's letter to Gusev (1910). The third story, About Love, concludes the trilogy, but Chekhov's initial thoughts were to produce another sequel. The forth story never materialised however. The relationship described in the third story was based on Chekhov's own relationship with Miss Avilova who upon publication of this story compared Chekhov with busy bee who flies about and is happy to collect honey from just about anything on its way.

Such colourful comparison could not be left unanswered and Chekhov quickly responded to Miss Avilova that You are being unkind towards your busy bee.

The bee first sees bright beautiful flowers and only then collects honey from themA". After publication of all stories in this trilogy, even most unflattering critics of Chekhov agreed that these 3 stories represented a significant milestone in Chekhov's personal development as a serious writer. They all noted that the tone of these stories was less frivolous in comparison to his earlier work. Regarding Chekhov's About Love, Mikhailovsky wrote that Chekhov was touching upon most significant and important questions of human life with such skill, depth and emotion that Chekhov in lifting us to the sky, is showing us a third dimension, so to speak.