[Кирилл Сызранский]

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov. 29/01/1860 - 15/07/1904.
I. Bunin about Chekhov: We were, as usual, in the office of Anton Chekhov and somehow started talking about the cross of our fathers:
   - General Sipyagin you baptized, but my brother, a merchant Spiridon Titov. You heard this title?
   - No.
   And Anton Pavlovich gave me a birth certificate. I have read and asked:
   - You can rewrite it?
   - Please.
   "An entry in the register Taganrog cathedral church:
   "1860 month of January, the 17-th day is born, and the 27 th baptized Anthony, his parents: Taganrog third merchant guilds, Paul G., Chekhov, and the wife of his Eugene Yakovlevna; godfather: Taganrog merchant brother Spiridon Titov and Taganrog Third guild merchant Dmitry Safyanopolu wife.
   - Merchant's brother! wonderful title! - Never heard of!
   In the birth certificate indicated that Chekhov was born on 17 of January,.
   Meanwhile, Anton Chekhov in a letter to his sister wrote (January 16, 1899).
   "Today is my birthday, 39 years old. Tomorrow birthday party, the local ladies and the ladies (whose name is Antonovka) will send and bring gifts."
   The difference in dates? Probably wrong deacon.

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But the restraint Chekhov impacted and in many other, more important, indicating a rare power of his personality. Who, for example, ever heard him complain? And the reasons for complaints were numerous. He started working in a large family, who have suffered at the time of his youth in need and worked enough that for a pittance, but also in an environment that can quench the most ardent of inspiration: in a small apartment, among the voices and noise, often at the edge of the table around which sat not only the whole family, but few guests-students. He long needed, and then ... But nobody has ever heard his lamentations on the fate, and it derives not from the reticence of his character and not because of its limited requirements: being unusually generous, modest in his lifestyle, he at the same time downright hated gray, scant Life ... He had been ill for fifteen years of debilitating disease, which steadily led him to death, but he knew whether this reader - Russian reader who has heard so much bitter writers' cries? Patients love their privileged position: it is often the most powerful among them, almost with relish tormenting others angry, bitter, constantly talking about his illness, but was truly amazing the courage with which the ill and died, Chekhov!

I. Levitan
Portrait of the writer Anton Chekhov. 1885-1886
Sketch. Paper on cardboard, oil. 41.8 x 31 cm The State Tretyakov Gallery

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Braz IE (1873-1936) Portrait of Anton Chekhov. 1898
X \\ M. 102h80.

portrait of Chekhov, written by Joseph Brazeau, is now kept in the vaults of the Tretyakov Gallery. Expose it only occasionally, in the days of Chekhov anniversaries and celebrations.
  The portrait was commissioned by PM Tretyakov. Braz - while still very young, novice painter, just graduated from the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts class Repin - worked on it for over two years. The first version (1897), he rejected himself. Second, sold Tretyakov, did not like Chekhov: "I am disgusted Brazovskii portrait ...»;" It is bad, it's a terrible portrait ...»; "It seems hard to write a less interesting portrait. No luck with me Braz.
  The artist has given his model of graceful, slightly mannered pose. Chekhov is drowning in an old chair with a high-backed velvet. Thin, delicate face is inclined to the bloodless hand, for pince-nez - dry, sad eyes. The canvas is accomplished in blue-misty colors. Colors so cold, as if the portrait made here directly from the cold and he was in this warm and crowded room, immediately covered with hoarfrost. Only glaze stain his cheeks glowing a pale glow of the disease.
  
  "... Portrait of me does not seem interesting. There is something in it not mine, and there is something my. Braz saw Chekhov as a man of his circle. He wrote a generic type of Russia's intelligentsia throughout the century.
  "We see the sky in diamonds ... we'll rest ... "The portrait of Chekhov, written by one of his characters.
  "If I was a pessimist and I write dark stories, the blame for this portrait of me."
He stayed only one: none of the major Russian artists never took up his brush to write a Chekhov.
  Reproduction in endless copies of the portrait of the Tretyakov Gallery became compulsory, as the document.