Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” as read by V.E. Khalizev

Domanski Yuri V.,

DSc in Philology, Professor

Professor at the Department of Theoretical and Historical Poetics,

Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH);

Professor at the Department of Russian and Foreign Literature

Samarkand State University named after Sharof Rashidov;

Senior Research Fellow

A.A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatre Museum

e-mail: domanskii@yandex.ru

The last play by A.P. Chekhov, the famous comedy “The Cherry Orchard”, has repeatedly become the object of a wide variety of observations over the past one hundred and twenty years. And the conclusions of these observations have also been quite diverse. Theorist and historian of literature Valentin Evgenievich Khalizev has addressed Chekhov’s comedy more than once over the course of several decades. In the 1960s, the scientist touched upon the aspect of “The Cherry Orchard” that could be called social. However, Khalizev’s early Chekhov studies are by no means limited to this — they draw important conclusions concerning the cultural aspect, the author’s worldview, and also draw theoretical conclusions — about the peculiarities of the structure and a number of elements of the dramatic text. In the 21st century, the scientist’s views on Chekhov’s comedy have significantly transformed and deepened. In the article “The Idyllic in A.P. Chekhov’s ‘The Cherry Orchard’” V.E. Khalizev examined Chekhov’s last play primarily through the idyllic component realized in it. From this perspective, attention is drawn to the system of characters, and to the action, and to the conflict. As a result, the conversation about the idyllic in “The Cherry Orchard” leads V.E. Khalizev to a global conclusion concerning the understanding of the play’s problems through its poetics, and following this — the understanding of the author’s worldview. In addition, in a new perspective relative to previous works, the dramatic categories of plot, stage action, and conflict are understood; touching on Chekhov’s stage directions in practice, which form the motivic structure of the drama, Khalizev’s conclusions push him towards theoretical generalizations regarding how leitmotifs characterizing the author’s worldview can be explicated in drama in general thanks to paratext. As a result, the work of V.E. Khalizev’s work on “The Cherry Orchard” corrects the established scholarly views on Chekhov’s last play, and at the same time clarifies ideas about drama.

Keywords: drama, dramaturgy, A.P. Chekhov, “The Cherry Orchard”, V.E. Khalizev

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