Three Sisters

Three Sisters (1900) is a drama in four acts by Russian playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov. It was first performed at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1901, directed by acclaimed actor Konstantin Stanislavski―who also played the role of Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin, a philosophizing artillery officer in love with middle Prozorov sister Masha. Reviews were mixed at first, but as the play continued to run, Three Sisters became a popular success, acclaimed by audiences and critics alike.

The play follows the Provorov family, focusing on sisters Olga, Masha, and Irina, as well as their brother Andrei. Each character struggles to balance their secret ambitions while facing the daily circumstances of reality. Olga, the oldest sister, is an unmarried schoolteacher who often finds herself responsible for the lives and happiness of others. Masha, the middle sister, is unhappily married to the kind Latin teacher Fyodor Kulygin, who knows about her affair with Lieutenant-Colonel Vershinin but continues to love and care for her. Irina, the youngest, is a vain and childish woman engaged to a man she respect but does not love. Andrei is initially an ambitious and energetic young man whose ill-fated marriage ruins not only his prospects of becoming a professor in Moscow, but his will to live as a man with any sense of self-respect. Natasha, who begins as an orphaned young woman unfit for high society, eventually emerges as a manipulative, envious woman whose love for her two children is matched only by her will to control the lives of the entire Prozorov family. Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov is a brilliant drama whose complex characters make us believe, for a time, in an art more real than life.

This edition of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters is a classic of Russian literature reimagined for modern readers.

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Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was a Russian doctor, short-story writer, and playwright. Born in the port city of Taganrog, Chekhov was the third child of Pavel, a grocer and devout Christian, and Yevgeniya, a natural storyteller. His father, a violent and arrogant man, abused his wife and children and would serve as the inspiration for many of the writer’s most tyrannical and hypocritical characters. Chekhov studied at the Greek School in Taganrog, where he learned Ancient Greek. In 1876, his father’s debts forced the family to relocate to Moscow, where they lived in poverty while Anton remained in Taganrog to settle their finances and finish his studies. During this time, he worked odd jobs while reading extensively and composing his first written works. He joined his family in Moscow in 1879, pursuing a medical degree while writing short stories for entertainment and to support his parents and siblings. In 1876, after finishing his degree and contracting tuberculosis, he began writing for St. Petersburg’s Novoye Vremya, a popular paper which helped him to launch his literary career and gain financial independence. A friend and colleague of Leo Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, and Ivan Bunin, Chekhov is remembered today for his skillful observations of everyday Russian life, his deeply psychological character studies, and his mastery of language and the rhythms of conversation.