This volume offers modern perspectives, from a strong international team of scholars, on the perception of Anton Chekhov's works by three leading cultural figures of the Silver Age of Russian culture - Vasilii Rozanov, Dmitrii Merezhkovskii and Lev Shestov.

Acknowledgments; Introduction; Three Brief Biographies; I. Vasilii Rozanov; Rozanov on Chekhov: 'Overcoming Literature' and Extending Horizons; Kind and Quiet: Chekhov in the Perceptions of Vasilii Rozanov; Contemporaneity, Competition and Combat: Facts and Fiction about Everybody and Passiveness, Orientalism and Anaesthesia in Rozanov's View on Chekhov; 'Tree of Life' and 'Dead Waters': Why Was Rozanov Afraid of Chekhov?; II. Dmitrii Merezhkovskii; Chekhov and Merezhkovskii: Two Types of Artistic-Philosophical Consciousness; Negating His Own Negation: Merezhkovskii's Understanding of Chekhov's Role in Russian Culture; An Illuminating Misinterpretation? On Merezhkovskii's Literary Criticism of Chekhov; Can Merezhkovskii See the Spirit in the Prose of Flesh?; III. Lev Shestov; Lev Shestov on Chekhov; Between Tragedy and Aesthetics: Shestov's Reading of Chekhov – A Gaze Directed Within; Shestov – Chekhov, Chekhov – Shestov; Philosophy’s Enemies: Chekhov and Shestov; Notes on Contributors

Olga Tabachnikova holds a PhD in Mathematics and a PhD in Russian Literature and Philosophy. She is now a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Russian Department of the University of Bristol.