Čechov nella visione di Lunačarskij

The familiarity of the Chekhovian art with the representation of reality,
and the closeness to the ideal of sociality, both represent for Lunacharsky
the main criterion to reason about Chekhov’s role in the new Soviet era. The
writer’s inclination to reproduce vivid impressions of reality, imbued with
laughter concealing sadness, opens up to a revolutionary interpretation of his
literary production. The mild humor is sublimated in the tales and dramas,
announcing the social force which, in the vision of the first Narkompros, would
have contributed greatly to the construction of the culture of the new time.
The essays of the 1920s clearly reveal the interpretative direction followed by
Lunacharsky: he identifies in his contemporaneousness Chekhov’s humorous
depiction of the survivals of the past.