Chekhov's medical aesthetics: environments, psychology, and literature

This dissertation is an interdisciplinary project that situates Anton Chekhov’s literary writings and non-fiction in the context of nineteenth century medicine. Chekhov’s medical training at Moscow University introduced him to the techniques of rigorous clinical and psychiatric observation, drawing him to view human subjects as embedded in spatial and social environments. Throughout his careers as writer and physician, Chekhov considers the unique capabilities of the medical perspective for conceptualizing mental and social life. My dissertation argues that in his creative writing and non-fiction Chekhov explores the insights of medicine and its methodological limitations, allowing him to articulate new complexities in human subjectivity and the need for reform across imperial Russia’s social institutions. Central to the project are readings of case histories and medical reports that Chekhov wrote while practicing medicine and his medical ethnography of the Russian Empire’s exile system, Sakhalin Island. I include new translations of this material and integrate analysis of original sources in medical history with readings of Chekhov’s comic stories, novellas, non-fiction, and drama in respective chapters.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Matthew Mangol