Early reflection of environmental ethics in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya (1897)

A prominent playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) is regarded as an outstanding representative of the late 19th-century Russian realist school. He was also a practiced medical doctor who wrote numerous pieces with medical themes and physicians as characters, including Ward No. 6 (1892), The Seagull (1895), and Uncle Vanya (1897). A drama of four acts, the last one is particularly remarkable due to its visionary narrative in terms of environmental ethics.