Passion Themes in the Early Stories of Chekhov

This bachelor thesis is specifically concerned with the genre of Easter story within the work of A. P. Chekhov. In view of the fact that it represents a relatively broad topic, the author primarily concentrates on the early writer's work. The theoretical part deals with the significance of Easter in relation to Russian cultural archetype and the formation, development and characteristics of Russian Easter story in the context of as it is called "holiday" literature. The main goal of the practical part is to put an interpretation on selected stories by means of the text analysis, to identify key motifs and innovative techniques, which were used by the author as a reaction to the crisis of the genre and also as attributes of his literary expression anticipating the modern literary movements. Author's innovative stylistics is characterized by ambivalence, laconism, tragicomic features, new narrative techniques and genre experiments. Concluding findings have been made on the basis of the analysis of separate stories showing Chekhov's poetics, his overall approach revealing humanistic message of author's Easter stories, Chekhov's concept of religious belief and Orthodox Church