A Scary tale: the archetypal content of A.P. Chekhov's drama "Three Sisters"

Liashenko Tatiana Mihailovna PhD in Philology Associate Professor; Department of Foreign and Russian Languages; Moscow State Academy of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnology – MBA named after K.I. Scriabin 109472, Russia, Moscow, Akademika Scriabin str., 23 po-russki@list.ru Other publications by this author

Anton Chekhov's world-famous drama "Three Sisters" serves as an object of research. The subject of the study is the archetypal content of the work. The methodology of archetypal analysis of a literary text originates in the writings of C.G. Jung, who developed the theory of archetypes. In Russian literary criticism of the Soviet period, archetypal analysis existed within the framework of a mythopoeic approach to literary work; the effectiveness of this method was demonstrated in the works of E.M. Meletinsky, S.Z. Agranovich, V.N. Toporov, and others.

The archetypal content of the text goes back to the images of the collective unconscious, which even before the emergence of fiction found their embodiment in myths and fairy tales. The archetypes in the text reflect the most ancient ideas of mankind about the world and the laws of life. The relevance of the research is based on the fact that the archetypal approach allows us to more deeply reveal the psychological content of the work, which gives the literary text a timeless character.

Despite the fact that the psychologism of A.P. Chekhov's plays has been repeatedly noted, these works have not been subjected to serious archetypal analysis, which is due to the novelty of the study.

It can be assumed, albeit to some extent conditionally, that in 2025 the drama "Three Sisters" will celebrate its 125th anniversary. The idea of the play was probably born a year or two earlier, and the premiere on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater took place in early 1901; in the same year, the first edition was published, on the cover of which were portraits of the actresses of the Moscow Art Theater, who played the main roles in the production.

The year 1900 was a year of difficult, sometimes painful work on the text. Having started in Yalta in August, the writer was already dissatisfied with the results of his work by the end of the month. "It's getting a little boring," he wrote to O.L. Knipper on August 30, 1900 ^{[10, p. 106]}. "It is very difficult to write The Three Sisters, more difficult than previous plays," we read in a letter from M.P. Chekhov dated September 9, 1900 ^{[10, p. 113]}. In September, Anton Chekhov was ill, and work on the play was delayed. In mid-October, the draft was ready, as the author reported in a letter to A.M. Gorky, along the way also complaining about the difficulties of the work ^{[10, p. 133]}.

In October, Chekhov came to Moscow from Yalta and presented the play to the troupe of the Art Theater, which was greeted with bewilderment. Stanislavsky's memoirs about the first reading of the play are widely known and often quoted: "It turns out that the playwright was sure that he had written a funny comedy, and at the reading everyone accepted the play as a drama and cried listening to it. This made Chekhov think that the play was incomprehensible and failed" ("My Life in Art") ^{[8, p. 301]}. V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko also mentioned this episode: "Chekhov repeated several times: I wrote vaudeville" ^{[4, p. 169]}.

Then Anton Chekhov kept making edits, right up to the premiere itself. He wrote from Nice, where he enjoyed the balmy Mediterranean climate; he added and deleted lines, and asked in his letters "if there were any misunderstandings, if everything was clear" (letter from O.L. Knipper dated December 21, 1900) ^{[10, p. 158]}. Why was it so necessary to carefully polish the text, why was it necessary for it to be understood correctly? And why does a play whose mood, as the author himself noted, is "darker than gloomy" (letter to V.F. Komissarzhevskaya on November 13, 1900) ^{[10, p. 139]} suddenly receive the status of comedy, vaudeville in the author's interpretation?

"Three Sisters" is called the most mysterious of Chekhov's plays. It is indeed multi-layered and provides opportunities for a wide variety of interpretations, including mystical ones. And, of course, the question of the signs of the comic in this work was not ignored, since the author himself insisted on their presence. The researchers refer, in particular, to the theory of inconsistency, according to which the comic, funny in art is based on the manifestation of contradiction, unexpected for the viewer, reader or listener ^[13].

G.V.F. Hegel, discussing the emotional states of a person, described the occurrence of laughter as follows: "We laugh when we encounter an unexpected contradiction in a phenomenon, that is, when the phenomenon directly turns into the opposite and is destroyed by itself" ^{[1, p. 123]}.

Practically the same idea can be found in a more concretized form in I. Kant: "In everything that causes cheerful uncontrollable laughter, there must be something meaningless.… Laughter is an affect that arises from the transformation of intense expectation into nothing. It is this transformation, which is certainly not joyful for the mind, but nevertheless indirectly causes a moment of lively joy" ^{[2, p. 207]}. It is impossible not to notice that in the comic there is at the same time something that "is certainly not joyful for the mind," and a certain destruction that for some reason causes "living joy." I. Kant emphasizes this circumstance: "... expectation should not turn into the positive opposite of the expected object, since it is always something and can upset, but into nothing" ^{[2, p. 208]}.

From this point of view, laughter looks like a protective reaction of the psyche, allowing you to cope with the depressing feelings of loss, anxiety, grief, as well as with the most joyless feeling of all – the awareness of the finiteness of being, including the finiteness of your own life. It seems that the play "Three Sisters" could also serve as a means of psychological adaptation for the author to the inevitable outcome of the chronic illness that tormented him.

The theme of death is present in all four acts of the drama "Three Sisters"; it appears literally in the first sentence of the main test after the list of actors and author's remarks describing the setting of the first act. "It's sunny and fun outside," the author assures, and then the heroine's first remark sounds: "My father died exactly one year ago..." ^{[11, p. 166]}. The death of a father on the name day of one of his daughters, on a holiday that will now be poisoned by sad memories for a long time, is the antithesis that sets the direction for all further action. The thought of death seems to be replaced by the joyful atmosphere of a fine day, but the memories do not disappear anywhere, words related to the topic of dying slip through them every now and then: "it seemed I couldn't survive," "I fainted like dead," "I loved my dead mother," "if it weren't for you, I I would not have lived in the world for a long time", "I see it as alive."

Note that the lexical means used are such that death in the play does not appear as the opposite of life, but rather goes hand in hand with it: the living Irina lies "as if dead," and Vershinin sees the late General Prozorov "as if alive." In the fourth act, Tuzenbach's remark is heard, emphasizing that life and death do not negate each other: "Even if I die, I will still participate in life one way or another" ^{[11, p. 255]}.

The theme of death is also included in the description of events that are not directly related to the development of the action. For example, Irina, an employee at the telegraph office, tells about a woman who sent a telegram about her son's death, but forgot the address; Dr. Chebutykin in the third act goes on a binge, blaming himself for the death of the patient; the watchman Ferapont recounts rumors about the death of a merchant who ate too many pancakes, and about unprecedented frosts: "Two thousand people died as if" ^{[11, p. 257]}.

It has been repeatedly noted that Chekhov, the playwright, avoids appointing one of the characters as a reasoner responsible for the author's view of a particular problem; it would even be more correct to say that almost all the actors in Chekhov's dramas are gradually being reasoned with, with the possible exception of the most repulsive of them. In the play "Three Sisters", perhaps the most significant metaphysical discovery belongs to Dr. Chebutykin (is it because he is a doctor, like the author?). The doctor shares this discovery more than once. So, in the third act, he delivers a detailed monologue, the core idea of which is formulated as follows: "Maybe we only think that we exist, but in reality we do not exist" ^{[11, p. 229]}. In the fourth act, he repeats this guess with more confidence: "It just seems... There is nothing in the world, we do not exist, we do not exist, but only seem to exist..." ^{[11, p. 251]}.

These lines can be interpreted in different ways, as well as the phrases of other characters - that's what Chekhov's drama is remarkable for. One can hear, in particular, the opinion that we are talking about the popular idea in Buddhism about the illusory nature of existence and how such views can turn a kind and sincere person into a notorious cynic: "One baron more, one less — what does it matter?" ^{[11, p. 251]}.

However, it is also possible to take the doctor's words in their literal sense: what if everything described in "The Three Sisters" is a mirage, some kind of dream or, perhaps, a phantasmagoric near-death delusion?

At the time of Anton Chekhov, mystical literature already existed, but it was mostly likened to a scary fairy tale or a Christmas story about evil spirits. There were examples in the literature of the 19th century of descriptions of hallucinations of consciousness seized by illness; F.M. Dostoevsky repeatedly addressed this topic, and A.P. Chekhov in the story "The Black Monk", written in 1893, created, according to the critic S.A. Andreevsky, "a deep and faithful study of mental illness." But real, serious attempts to consistently connect the magical and the real began to be undertaken somewhat later, forming a trend called magical realism; for example, F.'s novel belongs to this trend. Sologub's "The Little Devil", first published in 1905: in this work, fairy-tale motifs fit seamlessly into the daily life of the characters, although they are interpreted as signs of mental illness ^{[3, p. 85]}.

If we consider the drama "Three Sisters" through the prism of a fairy-tale plot, then much of what seems strange in the play can get a fairly clear explanation, and the details that seem "random" will occupy the right place in the overall structure of the work. Here, perhaps, it is appropriate to say a few words about the "accidental" in Chekhov's texts. We will put "Random" in quotation marks on purpose, because in creativity, as in a specific way of knowing the world and a person in the world, random, apparently, does not happen. Everything that the author of a literary text writes is an expression of his mental structure, and even what may seem insignificant, unimportant, or secondary somehow fits into the writer's picture of the surrounding reality, becomes a representation of the subjective. In this regard, Chekhov acted as a revolutionary of the dramatic form, allowing minor "trifles" to function on stage in inseparable unity with essential details and episodes.

The writer and one of the greatest experts on the work of Anton Chekhov, A.P. Chudakov, polemicizing with the contemporaries of the author of The Three Sisters, who persistently sought "one idea" and "one mood" behind the insignificant, "superfluous" details of Chekhov's dramas, argued that the random effect, the deliberate lack of connection between the lines, is an innovative technique: "Chekhov's accidental is not a manifestation of the characteristic, as it was in the previous literary tradition, it is actually accidental, having an independent existential value and an equal right to artistic embodiment with everything else" ^{[12, pp. 297-298]}.

In form, Chekhov's plays are indeed replete with lines that do not seem to go to the point, but Chekhov does not just fill the text with insignificant phrases in order to demonstrate their "independent existential value" – he is intensely searching for a place for each of them, which is confirmed by the recorded copyrights. It is not uncommon for such remarks to be persistently repeated throughout the play, sometimes by one character, and sometimes by different characters, and then it is very difficult to agree that the writer simply depicted "the usual course of life" ^{[12, p. 536]}, that we are looking at an artistic device that is self–contained, to no purpose. The "idea" is not the leading one. It is more logical to assume that the technique does not lead to one specific idea, which we could fix once and for all in the form of a certain postulate, that it forms a super-ideological meaning, thanks to which the play is perceived as complex, multidimensional, opening up space for an infinite variety of interpretations.

Such a supersense, standing above other ideas and attitudes, is the archetype in which the most stable universal ideas about the world order are concentrated. If we approach the study of Chekhov's play from the standpoint of archetypal analysis, then almost any detail, phrase, or even a single word becomes significant, weaving into the fabric of the work and creating an integral canvas.

The very name "Three Sisters", firstly, correlates with the female archetype image, and secondly, it is associated with a fabulous plot, because three is one of the favorite numbers in folk art. There are three known princesses of the fairy–tale kingdoms - copper, silver and gold, which Propp understood as a "tripling of the thirtieth kingdom" ^{[7, p. 417]}. The latter, in turn, concentrates in itself a variety of ideas about the other world, the "other world" that exists on the other side of death; the heroes of fairy tales get there, driven by special tasks, they undergo trials there, and return transformed from there, having obtained something important for themselves.

If the hero usually meets fairy-tale princesses in turn, then the three Prozorov sisters appear in the play at the same time, immediately after the beginning of the first act. Chekhov mentions the colors of their dresses: Irina in white, Masha in black, Olga in the blue uniform of a gymnasium teacher. The achromatic colors (black and white) and blue as the color of a faceless uniform are contrasted in the play with the bright shades of Natasha's outfits, the bride, and then Andrei Prozorov's wife. A pink dress with a green belt, a yellowish skirt and a red blouse seem "strange" to the sisters; indeed, green, yellow, and shades of red are lively, natural colors, while white, black, and blue are cold, lifeless.

The sisters' attitude to life is similar to that of bright colors. Masha speaks bluntly about her hatred: "Life is cursed, unbearable" ^{[11, p. 188]}. Irina explains, emphasizing that she expresses their common opinion: "Our three sisters' lives were not yet beautiful, they drowned us out like weeds" ^{[11, p. 189]}. It should be noted that it was not the peculiarities of provincial life or specific relationships with people – life itself prevented the sisters from developing in their preferred direction.

The sisters demonstrate an enviable unity, they have common aspirations; Masha Kulygin's husband practically does not distinguish between them, telling Olga that he could have married her if he had not married her sister. And then he claims that Irina "looks like Masha" ^{[11, p. 246]}. Vershinin, recalling his acquaintance with the Prozorov family, also mentions "three girls" together: "I don't really remember you, I just remember that you had three sisters" ^{[11, p. 176]}. A similar trinity of sisters can be observed in other literary tests ^[3], as well as in myths, where three female entities, performing a common function, can be perceived as hypostases or phases (for example, age-related) of one supernatural being.

The age triad (Virgo-Mother-Old Woman), at first glance, has nothing to do with the Prozorov sisters, since the age difference between the eldest and youngest is only eight years, but still each of them embodies one of the forms of femininity: a young girl (Irina), a married woman (Masha), an old maid (Olga). All three are constant in their roles: Olga, with a positive attitude towards marriage, will not begin to build a love relationship; Masha, despite falling in love with Vershinin, will not part with her unloved husband; Irina will not become a married woman, since her fiance will die literally on the eve of the wedding.

The kingdom of the three sisters in A.P. Chekhov's play is limited to the house of the Prozorovs. The audience sees this house from different angles, from inside and outside, and the stage action takes place only in it or near it. The characters, in fact, do not leave this house, although they constantly talk about it. The owners themselves are also afraid of this house: "I don't go to this house anymore, and I won't go," Masha says in the fourth act, and perhaps it's not just Natasha who has seized the Prozorov possessions. This amazing house does not deteriorate, and even a fire bypasses it.

Everyone comes to this magical house with their own, so to speak, dominant life path. So, Dr. Chebutykin, escaping from loneliness, finds here a semblance of a family, in some way acquires children from the once beloved woman. "If it weren't for you," he says, "I wouldn't have lived in the world for a long time" ^{[11, p. 175]}.

Chebutykin's relationship with the late General Prozorova is unclear, which is very accurately reflected in the dialogue with Masha.:

Masha: Did you love my mother?

Chebutykin: Very much.

Masha: And she loves you?

Chebutykin (after a pause): I don't remember that anymore ^{[11, p. 249]}.

What was said after a pause can be understood as you like: "yes, I loved you, but I don't want to talk about it, so as not to compromise the woman I love"; "no, I didn't love you, so I hate talking about it; it destroys the illusion that makes me happy." But nothing prevents you from taking the phrase in its literal sense: the doctor tries, but cannot remember the details of his relationship with the general's wife, remembers only his feelings for her, which form the main impression of his life.

Other visitors to the house also encounter exactly those events and circumstances that are most significant to them. Vershinin gains the love and understanding of a "magnificent, wonderful" woman and at the same time remains faithful to his duty towards his wife and daughters. Second Lieutenant Fedotic retains an irresponsibly childish perception of life; deliberate diminutive suffixes in his speech ("minute", "pencil", "knife", "scissors"), love for trivial objects like a spinning top liken him to a child who perceives the world easily and directly, even a fire does not cause him horror, not the bitterness of loss, and the fun, as if it were some kind of funny adventure ^[5]. Gymnasium teacher Kulygin enjoys his love for his wife, repeating as an affirmation: "I am satisfied, I am satisfied, I am satisfied!" ^{[11, pp. 233-234]}, ignoring the obvious signs of her dissatisfaction with their union, including the direct manifestation of falling in love with another person. Nanny Anfisa retains her place next to the pupils – apparently, until the very end of her days.

In the Prozorov house, Natasha turns into a sovereign mistress, wife and mother of the family, free in her decisions, freely managing her husband and servants. By marrying her, Andrey hopes to get out of the influence of his sisters, whom he is "afraid of for some reason" ^{[11, p. 197]}. There are undoubtedly reasons to be afraid of archetypal sisters.: The three sisters have a special power, the power that determines fate, as do, for example, the three moira in ancient Greek myths. Alas, Andrey has a harder time in the play than others, as a brother, he experiences the effects of sisterly magic more intensely: no matter what desperate decisions he makes, nothing can undo his destructive path leading to a personal dead end – to a personal hell, where longing and loneliness become his lot.

Andrey's love for Natasha is incomprehensible to him, it looks like an obsession.: "Why, why I fell in love with you, when I fell in love – oh, I don't understand anything" ^{[11, p. 193]}. This feeling, disapproved of by the sisters, develops in opposition to their antipathy, but does not lead to the expected happiness.

All the characters in the play dream of something, each of their own, and all find something in the house of the Prozorovs, each of their own. But one cannot help but notice that each of them carries an internal conflict, often painful. Baron Tuzenbach, realizing the depravity of his idle existence, passionately arguing about the need for work, is heading for a death as meaningless as his entire previous existence. Paradoxically, death seems to be his last chance to become an active participant in life. Dreaming of bringing benefits to people, Tuzenbach is ready to sacrifice his earthly existence and directly offers it to his beloved. "If I were allowed to give my life for you" ^{[11, p. 233]}, he says to Irina in the third act, and in the finale he gets his way.

The "terrible man" staff Captain Soleny constantly pours cologne on his hands and only in the fourth act explains this strange manner: "Hands smell like a corpse" ^{[11, p. 253]}. The cadaverous smell, characteristically, appears even before the corpse, that is, Salty already feels like a murderer and anticipates this event several times throughout the play: "I will put ... a bullet in the forehead" ^{[11, p. 172]}, "I will kill" ^{[11, p. 217]}.

By the way, not only the staff captain can prophesy. Vershinin, having barely resumed his acquaintance with the Prozorovs, already undertakes to assert: "Life will drown you out" ^{[11, p. 183]}, after which Irina repeats this metaphor in a conversation with Tuzenbach, but presents it as something that has already taken place in the past: "Life ... drowned us out" ^{[11, p. 189]}. Also, Lieutenant Fedotik, being present when Irina was playing solitaire, laughingly, but without any doubt, announces to her: "You will not be in Moscow" ^{[11, p. 208]}, predicting what will happen in the future.

Such chronological inversions cease to seem strange if you pay attention to the fact that time in the magical house of the three sisters behaves very strangely. Already in the first act, there is a mysterious remark linking the day on which the action takes place (the date is precisely indicated by Chekhov – May fifth, Sunday) with the day of General Prozorov's death: "And then the clock also struck" ^{[11, p. 166]}. It's quite original for a clock to ring with an interval of once a year; in fact, they shouldn't have been standing all this time, and therefore, they also struck at noon the day before, a week ago, and a month ago. Olga's phrase makes all the days that have passed since her father's death seem nonexistent; the striking of the clock miraculously stitches together the temporary gap that these "missing" days have formed. The stage action is subsequently organized in a similar way: the viewer sees four fragments from the life of the Prozorovs and their surroundings; between these episodes is the emptiness of timelessness.

The behavior of the wall clock displeases Kulygin: what he sees on it does not match the readings of his pocket watch, which he apparently trusts more. In other words, the time of the character does not coincide with the time of the scene; the individual, subjective, differs from the data coming from the outside. Finally, Dr. Chebutykin breaks the clock altogether – another porcelain one, but also belonging to the Prozorov house, since the general's wife was once their owner. Thus, the doctor expresses his final distrust of the illusory passage of time. In the fourth act, he starts his own watch ("antique, with a chime") and listens to its ringing. The appearance of this detail undoubtedly carries a certain meaning: the time circle closes, the action takes place again at noon, but for the owner of the watch, the right time comes arbitrarily, at will; this is not the forced time of the Prozorovsky house, strange, involving emotionally difficult experiences; now the finale is near, liberation is near…

The discrepancies in the lines and behavior of the characters are so numerous that they also cease to give the impression of randomness. It can be noticed that from time to time the characters behave like the hard–of-hearing watchman Ferapont - they respond at random or ignore each other altogether. The dispute between Salty and Chebutykin about wild garlic and chehartme is significant in this regard, where both words are persistently repeated several times, seemingly excluding accidental misunderstandings and suggesting malicious, demonstratively conflicting behavior by Salty. Perhaps this is so, because the staff captain internally likens himself to Lermontov, and he, as you know, was a noble provocateur, which led to a tragic outcome. However, the other characters in the play don't seem to be asking for a fight. Vershinin, coming to the Prozorovs' house on Shrovetide, says that he is hungry: "Half his life for a glass of tea! I haven't eaten anything in the morning..." ^{[11, p. 204]} – and this remark remains unanswered, ignored, among others, by the hostess present here, Irina. At the same time, she perfectly hears (and even repeats) the phrase of Dr. Chebutykin, reading the newspaper: "Balzac was married in Berdichev" ^{[11, p. 207]}.

It seems that each of the characters in the play resides in a certain personal, subjective space, where all the others resemble mirages. Just as it sometimes happens in a dream or in delirium, imaginary images only resemble real, familiar people in general, but they behave in the world of our fantasies in a rather bizarre way: for example, they rejoice under sad or even tragic circumstances, they speak when they are asked not to, etc.

Let's mention another fabulous motif that connects the house of the Prozorovs with the other world. It is known that in the magical kingdom of the thirtieth, the consumption of food is ritualistic. A hero who finds himself in the house of Baba Yaga or in the palace of the princess can claim to be watered and fed. The "other world" in the consciousness of ancient man was inexhaustibly abundant in terms of nutrition. In the first act of the play "Three Sisters", the Prozorov house appears hospitable and hospitable. However, only the worthy have the right to enjoy hospitality. So, Irina and Masha in the first act discuss the chairman of the zemstvo council Mikhail Ivanovich Protopopov, who "should not be invited" ^{[11, p. 174]}. The uninvited Protopopov never appears on stage, even when he stops by to pick up his mistress Natasha for a carnival ride, even when he's supposedly sitting in the living room in the last act of the play, he doesn't seem to be there; in any case, he remains invisible to the viewer. Protopopov's features can be guessed from the sisters' remarks: judging by his name, "this Mikhail Potapych, or Ivanich" ^{[11, p. 174]} can be imagined as a bear, a dangerous creature capable of destroying the fabulous "teremok" of the Prozorovsky house and harming its inhabitants, as the play repeatedly warns: "He did not have time to gasp, how the bear attacked him"^{[11, p. 172; 11, p. 253]}.

The rest of the characters in the first act of the play gather at the table in almost full force. Most likely, nanny Anfisa is sitting with everyone, because without her, the mystical "thirteen at the table" would not have worked. The fourteenth character, Ferapont the watchman, also gets his share of the birthday cake, but he is not present at the common table – obviously, he is superfluous. Thirteen, on the one hand, is an unlucky number associated in the Christian tradition with betrayal and death. Thirteen people sat at the table during the Last Supper. On the other hand, the symbolism of the number thirteen recalls renewal: the perfection of the number twelve is overcome, a new stage begins, negation, destruction of the old. Such changes can be painful, but no development is possible without them. In the play, this is exactly what happens: Natasha, who first appeared as the object of Andrei Prozorov's irrational infatuation, later seizes power in the house.

Natasha is the least attractive figure in the play, and the author certainly doesn't like her. It is she who becomes the impulse that destroys the habitual way of life of the sisters, it is she who promotes the relocation of the eldest of them, Olga, from home. But she also has the most vitality: she runs the household, gives birth to children, has an affair with Protopopov, who, as he knows how, promotes her husband's career. She embodies life in the most unpleasant features for Anton Chekhov: assertiveness, expansiveness, brusqueness in relation to the obsolete, to what has ceased to be seen as functional. But no matter how the writer treats these qualities, he is forced to admit that it is they who win, not fragile refinement and sensitivity; rudeness and vulgarity win, and elegance and education are pushed to the periphery, "stifled." Salty, with his deliberate conflict, misogynistic and generally misanthropic judgments, is not as terrible as a housewife wandering down the corridor with a candle, and the author wanted to see her stage incarnation as scary: "Natasha, when going around the house at night, puts out the lights and looks for crooks under the furniture. But, it seems to me, it would be better if she walked along the stage, in one line, without looking at anyone or anything, la Lady Macbeth, with a candle – it's shorter and scarier" (letter to K.S. Stanislavsky dated January 2, 1901) ^{[10, p. 171]}. Life, invading the peaceful space of the thirtieth kingdom, mercilessly breaking the fragile structures of an elegant illusion, is really frightening, causes a desire to be away from such a "life".

Repetitions play an important role in creating the phantasmagoric atmosphere of the play. The above-mentioned phrase about Balzac is repeated three times, and to call it "accidental" will not turn the tongue. Indeed, shortly before his death, the French writer married a Polish landowner in a small town in the Russian Empire. For Anton Chekhov, the time he was working on the drama "Three Sisters" was also the time of a romantic relationship with O.L. Knipper, and their relationship logically developed towards a marriage, which was concluded in June 1901. Chekhov, being seriously ill, was afraid of the wedding and, perhaps, was afraid of repeating the story of Balzac, who lived only a few months after the wedding. The "accidental" phrase carries a rather disturbing meaning, directly associated with the theme of death.

It is no coincidence that a line from Pushkin's poem Ruslan and Lyudmila obsessively haunts Masha: "There is a green oak tree in the Lukomorye, a golden chain on the tom oak." Lukomorye is not originally a fabulous land, but just a bend of the seashore. But for the Russian reader, this word invariably brings to mind the preface to A.S. Pushkin's poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila", which contains a description of a magical place where "the forest and the valley are full of visions."

In the fourth act, Masha, in tears, almost hysterically, asks the question: "What does Lukomorye mean? Why is this word in my head?" ^{[11, p. 262]}. Some later postmodern literary or film production would certainly have offered its own version of the answer to this question, but Chekhov stood in the furthest threshold of postmodernism, so this mystery remains unsolvable.

But it may be that the answer is simple and lies in the question itself: because there is a fabulous Lukomorye all around. And the cat, also mentioned by Masha, walks around the chain there, that is, the same narratives are endlessly repeated.: Vershinin's wife repeatedly attempts suicide; Salty keeps watering himself with cologne to get rid of the cadaverous smell; Dr. Chebutykin constantly escapes into a binge from agonizing dissatisfaction with himself and his existence; Natasha admires the next baby she gave birth to; Olga and Irina all want and all can't go to Moscow. All the people around, as follows from Andrey's monologue, live in cycles: "they eat, drink, sleep, then die... others will be born and also eat, drink, sleep... and they will become as pathetic, dead like their fathers and mothers..." ^{[11, pp. 256-257]}.

The great Dante described the structure of hell in the form of circles. Many years later, the most popular author of books in the horror genre, S. King, in one of his screenplays, expressed the idea that hell is a repetition. The hell of Chekhov's heroes is not only a repetition, but also loneliness, which is also repeated in the characters, as if it is crushed in the fragments of a mirror. The old nurse Anfisa is lonely, who has nowhere to go, who has devoted her whole life to the Prozorovs; Tuzenbach is lonely, in love with a girl who honestly declares to him: "I will be your wife, both faithful and submissive, but there is no love" ^{[11, p. 254]}. Salty is lonely, who in the finale of the play must have killed the only person who sympathized with him at least a little. Kulygin is lonely, in whom his wife was disappointed, Vershinin is lonely, who was disappointed in his wife, Chebutykin is lonely, who does not have a wife and did not have one, but there was only an illusory relationship.

Andrey, saying goodbye to Chebutykin, says: "I'll stay in the house alone." In response to the question "And the wife?" he likens Natasha to a "small, blind, rough animal.": "In any case, she is not a human being" ^{[11, p. 252]}. The hero feels like the only person in an empty house, despite the presence of servants and children, and his wife is an incomprehensible and unpleasant creature who lives nearby to torment him even more.

Natasha thinks the same way.: "Tomorrow I'm already here alone" ^{[11, p. 264]}. Finally, the sisters, having received the news of Tuzenbach's death and having fallen into a completely unnatural euphoria from this, rejoice at the cheerful music, and Masha says: "We will be left alone to start our lives again" ^{[11, p. 265]}. Loneliness marks the beginning of a new circle, a new cycle that will take place, perhaps in a different environment, in different settings, with the participation of other people, but the sad destruction of the old through the merciless invasion of the new will remain unchanged.

The main repetition in the play "Three Sisters", practically a refrain, becomes the phrase "it doesn't matter", which is pronounced by most of the characters: Salty, Tuzenbach, Kulygin, Andrey Prozorov, Vershinin, Masha, Olga, and most often Chebutykin – in total, this expression sounds more than fifteen once; the last two times – almost at the very end. This totally devaluing remark exists as a constant reminder of the theory of incongruity: all tense expectations turn into nothing. And to enhance the effect, before the final "anyway", Chebutykin utters another word he often repeats; thus, it is emphasized that the result of all the worries of the characters is nonsense – "tara-ra-bumbiya".

The drama "Three Sisters" is mainly built around the theme of the mortality of all things, and devalued, therefore, is nothing but death itself. It is curious that I. Kant also cites an example related to death as an illustration of the theory of inconsistency: "If the heir of a rich relative, intending to solemnize his funeral, complains that he does not succeed, because (he says) "the more I cry to the mourners to make them look sad, the more cheerful they look." then we laugh out loud, and the reason for this is that our expectation suddenly turns into nothing" ^{[2, pp. 207-208]}. Chekhov's play in this sense fully corresponds to Kant's ideas about the essence of the comic.

So, in the play "Three Sisters", A.P. Chekhov, with exquisite precision, painstakingly adapting every detail, even absolutely meaningless, at a superficial glance, to his artistic goals, creates a magical world, a modern half-fairy tale, where the author's beloved, refined and gentle fairies reign, not adapted to crude reality and at the same time deadly in their ability to subjugate a person to the dreams they evoke. Their wonderful house eventually succumbs to the onslaught of real life, as even the most fascinating fantasy always succumbs to reality, but first it will accept human sacrifices: someone will physically die, like Tuzenbach, someone will waste all potential and wallow in a viscous pool of degradation, like the failed professor Andrey Prozorov, who- he will continue to exist somehow in an illusory space, ignoring his true needs, like Vershinin. The illusion in the world of Chekhov's play is beautiful, but fruitless, and it invariably condemns to suffering, more or less prolonged. However, she's nothing either.

Saturating the play with realistic details, Chekhov draws on material gleaned from observations of the behavior of people he knows. These details enhance the impression of phantasmagoria.: This is what happens in a dream, when fragments of daytime impressions are woven into a fantastic dream, fragments of familiar phrases uttered by familiar voices come to mind, and the most intense experiences, unfulfilled dreams, irretrievable losses, reckless actions, obsessive thoughts become the content of pictures formed by a restless imagination.

A fairy tale, especially a scary one, serves a person not only as entertainment, but also as a means of adapting to the inevitable trials of life, as well as sharing the experience of many generations of our ancestors, who have already passed these trials many times one way or another. In the 19th century, interest in fairy tales was great, and it is not surprising that many fairy-tale motifs are borrowed from fiction, especially when it comes to the most difficult aspects of human existence: growing up, relationships with others, choosing a companion, age crises. Fairy tales turned inside out have also appeared, a popular artistic device since the last third of the 19th century. Chekhov uses this technique intelligently, surgically carefully, evoking a response from the depths of the unconscious, where death is attractive in its own way, and terrible, and dreary, and, of course, natural.