First reception of A.P. Chekhov's works in English literary studies

Personality and creative heritage of A.P. Chekhov take up an important place in English literary studies. His works left a special mark on inventions of English writers and dramatists, who found spiritually close traits in his plays and stories. The works of Russian artist are for the first time considered here by English literary critics in the context of impressionism. Material is based on investigation of the first period of Chekhov's heritage reception by English culture referring to 1910-1920. During this period major works dedicated to writer's creative life were published, with the first mention of Anton Chekhov in English critical writing dated from 1889. Special function in this process belonged to Bloomsbury Group where Virginia Woolf was the central figure. The members of this group took a great interest in all new literary and art tendencies since they were sure that art was the main feature of existence and development of civilization. The group took an important part in the history of English modernism. Modernism dominated in West-European Art of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. The members of this tendency presented life in a new way and experimented bravely with prose, poetry and drama. Woolf accentuated the significance of Russian literature which influenced the development of the English literary process of the early 20th century in whole. Being a furious admirer of works of Russian writers such as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Woolf rated especially the last mentioned. She marked innovative Chekhov's traits close to her own impressionistic, experimental and psychological artistic method. Bloomsbury Group identified first reception of Chekhov's works in English literature and culture. An English writer and critic John Middleton Murry researched Chekhov as "the author of a psychological short story". He can be considered one of the founders of English-speaking Chekhov's studies. All subsequent critics and writers of England and America based upon his point of view. Particularly his wife Katherine Mansfield had been influenced by Chekhov's works. Chekhov had been known to English world due to English critic and dramatist Edward Garnett and his wife Constance Gar-nett who translated many Russian writers. Garnett marked original humanity of the artist and thought of the writer's new viewpoint about present-day reality which also correlated with the impressionistic position of Bloomsbury Group. An English critic and a short-story writer Arnold Bennett also paid attention to the innovative traits of Chekhov's works in his diary. He did it with respect to Chekhov's story "A Dreary Story". The monograph "Anton Chekhov: A Critical Study" written by W. Gerhardie was the first major book published in 1923. In this paper the author considers Chekhov as the artist whose ideas are close to the ideas of neo-psychologists. The scientist researches mature prose of the writer where Gerhardie pays special attention to "The Steppe" and "A Dreary Story". General impressionistic principles of their creation and a trip to Sakhalin unite these stories. Thus mature Chekhov's works, especially "The Steppe" and "A Dreary Story" signify the beginning of Chekhov's impressionism in reception of English literary studies of the early 20th century that revealed this specific character of the Russian writer's works. All this essentially varied from the traditional opinion of the Russian studies of the same century that considered the artist's stories in the context of realism.

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