DIALOGUE WITH THE CLASSICS AND THE CONTEMPORARIES IN A. P. CHEKHOV’S SHORT STORY THE TEACHER OF LITERATURE

The short story The Teacher of Literature is a contamination of two texts, originally published separately in two different newspapers, and then combined into a whole. In this article, the story is treated as a two-part work, with each part being relatively autonomous and at the same time forming an organic contribution to the whole. The reason for expanding the story The Commoners was Chekhov’s trip to Sakhalin and the related significant changes in his worldview. The story’s literary links to the classics and the contemporaries are reflected in the hidden references to the other works of literature. Chekhov does not force the reader to go searching for a muted intertext, and thus his works can be interpreted both immanently and within a broader literary context.