PHILOSOPHIC CONTENT OF ANTON CHEKHOV’S WORK E.S. Grevtsova Department of History of Philosophy Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia Miklukho-Maklaya str., 10a, Moscow, Russia, 117198 Understanding of the philosophic content of the A.P. Chekhov’s oeuvre, which is based on the writer’s idea of the original religious and philosophic world view and at the same time of him as a thinker of an existential type, who had a significant impact on the development of Russian philosophy of the XX-th century is presented and exposed in the article. <...> Key words: Chekhov, Russian philosophy, Russian literature, intelligentsia, existentialism, existential nature of Russian philosophy, world view, self-knowledge. “Russia loved itself in Chekhov. <...> Nobody had ever expressed its collective type like he did, not only in his works but also in his face, his appearance, his manners and it seems that also in his living and behavior”. (V. Rozanov) According to Vasily Rosanov, Chekhov, a great classical author of Russian literature, expressed a “collective type” of Russia and Russians in his writing (and that is a philosophic challenge). <...> Famous books on the history of Russian philosophy written by V. Zenkovsky and N. Lossky do not mention Chekhov as a thinker; this fact may breed an illusion of his low priority for philosophic community. <...> Also there are no articles about Chekhov in contemporary reference scientific publications including encyclopedia “Russian Philosophy”. <...> Unfortunately, there is no section on Chekhov as a thinker in the recently published monograph by S. Semenova, a scholar of Metaphysics of Russian Literature [1]. <...> Chekhov’s work, being, may at least be named to be close to philosophy (if not philosophic) as many specialists allow an opinion that Russian philosophy and literature a closely connected and literature is the embodiment of Russian philosophic ideas. <...> Moreover, the stereotype was mostly established by book critics and essay writers those who are responsible for the great bulk of publications on Chekhov; they ignored philosophic content of his writing absolutely. <...> These negativistic statements are part of the antholo59 Вестник РУДН, серия Философия, 2014, № 1 gy “A. Chekhov: Pro et Contra <...>