Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was born in 1860 in Taganrog, Russia, a southern seaport and resort on the Azov Sea, as the third of six children to a family of a grocer. His father, a 3rd-rank Member of the Merchant's Guild, was a religious fanatic and tyrant who treated his children as slaves. Young Chekhov worked part-time in his father's business and sang in a church choir.