Der Kirschgarten

The play revolves around an aristocratic Russian landowner who returns to her family estate (which includes a large and well-known cherry orchard) just before it is auctioned to pay the mortgage. But she is unable to part with it: "... without the cherry orchard I no longer understand my life, and if it has to be sold, then sell me at the same time, together with the garden...".

Anton Chekhov himself described his last play as a comedy. The story presents themes of cultural futility – both the futile attempts of the aristocracy to maintain its status and of the bourgeoisie to find meaning in its new-found materialism. It dramatizes the socio-economic forces in Russia at the turn of the 20th century, including the rise of the middle class after the abolition of serfdom in the mid-19th century and the decline of the power of the aristocracy.