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ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
. In 1890, he traveled to the
distant island of Sakhalin on the Pacific Ocean,
then the site of a penal colony. His heartfelt writ-
ings about his experiences were well received,
contributing to his growing fame and more con-
cretely to the introduction of some prison
reforms. Later Chekhov's association with the
theater came to dominate his life and work. His
earlier one-act plays gave way to the major four-
act dramas still in the international repertoire:
The Seagull
(1896),
Uncle Vanya
(1897),
Three Sis-
ters
(1901), and
The Cherry Orchard
(1904). When
first staged his full-length plays were poorly
received, but a successful restaging of
The Seagull
by the newly established Moscow Art Theater
under the direction of Konstantin
STANISLAVSKY
marked the beginning of a successful collabora-
tion that benefited both Chekhov and the new
theater. In 1900 he was elected to the Academy
of Sciences but resigned two years later in
protest over the academy's refusal to recognize
the election of Maksim
GORKY
. In 1901, after a
long bachelorhood, he married the actress Olga
Knipper. Sick with tuberculosis during most of
his adult life, Chekhov spent much time in the
Crimea and in foreign health resorts. He never
completely healed and while resting at a resort
in Badenweiler, Germany, he died on July 15,
1904, and was buried in Moscow at the Novode-
viche Cemetery. Though Chekhov was relatively
unknown outside of Russia at the time of his
death, the translation of his works into English
made his work an essential part of the universal
canon of modern drama.
the
COMMUNIST PARTY
in 1930 and served soon
after in the Cheka border guard detachments,
before moving on to several party posts in
Siberia. In the 1950s he was transferred to the
recently annexed Moldavian S.S.R., where he
met the then-party leader, Leonid Brezhnev.
Chernenko became his loyal assistant and his
career benefited immensely from Brezhnev's
ascending star. Following Brezhnev's transfer to
Moscow and emergence as
KHRUSHCHEV
's suc-
cessor, Chernenko became a candidate member
of the party Central Committee in 1966, a full
member in 1971, and one of its secretaries in
1976. Two years later he joined the Politburo, a
reward for years of devoted service to Brezhnev.
Widely seen as Brezhnev's likely successor and
the candidate of the status quo Brezhnevites, he
was outmaneuvered by Yuri
ANDROPOV
, who
became general secretary in November 1982.
After Andropov's death in 1984, however, Cher-
nenko's candidacy was successful, although
questions about his health made it clear this was
a stopgap measure, while younger politicians
sorted out the succession behind the scenes. Not
as reactionary or as incompetent as his oppo-
nents portrayed him, Chernenko saw the need
for reforms and agreed to the transfer of sub-
stantial unofficial power to Mikhail
GORBACHEV
.
He died in March 1985 of complications from
emphysema after a long illness, and was suc-
ceeded by Gorbachev.
Cherniaev, Mikhail Grigorievich
(1828-1898)
general
A general of conservative and pan-Slav views
whose penchant for independent action brought
him into frequent clashes with the government
of
ALEXANDER II
, Cherniaev played a leading role
in the campaigns that led to the Russian conquest
of Central Asia in the 1860s. Cherniaev first
made his name in 1858, when he led an army
detachment in support of rebels against the Khan
of Khiva. In 1864, while completing a mission to
build a defensive line between the Siberian and
Chernenko, Konstantin Ustinovich
(1911-1985)
Soviet leader
Chernenko's short-lived rule (1984-85) was
seen as the last obstacle to the emergence of a
younger generation of Soviet leaders after the
long
BREZHNEV
era. Yet his career also demon-
strates the importance of patronage in the late
Soviet era. He was born to a peasant family in
the region of Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. He joined
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