A Religious Student

 The Student is a short story; you can see a drama scene rather than a whole movie based on the story. Chekhov's writing style, which I believe is to be straightforward with little unneeded parts, makes the story clear. Hard to understand because of all of the religious stories, but clear in its structure and what is happening.

 People say that the Student is one of the best short stories ever written. Well then, I guess there is much more to literature than what I believe is to be important when writing a story. The whole religion part was not my taste. People who do not know much about religion, especially Christianity, I believe, would have quite a struggle during the part when Ivan talks about the canonical Gospels' story and the story of Denial of Peter. I surely couldn't understand the religious stories in The Student. 

 The Student is undoubtedly a story that raises many questions. The story itself leaves the readers a lot to think about, as it is an open-ended story. However, my main interest in this story was why religion kicked in. It could have been a story about Ivan talking with the two widows about how, for example, marrying sucks. (I do not believe that marrying sucks) How come, Chekhov, whom he argues that he is non-religious, wrote about Christian stories?

  The question of Chekhov's Christianity and his relationship with the Orthodox Church is still said to be debated. Chekhov was born in a culture that seemed to be faithful to Christianity on the outside, but due to reforms by Tsar Peter the Great, was open to the philosophical, spiritual, and artistic trends of Western Europe. Contact with the West helped Russia to become the center of European culture, whether it would be math, science, philosophy, or literature. However, this period in Russia when culture prospered was time for significant confusion in Christianity terms. Father Georges Florovsky, the Russian intellectual's psychological mood as "that it did not evoke a sober and firm belief." In this time, when religious confusion was permeating throughout the society, was when Chekhov wrote his short stories.

 Chekhov's literature is said to neither support or criticizes any particular movement or trend. Moral lessons could not be found. Chekhov wrote about people or events just as they were, and believing that the writer's job was to ask questions, not solve them, left the interpretation to be done by the readers. Chekhov started his independence of literature with the status quo while writing to his literary "godfather" Alexei Pleshcheev.

"I am afraid of those who look for a tendency between the lines and who insist on seeing me as necessarily either a liberal or conservative. I am not a liberal, not a conservative, not an evolutionist, nor a monk, nor indifferent to the world. I should like to be a free artist and nothing more, and I regret that God has not given me the power to be one…Pharisaism, stupidity and tyranny reign not in shopkeepers' houses and lockups alone; I see them in science, in literature, in the younger generation…I regard trademarks and labels as a kind of prejudice. My holy of holies is the human body, health, intelligence, talent, inspiration, love and absolute freedom – freedom from violence and falsehood no matter how the last two manifest themselves. This is the program I would follow if I were a great artist."  

 Back to the question. Was Chekhov an atheist? Most people will say that he was, and yes, it does seem that Chekhov is not that fond of Christianity. But why? Chekhov, in a letter to his friend Ivan Leontiev-Shcheglov, dated March 9, 1892, recalls how he was engulfed by the dominant depression caused by a repressive religious upbringing in his youth. This oppression was primarily associated with his father, Pavel Egorovich, who was in charge of the choir as a local merchant at one of the churches in Taganrog.

"When I recall my childhood, the latter appears rather somber. Now I do not have religion. You know, when we came to sing in church…we felt as if we were convicts. What an unhappy lot we are! Other boys may run, play, visit their friends. We can only go to church."

 Although disapproving of institutional Christianity, the reader confronts a writer whose character does not reject the Bible or turn away from Orthodox teaching. Many of Chekhov's stories have feasts of incarnation and resurrection as the context in which his characters reveal their uniqueness. Each character is open to eternity and cannot be defined by predetermined anthropology. Each character is continually evolving as he/she seeks sympathy with the other and meets truth, evil, light, and darkness. 

 Chekhov, an atheist, but childhood education from his father seems to kick in strongly in my perspective. This is my thought; we may never know why Chekhov wrote religious factors in his story. 

Sources:

Anton Chekhov: Atheist, Agnostic or Struggling Orthodox Christian?
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5357de0fe4b0191d0dc8cf13/t/5808af5937c5810624e95b05/1476964186368/Anton+Chekhov.pdf