The complete online text of The Party by Anton Chekhov.

Anton Chekhov is today one of the most widely known authors of nineteenth-century Russian literature. Appreciated not only in Russia and the West but also in Asia, he was a master of the short story, and his innovations in the poetics of short prose fict...

The Russian author Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904) is among the major short-story writers and dramatists of modern times. During the last half of the 19th century the old order in Russia was crumbling. Political institutions were out of line with act...

President Emomalii Rakhmon has banned high school graduation parties in this largely Muslim Central Asian nation, the latest in a string of edicts on Tajik cultural and social life.Rakhmon said he was concerned about the "pompous" and "excessive luxury" of school festivities, according to his...

The Americans were already planning a little party back at the hotel to celebrate Shayla Worley's 17th birthday. That, though, seemed a tad tame.So they invited a few thousand of their closest friends to join in on the fun, turning the world gymnastics championships into...

The New Yorker's classical music reviewer Alex Ross, (whom the Observer's Doree Shafrir considers the best listener in America) and The New York Times' (mostly) jazz writer Ben Ratcliff have been firing off emails about pop, jazz and classical to each other and posting...