Uncle Vanya Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - Uncle Vanya is a play by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1897 and premiered in Moscow in 1899 in a production of the Moscow Art Theater, conducted by Konstantin Stanislavsky.The play depicts the visit of an elderly professor and his glamorous, much younger second wife, Yelena, to the rural realm that supports their urban way of life. Two friends, Vanya, brother of the professor's late first wife, who has long run the estate, and Astrov, the local doctor, both fall in love with Yelena, while lamenting the boredom of their provincial existence. Sonya, the daughter of his first wife's professor, who worked with Vanya to maintain the estate, meanwhile suffers from awareness of her own lack of beauty and her unrequited feelings for Dr. Astrov. Things are brought to a head when the professor announces his intention to sell the estate, Vanya and Sonya's house, and its raison d'être, with the aim of investing the profits to obtain a higher income for himself and his wife.