Modern critics consider Chekhov one of the masters of the short story form. Using themes relating to the everyday middle class, Chekhov portrayed the pathos of life in Russia before the 1905 Revolution. He depicted the futile, boring, and lonely lives of people unable to communicate with one another. In the Russian Theater, Chekhov's plays, like his stories, are studies of the spiritual failure of characters in an aristocratic society that is disintegrating. His most famous plays included The Sea Gull (1896), Uncle Vanya (1899), The Three Sisters (1901), and The Cherry Orchard (1904).—G. Forman