The Three Sisters

by

Anton Chekhov

Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin Character Analysis

Vershinin is a new commander in the army brigade. He grew up in Moscow and served in the Prozorovs’ father’s brigade there; he also remembers their mother and met the sisters when they were little girls (they called him “The Lovesick Major” at the time). He is 42 at the start of the play. Vershinin loves to “philosophize” about the meaning of life and the progress of society, especially in conversation with Tuzenbakh. He holds to an optimistic view of human progress and potential. He can come across as pompous and aloof at times. Though Vershinin is married—he has an unhappy wife who has made frequent suicide attempts, and two daughters—he quickly begins a passionate affair with Masha which lasts until the brigade moves to Poland at the end of the play.

Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin Quotes in The Three Sisters

The The Three Sisters quotes below are all either spoken by Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin or refer to Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Change, Suffering, and the Meaning of Life Theme Icon
).
Act Two Quotes

TUZENBAKH: […] After us men will fly in hot-air balloons, and jackets will change, and they’ll discover, maybe, a sixth sense and develop it, but life will remain the same, difficult and full of secrets and happy. And in a thousand years man will still sigh, ‘Ah, life is hard!’—and at the same time he will, as now, be afraid and not want to die.

VERSHININ [after some thought]: What shall I say to you? I think that everything on earth must gradually change, and already is changing before our eyes. In two or three hundred or even a thousand years—the point isn’t in the precise period—a new, happy life will dawn. Of course we won’t take part in that life, but we are living for it now, working, yes, suffering, we are creating that life—and in this alone lies the goal of our existence and, if you like, our happiness.

Related Characters: Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin (speaker), Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbakh (speaker)
Page Number: 231
Explanation and Analysis:

VERSHININ: The other day I was reading the diary of a French minister, written in prison. The minister had been sent there over the Panama affair. With what delight, with what rapture he talks about the birds he sees from his prison window and which he never noticed before when he was a minister. Of course, now he’s been released, he doesn’t notice the birds, just as before. In the same way you too won’t notice Moscow when you’re living there. We have no happiness and it doesn’t exist, we only desire it.

Related Characters: Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin (speaker)
Related Symbols: Birds
Page Number: 235
Explanation and Analysis:
Act Four Quotes

VERSHININ: What else can I say to you as a goodbye? What bit of philosophy?… [Laughs.] Life is a heavy load. Many of us find it blank, hopeless, but still one has to admit it is becoming brighter and easier every day, and one can see the time is not far off when it will be filled with light. [Looking at his watch.] I must go, I must! Once humanity was occupied with wars, filling the whole of its existence with campaigns, invasions, victories, all that has now had its day, and left behind a huge empty space, which for the time being there is nothing to fill; humanity is passionately seeking that and of course will find it. Oh, if only it could be quick about it!

Related Characters: Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin (speaker), Olga Prozorov, Masha Prozorov
Page Number: 275
Explanation and Analysis:
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Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin Quotes in The Three Sisters

The The Three Sisters quotes below are all either spoken by Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin or refer to Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Change, Suffering, and the Meaning of Life Theme Icon
).
Act Two Quotes

TUZENBAKH: […] After us men will fly in hot-air balloons, and jackets will change, and they’ll discover, maybe, a sixth sense and develop it, but life will remain the same, difficult and full of secrets and happy. And in a thousand years man will still sigh, ‘Ah, life is hard!’—and at the same time he will, as now, be afraid and not want to die.

VERSHININ [after some thought]: What shall I say to you? I think that everything on earth must gradually change, and already is changing before our eyes. In two or three hundred or even a thousand years—the point isn’t in the precise period—a new, happy life will dawn. Of course we won’t take part in that life, but we are living for it now, working, yes, suffering, we are creating that life—and in this alone lies the goal of our existence and, if you like, our happiness.

Related Characters: Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin (speaker), Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbakh (speaker)
Page Number: 231
Explanation and Analysis:

VERSHININ: The other day I was reading the diary of a French minister, written in prison. The minister had been sent there over the Panama affair. With what delight, with what rapture he talks about the birds he sees from his prison window and which he never noticed before when he was a minister. Of course, now he’s been released, he doesn’t notice the birds, just as before. In the same way you too won’t notice Moscow when you’re living there. We have no happiness and it doesn’t exist, we only desire it.

Related Characters: Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin (speaker)
Related Symbols: Birds
Page Number: 235
Explanation and Analysis:
Act Four Quotes

VERSHININ: What else can I say to you as a goodbye? What bit of philosophy?… [Laughs.] Life is a heavy load. Many of us find it blank, hopeless, but still one has to admit it is becoming brighter and easier every day, and one can see the time is not far off when it will be filled with light. [Looking at his watch.] I must go, I must! Once humanity was occupied with wars, filling the whole of its existence with campaigns, invasions, victories, all that has now had its day, and left behind a huge empty space, which for the time being there is nothing to fill; humanity is passionately seeking that and of course will find it. Oh, if only it could be quick about it!

Related Characters: Aleksandr Ignatyevich Vershinin (speaker), Olga Prozorov, Masha Prozorov
Page Number: 275
Explanation and Analysis: