Question- Role of memory and past in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard “The Cherry Orchard” by Anton Chekhov is a Russian novel. During Chekhov 's childhood, a wave of reforms was underway to liberalize Russia and the economy of the country. one very important reform was probably the Emancipation Declaration of 1861, which freed the serfs from slavery. This major event undermined the position and status of the nobility, and perhaps even impoverished them. The plot in The Cherry Orchard, of an affluent landowning aristocratic family which was compelled to their estate in order to pay off their debts, was therefore a known one in the dispose of society of Chekhov 's time. The story of ‘the cherry orchard’ revolves around an estate. Chekhov explores a number of themes in this novel. The two most important of these are that of the past and the memories that are associated with the time gone by. The cherry orchard itself is a symbol of the past that holds an important, though different, place the hearts of each of the characters. Some characters like Madame Ranevskaya and her eighty-seven-year-old servant Firs prefer to stay in the past and choose to ignore their present or adjust to it. Other characters, like Lopakhin and Trofimov, however, believe in the present and look forward to the future, disregarding what is gone. In The Cherry Orchard, memory is seen as something that relates to personal identities and a liability that hampers the search of happiness. Each character is