What really attracted the Russian reader was that in Chekhov's heroes he recognized the Russian idealist, a man who combined the deepest human decency of which man is capable with an almost ridiculous inability to put his ideals and principles into action; a man devoted to moral beauty, the welfare of his people, the welfare of the universe, but unable in his private life to do anything useful; frittering away his provincial existence in a haze of utopian dreams; knowing exactly what is good, what is worthwhile living for, but at the same time sinking lower and lower in the mud of a humdrum existence, unhappy in love, hopelessly inefficient in everything - a good man who cannot make good. This is the character that passes - in the guise of a doctor, a student, a village teacher, many other professional people - all through Chekhov's stories.

-Nabokov

[emphasis added, via April's note]