Doppiozero Essay on Anton Čechov Examines Gen Z's Rejection of Work

Davide Carnevali and Anita Romanello published an essay titled "Anton Čechov Workaholic" on the Italian cultural platform Doppiozero, dated Monday, 19 October 2026. The piece opens with a recent open letter addressed to a well-known women's weekly, in which a twenty-five-year-old woman stated she had no desire to work within a society that places labor at its center. The authors stress that this position is neither laziness nor a slothful "oblomovism": what the writer rejects is not practical activity itself but the fact that much of our time is devoted to earning money rather than caring for ourselves. The essay traces this stance to a prejudice holding that "a simple, slow and non-competitive life is a failed life." According to the letter's author, most of her generation, Generation Z, shares this view, and she details the complex facets of an apparently radical position, first among them the privilege that looms threateningly, since very few people can afford such a choice. The text invokes Anton Čechov in its title and framing.