Ivanov was first performed in 1887, when Fiodor Korsh, owner of the Korsh Theatre in Moscow, commissioned Chekhov to write a comedy. Chekhov, however, responded with a four-act drama, which he wrote in ten days. The first performance was not a success and the production disgusted Chekhov himself. In a letter to his brother, he wrote that he "did not recognise his first remarks as my own" and that the actors "do not know their parts and talk nonsense". Irritated by this failure, Chekhov made alterations to the play. Consequently, the final version is different from that first performance. After this revision, it was accepted to be performed in St. Petersburg in 1889. Chekhov's revised version was a success and offered a foretaste of the style and themes of his subsequent masterpieces.