Badenweiler is a health resort and spa in the Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald district of Baden-Württemberg, Germany, historically in the Markgräflerland. It is 28 kilometers by road and rail from Basel, 10 kilometers from the French border, and 20 kilometers from Mulhouse. The nearest big city on the German side of the border is Freiburg, about 30 kilometers away. Badenweiler lies at the western edge of the Black Forest. It is sheltered by the Blauen, 1,164 m (3,820 ft), and the climate is excellent. Its parish (Evangelical) church (1897) was built at the foot of an 11th-century castle which belonged to the margraves of Baden and was destroyed by the French during the wars of Louis XV.

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a great Russian writer and playwright. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics. Along with Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg, Chekhov is often referred to as one of the three seminal figures in the birth of early modernism in the theatre. Chekhov was a physician by profession. "Medicine is my lawful wife", he once said, "and literature is my mistress."