Ostrovsky's biography full information. Ostrovsky biography interesting information briefly

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky April 12, 1823 in Moscow on Malaya Ordynka. His father, Nikolai Fedorovich, was the son of a priest, he himself graduated from the Kostroma Seminary, then the Moscow Theological Academy, but began to practice as a lawyer, dealing with property and commercial matters; rose to the rank of collegiate assessor, and in 1839 received the nobility. His mother, Lyubov Ivanovna Savvina, the daughter of a sexton and a breadmaker, died when Alexander was not yet nine years old. The family had four children (four more died in infancy). The younger brother is the statesman M. N. Ostrovsky. Thanks to Nikolai Fedorovich’s position, the family lived in prosperity, and great attention was paid to the education of children who received home education. Five years after the death of Alexander's mother, his father married Baroness Emilie Andreevna von Tessin, the daughter of a Swedish nobleman. The children were lucky with their stepmother: she surrounded them with care and continued to educate them.

Ostrovsky spent his childhood and part of his youth in the center of Zamoskvorechye. Thanks to his father's large library, he became acquainted with Russian literature early and felt an inclination towards writing, but his father wanted to make him a lawyer. In 1835, Ostrovsky entered the third grade of the 1st Moscow Provincial Gymnasium, after which in 1840 he became a student at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University. He failed to complete the university course: without passing the exam in Roman law, Ostrovsky wrote a letter of resignation (he studied until 1843). At the request of his father, Ostrovsky entered the service as a clerk in the Conscientious Court and served in the Moscow courts until 1850; his first salary was 4 rubles a month, after some time it increased to 16 rubles (transferred to the Commercial Court in 1845).

By 1846, Ostrovsky had already written many scenes from the life of a merchant and conceived the comedy “The Insolvent Debtor” (later - “Our People - We Will Be Numbered!”). The first publication was a small play “Picture of Family Life” and an essay “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident” - they were published in one of the issues of “Moscow City List” in 1847. Professor of Moscow University S.P. Shevyrev, after Ostrovsky read the play at his home on February 14, 1847, solemnly congratulated those gathered on the “appearance of a new dramatic luminary in Russian literature.”

A. N. Ostrovsky.

Ostrovsky’s literary fame was brought to him by the comedy “Our People – Let’s Be Numbered!”, published in 1850 in the journal of university professor M.P. Pogodin “Moskvityanin”. Under the text it read: “A. ABOUT." (Alexander Ostrovsky) and “D. G.". Under the second initials was Dmitry Gorev-Tarasenkov, a provincial actor who offered Ostrovsky cooperation. This collaboration did not go beyond one scene, and subsequently served as a source of great trouble for Ostrovsky, since it gave his ill-wishers a reason to accuse him of plagiarism (1856). However, the play evoked approving responses from N. V. Gogol and I. A. Goncharov. The influential Moscow merchants, offended for their class, complained to the “boss”; as a result, the comedy was banned from production, and the author was dismissed from service and placed under police supervision by personal order of Nicholas I. Supervision was lifted after the accession of Alexander II, and the play was allowed to be staged only in 1861.

Ostrovsky’s first play, which was able to reach the theater stage, was “Don’t Sit in Your Own Sleigh,” written in 1852 and staged for the first time in Moscow on the stage of the Maly Theater on January 14, 1853.

For more than thirty years, starting from 1853, new plays by Ostrovsky appeared almost every season at the Moscow Maly and St. Petersburg Alexandrinsky theaters. Since 1856, Ostrovsky has become a permanent contributor to the Sovremennik magazine. In the same year, in accordance with the wishes of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, a business trip of outstanding writers took place to study and describe various areas of Russia in industrial and domestic relations. Ostrovsky took upon himself the study of the Volga from the upper reaches to Nizhny Novgorod.

A. N. Ostrovsky, 1856

In 1859, with the assistance of Count G. A. Kushelev-Bezborodko, the first collected works of Ostrovsky were published in two volumes. Thanks to this publication, Ostrovsky received a brilliant assessment from N. A. Dobrolyubov, which secured his fame as an artist of the “dark kingdom.” In 1860, “The Thunderstorm” appeared in print, to which Dobrolyubov dedicated the article “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom.” From the second half of the 1860s, Ostrovsky took up the history of the Time of Troubles and entered into correspondence with Kostomarov. The fruit of the work was five “historical chronicles in verse”: “Kuzma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk”, “Vasilisa Melentyeva”, “Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky”, etc.

In 1863, Ostrovsky was awarded the Uvarov Prize (for the play “The Thunderstorm”) and was elected a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In 1866 (according to other sources - in 1865) Ostrovsky founded the Artistic Circle, which subsequently gave many talented figures to the Moscow stage. I. A. Goncharov, D. V. Grigorovich, I. S. Turgenev, A. F. Pisemsky, F. M. Dostoevsky, I. E. Turchaninov, P. M. Sadovsky, L. P. visited Ostrovsky’s house. Kositskaya-Nikulina, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, L. N. Tolstoy, P. I. Tchaikovsky, M. N. Ermolova, G. N. Fedotova.

In 1874, the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers was formed, of which Ostrovsky remained the permanent chairman until his death. Working on the commission “to revise regulations on all parts of theatrical management,” established in 1881 under the directorate of the Imperial Theaters, he achieved many changes that significantly improved the situation of artists. In 1885, Ostrovsky was appointed head of the repertory department of Moscow theaters and head of the theater school.

Despite the fact that his plays did well at the box office and that in 1883 Emperor Alexander III granted him an annual pension of 3 thousand rubles, financial problems did not leave Ostrovsky until the last days of his life. His health did not meet the plans he had set for himself. The intense work exhausted the body.

On June 2 (14), 1886, on Spiritual Day, Ostrovsky died in his Kostroma estate Shchelykovo. His last work was the translation of “Antony and Cleopatra” by William Shakespeare, Alexander Nikolaevich’s favorite playwright. The writer was buried next to his father in the church cemetery near the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Nikolo-Berezhki, Kostroma province. Alexander III donated 3,000 rubles from the cabinet funds for the funeral; the widow, together with her two children, was given a pension of 3,000 rubles, and 2,400 rubles a year for raising three sons and a daughter. Subsequently, the widow of the writer M. V. Ostrovskaya, an actress of the Maly Theater, and the daughter of M. A. Chatelain were buried in the family necropolis.

After the death of the playwright, the Moscow Duma established a reading room named after A. N. Ostrovsky in Moscow.

Family

• The younger brother is the statesman M. N. Ostrovsky.

Alexander Nikolaevich had a deep passion for the actress Lyubov Kositskaya, but both of them had a family. However, even after becoming a widow in 1862, Kositskaya continued to reject Ostrovsky’s feelings, and soon she began a close relationship with the son of a wealthy merchant, who eventually squandered her entire fortune; She wrote to Ostrovsky: “...I don’t want to take your love away from anyone.”

The playwright lived in cohabitation with the commoner Agafya Ivanovna, but all their children died at an early age. Having no education, but being an intelligent woman with a subtle, easily vulnerable soul, she understood the playwright and was the very first reader and critic of his works. Ostrovsky lived with Agafya Ivanovna for about twenty years, and in 1869, two years after her death, he married actress Maria Vasilyevna Bakhmetyeva, who bore him four sons and two daughters.

Creation

"Columbus of Zamoskvorechye"

The play “Poverty is not a vice” (1853) was first staged on January 15, 1869 at the Maly Theater for a benefit performance by Prov Mikhailovich Sadovsky.

Ostrovsky Theater

Russian theater in its modern sense begins with A. N. Ostrovsky: the playwright created a theater school and a holistic concept of theatrical production.

The essence of Ostrovsky's theater lies in the absence of extreme situations and opposition to the actor's gut. Alexander Nikolaevich's plays depict ordinary situations with ordinary people, whose dramas go into everyday life and human psychology.

The main ideas of theater reform:

• the theater must be built on conventions (there is a 4th wall separating the audience from the actors);
• constancy of attitude towards language: mastery of speech characteristics that express almost everything about the characters;
• the bet is not on one actor;

“A good play will please the public and will be successful, but it will not last long in the repertoire if it is poorly performed: the public goes to the theater to watch good performances of good plays, and not the play itself; you can read the play. Othello is, without a doubt, a good play; but the public did not want to watch it when Charsky played the role of Othello. The interest of a performance is a complex matter: it involves equally both the play and the performance. When both are good, the performance is interesting; when one thing is bad, the performance loses its interest.”

- “Note on the draft “Rules on the prizes of imperial theaters for dramatic works””

Ostrovsky's theater required a new stage aesthetics, new actors. In accordance with this, Ostrovsky creates an acting ensemble, which includes such actors as Martynov, Sergei Vasiliev, Evgeniy Samoilov, Prov Sadovsky.

Naturally, innovations met opponents. He was, for example, Shchepkin. Ostrovsky's dramaturgy required the actor to detach himself from his personality, which M. S. Shchepkin did not do. For example, he left the dress rehearsal of “The Thunderstorm”, being very dissatisfied with the author of the play.

Ostrovsky's ideas were brought to their logical conclusion by K. S. Stanislavsky and M. A. Bulgakov.

Folk myths and national history in Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy

In 1881, the successful premiere of N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Snow Maiden” took place on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater, which the composer called his best work. A. N. Ostrovsky himself appreciated Rimsky-Korsakov’s creation:

“The music for my “Snow Maiden” is amazing, I could never imagine anything more suitable for it and so vividly expressing all the poetry of the Russian pagan cult and this first snow-cold, and then uncontrollably passionate heroine of the fairy tale.”

The appearance of Ostrovsky’s poetic play “The Snow Maiden,” created on the basis of fairy tales, songs and ritual songs of Russian poetry, was caused by a random circumstance. In 1873, the Maly Theater was closed for major renovations, and its troupe moved to the Bolshoi Theater building. The management commission of the Imperial Moscow Theaters decided to stage an extravaganza performance in which all three troupes would participate: drama, opera and ballet. A. N. Ostrovsky was approached with a proposal to write such a play in a very short time, who readily agreed to it, deciding to use the plot from the folk tale “The Snow Maiden Girl.” The music for the play, at Ostrovsky's request, was commissioned from the young P. I. Tchaikovsky. Both the playwright and the composer worked on the play with great passion, very quickly, in close creative contact. On March 31, on his fiftieth birthday, Ostrovsky finished The Snow Maiden. The first performance took place on May 11, 1873 on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater.

While working on “The Snow Maiden,” Ostrovsky carefully searched for the dimensions of the poems, consulted with historians, archaeologists, experts on ancient life, and turned to a large amount of historical and folklore material, including “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” He himself highly valued this play of his, and wrote, “I<…>in this work I take a new road”; He spoke with delight about Tchaikovsky’s music: “Tchaikovsky’s music for The Snow Maiden is charming.” I. S. Turgenev was “captivated by the beauty and lightness of the language of The Snow Maiden.” P. I. Tchaikovsky, while working on “The Snow Maiden,” wrote: “I have been sitting at work without getting up for about a month; I’m writing music for Ostrovsky’s magical play “The Snow Maiden,” he considered the dramatic work itself to be the pearl of Ostrovsky’s creations, and said about his music for it: “This is one of my favorite creations. It was a wonderful spring, I felt good in my soul... I liked Ostrovsky’s play, and in three weeks, without any effort, I wrote the music.”

Later, in 1880, N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov wrote an opera on the same plot. M. M. Ippolitov-Ivanov writes in his memoirs: “With some special warmth, Alexander Nikolaevich spoke about Tchaikovsky’s music for The Snow Maiden, which, obviously, greatly prevented him from admiring Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden. Undoubtedly... Tchaikovsky’s sincere music... was closer to Ostrovsky’s soul, and he did not hide the fact that it was dearer to him, as a populist.”

This is how K. S. Stanislavsky spoke about “The Snow Maiden”: ““The Snow Maiden” is a fairy tale, a dream, a national legend, written and told in Ostrovsky’s magnificent sonorous verses. One might think that this playwright, the so-called realist and everyday writer, never wrote anything except wonderful poetry, and was not interested in anything else except pure poetry and romance.”

Criticism

Ostrovsky's work became the subject of fierce debate among critics of both the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 19th century, Dobrolyubov (articles “The Dark Kingdom” and “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom”) and Apollo Grigoriev wrote about him from opposite positions. In the 20th century - Mikhail Lobanov (in the book “Ostrovsky”, published in the “ZhZL” series), M. A. Bulgakov and V. Ya. Lakshin.

Memory

• Central Library named after A. N. Ostrovsky (Rzhev, Tver region).
• Moscow Regional Drama Theater named after A. N. Ostrovsky.
• Kostroma State Drama Theater named after A. N. Ostrovsky.
• Ural Regional Drama Theater named after A. N. Ostrovsky.
• Irbit Drama Theater named after A. N. Ostrovsky (Irbit, Sverdlovsk region).
• Kineshma Drama Theater named after A. N. Ostrovsky (Ivanovo region).
• Tashkent State Theater and Art Institute named after A. N. Ostrovsky.
• Streets in a number of cities of the former USSR.
• On May 27, 1929, a monument to Ostrovsky was unveiled in front of the Maly Theater (sculptor N. A. Andreev, architect I. P. Mashkov) (the jury gave it preference over the monument to Ostrovsky, submitted to the competition by A. S. Golubkina, who depicted the great playwright at the moment a creative impulse that captivates the viewer).
• In 1984, in Zamoskvorechye, in the house where the great playwright was born - a cultural monument of the early 20s of the 19th century, a branch of the Theater Museum named after. A. A. Bakhrushin - House-Museum of A. N. Ostrovsky.
• Nowadays in Shchelykovo (Kostroma region) there is a memorial and natural museum-reserve of the playwright.
• Once every five years, since 1973, the All-Russian theater festival “Ostrovsky Days in Kostroma”, which is supervised by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Union of Theater Workers of the Russian Federation (All-Russian Theater Society), lights up the stage.
• A memorial plaque in Tver, on Sovetskaya Street (formerly Millionnaya), building 7, informs that the playwright lived in this house, Barsukov’s hotel, in the spring and summer of 1856, during his trip to the Upper Volga region.
• Every two years, since 1993, the Maly Theater hosts the festival “Ostrovsky in the Ostrovsky House,” to which theaters from all over Russia bring their performances based on the playwright’s plays to Moscow.
• Ostrovsky's plays never leave the stage. Many of his works have been filmed or served as the basis for the creation of film and television scripts.
• Among the film adaptations that are most popular in Russia is Konstantin Voinov’s comedy “Balzaminov’s Marriage” (1964, starring G. Vitsin).
• The film “Cruel Romance”, directed by Eldar Ryazanov based on “Dowry” (1984), gained significant popularity.
• In 2005, director Evgeny Ginzburg received the main prize ( Grand Prix "Garnet Bracelet") Eleventh Russian Festival “Literature and Cinema” (Gatchina) “ for an incredibly amazing interpretation of the great play by A. N. Ostrovsky “Guilty Without Guilt” in the film “Anna”"(2005, script by G. Danelia and Rustam Ibragimbekov; starring opera singer Lyubov Kazarnovskaya).

In philately

Postage stamps of the USSR

Portrait of A. N. Ostrovsky - USSR postage stamp. 1948

Portrait of A. N. Ostrovsky based on a painting by V. Perov (1871, Tretyakov Gallery) Postage stamp of the USSR. 1948

USSR postage stamp, 1959.

Playwright A. N. Ostrovsky (1823-1886), actors M. N. Ermolova (1853-1928), P. S. Mochalov (1800-1848), M. S. Shchepkin (1788-1863) and P. M. Sadovsky (1818-1872). USSR postage stamp 1949.

Plays

• "Family Picture" (1847)
• “Our people - we will be numbered” (1849)
• "An Unexpected Case" (1850)
• "The Morning of a Young Man" (1850)
• "Poor Bride" (1851)
• “Don’t get into your own sleigh” (1852)
• "Poverty is no vice" (1853)
• “Don’t live as you want” (1854)
• “In someone else’s feast there is a hangover” (1856) text. The play was first staged on the theater stage on January 9, 1856 at the Maly Theater for a benefit performance by Prov Mikhailovich Sadovsky, and then, on January 18, in St. Petersburg on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater for a benefit performance by Vladimirova.
• “Profitable Place” (1856) text The play was first staged on the theater stage on September 27, 1863 at the Alexandrinsky Theater during a benefit performance by Levkeeva. First staged at the Maly Theater on October 14 of the same year at a benefit performance by E. N. Vasilyeva.
• "A Festive Sleep Before Dinner" (1857)
• "Did not get along!" (1858)
• "Nurse" (1859)
• "Thunderstorm" (1859)
• "An old friend is better than two new ones" (1860)
• “Your own dogs squabble, don’t bother someone else’s” (1861)
• "The Marriage of Balzaminov" (1861)
• “Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk” (1861, 2nd edition 1866)
• "Hard Days" (1863)
• “Sin and misfortune do not live on anyone” (1863)
• "Voevoda" (1864; 2nd edition 1885)
• "The Joker" (1864)
• "On a Lively Place" (1865)
• "The Deep" (1866)
• "Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky" (1866)
• "Tushino" (1866)
• “Vasilisa Melentyeva” (co-authored with S. A. Gedeonov) (1867)
• “Simplicity is enough for every wise man” (1868)
• "Warm Heart" (1869)
• "Mad Money" (1870)
• "Forest" (1870)
• “It’s not all Maslenitsa for the cat” (1871)
• “There wasn’t a penny, but suddenly it was Altyn” (1872) text On December 10, 1872, the first performance of the comedy took place at the Maly Theater during Musil’s benefit performance.
• "Comedian of the 17th Century" (1873)
• “The Snow Maiden” (1873) text. In 1881, the premiere of N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera took place on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater
• “Late Love” (1874) text On November 22, 1874, the first performance of the comedy took place at the Maly Theater during Musil’s benefit performance.
• “Labor Bread” (1874) text On November 28, 1874, the first performance of the comedy took place at the Maly Theater during Musil’s benefit performance.
• "Wolves and Sheep" (1875)
• “Rich Brides” (1876) text On November 30, 1876, the first performance of the comedy took place at the Maly Theater during Musil’s benefit performance.
• “Truth is good, but happiness is better” (1877) text On November 18, 1877, the first performance of the comedy took place at the Maly Theater during Musil’s benefit performance.
• “The Marriage of Belugin” (1877), together with Nikolai Solovyov
• “The Last Victim” (1878) text On November 8, 1878, the first performance of the comedy took place at the Maly Theater during Musil’s benefit performance
• “Dowry” (1878) text On November 10, 1878, the first performance of the drama took place at the Maly Theater during Musil’s benefit performance.
• "Good Master" (1879)
• “Savage” (1879), together with Nikolai Solovyov
• "The Heart Is Not a Stone" (1880)
• "Slave Girls" (1881)
• “It shines, but does not warm” (1881), text together with Nikolai Solovyov. Premiere on November 14, 1881 in St. Petersburg, at the Alexandrinsky Theater, at a benefit performance by F. A. Burdin.
• “Guilty Without Guilt” (1881-1883)
• "Talents and Admirers" (1882)
• "Handsome Man" (1883)
• "Not of this world" (1885)

Film adaptations of works

• 1911 - Vasilisa Melentyeva
• 1911 - On a busy place (film, 1911)
• 1916 - Guilty without guilt
• 1916 - On a busy place (film, 1916, Chardynin)
• 1916 - On a lively place (film, 1916, Sabinsky) (Another title On the high road)
• 1933 - Thunderstorm
• 1936 - Dowryless
• 1945 - Guilty without guilt
• 1951 - Truth is good, but happiness is better (film-play)
• 1952 - Wolves and Sheep (television play)
• 1952 - Simplicity is enough for every wise man (television play)
• 1952 - Snow Maiden (cartoon)
• 1953 - Warm Heart (film-play)
• 1955 - On a busy place (film-play)
• 1955 - Talents and Fans (film-play)
• 1958 - Abyss (television film, film adaptation of the play of the Leningrad Academic Drama Theater named after A. S. Pushkin).
• 1964 - Marriage of Balzaminov
• 1968 - Snow Maiden
• 1971 - Simplicity is enough for every wise man (film-play)
• 1971 - Spring Tale (based on the play “The Snow Maiden”)
• 1972 - It shines, but it doesn’t warm (film-play)
• - Talents and fans (television play)
• 1973 - Talents and fans
• 1975 - The Last Victim
• 1978 - Handsome Man
• 1980 - Forest
• 1981 - Mad Money
• 1981 - Vacancy - film directed by Margarita Mikaelyan (based on the play “Profitable Place”)
• 1982 - Trustees (television play based on the play “The Last Victim”)
• 1983 - Late Love
• 1984 - Cruel Romance (based on the play “Dowry”)
• 1985 - After the Rain on Thursday (fairy tale film)
• 1989 - Heart is not a stone
• 1998 - On a busy place
• 2001 - Savage
• 2005 - Anna (based on the play “Guilty Without Guilt”)
• 2006 - Snow Maiden (cartoon based on the play “The Snow Maiden”)
• 2008 - Guilty without guilt
• 2008 - Russian money (based on the play “Wolves and Sheep”)
• 2008 - Bribes are smooth (based on the play “Profitable Place”)
• 2009 - Bankrupt (based on the play “Our People - We Will Be Numbered”)
• 2011 - Dowry

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky is a famous Russian writer and playwright who had a significant influence on the development of the national theater. He formed a new school of realistic acting and wrote many wonderful works. This article will outline the main stages of Ostrovsky's creativity. And also the most significant moments of his biography.

Childhood

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, whose photo is presented in this article, was born in 1823, on March 31, in Moscow, in the Malaya Ordynka area. His dad, Nikolai Fedorovich, grew up in the family of a priest, graduated from the Moscow Theological Academy himself, but did not serve in the church. He became a lawyer and dealt with commercial and judicial matters. Nikolai Fedorovich managed to rise to the rank of titular councilor, and later (in 1839) received the nobility. The mother of the future playwright, Savvina Lyubov Ivanovna, was the daughter of a sexton. She died when Alexander was only seven years old. There were six children growing up in the Ostrovsky family. Nikolai Fedorovich did everything to ensure that the children grew up in prosperity and received a decent education. A few years after the death of Lyubov Ivanovna, he married again. His wife was Emilia Andreevna von Tessin, baroness, daughter of a Swedish nobleman. The children were very lucky to have their stepmother: she managed to find an approach to them and continued to educate them.

Youth

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky spent his childhood in the very center of Zamoskvorechye. His father had a very good library, thanks to which the boy early became acquainted with the literature of Russian writers and felt an inclination towards writing. However, the father saw only a lawyer in the boy. Therefore, in 1835, Alexander was sent to the First Moscow Gymnasium, after studying there he became a student at Moscow University. However, Ostrovsky failed to obtain a law degree. He quarreled with the teacher and left the university. On the advice of his father, Alexander Nikolaevich went to serve in court as a scribe and worked in this position for several years.

Attempt at writing

However, Alexander Nikolaevich did not give up trying to prove himself in the literary field. In his first plays he adhered to an accusatory, “moral-social” direction. The first were published in a new edition, Moscow City Listk, in 1847. These were sketches for the comedy “The Failed Debtor” and the essay “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident.” Under the publication were the letters “A. ABOUT." and "D. G." The fact is that a certain Dmitry Gorev offered cooperation to the young playwright. It did not progress beyond the writing of one of the scenes, but subsequently became a source of great trouble for Ostrovsky. Some ill-wishers later accused the playwright of plagiarism. In the future, many magnificent plays would come from the pen of Alexander Nikolaevich, and no one would dare doubt his talent. The following will be described in detail. The table presented below will allow you to systematize the information received.

First success

When did this happen? Ostrovsky's work gained great popularity after the publication in 1850 of the comedy “Our People - Let's Be Numbered!” This work evoked favorable reviews in literary circles. I. A. Goncharov and N. V. Gogol gave the play a positive assessment. However, this barrel of honey also included an impressive fly in the ointment. Influential representatives of the Moscow merchant class, offended by their class, complained to the highest authorities about the daring playwright. The play was immediately banned from production, the author was expelled from service and placed under the strictest police supervision. Moreover, this happened on the personal order of Emperor Nicholas I himself. Supervision was eliminated only after Emperor Alexander II ascended the throne. The theater audience saw the comedy only in 1861, after the ban on its production was lifted.

Early plays

The early work of A. N. Ostrovsky did not go unnoticed; his works were published mainly in the magazine “Moskvityanin”. The playwright actively collaborated with this publication both as a critic and as an editor in 1850-1851. Under the influence of the “young editors” of the magazine and the main ideologist of this circle, Alexander Nikolaevich composed the plays “Poverty is not a vice”, “Don’t sit in your own sleigh”, “Don’t live the way you want”. The themes of Ostrovsky's creativity during this period are the idealization of patriarchy, ancient Russian customs and traditions. These sentiments slightly muted the accusatory pathos of the writer’s work. However, in the works of this cycle, Alexander Nikolaevich’s dramatic skill grew. His plays became famous and in demand.

Collaboration with Sovremennik

Beginning in 1853, for thirty years, Alexander Nikolaevich’s plays were shown every season on the stages of the Maly (in Moscow) and Alexandrinsky (in St. Petersburg) theaters. Since 1856, Ostrovsky’s work has been regularly covered in the Sovremennik magazine (works are published). During the social upsurge in the country (before the abolition of serfdom in 1861), the writer’s works again acquired an accusatory edge. In the play “At Someone Else's Feast there is a Hangover,” the writer created the impressive image of Bruskov Tit Titych, in which he embodied the brute and dark power of domestic autocracy. Here the word “tyrant” was heard for the first time, which later became attached to a whole gallery of Ostrovsky’s characters. The comedy “Profitable Place” ridiculed the corrupt behavior of officials that had become the norm. The drama “The Kindergarten” was a living protest against violence against the individual. Other stages of Ostrovsky’s creativity will be described below. But the pinnacle of achievement of this period of his literary activity was the socio-psychological drama “The Thunderstorm”.

"Storm"

In this play, the “everyman” Ostrovsky painted the dull atmosphere of a provincial town with its hypocrisy, rudeness, and the unquestioned authority of the “elders” and the rich. In contrast to the imperfect world of people, Alexander Nikolaevich depicts breathtaking pictures of Volga nature. The image of Katerina is filled with tragic beauty and gloomy charm. The thunderstorm symbolizes the heroine's mental turmoil and at the same time personifies the burden of fear under which ordinary people constantly live. The kingdom of blind obedience is undermined, according to Ostrovsky, by two forces: common sense, which Kuligin preaches in the play, and Katerina’s pure soul. In his “Ray of Light in a Dark Kingdom,” the critic Dobrolyubov interpreted the image of the main character as a symbol of deep protest, gradually maturing in the country.

Thanks to this play, Ostrovsky's creativity soared to unattainable heights. “The Thunderstorm” made Alexander Nikolaevich the most famous and revered Russian playwright.

Historical motives

In the second half of the 1860s, Alexander Nikolaevich began studying the history of the Time of Troubles. He began to correspond with the famous historian and Nikolai Ivanovich Kostomarov. Based on the study of serious sources, the playwright created a whole series of historical works: “Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky”, “Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk”, “Tushino”. The problems of Russian history were portrayed by Ostrovsky with talent and authenticity.

Other plays

Alexander Nikolaevich still remained faithful to his favorite theme. In the 1860s he wrote many "everyday" dramas and plays. Among them: “Hard Days”, “The Deep”, “Jokers”. These works consolidated the motifs already found by the writer. Since the late 1860s, Ostrovsky's work has been experiencing a period of active development. In his dramaturgy, images and themes of the “new” Russia that survived the reform appear: businessmen, acquirers, degenerate patriarchal moneybags and “Europeanized” merchants. Alexander Nikolaevich created a brilliant series of satirical comedies that debunk the post-reform illusions of citizens: “Mad Money”, “Warm Heart”, “Wolves and Sheep”, “Forest”. The moral ideal of the playwright is pure-hearted, noble people: Parasha from “Warm Heart”, Aksyusha from “The Forest”. Ostrovsky’s ideas about the meaning of life, happiness and duty were embodied in the play “Labor Bread”. Almost all of Alexander Nikolaevich’s works written in the 1870s were published in Otechestvennye zapiski.

"Snow Maiden"

The appearance of this poetic play was completely accidental. The Maly Theater was closed for renovation in 1873. Its artists moved to the Bolshoi Theater building. In this regard, the commission for the management of the Moscow Imperial Theaters decided to create a performance in which three troupes would be involved: opera, ballet and drama. Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky undertook to write a similar play. “The Snow Maiden” was written by the playwright in a very short time. The author took the plot from a Russian folk tale as a basis. While working on the play, he carefully selected the sizes of the poems and consulted with archaeologists, historians, and antiquity experts. The music for the play was composed by the young P. I. Tchaikovsky. The play premiered in 1873, on May 11, on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater. K. S. Stanislavsky spoke of “The Snow Maiden” as a fairy tale, a dream told in sonorous and magnificent verse. He said that the realist and everyday life writer Ostrovsky wrote this play as if before that he was not interested in anything except pure romance and poetry.

Work in recent years

During this period, Ostrovsky composed significant socio-psychological comedies and dramas. They tell about the tragic destinies of sensitive, gifted women in a cynical and selfish world: “Talents and Admirers”, “Dowry”. Here the playwright developed new techniques of stage expression that anticipated the work of Anton Chekhov. While preserving the peculiarities of his dramaturgy, Alexander Nikolaevich sought to embody the “internal struggle” of the characters in an “intelligent, subtle comedy.”

Social activity

In 1866, Alexander Nikolaevich founded the famous Artistic Circle. He subsequently gave the Moscow stage many talented figures. D. V. Grigorovich, I. A. Goncharov, I. S. Turgenev, P. M. Sadovsky, A. F. Pisemsky, G. N. Fedotova, M. E. Ermolova, P. I. Tchaikovsky visited Ostrovsky , L. N. Tolstoy, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I. E. Turchaninov.

In 1874, the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers was created in Russia. Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky was elected chairman of the association. Photographs of the famous public figure were known to every lover of performing arts in Russia. The reformer made a lot of efforts to ensure that the legislation of the theater management was revised in favor of the artists, and thereby significantly improved their financial and social situation.

In 1885, Alexander Nikolaevich was appointed to the post of head of the repertoire department and became the head of the theater school.

Ostrovsky Theater

The work of Alexander Ostrovsky is inextricably linked with the formation of real Russian theater in its modern sense. The playwright and writer managed to create his own theater school and a special holistic concept for staging theatrical performances.

The peculiarities of Ostrovsky's creativity in the theater lie in the absence of opposition to the actor's nature and extreme situations in the action of the play. In the works of Alexander Nikolaevich, ordinary events happen to ordinary people.

Main ideas of reform:

• theater should be built on conventions (there is an invisible “fourth wall” that separates the audience from the actors);
• when staging a play, the bet must be made not on one famous actor, but on a team of artists who understand each other well;
• the invariability of the actors’ attitude to language: speech characteristics should express almost everything about the characters presented in the play;
• people come to the theater to watch the actors play, and not to get acquainted with the play - they can read it at home.

The ideas that the writer Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky came up with were subsequently refined by M. A. Bulgakov and K. S. Stanislavsky.

Personal life

The playwright's personal life was no less interesting than his literary work. Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky lived in a civil marriage with a simple bourgeois woman for almost twenty years. Interesting facts and details of the marital relationship between the writer and his first wife still excite researchers.

In 1847, in Nikolo-Vorobinovsky Lane, next to the house where Ostrovsky lived, a young girl, Agafya Ivanovna, settled with her thirteen-year-old sister. She had no family or friends. No one knows when she met Alexander Nikolaevich. However, in 1848 the young people had a son, Alexei. There were no conditions for raising a child, so the boy was temporarily placed in an orphanage. Ostrovsky’s father was terribly angry that his son not only dropped out of a prestigious university, but also got involved with a simple bourgeois woman living next door.

However, Alexander Nikolaevich showed firmness and, when his father and his stepmother left for the recently purchased Shchelykovo estate in the Kostroma province, he settled with Agafya Ivanovna in his wooden house.

The writer and ethnographer S. V. Maksimov jokingly called Ostrovsky’s first wife “Marfa Posadnitsa” because she was next to the writer in times of severe need and severe deprivation. Ostrovsky's friends characterize Agafya Ivanovna as a naturally very intelligent and warm-hearted person. She knew the customs and customs of merchant life very well and had an unconditional influence on Ostrovsky’s work. Alexander Nikolaevich often consulted with her about the creation of his works. In addition, Agafya Ivanovna was a wonderful and hospitable hostess. But Ostrovsky did not formalize his marriage with her even after his father’s death. All the children born in this union died very young, only the eldest, Alexei, briefly outlived his mother.

Over time, Ostrovsky developed other hobbies. He was passionately in love with Lyubov Pavlovna Kositskaya-Nikulina, who played Katerina at the premiere of The Thunderstorm in 1859. However, a personal break soon occurred: the actress left the playwright for a rich merchant.

Then Alexander Nikolaevich had a relationship with the young artist Vasilyeva-Bakhmetyeva. Agafya Ivanovna knew about this, but she steadfastly carried her cross and managed to maintain Ostrovsky’s respect for herself. The woman died in 1867, on March 6, after a serious illness. Alexander Nikolaevich did not leave her bed until the very end. The burial place of Ostrovsky's first wife is unknown.

Two years later, the playwright married Vasilyeva-Bakhmetyeva, who bore him two daughters and four sons. Alexander Nikolaevich lived with this woman until the end of his days.

Death of the writer

The intense social life could not but affect the writer’s health. In addition, despite good fees from the production of plays and an annual pension of 3 thousand rubles, Alexander Nikolaevich always did not have enough money. Exhausted by constant worries, the writer’s body eventually failed. In 1886, on June 2, the writer died on his Shchelykovo estate near Kostroma. The Emperor donated 3 thousand rubles for the playwright's burial. In addition, he assigned a pension of 3 thousand rubles to the writer’s widow, and another 2,400 rubles a year to raise Ostrovsky’s children.

Chronological table

Ostrovsky's life and work can be briefly displayed in a chronological table.

Ostrovsky’s life and work were filled with such events. A table indicating the main incidents in the writer’s life will help to better study his biography. The dramatic heritage of Alexander Nikolaevich is difficult to overestimate. Even during the life of the great artist, the Maly Theater began to be called “Ostrovsky’s house,” and this says a lot. Ostrovsky’s work, a brief description of which is outlined in this article, is worth studying in more detail.

Alexander Ostrovsky is a playwright whose name is equally revered by both literature connoisseurs and theater lovers. He wrote several dozen plays, each of which masterfully revealed the psychological portraits of the characters with subtle, elegant touches. The most famous works of the classic are heard by every adult - for example, “Dowry” and “Thunderstorm”.

Childhood, the beginning of creativity and recognition

Born in 1823 into a merchant family, he received his education at home. In childhood and adolescence, he was greatly influenced by his father - at his insistence, he went to study to become a lawyer, and then worked for a long time as a clerk in the courts, although he had no spiritual inclination for this. The main work of Ostrovsky's life has always been drama.

In 1849, his debut essay was published - “Our people - we will be numbered!” Very often, the first creations of beginners find a cold reception from the readership - but this does not apply to Ostrovsky. The play was immediately enthusiastically received, although at the “highest level” it was immediately banned from publication - the emperor considered that Ostrovsky’s creation was offensive to the entire merchant class. The ban was lifted only a few years later - as was the police surveillance of the author of the essay.

Having instantly become a celebrity, Alexander Nikolaevich closely communicated with the luminaries of the then literary society - Gogol, Tolstoy, Turgenev and others, who greatly favored the playwright. He published his works in the famous Sovremennik, through which almost all Russian classics of the 19th century passed. The most famous works - “The Thunderstorm” and “Dowry” - were written by the classic already in his declining years.

Activities to reform the Russian theater

The name of Ostrovsky is very revered in the theatrical environment. This is not surprising - it was he who founded the artistic circle, from which many “new school” actors emerged, and achieved a significant improvement in the situation for artists, including financial ones. In the mid-1880s, he became responsible for the entire repertoire performed on the stages of Moscow theaters.

In fact, modern theater, as we are accustomed to seeing it, began precisely with Alexander Nikolaevich. He completely transformed the art school, making productions more natural, lively and exciting, and widely introduced “everyday dramas” into the repertoire.

In addition to theater and literature, he was engaged in translations - his last work was the translation of Shakespeare's play "Antony and Cleopatra". The playwright died in 1886.

A. N. Ostrovsky

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky is one of the most outstanding Russian playwrights, whose work became an important stage in the development of Russian literature and national theater. We can safely say that it was Ostrovsky’s works that laid the foundation for the Russian repertoire in the theater.

Ostrovsky's plays are known and loved by many generations of Russian viewers and readers. Feature films have been made based on them; the questions that Ostrovsky raises in his works are still relevant today.

Childhood and youth

The Russian playwright was born on March 13, 1823 in Moscow, in the family of a court official. The future playwright's mother died early; the family had six children. Ostrovsky's father really wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. After graduating from the Moscow Gymnasium, Alexander entered the Faculty of Law of Moscow University. Ostrovsky never finished it.

In 1843, Ostrovsky was hired as a court scribe and worked in various Moscow courts until 1851. This period of his life greatly helped Ostrovsky in his future work. While working in the courts, he perfectly studied the world of the Russian merchants and the philistine class, which he later brilliantly described in his works. Many characters and personalities were taken by the playwright from his real life.

First plays

In 1847, Ostrovsky’s essays entitled “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident” were published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Gorodnogo Leaflet”. However, the playwright gained wide popularity after the publication of the play “Our People - We Will Be Numbered.” This work, written in the comedy genre, was enthusiastically received by the public and received excellent reviews from critics. Gogol and Goncharov spoke approvingly of this play.

However, representatives of the merchant class did not like the work very much and after their complaint to the authorities, the play was banned from being staged, and its author was fired from his job. “We Will Be Numbered Our Own People” was allowed to be staged only after the death of Emperor Nicholas, in 1861. With the second play, Alexander Nikolaevich was much more fortunate. “Don’t Sit in Your Own Sleigh” was written by him in 1852 and already in 1853 appeared on the stage of theaters. Since 1856, Ostrovsky has been constantly working for the Sovremennik magazine.

Since 1853, every year Moscow and St. Petersburg theaters staged new plays by the playwright, and all of them were favorably received by both the public and domestic critics.

At the peak of popularity

In 1856, Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky went to the Volga region to study the way of life of the inhabitants of the region. It was after this trip that Ostrovsky wrote one of his most striking plays, “The Thunderstorm.” In 1859, the first collected works of Ostrovsky were published, which were enthusiastically received by critics. In the 1860s, Ostrovsky began to study Russian history, and he was especially interested in the Time of Troubles.

In 1863 he was awarded the Uvarov Prize and became a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In the 60s, the playwright founded the Artistic Circle, which gave a start in life to many future stars of the Russian stage. In 1874, on the initiative of Ostrovsky, the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers was founded. In 1885, Alexander Nikolaevich became the head of the repertoire of all Moscow theaters.

All his life Ostrovsky worked extremely hard, this seriously undermined his health. In June 1886, he died on his estate in the Kostroma province. Emperor Alexander III granted a large sum for the funeral of the playwright, and also assigned a pension to his widow and allocated funds for the education of his children.

Ostrovsky's significance for Russian literature and his role in the development of Russian theater are undeniable and enormous. For the Russian theater he was a figure of the same magnitude as Moliere for the French theater, and Shakespeare for the English. He has 47 plays written by him personally, and several more were written in collaboration.

Ostrovsky's plays show the life and everyday life of ordinary people; his works are very realistic, but at the same time pose deep and eternal problems to the viewer.

Ostrovsky can be called the founder of the Russian theater; he created a new theater school and a new concept of acting.

A.N. Ostrovsky was born on March 31 (April 12), 1823 in Moscow, in the family of a person from the clergy, an official, and later a solicitor of the Moscow Commercial Court. The Ostrovsky family lived in Zamoskvorechye, a merchant and bourgeois district of old Moscow. By nature, the playwright was a homebody: he lived almost his entire life in Moscow, in the Yauza part, regularly traveling, except for several trips around Russia and abroad, only to the Shchelykovo estate in the Kostroma province. Here he died on June 2 (14), 1886, in the midst of work on a translation of Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra.

In the early 1840s. Ostrovsky studied at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, but did not complete the course, entering the service in the office of the Moscow Conscientious Court in 1843. Two years later he was transferred to the Moscow Commercial Court, where he served until 1851. Legal practice gave the future writer extensive and varied material. Almost all of his first plays about modernity developed or outlined crime plots. Ostrovsky wrote his first story at the age of 20, his first play at the age of 24. After 1851, his life was connected with literature and theater. Its main events were litigation with censorship, praise and scolding from critics, premieres, and disputes between actors over roles in plays.

Over almost 40 years of creative activity, Ostrovsky has created a rich repertoire: about 50 original plays, several plays written in collaboration. He was also involved in translations and adaptations of plays by other authors. All this constitutes the “Ostrovsky theater” - this is how the scale of what was created by playwright I.A. Goncharov was defined.

Ostrovsky passionately loved theater, considering it the most democratic and effective form of art. Among the classics of Russian literature, he was the first and remains the only writer who devoted himself entirely to drama. All the plays he created were not “plays for reading” - they were written for the theater. For Ostrovsky, stagecraft is an immutable law of dramaturgy, therefore his works belong equally to two worlds: the world of literature and the world of theater.

Ostrovsky's plays were published in magazines almost simultaneously with their theatrical productions and were perceived as bright phenomena of both literary and theatrical life. In the 1860s. they aroused the same lively public interest as the novels of Turgenev, Goncharov and Dostoevsky. Ostrovsky made dramaturgy “real” literature. Before him, in the repertoire of Russian theaters there were only a few plays that seemed to have descended onto the stage from the heights of literature and remained alone (“Woe from Wit” by A.S. Griboyedov, “The Inspector General” and “Marriage” by N.V. Gogol). The theatrical repertoire was filled either with translations or works that did not have any noticeable literary merit.

In the 1850s -1860s. the dreams of Russian writers that theater should become a powerful educational force, a means of shaping public opinion, found real ground. Drama has a wider audience. The circle of literate people has expanded - both readers and those for whom serious reading was not yet accessible, but theater is accessible and understandable. A new social stratum was being formed - the common intelligentsia, which showed increased interest in the theater. The new public, democratic and diverse in comparison with the public of the first half of the 19th century, gave a “social order” for social and everyday drama from Russian life.

The uniqueness of Ostrovsky's position as a playwright is that, by creating plays based on new material, he not only satisfied the expectations of new viewers, but also fought for the democratization of the theater: after all, theater is the most popular of spectacles - in the 1860s. still remained elitist; there was no cheap public theater yet. The repertoire of the theaters in Moscow and St. Petersburg depended on officials of the Directorate of Imperial Theaters. Ostrovsky, reforming Russian drama, also reformed the theater. He wanted to see not only the intelligentsia and enlightened merchants as spectators for his plays, but also “owners of craft establishments” and “craftsmen.” Ostrovsky's brainchild was the Moscow Maly Theater, which embodied his dream of a new theater for a democratic audience.

There are four periods in Ostrovsky’s creative development:

1) First period (1847-1851)- the time of the first literary experiments. Ostrovsky began quite in the spirit of the times - with narrative prose. In his essays on the life and customs of Zamoskvorechye, the debutant relied on Gogol’s traditions and the creative experience of the “natural school” of the 1840s. During these years, the first dramatic works were created, including the comedy “Bankrut” (“We’ll count our own people!”), which became the main work of the early period.

2) Second period (1852-1855) are called “Moskvityanin”, since during these years Ostrovsky became close to the young employees of the Moskvityanin magazine: A.A. Grigoriev, T.I. Filippov, B.N. Almazov and E.N. Edelson. The playwright supported the ideological program of the “young editorial board,” which sought to make the magazine an organ of a new trend of social thought—“pochvennichestvo.” During this period, only three plays were written: “Don’t get into your own sleigh,” “Poverty is not a vice,” and “Don’t live the way you want.”

3) Third period (1856-1860) marked by Ostrovsky's refusal to search for positive principles in the life of the patriarchal merchants (this was typical for plays written in the first half of the 1850s). The playwright, who was sensitive to changes in the social and ideological life of Russia, became close to the leaders of the common democracy - the employees of the Sovremennik magazine. The creative outcome of this period were the plays “At Someone Else’s Feast a Hangover,” “Profitable Place” and “Thunderstorm,” “the most decisive,” according to N.A. Dobrolyubov, Ostrovsky’s work.

4) Fourth period (1861-1886)- the longest period of Ostrovsky’s creative activity. The genre range has expanded, the poetics of his works have become more diverse. Over the course of twenty years, plays have been created that can be divided into several genre and thematic groups: 1) comedies from merchant life (“Maslenitsa is not for everyone”, “The truth is good, but happiness is better”, “The heart is not a stone”), 2) satirical comedies (“Simplicity is enough for every wise man”, “Warm Heart”, “Mad Money”, “Wolves and Sheep”, “Forest”), 3) plays that Ostrovsky himself called “pictures of Moscow life” and “scenes from the life of the outback ": they are united by the theme of "little people" ("An old friend is better than two new ones", "Hard Days", "Jokers" and the trilogy about Balzaminov), 4) historical plays-chronicles ("Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk", "Tushino" etc.), and, finally, 5) psychological dramas (“Dowry”, “The Last Victim”, etc.). The fairy-tale play “The Snow Maiden” stands apart.

The origins of Ostrovsky’s creativity are in the “natural school” of the 1840s, although the Moscow writer was not organizationally connected with the creative community of young St. Petersburg realists. Starting with prose, Ostrovsky quickly realized that his true calling was drama. Already the early prose experiments are “scenic,” despite the most detailed descriptions of life and customs characteristic of the essays of the “natural school.” For example, the basis of the first essay, “The Tale of How the Quarterly Warden Started to Dance, or One Step from the Great to the Ridiculous” (1843), is an anecdotal scene with a completely complete plot.

The text of this essay was used in the first published work - “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident” (published in 1847 in the newspaper “Moscow City Listok”). It was in “Notes...” that Ostrovsky, called by his contemporaries “Columbus of Zamoskvorechye,” discovered a “country” previously unknown in literature, inhabited by merchants, petty bourgeois and petty officials. “Until now, only the position and name of this country were known,” the writer noted, “as for its inhabitants, that is, their way of life, language, morals, customs, degree of education, all this was covered in the darkness of the unknown.” An excellent knowledge of life material helped Ostrovsky the prose writer to create a detailed study of merchant life and history, which preceded his first plays about the merchants. In “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident,” two characteristic features of Ostrovsky’s work emerged: attention to the everyday environment that determines the life and psychology of characters “written from life,” and the special, dramatic nature of the depiction of everyday life. The writer was able to see in ordinary everyday stories potential, unused material for a playwright. The essays about the life of Zamoskvorechye were followed by the first plays.

Ostrovsky considered the most memorable day in his life to be February 14, 1847: on this day, at an evening with the famous Slavophile Professor S.P. Shevyrev, he read his first short play, “Family Picture.” But the real debut of the young playwright is the comedy “We Will Be Numbered Our Own People!” (the original title was “The Bankrupt”), on which he worked from 1846 to 1849. Theater censorship immediately banned the play, but, like “Woe from Wit” by A.S. Griboyedov, it immediately became a major literary event and was a success read in Moscow houses in the winter of 1849/50. by the author himself and major actors - P.M. Sadovsky and M.S. Shchepkin. In 1850, the comedy was published by the magazine “Moskvityanin”, but only in 1861 was it staged on stage.

The enthusiastic reception of the first comedy from merchant life was caused not only by the fact that Ostrovsky, “Columbus of Zamoskvorechye,” used completely new material, but also by the amazing maturity of his dramatic skill. Having inherited the traditions of Gogol the comedian, the playwright at the same time clearly defined his view on the principles of depicting characters and the plot and compositional embodiment of everyday material. The Gogolian tradition is felt in the very nature of the conflict: the fraud of the merchant Bolshov is a product of merchant life, proprietary morality and the psychology of rogue heroes. Bolynov declares himself bankrupt, but this is a false bankruptcy, the result of his conspiracy with the clerk Podkhalyuzin. The deal ended unexpectedly: the owner, who hoped to increase his capital, was deceived by the clerk, who turned out to be an even greater swindler. As a result, Podkhalyuzin received both the hand of the merchant’s daughter Lipochka and capital. The Gogolian principle is palpable in the homogeneity of the comic world of the play: there are no positive heroes in it, as in Gogol’s comedies, the only such “hero” can be called laughter.

The main difference between Ostrovsky's comedy and the plays of his great predecessor is the role of comedic intrigue and the attitude of the characters to it. In “Our People...” there are characters and entire scenes that are not only unnecessary for the development of the plot, but, on the contrary, slow it down. However, these scenes are no less important for understanding the work than the intrigue based on Bolshov’s alleged bankruptcy. They are necessary in order to more fully describe the life and customs of the merchants, the conditions in which the main action takes place. For the first time, Ostrovsky uses a technique that is repeated in almost all of his plays, including “The Thunderstorm”, “The Forest” and “The Dowry” - an extended slow-motion exposition. Some characters are not introduced at all to complicate the conflict. These “personalities of the situation” (in the play “Our People - Let’s Be Numbered!” - the matchmaker and Tishka) are interesting in themselves, as representatives of the everyday environment, morals and customs. Their artistic function is similar to the function of household details in narrative works: they complement the image of the merchant world with small, but bright, colorful touches.

The everyday, familiar things interest Ostrovsky the playwright no less than something out of the ordinary, for example, the scam of Bolshov and Podkhalyuzin. He finds an effective way to dramaturgically depict everyday life, making maximum use of the possibilities of the word heard from the stage. The conversations between mother and daughter about outfits and grooms, the squabbles between them, the grumbling of the old nanny perfectly convey the usual atmosphere of a merchant family, the range of interests and dreams of these people. The oral speech of the characters became an exact “mirror” of everyday life and morals.

It is the characters’ conversations on everyday topics, as if “excluded” from the plot action, that play an exceptional role in all Ostrovsky’s plays: interrupting the plot, retreating from it, they immerse the reader and viewer in the world of ordinary human relationships, where the need for verbal communication is no less important than the need for food, food and clothing. Both in the first comedy and in subsequent plays, Ostrovsky often deliberately slows down the development of events, considering it necessary to show what the characters are thinking about, in what verbal form their thoughts are expressed. For the first time in Russian drama, dialogues between characters became an important means of characterization.

Some critics considered the extensive use of everyday details to be a violation of stage laws. The only justification, in their opinion, could be that the aspiring playwright was the pioneer of merchant life. But this “violation” became the law of Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy: already in the first comedy he combined the severity of intrigue with numerous everyday details and not only did not abandon this principle later, but also developed it, achieving maximum aesthetic impact of both components of the play - a dynamic plot and static “conversational » scenes.

“Our people - we will be numbered!” - an accusatory comedy, a satire on morals. However, in the early 1850s. the playwright came to the idea of ​​the need to abandon criticism of the merchants, from the “accusatory direction.” In his opinion, the outlook on life expressed in the first comedy was “young and too tough.” Now he justifies a different approach: a Russian person should rejoice when he sees himself on stage, and not be sad. “There will be correctors even without us,” Ostrovsky emphasized in one of his letters. - In order to have the right to correct the people without offending them, you need to show them that you know the good in them; This is what I’m doing now, combining the sublime with the comic.” “High,” in his view, are folk ideals, truths acquired by the Russian people over many centuries of spiritual development.

The new concept of creativity brought Ostrovsky closer to the young employees of the Moskvityanin magazine (published by the famous historian M.P. Pogodin). In the works of the writer and critic A.A. Grigoriev, the concept of “soilism”, an influential ideological movement of the 1850s - 1860s, was formed. The basis of “pochvennichestvo” is attention to the spiritual traditions of the Russian people, to traditional forms of life and culture. The merchants were of particular interest to the “young editors” of “Moskvityanin”: after all, this class was always financially independent and did not experience the pernicious influence of serfdom, which the “soil people” considered the tragedy of the Russian people. It was in the merchant environment, in the opinion of the “Muscovites,” that one should look for genuine moral ideals developed by the Russian people, not distorted by slavery, like the serf peasantry, and separation from the people’s “soil,” like the nobility. In the first half of the 1850s. Ostrovsky was strongly influenced by these ideas. New friends, especially A.A. Grigoriev, pushed him to express the “indigenous Russian view” in his plays about the merchants.

In the plays of the “Muscovite” period of creativity - “Don’t Get in Your Sleigh,” “Poverty is not a Vice” and “Don’t Live the Way You Want” - Ostrovsky’s critical attitude towards the merchants did not disappear, but was greatly softened. A new ideological trend emerged: the playwright portrayed the morals of modern merchants as a historically changeable phenomenon, trying to find out what was preserved in this environment from the rich spiritual experience accumulated by the Russian people over the centuries, and what was deformed or disappeared.

One of the peaks of Ostrovsky’s creativity is the comedy “Poverty is not a vice,” the plot of which is based on a family conflict. Gordey Tortsov, an imperious tyrant merchant, the predecessor of Dikiy from Groza, dreams of marrying his daughter Lyuba to African Korshunov, a merchant of a new, “European” formation. But her heart belongs to someone else - the poor clerk Mitya. Gordey's brother, Lyubim Tortsov, helps break up the marriage with Korshunov, and the tyrant father, in a fit of anger, threatens to give his rebellious daughter in marriage to the first person he meets. By a lucky coincidence, it turned out to be Mitya. For Ostrovsky, a successful comedy plot is only an event “shell” that helps to understand the true meaning of what is happening: the clash of folk culture with the “semi-culture” that developed among the merchant class under the influence of fashion “for Europe.” The exponent of merchant false culture in the play is Korshunov, the defender of the patriarchal, “soil” principle - Lyubim Tortsov, the central character of the play.

We love Tortsov, a drunkard who defends moral values, attracts the viewer with his buffoonery and foolishness. The entire course of events in the play depends on him; he helps everyone, including promoting the moral “recovery” of his tyrant brother. Ostrovsky showed him as the most “Russian” of all the characters. He has no pretensions to education, like Gordey, he simply thinks sensibly and acts according to his conscience. From the author’s point of view, this is quite enough to stand out from the merchant environment, to become “our man on the stage.”

The writer himself believed that a noble impulse is capable of revealing simple and clear moral qualities in every person: conscience and kindness. He contrasted the immorality and cruelty of modern society with Russian “patriarchal” morality, therefore the world of plays of the “Muscovite” period, despite Ostrovsky’s usual precision of everyday “instrumentation,” is largely conventional and even utopian. The playwright's main achievement was his version of a positive folk character. The image of the drunken herald of truth, Lyubim Tortsov, was by no means created according to tired stencils. This is not an illustration for Grigoriev’s articles, but a full-blooded artistic image; it is not for nothing that the role of Lyubim Tortsov attracted actors of many generations.

In the second half of the 1850s. Ostrovsky again and again turns to the theme of the merchants, but his attitude towards this class has changed. He took a step back from the “Muscovites” ideas, returning to sharp criticism of the rigidity of the merchant environment. The vivid image of the tyrant merchant Tit Titych (“Kita Kitych”) Bruskov, whose name has become a household name, was created in the satirical comedy “There’s a Hangover at Someone Else’s Feast” (1856). However, Ostrovsky did not limit himself to “satire on faces.” His generalizations became broader: the play depicts a way of life that fiercely resists everything new. This, according to the critic N.A. Dobrolyubov, is a “dark kingdom” that lives according to its own cruel laws. Hypocritically defending patriarchy, tyrants defend their right to unlimited arbitrariness.

The thematic range of Ostrovsky's plays expanded, and representatives of other classes and social groups came into his field of vision. In the comedy “Profitable Place” (1857), he first turned to one of the favorite themes of Russian comedians - the satirical depiction of bureaucracy, and in the comedy “The Kindergarten” (1858) he discovered the life of a landowner. In both works, parallels with “merchant” plays are easily visible. Thus, the hero of "A Profitable Place" Zhadov, an exposer of the corruption of officials, is typologically close to the truth-seeker Lyubim Tortsov, and the characters of "The Pupil" - the tyrant landowner Ulanbekova and her victim, the pupil Nadya - resemble the characters of Ostrovsky's early plays and the tragedy "The Thunderstorm" written a year later ": Kabanikha and Katerina.

Summing up the results of the first decade of Ostrovsky’s work, A.A. Grigoriev, who argued with Dobrolyubov’s interpretation of Ostrovsky as an exposer of tyrants and the “dark kingdom,” wrote: “The name for this writer, for such a great writer, despite his shortcomings, is not a satirist, but national poet. The word for clues to his activities is not “tyranny,” but “nationality.” Only this word can be the key to understanding his works. Anything else - more or less narrow, more or less theoretical, arbitrary - restricts the circle of his creativity.”

“The Thunderstorm” (1859), which followed three accusatory comedies, became the pinnacle of Ostrovsky’s pre-reform drama. Turning again to the depiction of the merchants, the writer created the first and only social tragedy in his work.

Ostrovsky's works of the 1860s-1880s. extremely diverse, although in his worldview and aesthetic views there were no such sharp fluctuations as before 1861. Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy amazes with the Shakespearean breadth of problematics and the classical perfection of artistic forms. One can note two main trends that clearly manifested themselves in his plays: the strengthening of the tragic sound of comedy plots traditional for the writer and the growth of the psychological content of conflicts and characters. “Ostrovsky’s Theatre,” declared “outdated,” “conservative” by playwrights of the “new wave” in the 1890s and 1900s, in fact developed precisely those trends that became leading in the theater of the early 20th century. It was not at all accidental that, starting with “The Thunderstorm,” Ostrovsky’s everyday and morally descriptive plays were rich in philosophical and psychological symbols. The playwright acutely felt the insufficiency of stage “everyday” realism. Without violating the natural laws of the stage, maintaining the distance between actors and spectators - the basis of the foundations of classical theater, in his best plays he came closer to the philosophical and tragic sound of the novels created in the 1860s-1870s. his contemporaries Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, to the wisdom and organic strength of the artist, of which Shakespeare was a model for him.

Ostrovsky's innovative aspirations are especially noticeable in his satirical comedies and psychological dramas. Four comedies about the life of the post-reform nobility - "Enough Simplicity for Every Wise Man", "Wolves and Sheep", "Mad Money" and "Forest" - are connected by a common theme. The subject of satirical ridicule in them is the uncontrollable thirst for profit, which gripped both the nobles, who had lost their point of support - the forced labor of serfs and “mad money”, and people of a new formation, businessmen, amassing their capital on the ruins of collapsed serfdom.

Comedies create vivid images of “business people” for whom “money has no smell” and wealth becomes the only goal in life. In the play “Every Wise Man Has Enough Simplicity” (1868), such a person appeared as the impoverished nobleman Glumov, who traditionally dreams of receiving an inheritance, a rich bride and a career. His cynicism and business acumen do not contradict the way of life of the old noble bureaucracy: he himself is an ugly product of this environment. Glumov is smart in comparison with those to whom he is forced to bend - Mamaev and Krutitsky, he is not averse to mocking their stupidity and swagger, he is able to see himself from the outside. “I’m smart, angry, envious,” Glumov confesses. He does not seek the truth, but simply benefits from the stupidity of others. Ostrovsky shows a new social phenomenon characteristic of post-reform Russia: it is not the “moderation and accuracy” of the Molchalins that lead to “mad money,” but the caustic mind and talent of the Chatskys.

In the comedy “Mad Money” (1870), Ostrovsky continued his “Moscow chronicle”. Yegor Glumov reappeared in it with his epigrams “for all of Moscow,” as well as a kaleidoscope of satirical Moscow types: socialites who have lived through several fortunes, ladies ready to become kept servants of “millionaires,” lovers of free booze, idle talkers and voluptuous people. The playwright created a satirical portrait of a way of life in which honor and integrity are replaced by an unbridled desire for money. Money determines everything: the actions and behavior of the characters, their ideals and psychology. The central character of the play is Lydia Cheboksarova, who puts both her beauty and her love up for sale. She doesn’t care who to be - a wife or a kept woman. The main thing is to choose a thicker money bag: after all, in her opinion, “you can’t live without gold.” Lydia’s corrupt love in “Mad Money” is the same means for obtaining money as Glumov’s mind in the play “Simplicity is enough for every wise man.” But the cynical heroine, who chooses a richer victim, herself finds herself in a stupid position: she marries Vasilkov, seduced by gossip about his gold mines, is deceived by Telyatev, whose fortune is just a myth, does not disdain the caresses of “dad” Kuchumov, knocking him out of money. The only antipode to the “mad money” catchers in the play is the “noble” businessman Vasilkov, who talks about “smart” money, obtained by honest labor, saved and wisely spent. This hero is the new type of “honest” bourgeois guessed by Ostrovsky.

The comedy “The Forest” (1871) is dedicated to the popular in Russian literature of the 1870s. the theme of the extinction of the “noble nests” in which the “last Mohicans” of the old Russian nobility lived.

The image of the “forest” is one of Ostrovsky’s most capacious symbolic images. The forest is not only the background against which events unfold in the estate, located five miles from the district town. This is the object of a deal between the elderly lady Gurmyzhskaya and the merchant Vosmibratov, who is buying up their ancestral lands from impoverished nobles. The forest is a symbol of the spiritual wilderness: the forest estate “Penki” almost does not reach the revival of the capitals, “age-old silence” still reigns here. The psychological meaning of the symbol becomes clear if we correlate the “forest” with the “wilds” of rude feelings and immoral actions of the inhabitants of the “noble forest”, through which nobility, chivalry, and humanity cannot break through. “... - And really, brother Arkady, how did we get into this forest, into this dense damp forest? - says the tragedian Neschastlivtsev at the end of the play, - Why, brother, did we frighten away the owls and eagle owls? Why bother them? Let them live as they want! Everything is fine here, brother, as it should be in the forest. Old women marry high school students, young girls drown themselves from bitter life with their relatives: forest, brother” (D. 5, Rev. IX).

"The Forest" is a satirical comedy. The comedy manifests itself in a variety of plot situations and turns of action. The playwright created, for example, a small but very topical social cartoon: almost Gogolian characters discuss the topic of the activities of zemstvos, popular in post-reform times - the gloomy misanthrope landowner Bodaev, reminiscent of Sobakevich, and Milonov, as beautiful-hearted as Manilov. However, the main object of Ostrovsky’s satire is the life and customs of the “noble forest.” The play uses a proven plot device - the story of the poor pupil Aksyusha, who is oppressed and humiliated by the hypocritical “benefactor” Gurmyzhskaya. She constantly talks about her widowhood and purity, although in fact she is vicious, voluptuous, and vain. The contradictions between Gurmyzhskaya’s claims and the true essence of her character are the source of unexpected comic situations.

In the first act, Gurmyzhskaya puts on a kind of show: to demonstrate her virtue, she invites her neighbors to sign a will. According to Milonov, “Raisa Pavlovna decorates our entire province with the severity of her life; our moral atmosphere, so to speak, is redolent of her virtues.” “We were all afraid of your virtue here,” Bodaev echoes, recalling how they were expecting her arrival at the estate several years ago. In the fifth act, the neighbors learn about the unexpected metamorphosis that occurred with Gurmyzhskaya. A fifty-year-old lady, who languidly spoke of forebodings and imminent death (“if I don’t die today, not tomorrow, at least soon”), announces her decision to marry a dropout high school student, Alexis Bulanov. She considers marriage a self-sacrifice, “in order to arrange the estate and so that it does not fall into the wrong hands.” However, the neighbors do not notice the comedy in the transition from the dying will to the marriage union of “unshakable virtue” with “the tender, young branch of the noble nursery.” “This is a heroic feat! You are a heroine! - Milonov exclaims pathetically, admiring the hypocritical and depraved matron.

Another knot in the comedy plot is the story of a thousand rubles. The money went around in a circle, which made it possible to add important touches to the portraits of a variety of people. The merchant Vosmibratov tried to pocket a thousand while paying for the purchased timber. Neschastlivtsev, having reassured and “provoked” the merchant (“honor is endless. And you don’t have it”), prompted him to return the money. Gurmyzhskaya gave a “stray” thousand to Bulanov for a dress, then the tragedian, threatening the hapless youth with a fake pistol, took the money away, intending to squander it with Arkady Schastlivtsev. In the end, the thousand became Aksyusha’s dowry and... returned to Vosmibratov.

The completely traditional comedic situation of the “shifter” made it possible to contrast the sinister comedy of the inhabitants of the “forest” with a high tragedy. The pathetic “comedian” Neschastlivtsev, Gurmyzhskaya’s nephew, turned out to be a proud romantic who looks at his aunt and her neighbors through the eyes of a noble man, shocked by the cynicism and vulgarity of “owls and owls.” Those who treat him with contempt, considering him a loser and a renegade, behave like bad actors and common buffoons. “Comedians? No, we are artists, noble artists, and you are the comedians,” Neschastlivtsev angrily throws in their faces. - If we love, we love; if we don’t love, we quarrel or fight; If we help, it’s with our last penny. And you? All your life you talk about the good of society, about love for humanity. What did you do? Who did you feed? Who was consoled? You amuse only yourself, you amuse yourself. You are comedians, jesters, not us” (D. 5, Rev. IX).

Ostrovsky contrasts the crude farce played by Gurmyzhsky and Bulanov with the truly tragic perception of the world that Neschastlivtsev represents. In the fifth act, the satirical comedy is transformed: if earlier the tragedian demonstratively behaved with the “clowns” in a buffoonish manner, emphasizing his disdain for them, maliciously ironizing their actions and words, then in the finale of the play the stage, without ceasing to be a space for comedic action, turns into a tragic theater of one actor, who begins his final monologue as a “noble” artist, mistaken for a jester, and ends as a “noble robber” from the drama of F. Schiller - in the famous words of Karl Moor. The quotation from Schiller again speaks of the “forest,” or more precisely, of all the “bloodthirsty inhabitants of the forests.” Their hero would like to “rage against this hellish generation” that he encountered in the noble estate. The quote, not recognized by Neschastlivtsev’s listeners, emphasizes the tragicomic meaning of what is happening. After listening to the monologue, Milonov exclaims: “But excuse me, you can be held accountable for these words!” “Yes, just to the police officer. We are all witnesses,” Bulanov, “born to command,” responds like an echo.

Neschastlivtsev is a romantic hero, there is a lot in him from Don Quixote, the “knight of the sad image.” He expresses himself pompously, theatrically, as if he does not believe in the success of his battle with “windmills.” “Where can you talk to me,” Neschastlivtsev addresses Milonov. “I feel and speak like Schiller, and you like a clerk.” Comically playing on Karl Moor’s just spoken words about “bloodthirsty forest inhabitants,” he reassures Gurmyzhskaya, who refused to give him her hand for a farewell kiss: “I won’t bite, don’t be afraid.” All he can do is get away from people who, in his opinion, are worse than wolves: “Give me a hand, comrade! (Gives his hand to Schastlivtsev and leaves).” Neschastlivtsev’s last words and gesture are symbolic: he offers his hand to his comrade, the “comedian,” and proudly turns away from the inhabitants of the “noble forest” with whom he is not on the same path.

The hero of “The Forest” is one of the first in Russian literature to “break out”, “prodigal children” of his class. Ostrovsky does not idealize Neschastlivtsev, pointing out his everyday shortcomings: he, like Lyubim Tortsov, is not averse to carousing, is prone to trickery, and behaves like an arrogant gentleman. But the main thing is that it is Neschastlivtsev, one of the most beloved heroes of Ostrovsky’s theater, who expresses high moral ideals, completely forgotten by the jesters and Pharisees from the forest estate. His ideas about the honor and dignity of a person are close to the author himself. As if breaking the “mirror” of comedy, Ostrovsky, through the mouth of a provincial tragedian with the sad surname Neschastlivtsev, wanted to remind people of the danger of lies and vulgarity, which easily replace real life.

One of Ostrovsky’s masterpieces, the psychological drama “Dowry” (1878), like many of his works, is a “merchant” play. The leading place in it is occupied by the playwright’s favorite motifs (money, trade, merchant “courage”), traditional types found in almost every of his plays (merchants, a minor official, a girl of marriageable age and her mother, trying to “sell” her daughter at a higher price, a provincial actor ). The intrigue also resembles previously used plot devices: several rivals are fighting for Larisa Ogudalova, each of whom has their own “interest” in the girl.

However, unlike other works, for example the comedy “The Forest”, in which the poor pupil Aksyusha was only a “character of the situation” and did not take an active part in the events, the heroine of “Dowry” is the central character of the play. Larisa Ogudalova is not only a beautiful “thing”, shamelessly put up for auction by her mother Kharita Ignatievna and “bought” by rich merchants of the city of Bryakhimov. She is a richly gifted person, thinking, deeply feeling, understanding the absurdity of her situation, and at the same time a contradictory nature, trying to chase “two birds with one stone”: she wants both high love and a rich, beautiful life. It combines romantic idealism and dreams of bourgeois happiness.

The main difference between Larisa and Katerina Kabanova, with whom she is often compared, is freedom of choice. She herself must make her choice: to become the kept woman of the rich merchant Knurov, a participant in the daring entertainments of the “brilliant master” Paratov, or the wife of a proud nonentity - an official “with ambitions” Karandyshev. The city of Bryakhimov, like Kalinov in “The Thunderstorm,” is also a city “on the high bank of the Volga,” but this is no longer the “dark kingdom” of an evil, tyrant force. Times have changed - the enlightened “new Russians” in Bryakhimov do not marry dowry girls, but buy them. The heroine herself can decide whether or not to participate in the auction. A whole “parade” of suitors passes in front of her. Unlike the unrequited Katerina, Larisa’s opinion is not neglected. In a word, the “last times” that Kabanikha feared so much have arrived: the old “order” has collapsed. Larisa does not need to beg her fiancé Karandyshev, as Katerina begged Boris (“Take me with you from here!”). Karandyshev himself is ready to take her away from the temptations of the city - to the remote Zabolotye, where he wants to become a justice of the peace. The swamp, which her mother imagines as a place where there is nothing but forest, wind and howling wolves, seems to Larisa to be a village idyll, a kind of swampy “paradise”, a “quiet corner”. In the dramatic fate of the heroine, the historical and everyday, the tragedy of unfulfilled love and bourgeois farce, subtle psychological drama and pathetic vaudeville are intertwined. The leading motive of the play is not the power of the environment and circumstances, as in “The Thunderstorm,” but the motive of man’s responsibility for his destiny.

“The Dowry” is, first of all, a drama about love: it was love that became the basis of the plot intrigue and the source of the heroine’s internal contradictions. Love in “Dowry” is a symbolic, multi-valued concept. “I was looking for love and didn’t find it” - this is the bitter conclusion Larisa makes at the end of the play. She means love-sympathy, love-understanding, love-pity. In Larisa’s life, true love was replaced by “love” put up for sale, love as a commodity. The bargaining in the play is precisely because of her. Only those who have more money can buy such “love”. For the “Europeanized” merchants Knurov and Vozhevatov, Larisa’s love is a luxury item that is bought in order to furnish their lives with “European” chic. The pettiness and prudence of these “children” of Dikiy is manifested not in selfless swearing over a penny, but in ugly love bargaining.

Sergei Sergeevich Paratov, the most extravagant and reckless among the merchants depicted in the play, is a parody figure. This is the “merchant Pechorin,” a heartthrob with a penchant for melodramatic effects. He considers his relationship with Larisa Ogudalova a love experiment. “I want to know how soon a woman forgets her passionately loved one: the day after separation from him, a week or a month later,” Paratov franks. Love, in his opinion, is only suitable “for household use.” Paratov’s own “trip to the island of love” with the dowry Larisa was short-lived. She was replaced by noisy carousing with gypsies and marriage to a rich bride, or rather, her dowry - gold mines. “I, Mokiy Parmenych, have nothing cherished; If I find a profit, I’ll sell everything, whatever I want” - this is the life principle of Paratov, the new “hero of our time” with the habits of a broken clerk from a fashion store.

Larisa’s fiancé, the “eccentric” Karandyshev, who became her killer, is a pitiful, comical and at the same time sinister person. It mixes the “colors” of various stage images in an absurd combination. This is a caricature of Othello, a parody of a “noble” robber (at a costume party “he dressed up as a robber, took an ax in his hands and cast brutal glances at everyone, especially Sergei Sergeich”) and at the same time a “philistine among the nobility.” His ideal is a “carriage with music”, a luxurious apartment and dinners. This is an ambitious official who found himself at a riotous merchant feast, where he received an undeserved prize - the beautiful Larisa. The love of Karandyshev, the “spare” groom, is love-vanity, love-protection. For him, Larisa is also a “thing” that he boasts of, presenting it to the whole city. The heroine of the play herself perceives his love as humiliation and an insult: “How disgusting you are to me, if only you knew!... For me, the most serious insult is your patronage; I didn’t receive any other insults from anyone.”

The main feature that appears in Karandyshev’s appearance and behavior is quite “Chekhovian”: it is vulgarity. It is this feature that gives the figure of the official a gloomy, ominous flavor, despite his mediocrity compared to other participants in the love market. Larisa is killed not by the provincial “Othello”, not by the pathetic comedian who easily changes masks, but by the vulgarity embodied in him, which - alas! - became for the heroine the only alternative to love paradise.

Not a single psychological trait in Larisa Ogudalova has reached completion. Her soul is filled with dark, vague impulses and passions that she herself does not fully understand. She is not able to make a choice, accept or curse the world in which she lives. Thinking about suicide, Larisa was never able to throw herself into the Volga, like Katerina. Unlike the tragic heroine of "The Thunderstorm", she is just a participant in a vulgar drama. But the paradox of the play is that it was precisely the vulgarity that killed Larisa that, in the last moments of her life, also made her a tragic heroine, rising above all the characters. No one loved her the way she would like, but she dies with words of forgiveness and love, sending a kiss to the people who almost forced her to renounce the most important thing in her life - love: “You need to live, but I need to live.” ... die. I don’t complain about anyone, I don’t take offense at anyone... you are all good people... I love you all... everyone... ”(Sends a kiss). This last, tragic sigh of the heroine was answered only by a “loud chorus of gypsies,” a symbol of the entire “gypsy” way of life in which she lived.