What years are considered the beginning of Ostrovsky’s creative activity? A.N

It is the surname of A. N. Ostrovsky that stands at the origins of the development of Russian drama theater. His dramas are still very popular to this day thanks to the extraordinary flavor of his talent as a writer and playwright, who always felt what the secular public expected from him. Therefore, it is interesting to know what kind of person Alexander Ostrovsky was. His books contained a huge creative heritage. Among his most famous works: “Guilty Without Guilt”, “Dowry”, “Thunderstorm”, “Wolves and Sheep”, “Snow Maiden”, “At someone else’s feast there is a hangover”, “What you go for is what you will find”, “Your own people” - let’s settle”, “Mad money”, etc.

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky. short biography

Alexander Nikolaevich was born in the spring of March 31 (April 12), 1823. He grew up on Malaya Ordynka in Moscow. His father was the son of a priest, and his name was Nikolai Fedorovich. Having received a seminary education in Kostroma, he went to study at the Moscow Theological Academy. But he never became a priest, but began to practice as a lawyer in judicial institutions. Over time, he rose to the rank of titular councilor and received the title of nobility.

Ostrovsky's biography (short) says that Ostrovsky's mother, Lyubov Ivanovna, died when he was 7 years old. There are six children left in the family. Subsequently, their stepmother, Emilia Andreevna von Tesin, who was the daughter of a Swedish nobleman, took care of the family. The Ostrovsky family did not need anything; much attention was paid to the education and upbringing of children.

Childhood

Ostrovsky spent almost his entire childhood in Zamoskvorechye. His father had a large library, the boy began studying Russian literature early and felt a craving for writing, but his father wanted his son to become a lawyer.

From 1835 to 1940, Alexander studied at the Moscow Gymnasium. Then he entered Moscow University and began studying to become a lawyer. But a quarrel with a teacher did not allow him to complete his last year of university. And then his father got him a job in court. He received his first salary in the amount of 4 rubles, but then it increased to 15 rubles.

Creation

Further, Ostrovsky’s biography (brief) indicates that Alexander Ostrovsky’s fame and popularity as a playwright was brought to him by the play “Our People - Let’s Be Numbered!”, published in 1850. This play was approved by I. A. Goncharov and N. V. Gogol. But the Moscow merchants did not like it, and the merchants complained to the sovereign. Then, by personal order of Nicholas I, its author was dismissed from service and placed under police supervision, which was lifted only under Alexander II. And in 1861, the play again saw the theatrical stage.

During Ostrovsky’s disgraced period, the first play staged in St. Petersburg was called “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh.” Ostrovsky's biography (brief) includes information that for 30 years his plays were staged at the St. Petersburg Alexandrinsky and Moscow Maly Theaters. In 1856, Ostrovsky began working for the Sovremennik magazine.

Ostrovsky Alexander Nikolaevich. Works

In 1859, Ostrovsky, with the support of G. A. Kushelev-Bezborodko, published the first collection of essays in two volumes. At this point, the Russian critic Dobrolyubov will note that Ostrovsky is an accurate portrayal of the “dark kingdom.”

In 1860, after the “Thunderstorm,” Dobrolyubov called him “a ray of light in dark kingdom».

Indeed, Alexander Ostrovsky knew how to captivate with his remarkable talent. “The Thunderstorm” became one of the playwright’s most striking works, the writing of which was also associated with his personal drama. Prototype main character the play was played by actress Lyubov Pavlovna Kositskaya, with her for a long time had a close relationship, although they were both not free people. She was the first to play this role. Ostrovsky made the image of Katerina tragic in its own way, so he reflected in it all the suffering and torment of the soul of a Russian woman.

Cradle of Talents

In 1863, Ostrovsky was awarded the Uvarov Prize and became an elected corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg. Later, in 1865, he organized the Artistic Circle, which became the cradle of many talents.

Ostrovsky hosted such eminent guests in his house as F. M. Dostoevsky, L. N. Tolstoy, P. I. Tchaikovsky, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I. S. Turgenev, etc.

In 1874, the writer-playwright founded the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and opera composers, the chairman of which Ostrovsky remained until his death. He also served on the commission associated with the revision of the theater management regulations, which led to new changes, thanks to which the position of artists was significantly improved.

In 1881, a benefit performance of the opera “The Snow Maiden” by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov took place at the Mariinsky Theater. Ostrovsky's biography (short) indicates that at these moments Ostrovsky was incredibly pleased musical arrangement great composer.

Last years

In 1885, the playwright began to manage the repertoire department of Moscow theaters and headed drama school. Ostrovsky almost always had money problems, although he collected good fees from his plays and had a pension assigned by the emperor Alexander III. Ostrovsky had many plans, he was literally burning at work, this affected his health and depleted his vitality.

On June 2, 1886, he died on his Shchelykovo estate near Kostroma. He was 63 years old. His body was buried next to his father’s grave at the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Kostroma province in the village of Nikolo-Berezhki.

The widow, actress Maria Andreevna Bakhmetyeva, three sons and a daughter were awarded a pension by Tsar Alexander III.

His estate in Shchelykovo is now a memorial and natural museum Ostrovsky.

Conclusion

Ostrovsky created his own theater school with its holistic concept of theatrical production. The main component of his theater was that there were no extreme situations in it, but depicted life situations that went back to the everyday life and psychology of a person of that time, which Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky knew very well. A short biography describes that Ostrovsky’s theater had many ideas, but to bring them to life, new stage aesthetics and new actors were needed. All this was later brought to mind by K. S. Stanislavsky and M. A. Bulgakov.

Ostrovsky's dramas served as the basis for film adaptations and television series. Among them are the film “Balzaminov’s Marriage”, shot in 1964 based on the play “What You Go For, You’ll Find” by director K. Voinov, the film “Cruel Romance”, shot in 1984 based on “Dowry” by director Eldar Ryazanov. In 2005, Evgeny Ginzburg directed the film “Anna” based on the play “Guilty Without Guilt.”

Ostrovsky created an extensive repertoire for the Russian theater stage, which included 47 highly original plays. He worked in collaboration with talented young playwrights, including P. M. Nevezhin and N. Ya. Solovyov. Ostrovsky's dramaturgy became national due to its origins and traditions.

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky is a famous Russian writer and playwright who had a significant influence on the development of national theater. He formed a new school of realistic play and wrote a lot 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 received 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, Russian ancient 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 was his literary activity became 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 started corresponding with 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”. Problems national history were portrayed by Ostrovsky talentedly and reliably.

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 Abyss", "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. His artists moved into the building Bolshoi Theater. 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 for a very short term. 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 amateur 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 performance, you must place your bet on more than one famous actor, but on a team of artists who understand each other well;
• the invariability of the actors’ attitude to language: speech characteristics must 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 marital relations 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. Moreover, despite the good fees from the production of plays and an annual pension of 3 thousand rubles, Money Alexander Nikolaevich never had enough. 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.

A.N. Ostrovsky was born on March 31 (April 12), 1823 in Moscow, in the family of a member of 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 the translation Shakespearean 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.

For almost 40 years creative activity Ostrovsky 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.

IN creative development Ostrovsky distinguishes four periods:

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 creative experience “ natural school» 1840s During these years the first dramatic works, 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" (" old friend better than the new two”, “Hard Days”, “Jokers” and the trilogy about Balzaminov), 4) historical chronicle plays (“Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk”, “Tushino”, etc.), and, finally, 5) psychological dramas (“Dowry”, “ The last victim" and etc.). Stands apart fairy tale play"Snow Maiden".

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 early prose experiments are “stage”, despite detailed descriptions life and morals, 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” there are two characteristics Ostrovsky’s creativity: 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!” ( original title- “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 successfully 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 everyday objects 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. Oral speech 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 subsequently, but also developed it, achieving maximum aesthetic impact 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. A successful comedy plot for Ostrovsky is only an event “shell” that helps to understand the true meaning of what is happening: a collision folk culture with the “semi-culture” that developed among the merchants 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 - We love Tortsov, central character plays.

We love Tortsov - a drunkard who protects moral values, - attracts the viewer with its 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 merchant environment, to become “our man on stage.”

The writer himself believed that a noble impulse is capable of revealing simple and clear thoughts in every person. moral qualities: conscience and kindness. Immorality and cruelty modern society he contrasted Russian “patriarchal” morality, therefore the world of plays of the “Muscovite” period, despite the usual precision of everyday “instrumentation” for Ostrovsky, is largely conventional and even utopian. The main achievement of the playwright was his version of the 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’s no wonder 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 (“Kit Kitych”) Bruskov, whose name has become a household name, was created in satirical comedy“There is 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; representatives of other classes and community groups. In the comedy “A 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 folk 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 its best plays ah, he came close 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.

Created in comedies vivid images“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 something 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 the most capacious symbolic images Ostrovsky. 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. Psychological significance 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 main object Ostrovsky's satires are 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 with the eyes of noble man, shocked by the cynicism and vulgarity of the “owls and owls.” Those who treat him with contempt, considering him a loser and a renegade, behave like bad actors and area jesters. “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 “go berserk against this hellish generation” that he encountered in 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. Leading place it features the playwright’s favorite motifs (money, trade, merchant “courage”), traditional types found in almost every one 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 a rural idyll, a kind of swampy “paradise”, “ 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, polysemantic 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... y'all good people... I love you all... all... (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.

Creative path of A.N. Ostrovsky

From an early age Ostrovsky was fond of fiction and was interested in theater. While still a high school student, he began visiting the Moscow Maly Theater, where he admired the performances of M. S. Shchepkin and P. S. Mochalov. The articles of V. G. Belinsky and A. I. Herzen had a great influence on the formation of the worldview of the young Ostrovsky. As a young man, Ostrovsky eagerly listened to the inspired words of professors, among whom were brilliant, progressive scientists, friends of great writers, about the fight against untruth and evil, about sympathy for “everything human,” about freedom as the goal of social development. But the closer he became acquainted with the law, the less he liked the career of a lawyer, and, not having an inclination towards a legal career, Ostrovsky left Moscow University, which he entered at the insistence of his father in 1835, when entering the 3rd year. Ostrovsky was irresistibly attracted to art. Together with his comrades, he tried not to miss a single interesting performance, read a lot and argued about literature, and passionately fell in love with music. At the same time, he himself tried to write poetry and stories. From then on - and for the rest of his life - Belinsky became the highest authority in art for him. The service did not captivate Ostrovsky, but it was of invaluable benefit to the future playwright, providing rich material for his first units. Already in his first works, Ostrovsky showed himself to be a follower of the “Gogolian trend” in Russian literature, a supporter of the school of critical realism. His commitment to ideological realistic art, Ostrovsky expressed his desire to follow the precepts of V. G. Belinsky in literary critical articles of this period, in which he argued that a feature of Russian literature is its “accusatory character.” The appearance of Ostrovsky's best plays was a social event that attracted the attention of progressive circles and caused indignation in the reactionary camp. Ostrovsky’s first literary experiments in prose were marked by the influence of the natural school (“Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident,” 1847). In the same year, his first dramatic work, “The Picture of Family Happiness” (in later publications – “The Family Picture”) was published in the Moscow City List. Ostrovsky's literary fame came from the comedy "Our People - Let's Be Numbered" published in 1850. Even before publication it became popular. The comedy was banned from being presented on stage (it was first staged in 1861), and the author, by personal order of Nicholas I, was placed under police supervision.

He was asked to leave the service. Even earlier, censorship banned “The Picture of Family Happiness” and Ostrovsky’s translation of W. Shakespeare’s comedy “The Pacification of the Wayward” (1850).

In the early 50s, during the years of intensifying government reaction, there was a short-term rapprochement between Ostrovsky and the “young editors” of the reactionary Slavophile magazine “Moskvityanin”, whose members sought to present the playwright as a singer of the “original Russian merchant class and its Domostroevsky foundations.” The works created at this time (“Don’t get into your own sleigh”, 1853, “Poverty is not a vice”, 1854, “Don’t live as you want”, 1855) reflected Ostrovsky’s temporary refusal to consistently and irreconcilably condemn reality. However, he quickly freed himself from the influence of reactionary Slavophile ideas. In the decisive and final return of the playwright to the path of critical realism, revolutionary-democratic criticism played a large role, delivering an angry rebuke to liberal-conservative “fans.”

New stage in Ostrovsky’s work is associated with the era of social upsurge of the late 50s and early 60s, with the emergence of a revolutionary situation in Russia. Ostrovsky is moving closer to the revolutionary-democratic camp. Since 1857, he published almost all of his plays in Sovremennik, and after its closure he moved to Otechestvennye zapiski, published by N. A. Nekrasov and M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. The development of Ostrovsky’s work was greatly influenced by the articles of N. G. Chernyshevsky, and later by N. A. Dobrolyubov, the work of N. A. Nekrasov and M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin.

Along with the merchant theme, Ostrovsky turns to the depiction of bureaucracy and the nobility (“Profitable Place”, 1857, “Pupilite”, 1859). Unlike liberal writers, who were keen on superficially ridiculing individual abuses, Ostrovsky, in the comedy “Profitable Place,” deeply criticized the entire system of the pre-reform tsarist bureaucracy. Chernyshevsky praised the play, emphasizing its “strong and noble direction.”

The strengthening of anti-serfdom and anti-bourgeois motives in Ostrovsky’s work testified to a certain convergence of his worldview with the ideals of revolutionary democracy.

“Ostrovsky is a democratic writer, educator, ally of N. G. Chernyshevsky, N. A. Nekrasov and M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. By painting us a vivid picture of false relationships with all their consequences, through this he serves as an echo of aspirations that require best device“- wrote Dobrolyubov in the article “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom.” It is no coincidence that Ostrovsky constantly encountered obstacles when publishing and staging his plays. Ostrovsky always looked at his writing and social activities as fulfilling a patriotic duty, serving the interests of the people. His plays reflected the most pressing issues of contemporary reality: the deepening of irreconcilable social contradictions, the plight of workers who are entirely dependent on the power of money, the lack of rights of women, the dominance of violence and arbitrariness in family and social relations, the growth of self-awareness of the working class intelligentsia, etc.

The most complete and convincing assessment of Ostrovsky’s work was given by Dobrolyubov in his articles “The Dark Kingdom” (1859) and “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom” (1860), which had a huge revolutionary influence on the younger generation of the 60s. In Ostrovsky's works the critic saw, first of all, a remarkably truthful and versatile depiction of reality. Possessing “a deep understanding of Russian life and a great ability to depict sharply and vividly its most significant aspects,” Ostrovsky was, according to Dobrolyubov’s definition, a real people’s writer. Ostrovsky’s work is distinguished not only by its deep national character, ideological spirit, and bold denunciation of social evil, but also by its high artistic skill, which was entirely subordinated to the task of realistic reproduction of reality. Ostrovsky repeatedly emphasized that life itself is a source of dramatic collisions and situations.

Ostrovsky's activities contributed to the victory of life's truth on the Russian stage. With great artistic force, he depicted conflicts and images typical of contemporary reality, and this placed his plays on a par with the best works classical literature 19th century. Ostrovsky acted as an active fighter for the development of the national theater not only as a playwright, but also as a wonderful theorist, as an energetic public figure.

The great Russian playwright, who created a truly national theatrical repertoire, was in need all his life, endured insults from officials of the imperial theater directorate, and encountered stubborn resistance in the ruling spheres to his cherished ideas about the democratic transformation of theatrical affairs in Russia.

In Ostrovsky’s poetics, two elements merged with remarkable skill: the cruel realistic element of the “dark kingdom” and romantic, enlightened emotion. In his plays, Ostrovsky portrays fragile, gentle heroines, but at the same time strong personalities, capable of protest, forgiving the entire foundation of society.

In preparing this work, materials from the site http://www.studentu.ru were used

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4. The play "The Thunderstorm"

5. The play "Dowry"

1. Periods and characteristics of the work of A.N. Ostrovsky.

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky (1823-1886) is one of the greatest playwrights second half of the 19th century He wrote 54 plays, each of which reflected the versatility of his talent. Ostrovsky’s creative path can be characterized as follows:

✓ first period(1847-1860), having the following characteristics:

Use of Gogolian traditions;

Mastering the advanced aesthetics of his time;

Expanding the theme and strengthening the social urgency of the play, as, for example, in the plays “The Kindergarten” (1858), “A Festive Sleep - Before Dinner” (1857), “The Characters Didn’t Match” (1858), “The Thunderstorm” (1856);

Creation of the plays “Your People – Let’s Be Numbered!”, “Poor Bride”, “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh”, the comedy “Poverty is not a Vice”, the drama “Don’t Live the Way You Want”;

✓ second period(1860-1875), having the following characteristics:

Appeal to the traditions of historical dramaturgy of A. S. Pushkin, increased interest in the country’s past;

Conviction in the importance of literary coverage of history, as it helps to better understand the present;

Revealing the spiritual greatness of the Russian people, their patriotism, asceticism;

Creation historical plays: “Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk” (1862), “Voevoda” (1865), “Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky” (1867), “Tushino” (1867), “Vasilisa Melentyeva” (1868);

The use of new images and motifs that reflected both new social relations in the country and the essence of the worldview of the author himself;

Development of the genre of chronicle and poetic tragedy;

Continuation of the traditions of Pushkin and Gogol in developing the theme of the little man in such plays as “Jokers” (1864), “The Deep”, “Labor Bread”;

Development of the genre of satirical comedy, which reflected Russian life during the period of bourgeois reforms through the development of the motif of contrasting “wolves” and “sheep,” that is, characters - businessmen, predators and their disadvantaged victims, in plays such as “Simplicity is Enough for Every Wise Man” (1868), “Mad Money” (1869), “Forest” (1870), “Snow Maiden” (1873) and in the comedy “Wolves and Sheep” (1875), created in the third period of the author’s work;

✓ third period(late 70s - early 80s of the 19th century), having the following characteristics:

Continuation of the development of the themes and motifs outlined at the previous stages: satire on Russian bourgeois reality, themes of the little man;

Deepening psychologism in the study and disclosure of characters and in the analysis of the environment, surrounding the heroes plays by Ostrovsky;

Creating the foundations of Chekhov's dramaturgy in such plays as "Dowry", "Slave Women", "It Shines, but Doesn't Warm", "Not of This World".

2. The originality of the creativity of A.N. Ostrovsky.

The originality and importance of Ostrovsky’s work are as follows:

✓ innovation in themes, genres, literary style and images of plays;

✓ historicity: the events and plots of his plays cover a huge historical period in the development of Russia from Ivan the Terrible to the second half of the 19th century;

✓ everyday fullness, the immersion of the plot in family, private relationships, since it is in them that all the vices of society are manifested, and through revealing the essence of these family relationships, the author also reveals general human vices;

✓ revealing the conflict between two “parties”: older and younger, rich and poor, willful and submissive, etc., and this conflict is one of the central ones in Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy;

✓ organic connection between drama and the epic principle;

✓ widespread use of traditions of folklore and fairy tales both in titles ("It's not all Maslenitsa for the cat", "Don't sit in your own sleigh", "Truth is good, but happiness is better") and in plots ("The Snow Maiden"), and a proverb often defines not only the title, but the whole concept and ideas of the play;

✓ the use of "speaking" names and surnames of heroes, often dictated folklore images and the literary traditions of previous authors (Tigry Lvovich Lyutov from the play “There wasn’t a penny, but suddenly it was altyn”);

✓ individualization, richness and brightness of the language of the characters and the plays themselves.

Ostrovsky’s work and the dramatic traditions he developed had a strong influence on subsequent generations of playwrights and writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, and in particular on such authors as L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov, A. I. Yuzhin-Sumbatov, V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, E.P. Karpov, A.M. Gorky, A.S. Neverov, B.S. Romashov, B.A. Lavrenev, N.F. Pogodin, L.M. Leonov and others.

3. The play "Our people - we will be numbered!"

The play "Our People - Let's Be Numbered!", written in the first period of Ostrovsky's work, has the following peculiarities:

✓ denunciation of despotism, tyranny and self-interest;

✓ orientation towards Gogolian traditions in literature, which is manifested in highlighting the theme of money through the description of property relations between the characters with a predominance of their thirst for profit;

✓ the use of traditions of the “natural school”, which is manifested through an extensive depiction of the life of the merchant class;

✓ at the same time, a departure from Gogol’s poetics of the study of the character and principles of the natural school, which is manifested in the following:

Focusing not only on revealing the psychology of the hero and describing his everyday life, but also on research and analysis of the features of the social environment around him;

The appearance of characters who are not related to the central conflict, but contribute bright image merchant life;

Refusal to deeply consider the facts of reality, and the desire to generalize them;

Changing the essence and attitude towards a love affair that is subordinated main topic- monetary relations benefit, and its occurrence among the heroes is dictated by material interest;

✓ the novelty of the composition, the essence of which is the development of a story of one type at different stages;

✓ the novelty and originality of the plot, which is built on the principle of a swing, that is, the characters alternately rise and fall in their position;

✓ special expressiveness and individualization of the characters’ language, which very accurately expresses the comic in this play.

4. The play "The Thunderstorm"

Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" is one of the most interesting and popular in Russian drama. The play is based on Ostrovsky’s real impressions from a trip along the Upper Volga in 1856; the morals of the merchant classes, the customs of patriarchal antiquity, and the most beautiful and rich natural landscapes of the Volga were expressed in it. The dramatic action of the play takes place in the fictional city of Kalinov, which, according to the author's plan, is located on the banks of the Volga. "Thunderstorm" has the following artistic features :

✓ organic, masterful use of paintings of the Volga landscape, which perform the following important artistic functions:

They contribute bright colors in describing the setting of the play, helping the reader to understand the situation as clearly and clearly as possible;

Compositionally, they are of great importance, as they make the structure of the play complete, integral, beginning and ending the action of the play with a steep river bank;

✓ plot and compositional originality, which is as follows:

The slowness of the pace of action at the beginning, which is due to the extensive exposition of the play, which fulfills the author’s most important task of acquainting the reader in as much detail as possible with the circumstances, life, morals, characters and conditions in which the action will subsequently unfold;

Introduction to the exhibition of several “minor” characters (Shapkin, Feklusha, Kudryash, etc.), who will subsequently play a crucial role in the unfolding of the conflict of the play;

The originality of the plot of the play, which lies in various options its definition, and at the same time, the plot of the play can be called triple, including Kulagin’s condemning words at the beginning of Act 1, which determine the development of social struggle in the play, Katerina’s dialogue with Varvara (act seven) and last words Katerina in the second act, which finally determine the nature of her struggle;

Development in action of the social and individual line of struggle and two parallel love affairs(Katerina - Boris and Varvara - Kudryash);

The presence of “extra-fab” episodes, for example, the meeting of Kabanikha with Feklusha, which fulfill the function of completing the image of the “dark kingdom”;

Development of tension dramatic action in every new act;

The climax in the middle of the play is in the 4th act, associated with the scene of repentance, and its function is to aggravate the heroine’s conflict with the environment;

The real denouement is in the 5th act, where both intrigues reach their conclusion;

Ring structure of the play: the events of the 1st and 5th acts take place in the same place;

✓ the originality, brightness and completeness of the images of the play by Katerina, Kabanikha, Dikiy, Boris, each of which has a certain integral character;

✓ the use of the technique of contrasting characters (Kabanikha and Dikoy and other characters), landscapes of the 1st and 4th acts, etc.;

✓ disclosure of the tragic circumstances of the life of an educated, spiritually filled person in the society of the “dark kingdom”;

✓ the symbolism of the title of the play, which is present in the play both as a natural phenomenon and as a kind of symbol expressing the idea of ​​the entire work, and here there is a echo with Griboyedov’s “Woe from Wit”, Lermontov’s “Hero of Our Time”, and as having a figurative meaning, personifying a thunderstorm , raging in Katerina’s soul.

5. The play "Dowry"

The play "Dowry" (1878) is Ostrovsky's fortieth work and opens a new - the third stage in his work. The play has the following artistic features:

✓ echoes "Thunderstorm" on the following points:

The scene is small towns on the banks of the Volga;

The main theme and main characteristics of the residents are monetary motives, benefits;

Both main heroines do not correspond to the world in which they live, they are above it and come into conflict with this world, and this is their tragedy, the end of both heroines is the same - death, freeing them from the vices and injustice of the world around them;

✓ has significant differences from "The Thunderstorm", which consist in a change in the social status, morals and characters of the heroes, who are now modern educated industrialists, and not ignorant merchants, are interested in art, are active, ambitious, strive for development, but nevertheless have their own, albeit different, but also vices;

✓ has a connection with the "Snow Maiden", which is expressed in the characters of both main heroines - Larisa Ogudalova and Snegurochka, attracted by the love of nature with a strong will and with the same strong passions, and this love is the cause of the death of both heroines;

✓ In terms of genre, it is a socio-psychological drama;

✓ The techniques developed by Ostrovsky in this play influenced the work of A.P. Chekhov, and among these techniques the following can be named:

The development of such motifs as the pistol that was previously hung on the wall, the dinner during which the fate of the heroes is decided;

An in-depth analysis of the human soul;

Objective assessment and characteristics of heroes;

Symbolism of images;

Revealing the disorder of life in general.