Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky (1823-1886) rightfully occupies a worthy place among the largest representatives of world drama.
The significance of the activities of Ostrovsky, who for more than forty years annually published in the best magazines of Russia and staged plays on the stages of the imperial theaters of St. Petersburg and Moscow, many of which were events in the literary and theatrical life of the era, is briefly but accurately described in the famous letter of I.A. . Goncharov, addressed to the playwright himself.
“You have donated a whole library of works of art to literature, and you have created your own special world for the stage. You alone completed the building, the foundation of which was laid by Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Gogol. But only after you, we Russians can proudly say: “We have our own Russian, national theater.” It, in fairness, should be called the Ostrovsky Theater."
Ostrovsky began his creative journey in the 40s, during the lifetime of Gogol and Belinsky, and completed it in the second half of the 80s, at a time when A.P. Chekhov was already firmly established in literature.
The conviction that the work of a playwright creating a theater repertoire is a high public service permeated and directed Ostrovsky’s activities. He was organically connected with the life of literature.
In his youth, the playwright wrote critical articles and participated in the editorial affairs of Moskvityanin, trying to change the direction of this conservative magazine, then, publishing in Sovremennik and Otechestvennye Zapiski, he became friendly with N. A. Nekrasov and L. N. Tolstoy , I. S. Turgenev, I. A. Goncharov and other writers. He followed their work, discussed their works with them and listened to their opinions about his plays.
In an era when state theaters were officially considered “imperial” and were under the control of the Ministry of the Court, and provincial entertainment institutions were placed at the complete disposal of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, Ostrovsky put forward the idea of a complete restructuring of the theatrical business in Russia. He argued for the need to replace the court and commercial theater with a folk one.
Not limiting himself to the theoretical development of this idea in special articles and notes, the playwright practically fought for its implementation for many years. The main areas in which he realized his views on theater were his creativity and work with actors.
Ostrovsky considered dramaturgy, the literary basis of the performance, to be its defining element. The theater's repertoire, which gives the viewer the opportunity to “see Russian life and Russian history on stage,” according to his concepts, was addressed primarily to the democratic public, “for whom popular writers want to write and are obliged to write.” Ostrovsky defended the principles of author's theater.
He considered the theaters of Shakespeare, Moliere, and Goethe to be exemplary experiments of this kind. The combination in one person of the author of dramatic works and their interpreter on stage - a teacher of actors, a director - seemed to Ostrovsky to be a guarantee of artistic integrity and the organic activity of the theater.
This idea, in the absence of direction, with the traditional focus of theatrical performance on the performance of individual, “solo” actors, was innovative and fruitful. Its significance has not been exhausted even today, when the director has become the main figure in the theater. It is enough to remember B. Brecht’s theater “Berliner Ensemble” to be convinced of this.
Overcoming the inertia of the bureaucratic administration, literary and theatrical intrigues, Ostrovsky worked with actors, constantly directing the productions of his new plays at the Maly Moscow and Alexandrinsky St. Petersburg theaters.
The essence of his idea was to implement and consolidate the influence of literature on the theater. He fundamentally and categorically condemned what was becoming more and more apparent since the 70s. the subordination of dramatic writers to the tastes of actors - favorites of the stage, their prejudices and whims. At the same time, Ostrovsky could not imagine drama without theater.
His plays were written with real performers and artists in mind. He emphasized: in order to write a good play, the author must have full knowledge of the laws of the stage, the purely plastic side of the theater.
He was not ready to give power over stage artists to not every playwright. He was sure that only a writer who created his own unique dramaturgy, his own special world on stage, has something to say to the artists, has something to teach them. Ostrovsky's attitude to modern theater was determined by his artistic system. The hero of Ostrovsky's dramaturgy was the people.
The whole society and, moreover, the socio-historical life of the people were represented in his plays. It was not without reason that critics N. Dobrolyubov and A. Grigoriev, who approached Ostrovsky’s work from mutually opposite positions, saw in his works a holistic picture of the existence of the people, although they assessed the life depicted by the writer differently.
This writer’s orientation towards the mass phenomena of life corresponded to the principle of ensemble acting, which he defended, the inherent awareness of the playwright of the importance of unity, the integrity of the creative aspirations of the group of actors participating in the play.
In his plays, Ostrovsky depicted social phenomena that have deep roots - conflicts, the origins and causes of which often go back to distant historical eras.
He saw and showed the fruitful aspirations arising in society, and the new evil rising in it. The bearers of new aspirations and ideas in his plays are forced to wage a difficult struggle with old conservative customs and views, sanctified by tradition, and in them new evil collides with the ethical ideal of the people that has evolved over centuries, with strong traditions of resistance to social injustice and moral injustice.
Each character in Ostrovsky's plays is organically connected with his environment, his era, the history of his people. At the same time, the ordinary person, in whose concepts, habits and very speech his kinship with the social and national world is imprinted, is the focus of interest in Ostrovsky's plays.
The individual fate of the individual, the happiness and misfortune of the individual, ordinary person, his needs, his struggle for his personal well-being excite the viewer of the dramas and comedies of this playwright. The position of a person serves in them as a measure of the state of society.
Moreover, the typicality of personality, the energy with which the individual characteristics of a person “affect” the life of the people, in Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy has important ethical and aesthetic significance. The character is wonderful.
Just as in Shakespeare’s drama the tragic hero, be he beautiful or terrible in terms of ethical assessment, belongs to the sphere of beauty, in Ostrovsky’s plays the characteristic hero, to the extent of his typicality, is the embodiment of aesthetics, and in a number of cases, spiritual wealth, historical life and culture of the people .
This feature of Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy predetermined his attention to the performance of each actor, to the performer’s ability to present a type on stage, to vividly and captivatingly recreate an individual, original social character.
Ostrovsky especially appreciated this ability in the best artists of his time, encouraging and helping to develop it. Addressing A.E. Martynov, he said: “... from several features sketched by an inexperienced hand, you created final types full of artistic truth. This is what makes you so dear to the authors.”
Ostrovsky ended his discussion about the nationality of the theater, about the fact that dramas and comedies are written for the whole people with the words: “...dramatic writers must always remember this, they must be clear and strong.”
The clarity and strength of the author's creativity, in addition to the types created in his plays, finds expression in the conflicts of his works, built on simple life incidents, which, however, reflect the main conflicts of modern social life.
In his early article, positively assessing A.F. Pisemsky’s story “The Mattress,” Ostrovsky wrote: “The intrigue of the story is simple and instructive, like life. Because of the original characters, because of the natural and highly dramatic course of events, a noble thought, gained from everyday experience, comes through.
This story is truly a work of art." The natural dramatic course of events, original characters, depiction of the life of ordinary people - by listing these signs of true artistry in Pisemsky’s story, young Ostrovsky undoubtedly came from his reflections on the tasks of dramaturgy as an art.
It is characteristic that Ostrovsky attaches great importance to the instructiveness of a literary work. The instructiveness of art gives him the basis to compare and bring art closer to life.
Ostrovsky believed that the theater, gathering within its walls a large and diverse audience, uniting it with a sense of aesthetic pleasure, should educate society, help simple, unprepared spectators “understand life for the first time,” and give the educated “a whole perspective of thoughts that cannot be escaped.” (ibid.).
At the same time, abstract didactics was alien to Ostrovsky. “Anyone can have good thoughts, but control over minds and hearts is given only to a select few,” he reminded, mocking writers who replace serious artistic issues with edifying tirades and naked tendencies. Knowledge of life, its truthful realistic portrayal, reflection on the most pressing and complex issues for society - this is what the theater should present to the public, this is what makes the stage a school of life.
The artist teaches the viewer to think and feel, but does not give him ready-made solutions. Didactic dramaturgy, which does not reveal the wisdom and instructiveness of life, but replaces it with declaratively expressed truisms, is dishonest, since it is not artistic, while it is precisely for the sake of aesthetic impressions that people come to the theater.
These ideas of Ostrovsky found a peculiar refraction in her attitude to historical drama. The playwright argued that “historical dramas and chronicles<...>develop people’s self-knowledge and cultivate conscious love for the fatherland.”
At the same time, he emphasized that it is not the distortion of the past for the sake of one or another tendentious idea, not the external stage effect of melodrama on historical subjects, and not the transposition of scholarly monographs into a dialogical form, but a truly artistic recreation of the living reality of bygone centuries on stage can be the basis patriotic performance.
Such a performance helps society to understand itself, encourages reflection, giving a conscious character to the immediate feeling of love for the homeland. Ostrovsky understood that the plays he created annually formed the basis of the modern theatrical repertoire.
Defining the types of dramatic works, without which an exemplary repertoire cannot exist, he, in addition to dramas and comedies depicting modern Russian life, and historical chronicles, named extravaganzas, fairy tale plays for festive performances, accompanied by music and dance, designed as a colorful folk spectacle.
The playwright created a masterpiece of this kind - the spring fairy tale "The Snow Maiden", in which poetic fantasy and a picturesque setting are combined with deep lyrical and philosophical content.
History of Russian literature: in 4 volumes / Edited by N.I. Prutskov and others - L., 1980-1983.
The playwright almost did not raise political and philosophical problems in his work, facial expressions and gestures, through playing out the details of their costumes and everyday furnishings. To enhance the comic effects, the playwright usually introduced minor persons into the plot - relatives, servants, hangers-on, random passers-by - and incidental circumstances of everyday life. Such, for example, is Khlynov’s retinue and the gentleman with a mustache in “A Warm Heart,” or Apollo Murzavetsky with his Tamerlane in the comedy “Wolves and Sheep,” or the actor Schastlivtsev with Neschastlivtsev and Paratov in “The Forest” and “Dowry,” etc. The playwright continued to strive to reveal the characters’ characters not only in the course of events, but no less through the peculiarities of their everyday dialogues - “characterological” dialogues, which he aesthetically mastered in “His People...”.
Thus, in the new period of creativity, Ostrovsky appears as an established master, possessing a complete system of dramatic art. His fame and his social and theatrical connections continue to grow and become more complex. The sheer abundance of plays created in the new period was the result of an ever-increasing demand for Ostrovsky's plays from magazines and theaters. During these years, the playwright not only worked tirelessly, but found the strength to help less gifted and beginning writers, and sometimes actively participate with them in their work. Thus, in the creative collaboration with Ostrovsky, a number of plays were written by N. Solovyov (the best of them are “The Marriage of Belugin” and “Savage”), as well as by P. Nevezhin.
Constantly promoting the production of his plays on the stages of the Moscow Maly and St. Petersburg Alexandria theaters, Ostrovsky was well aware of the state of theatrical affairs, which were mainly under the jurisdiction of the bureaucratic state apparatus, and was bitterly aware of their glaring shortcomings. He saw that he did not depict the noble and bourgeois intelligentsia in their ideological quests, as Herzen, Turgenev, and partly Goncharov did. In his plays, he showed the everyday social life of ordinary representatives of the merchants, bureaucrats, and nobility, life where personal, particularly love, conflicts revealed clashes of family, monetary, and property interests.
But Ostrovsky’s ideological and artistic awareness of these aspects of Russian life had a deep national-historical meaning. Through the everyday relationships of those people who were the masters and masters of life, their general social condition was revealed. Just as, according to Chernyshevsky’s apt remark, the cowardly behavior of the young liberal, the hero of Turgenev’s story “Asya,” on a date with a girl was a “symptom of the disease” of all noble liberalism, its political weakness, so the everyday tyranny and predation of merchants, officials, and nobles appeared a symptom of a more terrible disease is their complete inability to at least in any way give their activities national progressive significance.
This was quite natural and logical in the pre-reform period. Then the tyranny, arrogance, and predation of the Voltovs, Vyshnevskys, and Ulanbekovs were a manifestation of the “dark kingdom” of serfdom, already doomed to be scrapped. And Dobrolyubov correctly pointed out that, although Ostrovsky’s comedy “cannot provide the key to explaining many of the bitter phenomena depicted in it,” nevertheless, “it can easily lead to many analogous considerations related to everyday life that does not directly concern.” And the critic explained this by the fact that the “types” of tyrants drawn by Ostrovsky “are not. rarely contain not only exclusively merchant or bureaucratic, but also national (i.e. national) features.” In other words, Ostrovsky's plays of 1840-1860. indirectly exposed all the “dark kingdoms” of the autocratic-serf system.
In the post-reform decades, the situation changed. Then “everything turned upside down” and a new, bourgeois system of Russian life gradually began to “establish itself.” And of enormous, national importance was the question of how exactly this new system was “fitted”, to what extent the new ruling class, the Russian bourgeoisie, could take part in the struggle for the destruction of the remnants of the “dark kingdom” of serfdom and the entire autocratic-landowner system.
Almost twenty new plays by Ostrovsky on modern themes gave a clear negative answer to this fatal question. The playwright, as before, depicted the world of private social, everyday, family and property relations. Not everything was clear to him about the general trends of their development, and his “lyre” sometimes made not quite the “right sounds” in this regard. But in general, Ostrovsky's plays contained a certain objective orientation. They exposed both the remnants of the old “dark kingdom” of despotism and the newly emerging “dark kingdom” of bourgeois predation, money rush, and the death of all moral values in an atmosphere of general buying and selling. They showed that Russian businessmen and industrialists are not capable of rising to the level of awareness of the interests of national development, that some of them, such as Khlynov and Akhov, are only capable of indulging in crude pleasures, others, like Knurov and Berkutov, can only subjugate everything around them with their predatory, “wolf” interests, and for still others, such as Vasilkov or Frol Pribytkov, the interests of profit are only covered up by external decency and very narrow cultural demands. Ostrovsky's plays, in addition to the plans and intentions of their author, objectively outlined a certain prospect for national development - the prospect of the inevitable destruction of all remnants of the old “dark kingdom” of autocratic-serf despotism, not only without the participation of the bourgeoisie, not only over its head, but along with the destruction of its own predatory "dark kingdom"
The reality depicted in Ostrovsky's everyday plays was a form of life devoid of nationally progressive content, and therefore easily revealed internal comic inconsistency. Ostrovsky dedicated his outstanding dramatic talent to its disclosure. Based on the tradition of Gogol's realistic comedies and stories, rebuilding it in accordance with the new aesthetic demands put forward by the “natural school” of the 1840s and formulated by Belinsky and Herzen, Ostrovsky traced the comic inconsistency of the social and everyday life of the ruling strata of Russian society, delving into the “world details,” looking thread by thread at the “web of daily relationships.” This was the main achievement of the new dramatic style created by Ostrovsky.
Essay on literature on the topic: The significance of Ostrovsky’s work for the ideological and aesthetic development of literature
Other writings:
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- Discussing the power of “inertia, numbness” that hobbles a person, A. Ostrovsky noted: “It is not without reason that I called this force Zamoskvoretskaya: there, beyond the Moscow River, is its kingdom, there is its throne. She drives a man into a stone house and locks the iron gates behind him, she dresses Read More......
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- Krylov belonged to the Russian enlighteners of the 18th century, led by Radishchev. But Krylov was unable to rise to the idea of uprising against autocracy and serfdom. He believed that the social system could be improved through the moral re-education of people, that social issues should be resolved Read More......
In connection with the 35th anniversary of Ostrovsky’s activity, Goncharov wrote to him: “You alone built the building, the foundation of which was laid by Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Gogol. But only after you can we, Russians, proudly say: “We have our own, Russian, national theater.” It, in fairness, should be called “Ostrovsky Theater”.
The role played by Ostrovsky in the development of Russian theater and drama can well be compared with the importance that Shakespeare had for English culture, and Moliere for French culture. Ostrovsky changed the nature of the Russian theater repertoire, summed up everything that had been done before him, and opened new paths for dramaturgy. His influence on theatrical art was extremely great. This especially applies to the Moscow Maly Theater, which is traditionally also called the Ostrovsky House. Thanks to numerous plays by the great playwright, who established the traditions of realism on stage, the national school of acting was further developed. A whole galaxy of wonderful Russian actors, based on Ostrovsky’s plays, were able to clearly demonstrate their unique talent and establish the originality of Russian theatrical art.
At the center of Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy is a problem that has passed through all of Russian classical literature: the conflict of a person with the unfavorable living conditions opposing him, the diverse forces of evil; assertion of the individual’s right to free and comprehensive development. A wide panorama of Russian life is revealed to readers and spectators of the plays of the great playwright. This is, in essence, an encyclopedia of life and customs of an entire historical era. Merchants, officials, landowners, peasants, generals, actors, businessmen, matchmakers, businessmen, students - several hundred characters created by Ostrovsky gave a total idea of Russian reality of the 40-80s . in all its complexity, diversity and inconsistency.
Ostrovsky, who created a whole gallery of wonderful female images, continued that noble tradition that had already been defined in Russian classics. The playwright exalts strong, integral natures, which in some cases turn out to be morally superior to the weak, insecure hero. These are Katerina (“The Thunderstorm”), Nadya (“The Pupil”), Kruchinina (“Guilty Without Guilt”), Natalya (“Labor Bread”), etc.
Reflecting on the uniqueness of Russian dramatic art, on its democratic basis, Ostrovsky wrote: “People’s writers want to try their hand at a fresh audience, whose nerves are not very pliable, which requires strong drama, great comedy, provocativeness.” great frank, loud laughter, warm, sincere feelings, lively and strong characters.” Essentially this is a characteristic of Ostrovsky’s own creative principles.
The dramaturgy of the author of “The Thunderstorm” is distinguished by genre diversity, a combination of tragic and comic elements, everyday and grotesque, farcical and lyrical. His plays are sometimes difficult to classify into one specific genre. He wrote not so much drama or comedy, but rather “plays of life,” according to Dobrolyubov’s apt definition. The action of his works is often carried out into a wide living space. The noise and chatter of life burst into action and become one of the factors determining the scale of events. Family conflicts develop into public conflicts. Material from the site
The playwright's skill is manifested in the accuracy of social and psychological characteristics, in the art of dialogue, in accurate, lively folk speech. The language of the characters becomes one of his main means of creating an image, a tool of realistic typification.
An excellent connoisseur of oral folk art, Ostrovsky made extensive use of folklore traditions, the richest treasury of folk wisdom. A song can replace a monologue, a proverb or a saying can become the title of a play.
Ostrovsky's creative experience had a tremendous impact on the further development of Russian drama and theatrical art. V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko and K. S. Stanislavsky, the founders of the Moscow Art Theater, sought to create “a people’s theater with approximately the same tasks and in the same plans as Ostrovsky dreamed.” The dramatic innovation of Chekhov and Gorky would have been impossible without their mastery of the best traditions of their remarkable predecessor.
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On this page there is material on the following topics:
- Essay on Ostpovsky's life and his significance in the development of Russian theater
- Ostrovsky articles about the theater
- summary of the Ostrovsky Theater
What is the significance of the work of A. N. Ostrovsky in world drama.
- The significance of A. N. Ostrovsky for the development of Russian drama and stage, his role in the achievements of all Russian culture are undeniable and enormous. He did as much for Russia as Shakespeare did for England or Moliere for France.
Ostrovsky wrote 47 original plays (not counting the second editions of Kozma Minin and Voevoda and seven plays in collaboration with S. A. Gedeonov (Vasilisa Melentyeva), N. Ya. Solovyov (Happy Day, The Marriage of Belugin, Savage, It Shines, but Doesn’t Warm) and P. M. Nevezhin (Blazh, Old in a new way). In the words of Ostrovsky himself, this is a whole folk theater.
But Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy is a purely Russian phenomenon, although his work,
certainly influenced the drama and theater of the fraternal peoples,
included in the USSR. His plays have been translated and staged
scenes of Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Georgia, etc.Ostrovsky's plays gained fans abroad. His plays are staged
in theaters of former people's democracies, especially on stages
Slavic states (Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia).
After the Second World War, the playwright's plays increasingly attracted the attention of publishers and theaters in capitalist countries.
Here they were primarily interested in the plays The Thunderstorm, There is Enough Simplicity for Every Wise Man, The Forest, The Snow Maiden, Wolves and Sheep, and The Dowry.
But such popularity and such recognition as Shakespeare or Moliere, Russian
the playwright has not earned any accolades in world culture. - Everything that the great playwright described has not been eradicated to this day.
