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.
Composition
Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky... This is an unusual phenomenon. His role in the history of the development of Russian drama, performing arts and the entire national culture can hardly be overestimated. He did as much for the development of Russian drama as Shakespeare in England, Lone de Vega in Spain, Moliere in France, Goldoni in Italy and Schiller in Germany. Despite the oppression inflicted by the censorship, the theatrical and literary committee and the directorate of the imperial theaters, despite the criticism of reactionary circles, Ostrovsky's dramaturgy gained increasing sympathy every year both among democratic spectators and among artists.
Developing the best traditions of Russian dramatic art, using the experience of progressive foreign drama, tirelessly learning about the life of his native country, constantly communicating with the people, closely connecting with the most progressive contemporary public, Ostrovsky became an outstanding portrayer of the life of his time, embodying the dreams of Gogol, Belinsky and other progressive figures literature about the appearance and triumph of Russian characters on the Russian stage.
Ostrovsky's creative activity had a great influence on the entire further development of progressive Russian drama. It was from him that our best playwrights came and learned from him. It was to him that aspiring dramatic writers in their time gravitated.
The power of Ostrovsky’s influence on the young writers of his day can be evidenced by a letter to the playwright of the poetess A.D. Mysovskaya. “Do you know how great your influence was on me? It was not love for art that made me understand and appreciate you: but on the contrary, you taught me to both love and respect art. I owe it to you alone that I resisted the temptation to fall into the arena of pathetic literary mediocrity, and did not chase after cheap laurels thrown by the hands of sweet and sour half-educated people. You and Nekrasov made me fall in love with thought and work, but Nekrasov gave me only the first impetus, while you gave me the direction. Reading your works, I realized that rhyming is not poetry, and a set of phrases is not literature, and that only by cultivating the mind and technique will an artist be a real artist.”
Ostrovsky had a powerful impact not only on the development of domestic drama, but also on the development of Russian theater. The colossal importance of Ostrovsky in the development of Russian theater is well emphasized in a poem dedicated to Ostrovsky and read in 1903 by M. N. Ermolova from the stage of the Maly Theater:
On the stage life itself, from the stage the truth blows,
And the bright sun caresses us and warms us...
The living speech of ordinary, living people sounds,
On stage there is not a “hero”, not an angel, not a villain,
But just a man... A happy actor
Hastens to quickly break the heavy shackles
Conventions and lies. Words and feelings are new,
But in the recesses of the soul there is an answer to them, -
And all lips whisper: blessed is the poet,
Tore off the shabby, tinsel covers
And shed a bright light into the dark kingdom
The famous artist wrote about the same thing in 1924 in her memoirs: “Together with Ostrovsky, truth itself and life itself appeared on the stage... The growth of original drama began, full of responses to modernity... They started talking about the poor, the humiliated and the insulted.”
The realistic direction, muted by the theatrical policy of the autocracy, continued and deepened by Ostrovsky, turned the theater onto the path of close connection with reality. Only it gave the theater life as a national, Russian, folk theater.
“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, at the foundation of which Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Gogol laid the cornerstones.” This wonderful letter was received, among other congratulations, on the year of the thirty-fifth anniversary of literary and theatrical activity by Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky from another great Russian writer - Goncharov.
But much earlier, about the very first work of the still young Ostrovsky, published in “Moskvityanin”, a subtle connoisseur of the elegant and sensitive observer V. F. Odoevsky wrote: “If this is not a momentary flash, not a mushroom squeezed out of the ground by itself, cut by all kinds of rot, then this man has enormous talent. I think there are three tragedies in Rus': “The Minor”, “Woe from Wit”, “The Inspector General”. On “Bankrupt” I put number four.”
From such a promising first assessment to Goncharov’s anniversary letter, a full life, rich in work; labor, and which led to such a logical relationship of assessments, because talent requires, first of all, great work on itself, and the playwright did not sin before God - he did not bury his talent in the ground. Having published his first work in 1847, Ostrovsky has since written 47 plays and translated more than twenty plays from European languages. And in total there are about a thousand characters in the folk theater he created.
Shortly before his death, in 1886, Alexander Nikolaevich received a letter from L.N. Tolstoy, in which the brilliant prose writer admitted: “I know from experience how people read, listen to and remember your works, and therefore I would like to help ensure that You have now quickly become in reality what you undoubtedly are - a writer of the entire people in the broadest sense.”
Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky (1823--1886) rightfully takes its rightful 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 people’s 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 orientation of theatrical performances 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 recall 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 Alexandria St. Petersburg theaters. The essence of her idea was to implement and consolidate the influence of literature on the theater. He principledly 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 towards 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 with 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 characterization 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 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” (12, 8).
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” (12, 123).
The clarity and strength of the author’s creativity, in addition to the types created in his plays, is expressed 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" (13, 151). 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 (see 12, 322), help simple, unprepared spectators “understand life for the first time” (12, 158), and to give to 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 of minds and hearts is given only to a select few” (12, 158), he reminded, ironizing at 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 his attitude to historical drama. The playwright argued that “historical dramas and chronicles “…” develop popular self-knowledge and cultivate conscious love for the fatherland” (12, 122). 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 learned 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 direct 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.
Ostrovsky entered Russian literature as the heir of Pushkin and Gogol - a national playwright, intensely reflecting on the social functions of theater and drama, transforming everyday, familiar reality into an action full of comedy and drama, a connoisseur of language, sensitively listening to the living speech of the people and making it a powerful tool artistic expression.
Ostrovsky's comedy "Our people - we will be numbered!" (original title “Bankrupt”) was assessed as a continuation of the line of national satirical drama, the next “issue” after “The Inspector General,” and, although Ostrovsky had no intention of prefacing it with a theoretical declaration or explaining its meaning in special articles, circumstances forced him to define his attitude to the activities of a dramatic writer.
Gogol wrote in “Theater Travel”: “It’s strange: I’m sorry that no one noticed the honest face that was in my play “...” This honest, noble face was laughter“...” I am a comedian, I served him honestly and therefore I must become his intercessor.”
“According to my concepts of grace, considering comedy to be the best form for achieving moral goals and recognizing in myself the ability to reproduce life primarily in this form, I had to write a comedy or not write anything,” states Ostrovsky in a request from him regarding his play explanation to the trustee of the Moscow educational district V.I. Nazimov (14, 16). He is firmly convinced that talent imposes on him responsibilities to art and the people. Ostrovsky’s proud words about the meaning of comedy sound like a development of Gogol’s thought.
In accordance with Belinsky’s recommendations to fiction writers of the 40s. Ostrovsky finds an area of life little studied, not depicted in literature before him, and devotes his pen to it. He himself proclaims himself the “discoverer” and researcher of Zamoskvorechye. The writer’s declaration about everyday life, with which he intends to introduce the reader, is reminiscent of the humorous “Introduction” to one of Nekrasov’s almanacs, “The First of April” (1846), written by D. V. Grigorovich and F. I. Dostoevsky. Ostrovsky reports that the manuscript, which “sheds light on a country hitherto unknown to anyone in detail and not yet described by any traveler,” was discovered by him on April 1, 1847 (13, 14). The very tone of the address to readers, prefaced by “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident” (1847), testifies to the author’s orientation towards the style of humorous everyday life writing of Gogol’s followers.
Reporting that the subject of his depiction will be a certain “part” of everyday life, delimited from the rest of the world territorially (by the Moscow River) and fenced off by the conservative isolation of its way of life, the writer thinks about what place this isolated sphere occupies in the integral life of Russia.
Ostrovsky correlates the customs of Zamoskvorechye with the customs of the rest of Moscow, contrasting them, but even more often bringing them together. Thus, the pictures of Zamoskvorechye, given in Ostrovsky’s essays, stood in line with the generalized characteristics of Moscow, contrasted with St. Petersburg as a city of traditions, a city that embodies historical progress, in Gogol’s articles “Petersburg Notes of 1836” and Belinsky “Petersburg and Moscow.”
The main problem that the young writer bases his knowledge of the world of Zamoskvorechye is the relationship in this closed world of traditionality, the stability of being and the active principle, the development trend. Depicting Zamoskvorechye as the most conservative, immovable part of the observing tradition of Moscow, Ostrovsky saw that the life he depicts, due to its external conflict-free nature, may seem idyllic. And he resisted such a perception of the picture of life in Zamoskvorechye. He characterizes the routine of Zamoskvoretsky existence: “... the force of inertia, numbness, so to speak, hobbling a person”; and explains his thought: “It is not without reason that I called this power 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 gate behind him, she dresses the man in a cotton robe, she puts a cross on the gate to protect him from evil spirits, and she lets dogs roam the yard to protect him from evil people. She places bottles in the windows, buys annual quantities of fish, honey, cabbage and salts corned beef for future use. She makes a person fat and with a caring hand drives away every disturbing thought from his forehead, just as a mother drives flies away from a sleeping child. She is a deceiver, she always pretends to be “family happiness,” and an inexperienced person will not soon recognize her and, perhaps, envy her” (13, 43).
This remarkable characteristic of the very essence of life in Zamoskvorechye is striking in its juxtaposition of such seemingly mutually contradictory images and assessments as the comparison of “Zamoskvoretsk strength” with a caring mother and a hobbling noose, numbness - synonymous with death; the combination of such widely separated phenomena as food procurement and a person’s way of thinking; the convergence of such different concepts as family happiness in a prosperous home and vegetation in imprisonment, strong and violent. Ostrovsky leaves no room for bewilderment; he directly states that well-being, happiness, carelessness are a deceptive form of enslavement of the individual, killing him. The way of patriarchal life is subordinated to the real tasks of providing a closed, self-sufficient unit-family with material well-being and comfort. However, the very system of patriarchal life is inseparable from certain moral concepts, a certain worldview: deep traditionalism, subordination to authority, a hierarchical approach to all phenomena, mutual alienation of houses, families, classes and individuals.
The ideal of life in such a way of life is peace, the immutability of everyday ritual, the finality of all ideas. Thought, to which Ostrovsky not accidentally gives the constant definition of “restless,” is expelled from this world, declared outlaw. Thus, the consciousness of Zamoskvoretsky inhabitants turns out to be firmly fused with the most concrete, material forms of their life. The fate of a restless thought seeking new paths in life is shared by science - a concrete expression of progress in consciousness, a refuge for an inquisitive mind. She is suspicious and, at best, tolerable as a servant of the most elementary practical calculation, science - “like a serf who pays his master a quitrent” (13, 50).
Thus, Zamoskvorechye from a private sphere of everyday life, a “corner”, a remote provincial area of Moscow studied by the essayist, turns into a symbol of patriarchal life, an inert and integral system of relations, social forms and corresponding concepts. Ostrovsky shows a keen interest in mass psychology and the worldview of an entire social environment, in opinions that have not only long been established and based on the authority of tradition, but also “closed”, creating a network of ideological means of protecting their integrity, turning into a kind of religion. At the same time, he is aware of the historical specificity of the formation and existence of this ideological system. The comparison of Zamoskvoretsky practicality with feudal exploitation does not arise by chance. It explains the Zamoskvoretsky attitude to science and intelligence.
In his earliest, still student-like imitative story, “The Tale of How the Quarterly Warden Started to Dance...” (1843), Ostrovsky found a humorous formula that expresses an important generalization of the generic characteristics of the “Zamoskvoretsk” approach to knowledge. The writer himself, obviously, recognized it as successful, since he transferred, albeit in an abbreviated form, the dialogue containing it into the new story “Ivan Erofeich,” published under the title “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident.” “The watchman was “...” such an eccentric that even if you ask him, he doesn’t know anything. He had such a saying: “How can you know him if you don’t know him?” Really, like some kind of philosopher” (13, 25). This is the proverb in which Ostrovsky saw a symbolic expression of the “philosophy” of Zamoskvorechye, which believes that knowledge is primordial and hierarchical, that everyone is “allotted” a small, strictly defined share of it; that the greatest wisdom is the lot of spiritual or “God-inspired” persons - holy fools, seers; the next step in the hierarchy of knowledge belongs to the rich and senior in the family; the poor and subordinates, by their very position in society and family, cannot lay claim to “knowledge” (the guard “stands on one thing, that he knows nothing and is not allowed to know” - 13, 25).
Thus, while studying Russian life in its specific, particular manifestation (the life of Zamoskvorechye), Ostrovsky thought intensely about the general idea of this life. Already at the first stage of his literary activity, when his creative individuality was just taking shape and he was intensely searching for his path as a writer, Ostrovsky came to the conviction that the complex interaction of the patriarchal traditional way of life and the stable views formed in his bosom with the new needs of society and sentiments reflecting the interests of historical progress constitutes the source of an endless variety of modern social and moral collisions and conflicts. These conflicts oblige the writer to express his attitude towards them and thereby intervene in the struggle, in the development of dramatic events that make up the inner being of the outwardly calm, sedentary flow of life. This view of the writer’s tasks contributed to the fact that Ostrovsky, starting with work in the narrative genre, relatively quickly realized his calling as a playwright. The dramatic form corresponded to his idea of the peculiarities of the historical existence of Russian society and was “consonant” with his desire for educational art of a special type, “historical-educational”, as it could be called.
Ostrovsky’s interest in the aesthetics of drama and his unique and deep view of the drama of Russian life bore fruit in his first major comedy, “We Will Be Numbered Our Own People!” and determined the problematics and stylistic structure of this work. Comedy "Our people - let's be numbered!" was perceived as a great event in art, a completely new phenomenon. Contemporaries who took very different positions agreed on this: Prince V. F. Odoevsky and N. P. Ogarev, Countess E. P. Rostopchina and I. S. Turgenev, L. N. Tolstoy and A. F. Pisemsky, A. A. Grigoriev and N. A. Dobrolyubov. Some of them saw the significance of Ostrovsky's comedy in exposing one of the most inert and depraved classes of Russian society, others (later) - in the discovery of an important social, political and psychological phenomenon of public life - tyranny, others - in the special, purely Russian tone of the heroes , in the originality of their characters, in the national typicality of what is depicted. There were lively debates between listeners and readers of the play (it was prohibited to stage it on stage), but the very feeling of the event, the sensation, was common to all its readers. Its inclusion in a number of great Russian social comedies (“Minor”, “Woe from Wit”, “The Government Inspector”) has become a common place of discussion about the work. At the same time, however, everyone also noticed that the comedy “Our own people - we will be numbered!” fundamentally different from its famous predecessors. “The Minor” and “The Inspector General” posed national and general moral problems, depicting a “reduced” version of the social environment. For Fonvizin, these are provincial middle-class landowners who are taught by guard officers and a man of high culture, the rich man Starodum. In Gogol, there are officials of a remote, remote town, trembling before the ghost of the St. Petersburg auditor. And although for Gogol the provincialism of the heroes of “The Inspector General” is a “dress” in which the meanness and baseness that exists everywhere was “dressed up,” the public keenly perceived the social concreteness of what was depicted. In “Woe from Wit” by Griboedov, the “provincialism” of the society of the Famusovs and others like them, the Moscow morals of the nobility, which are in many ways different from those of St. Petersburg (remember Skalozub’s attacks against the guard and its “dominance”), is not only an objective reality of the image, but also an important ideological and plot aspect of comedy.
In all three famous comedies, people of a different cultural and social level invade the normal course of life of the environment, destroy the intrigues that arose before their appearance and created by local residents, bring with them their own, special conflict, forcing the entire depicted environment to feel its unity, manifest its properties and engage in a fight with a foreign, hostile element. In Fonvizin, the “local” environment is defeated by a more educated and conditionally (in the author’s deliberately ideal depiction) close to the throne. The same “assumption” exists in “The Inspector General” (cf. in “Theatrical Travel” the words of a man from the people: “I suppose the governors were quick, but everyone turned pale when the tsarist reprisal came!”). But in Gogol’s comedy the struggle is of a more “dramatic” and variable nature, although its “ghostliness” and the dual meaning of the main situation (due to the imaginary nature of the auditor) give comedy to all its vicissitudes. In "Woe from Wit" the environment defeats the "stranger". At the same time, in all three comedies, a new intrigue introduced from outside destroys the original one. In “Nedorosl”, the exposure of Prostakova’s illegal actions and the taking of her estate under guardianship cancels the attempts of Mitrofan and Skotinin to marry Sophia. In “Woe from Wit,” Chatsky’s invasion destroys Sophia’s romance with Molchalin. In “The Inspector General”, officials who are not used to missing out on “what comes into their hands” are forced to abandon all their habits and undertakings due to the appearance of the “auditor”.
The action of Ostrovsky's comedy unfolds in a homogeneous environment, the unity of which is emphasized by the title “Our People - Let's Be Numbered!”
In three great comedies, the social environment was judged by an “alien” from a higher intellectual and partly social circle, but in all these cases national problems were posed and resolved within the nobility or bureaucracy. Ostrovsky makes the merchants the focus of solving national issues - a class that had not been portrayed in such a capacity in literature before him. The merchant class was organically connected with the lower classes - the peasantry, often with the serf peasantry, commoners; it was part of the “third estate,” the unity of which had not yet been destroyed in the 40s and 50s.
Ostrovsky was the first to see in the unique life of the merchants, different from the life of the nobility, an expression of the historically established features of the development of Russian society as a whole. This was one of the innovations of the comedy “Our People – Let’s Be Numbered!” The questions it posed were very serious and concerned the entire society. “There’s no point in blaming the mirror if your face is crooked!” - Gogol addressed Russian society with brutal directness in the epigraph to The Inspector General. “Our people - we will be numbered!” - Ostrovsky slyly promised the audience. His play was designed for a wider, more democratic audience than the drama that preceded it, for an audience for whom the tragicomedy of the Bolshov family is a close thing, but who is at the same time able to understand its general meaning.
Family relations and property relations appear in Ostrovsky's comedy in close connection with a whole range of important social issues. The merchants, a conservative class that preserves ancient traditions and customs, are depicted in Ostrovsky’s play in all the originality of their way of life. At the same time, the writer sees the importance of this conservative class for the future of the country; The depiction of the life of the merchants gives him the basis to pose the problem of the fate of patriarchal relations in the modern world. Sketching an analysis of Dickens's novel Dombey and Son, a work whose main character embodies the morals and ideals of the bourgeoisie, Ostrovsky wrote: “The honor of the company is above all, let everything be sacrificed to it, the honor of the company is the beginning from which all activity flows. Dickens, in order to show all the untruth of this principle, puts it in contact with another principle - with love in its various manifestations. This is where the novel should have ended, but that’s not how Dickens does it; he forces Walter to come from overseas, Florence to hide with Captain Kutle and marry Walter, he forces Dombey to repent and settle in Florence’s family” (13, 137--138). The conviction that Dickens should have ended the novel without resolving the moral conflict and without showing the triumph of human feelings over “merchant honor,” a passion that arose in bourgeois society, is characteristic of Ostrovsky, especially during the period of his work on his first great comedy. Fully imagining the dangers that progress brings (Dickens showed them), Ostrovsky understood the inevitability, inevitability of progress and saw the positive principles contained in it.
In the comedy "Our People - Let's Be Numbered!" he portrayed the head of a Russian merchant house, as proud of his wealth, renounced simple human feelings and interested in the profits of the company, like his English colleague Dombey. However, Bolshov is not only not obsessed with the fetish of “company honor,” but, on the contrary, is completely alien to this concept. He lives by other fetishes and sacrifices all human affections to them. If Dombey’s behavior is determined by the code of commercial honor, then Bolshov’s behavior is dictated by the code of patriarchal-family relations. And just as for Dombey, serving the honor of the company is a cold passion, so for Bolshov, a cold passion is the exercise of his power as a patriarch over his household.
The combination of confidence in the sanctity of one’s autocracy with the bourgeois consciousness of the imperative of increasing profits, the paramount importance of this goal and the legitimacy of subordinating all other considerations to it, is the source of the daring plan of false bankruptcy, in which the peculiarities of the hero’s worldview are clearly manifested. Indeed, the complete absence of legal concepts that arise in the field of commerce as its importance in society grows, the blind faith in the inviolability of the family hierarchy, the replacement of commercial and business concepts with the fiction of related, family relationships - all this inspires Bolshov with the idea of the simplicity and ease of getting rich for account of trading partners, and confidence in the daughter’s obedience, in her consent to marry Podkhalyuzin, and trust in this latter, as soon as he becomes a son-in-law.
Bolshov’s intrigue is the “original” plot, which in “The Minor” corresponds to the attempt to seize Sophia’s dowry by the Prostakovs and Skotinin, in “Woe from Wit” - Sophia’s romance with the Silent, and in “The Inspector General” - the abuses of officials that are revealed (as if in inversion) during the course of the play. In “Bankrupt,” the destroyer of the initial intrigue, creating the second and main conflict within the play, is Podkhalyuzin—Bolshov’s “own” person. His behavior, unexpected for the head of the house, testifies to the collapse of patriarchal-family relations and the illusory nature of appealing to them in the world of capitalist entrepreneurship. Podkhalyuzin represents bourgeois progress to the same extent as the Bolshoi represents the patriarchal way of life. For him there is only formal honor - the honor of “justifying the document”, a simplified semblance of “company honor”.
In Ostrovsky's play from the early 70s. “Les”, even a merchant of the older generation, will stubbornly stand in positions of formal honor, perfectly combining claims to unlimited patriarchal power over households with the idea of the laws and rules of trade as the basis of behavior, i.e., about the “company honor”: “If I have my own I justify the documents - that’s my honor “... I’m not a person, I’m the rule,” the merchant Vosmibratov says about himself (6, 53). By pitting the naively dishonest Bolshov against the formally honest Podkhalyuzin, Ostrovsky did not prompt the viewer to make an ethical decision, but raised before him the question of the moral state of modern society. He showed the doom of old forms of life and the danger of the new that spontaneously grows out of these old forms. The social conflict expressed through family conflict in his play was essentially historical in nature, and the didactic aspect of his work was complex and ambiguous.
The identification of the author’s moral position was facilitated by the associative connection of the events depicted in his comedy with Shakespeare’s tragedy “King Lear”. This association arose among contemporaries. The attempts of some critics to see in the figure of Bolshov - the “merchant King Lear” - traits of high tragedy and to assert that the writer sympathizes with him, met with decisive resistance from Dobrolyubov, for whom Bolshov is a tyrant, and in his grief remains a tyrant, a dangerous and harmful person for society. Dobrolyubov’s consistently negative attitude towards Bolshov, excluding any sympathy for this hero, was explained mainly by the fact that the critic acutely felt the connection between domestic tyranny and political tyranny and the dependence of non-compliance with the law in private enterprise on the lack of legality in society as a whole. “The Merchant King Lear” interested him most of all as the embodiment of those social phenomena that give rise to and support the voicelessness of society, the lack of rights of the people, and stagnation in the economic and political development of the country.
The image of Bolshov in Ostrovsky's play is certainly interpreted in a comedic, accusatory way. However, the suffering of this hero, unable to fully understand the criminality and unreasonableness of his actions, is subjectively deeply dramatic. The betrayal of Podkhalyuzin and his daughter, the loss of capital brings Bolshov the greatest ideological disappointment, a vague feeling of the collapse of age-old foundations and principles and strikes him like the end of the world.
The fall of serfdom and the development of bourgeois relations are anticipated in the denouement of the comedy. This historical aspect of the action “strengthens” Bolshov’s figure, while his suffering evokes a response in the soul of the writer and the viewer, not because the hero, by his moral qualities, does not deserve retribution, but because the formally right-wing Podkhalyuzin tramples not only Bolshov’s narrow, distorted idea of family relations and rights of parents, but also all feelings and principles, except for the principle of “justification” of a monetary document. By violating the principle of trust, he (a student of the same Bolshov, who believed that the principle of trust exists only in the family) precisely because of his antisocial attitude, becomes the master of the situation in modern society.
Ostrovsky's first comedy, long before the fall of serfdom, showed the inevitability of the development of bourgeois relations, the historical and social significance of the processes taking place in the merchant environment.
"The Poor Bride" (1852) differed sharply from the first comedy ("Our People...") in its style, in types and situations, in dramatic construction. “The Poor Bride” was inferior to the first comedy in the harmony of the composition, the depth and historical significance of the problems posed, the severity and simplicity of the conflicts, but it was permeated with the ideas and passions of the era and made a strong impression on the people of the 50s. The suffering of a girl for whom an arranged marriage is the only possible “career”, and the dramatic experiences of a “little man” to whom society denies the right to love, the tyranny of the environment and the individual’s desire for happiness, which does not find satisfaction - these and many others the collisions that worried the audience were reflected in the play. If in the comedy "Our People - We'll Be Numbered!" Ostrovsky in many ways anticipated the problems of narrative genres and opened the way for their development; in “The Poor Bride” he rather followed the novelists and authors of stories, experimenting in search of a dramatic structure that would make it possible to express the content that narrative literature was actively developing. In the comedy, there are noticeable responses to Lermontov’s novel “A Hero of Our Time”, attempts to reveal their attitude to some of the questions raised in it. One of the central characters bears a characteristic surname - Merich. Contemporary criticism to Ostrovsky noted that this hero imitates Pechorin and pretends to be demonic. The playwright reveals the vulgarity of Merich, unworthy to stand next not only to Pechorin, but even to Grushnitsky due to the poverty of his spiritual world.
The action of “The Poor Bride” takes place in a mixed circle of poor officials, impoverished nobles and commoners, and Merich’s “demonism”, his tendency to have fun by “breaking the hearts” of girls who dreamed of love and marriage, receives a social definition: a rich young man, a “good groom” , deceiving a beautiful woman without a dowry, exercises the master’s right, which has been established for centuries in society, “to joke freely with beautiful young women” (Nekrasov). A few years later, in the play “The Kindergarten,” which originally bore the expressive title “Toys for the Cat, Tears for the Mouse,” Ostrovsky showed this kind of intrigue-entertainment in its historically “original” form, as “lordly love” - a product of serf life (compare wisdom, expressed through the lips of a serf girl in “Woe from Wit”: “Pass us more than all sorrows and lordly anger and lordly love!”). At the end of the 19th century. in the novel “Resurrection” L. Tolstoy will again return to this situation as the beginning of events, assessing which he will raise the most important social, ethical and political questions.
Ostrovsky also responded in a unique way to problems whose popularity was associated with the influence of George Sand on the minds of Russian readers in the 40s and 50s. The heroine of “The Poor Bride” is a simple girl who longs for modest happiness, but her ideals have a touch of Georgesandism. She is inclined to reason, think about general issues, and is sure that everything in a woman’s life is resolved through the fulfillment of one main desire - to love and be loved. Many critics found that Ostrovsky’s heroine “theorizes” too much. At the same time, the playwright “brings down” his woman striving for happiness and personal freedom from the heights of idealization characteristic of the novels of George Sand and her followers. She is presented as a Moscow young lady from the middle bureaucratic circle, a young romantic dreamer, selfish in her thirst for love, helpless in assessing people and unable to distinguish a genuine feeling from vulgar red tape.
In “The Poor Bride,” the popular concepts of the bourgeois environment about well-being and happiness collide with love in its various manifestations, but love itself appears not in its absolute and ideal expression, but in the appearance of time, the social environment, and the concrete reality of human relationships. The dowryless Marya Andreevna, suffering from material need, which with fatal necessity pushes her to renounce her feelings, to reconcile with the fate of a house slave, experiences cruel blows from the people who love her. The mother is actually selling her to win the case in court; Devoted to the family, honoring her late father and loving Masha like his own, the official Dobrotvorsky finds her a “good groom” - an influential official, rude, stupid, ignorant, who has made capital through abuses; Merić, who plays with passion, cynically has fun with an “affair” with a young girl; Milashin, who is in love with her, is so carried away by the fight for his rights to the girl’s heart, by rivalry with Merich, that he does not think for a minute about how this struggle affects the poor bride, how she should feel. The only person who sincerely and deeply loves Masha - degraded in the bourgeois environment and crushed by it, but kind, intelligent and educated Khorkov - does not attract the attention of the heroine, there is a wall of alienation between them, and Masha inflicts on him the same wound that they inflict on her those around. Thus, from the interweaving of four intrigues, four dramatic lines (Masha and Merich, Masha and Khorkov, Masha and Milashin, Masha and the groom - Benevolensky), a complex structure of this play is formed, in many ways close to the structure of a novel, consisting of an interweaving of plot lines. At the end of the play, in two brief appearances, a new dramatic line appears, represented by a new, episodic person - Dunya, a bourgeois girl who was Benevolensky’s unmarried wife for several years and was left by him for marriage with an “educated” young lady. Dunya, who loves Benevolensky, is able to take pity on Masha, understand her and sternly say to the triumphant groom: “But will you be able to live with such a wife? Be careful not to ruin someone else’s life for nothing. It will be a sin for you “...” This is not with me: they lived, lived, and it was like that” (1, 217).
This “little tragedy” from bourgeois life attracted the attention of readers, viewers and critics. It portrayed a strong female folk character; the drama of women's fate was revealed in a completely new way, in a style whose simplicity and reality contrasted with the romantically elevated, expansive style of George Sand. In the episode in which Dunya is the heroine, Ostrovsky’s original understanding of tragedy is especially noticeable.
However, in addition to this “interlude,” “The Poor Bride” began a completely new line in Russian drama. It was in this, in many ways not yet fully mature play (the author’s miscalculations were noted in critical articles by Turgenev and other authors) that the problems of modern love in its complex interactions with the material interests that enslaved people. One can only be amazed at the creative courage of the young playwright, his daring in art. Having not yet staged a single play on stage, but having written a comedy before The Poor Bride, which was recognized by the highest literary authorities as exemplary, he completely departs from its problematics and style and creates an example of modern drama that is inferior to his first work in perfection, but new in type.
In the late 40s - early 50s. Ostrovsky became close to a circle of young writers (T. I. Filippov, E. N. Edelson, B. N. Almazov, A. A. Grigoriev), whose views soon took a Slavophile direction. Ostrovsky and his friends collaborated in the magazine “Moskvityanin”, the conservative beliefs of whose editor, M. P. Pogodin, they did not share. An attempt by the so-called “young editorial staff” of Moskvityanin to change the direction of the magazine failed; Moreover, the financial dependence of both Ostrovsky and other Moskvityanin employees on the editor increased and sometimes became unbearable. For Ostrovsky, the matter was also complicated by the fact that the influential Pogodin contributed to the publication of his first comedy and could to some extent strengthen the position of the author of the play, which was subject to official condemnation.
Ostrovsky's famous turn in the early 50s. towards Slavophile ideas did not mean a rapprochement with Pogodin. The intense interest in folklore, in traditional forms of folk life, the idealization of the patriarchal family—features palpable in the works of Ostrovsky’s “Muscovite” period—have nothing to do with Pogodin’s official-monarchist beliefs.
Speaking about the shift that occurred in Ostrovsky’s worldview in the early 50s, they usually quote his letter to Pogodin dated September 30, 1853, in which the writer informed his correspondent that he no longer wanted to bother about the first comedy, because he did not want to “ to acquire “...” displeasure,” admitted that the view of life expressed in this play now seems to him “young and too harsh,” for “it is better for a Russian person to rejoice, seeing himself on stage, than to be sad,” argued that the direction he “begins to change” and now he combines “the sublime with the comic” in his works. He himself considers “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh” to be an example of a play written in a new spirit (see 14, 39). In interpreting this letter, researchers, as a rule, do not take into account that it was written after the ban on the production of Ostrovsky’s first comedy and the great troubles that accompanied this ban for the author (up to the appointment of police supervision over him), and contained two very important requests addressed to to the editor of “Moskvityanin”: Ostrovsky asked Pogodin to lobby through St. Petersburg to be given a place - service at the Moscow Theater, which was subordinate to the Ministry of the Court, and to petition for permission to stage his new comedy “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh” on the Moscow stage . By presenting these requests, Ostrovsky gave Pogodin, thus, assurances of his trustworthiness.
The works written by Ostrovsky between 1853 and 1855 are truly different from the previous ones. But “The Poor Bride” was also sharply different from the first comedy. At the same time, the play “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh” (1853) continued in many ways what was started in “The Poor Bride.” She painted the tragic consequences of routine relationships prevailing in a society divided into warring social clans alien to each other. The trampling of the personality of simple, trusting, honest people, the desecration of the selfless, deep feeling of a pure soul - this is what the master’s traditional contempt for the people turns out to be in the play. In the play “Poverty is not a vice” (1854), the image of tyranny, a phenomenon discovered, although not yet named, in the comedy “Our People...”, again appeared in all its brightness and specificity, and the problem of the relationship between historical progress and the traditions of national life was posed . At the same time, the artistic means by which the writer expressed his attitude to these social issues have changed noticeably. Ostrovsky developed more and more new forms of dramatic action, opening the way for enriching the style of realistic performance.
Ostrovsky's plays 1853-1854 even more openly than his first works, they were aimed at a democratic viewer. Their content remained serious, the development of problematics in the playwright’s work was organic, but the theatricality and popular square festivity of such plays as “Poverty is not a vice” and “Don’t live as you want” (1854) contrasted with the everyday modesty and reality of “Bankrupt” and "Poor bride." Ostrovsky seemed to “return” drama to the square, turning it into “folk entertainment.” The dramatic action played out on stage in his new plays came closer to the life of the viewer differently than in his first works, which painted harsh pictures of daily life. The festive splendor of the theatrical performance seemed to continue the folk Yuletide or Maslenitsa festivities with its age-old customs and traditions. And the playwright makes this riot of fun a means of raising big social and ethical questions.
In the play “Poverty is not a vice” there is a noticeable tendency to idealize the old traditions of family and life. However, the portrayal of patriarchal relationships in this comedy is complex and ambiguous. The old is interpreted in it both as a manifestation of eternal, enduring forms of life in modern times, and as the embodiment of the force of inert inertia that “shackles” a person. New - as an expression of a natural process of development, without which life is unthinkable, and as a comic “imitation of fashion,” a superficial assimilation of the external aspects of the culture of a foreign social environment, foreign customs. All these heterogeneous manifestations of stability and mobility of life coexist, struggle and interact in the play. The dynamics of their relationships form the basis of the dramatic movement in it. Its background is an ancient ritual holiday festivities, a kind of folklore performance, which is played out at Christmas time by an entire people, conditionally throwing away the “mandatory” relationships in modern society in order to take part in the traditional game. A visit to a rich house by a crowd of mummers, in which it is impossible to distinguish the familiar from the stranger, the poor from the noble and the powerful, is one of the “acts” of an ancient amateur comedy game, which is based on folk ideal-utopian ideas. “In the carnival world, all hierarchy has been abolished. All classes and ages are equal here,” M. M. Bakhtin rightly asserts.
This property of folk carnival holidays is fully expressed in the depiction of Christmas fun, which is given in the comedy “Poverty is not a vice.” When the hero of the comedy, the rich merchant Gordey Tortsov, ignores the conventions of the “game” and treats the mummers the way he is used to treating ordinary people on weekdays, this is not only a violation of tradition, but also an insult to the ethical ideal that gave birth to the tradition itself. It turns out that Gordey, who declares himself a supporter of novelty and refuses to recognize an archaic ritual, insults those forces that are constantly involved in the renewal of society. In insulting these forces, he relies equally on a historically new phenomenon - the growth of the importance of capital in society - and on the old house-building tradition of the unaccountable power of elders, especially the “lord” of the family - the father - over the rest of the household.
If in the system of family and social conflicts of the play Gordey Tortsov is exposed as a tyrant, for whom poverty is a vice and who considers it his right to push around a dependent person, wife, daughter, clerk, then in the concept of the folk performance he is a proud man who, having dispersed the mummers, he himself appears in the mask of his vice and becomes a participant in the folk Christmas comedy. Another hero of the comedy, Lyubim Tortsov, is also included in the dual semantic and stylistic series.
In terms of the social issues of the play, he is a ruined poor man who has broken with the merchant class, who in his fall acquires a new gift for him, independent critical thought. But in a series of masks of a festive Christmas evening, he, the antipode of his brother, the “ugly”, who in ordinary, “everyday” life was seen as a “shame of the family,” appears as the master of the situation, his “stupidity” turns into wisdom, simplicity into insight, talkativeness - amusing jokes, and drunkenness itself turns from a shameful weakness into a sign of a special, broad, irrepressible nature, embodying the exuberance of life. The exclamation of this hero - “Wide the road - Love Tortsov is coming!” - enthusiastically picked up by the theater audience, for whom the production of the comedy was a triumph of national drama, expressed the social idea of \u200b\u200bthe moral superiority of a poor, but internally independent person over a tyrant. At the same time, it did not contradict the traditional folklore stereotype of behavior of the Christmas hero - the joker. It seemed that this mischievous character, generous with traditional jokes, had come from the festive street to the theater stage and that he would once again retire to the streets of the festive city filled with joy.
In “Don’t Live the Way You Want,” the image of Maslenitsa fun becomes central. The setting of a national holiday and the world of ritual games in “Poverty is not a vice” contributed to the resolution of a social conflict despite the everyday routine of relationships; in “Don’t Live the Way You Want”, Maslenitsa, the atmosphere of the holiday, its customs, the origins of which lie in ancient times, in pre-Christian cults, create drama. The action in it is carried back to the past, to the 18th century, when the way of life, which many of the playwright’s contemporaries considered primordial, eternal for Rus', was still new, not a fully established order.
The struggle of this way of life with a more archaic, ancient, half-destroyed and turned into a festive carnival game system of concepts and relationships, an internal contradiction in the system of religious and ethical ideas of the people, a “dispute” between the ascetic, harsh ideal of renunciation, submission to authority and dogma, and the “practical” , a family economic principle that presupposes tolerance, form the basis of the dramatic collisions of the play.
If in “Poverty is not a vice” the traditions of folk-carnival behavior of the heroes appear as humane, expressing the ideals of equality and mutual support of people, then in “Don’t live as you want” the culture of the Maslenitsa carnival is depicted with a high degree of historical specificity. In “Don’t Live the Way You Want,” the writer reveals both the life-affirming, joyful features of the ancient worldview expressed in it, and the features of archaic severity, cruelty, the predominance of simple and frank passions over a more subtle and complex spiritual culture, corresponding to the later established ethical ideal.
Peter’s “falling away” from patriarchal family virtue takes place under the influence of the triumph of pagan principles, inseparable from Maslenitsa fun. This also predetermines the nature of the denouement, which seemed implausible, fantastic and didactic to many contemporaries.
In fact, just as Maslenitsa Moscow, engulfed in the whirling of masks - “har”, the flashing of decorated troikas, feasts and drunken revelry, “swirled” Peter, “carried” him away from home, made him forget about his family duty, so the end of a noisy holiday, the morning bell, according to the legendary tradition, resolves spells and destroys the power of evil spirits (what is important here is not the religious function of the bell, but the “advance of a new period” marked by it), returns the hero to the “correct” everyday state.
Thus, a folk-fantasy element accompanied the play’s depiction of the historical variability of moral concepts. Collisions of everyday life of the 18th century. “anticipated,” on the one hand, modern social and everyday conflicts, the genealogy of which is, as it were, established in the play; on the other hand, beyond the distance of the historical past, another distance opened up - the most ancient social and family relations, pre-Christian ethical ideas.
The didactic tendency is combined in the play with the depiction of the historical movement of moral concepts, with the perception of the spiritual life of the people as an ever-living, creative phenomenon. This historicism of Ostrovsky’s approach to the ethical nature of man and the ensuing tasks of the art of drama that enlightens and actively influences the viewer made him a supporter and defender of the young forces of society, a sensitive observer of newly emerging needs and aspirations. Ultimately, the historicism of the writer’s worldview predetermined his divergence from his Slavophile-minded friends, who relied on the preservation and revival of the primordial foundations of folk morals, and facilitated his rapprochement with Sovremennik.
The first short comedy in which this turning point in Ostrovsky’s work was reflected was “A Hangover at Someone Else’s Feast” (1856). The basis of the dramatic conflict in this comedy is the confrontation between two social forces corresponding to two trends in the development of society: enlightenment, represented by its real bearers - workers, poor intellectuals, and the development of purely economic and social, devoid, however, of cultural and spiritual, moral content, bearers which are rich tyrants. The theme of the hostile confrontation between bourgeois mores and the ideals of enlightenment, outlined in the comedy “Poverty is not a Vice” as a moralistic one, in the play “At Someone Else’s Feast a Hangover” acquired a socially accusatory, pathetic sound. It is precisely this interpretation of this theme that then passes through many of Ostrovsky’s plays, but nowhere does it determine the dramatic structure itself to such an extent as in the small but “turning point” comedy “At Someone Else’s Feast, a Hangover.” Subsequently, this “confrontation” will be expressed in “The Thunderstorm” in Kuligyn’s monologue about the cruel morals of the city of Kalinov, in his dispute with Dikiy about the public good, human dignity and the lightning rod, in the words of this hero that conclude the drama, calling for mercy. The proud consciousness of one’s place in this struggle will be reflected in the speeches of the Russian actor Neschastlivtsev, who attacks the inhumanity of the lordly-merchant society (“Forest”, 1871), and will be developed and justified in the reasoning of the young, honest and intelligent accountant Platon Zybkin (“Truth is good, but happiness is better”, 1876), in the monologue of educational student Meluzov (“Talents and Admirers”, 1882). In this last of the listed plays, the main theme will be one of the problems posed in the comedy “In Someone Else’s Feast...” (and before that - only in Ostrovsky’s early essays) - the idea of enslaving culture by capital, of the claims of the dark kingdom to patronage, claims, behind which lies the desire of the brute force of tyrants to dictate their demands to thinking and creative people, to achieve their complete subordination to the power of the masters of society.
The phenomena of reality, noticed by Ostrovsky and becoming the subject of artistic comprehension in his work, were depicted by him both in the old, original, sometimes historically obsolete form, and in their modern, modified guise. The writer painted the inert forms of modern social existence and sensitively noted the manifestations of novelty in the life of society. Thus, in the comedy “Poverty is not a vice,” the tyrant tries to cast aside his peasant habits, inherited from the “peasant-daddy”: modesty of life, direct expression of feelings, similar to that which was characteristic of Bolshov in “Our people - let us be numbered!”; he expresses his opinion about education and imposes it on others. In the play “In Someone Else’s Feast, a Hangover,” having first defined his hero with the term “tyrant,” Ostrovsky pits Titus Titych Bruskov (this image has become a symbol of tyranny) against enlightenment as an irresistible need of society, an expression of the country’s future. Enlightenment, which is embodied for Bruskov in specific individuals - the poor, eccentric teacher Ivanov and his educated, dowry-less daughter - takes away, as it seems to him, the rich merchant's son. All the sympathies of Andrei - a lively, inquisitive, but downtrodden young man confused by the wild family way of life - are on the side of these impractical people, far from everything he is used to.
Tit Titych Bruskov, spontaneously but firmly aware of the power of his capital and sacredly believing in his indisputable power over his household, clerks, servants and, ultimately, over all the poor people dependent on him, is surprised to discover that Ivanov cannot be bought and even intimidated, that his intelligence is a social force. And he is forced for the first time to think about what courage and a sense of personal dignity can give to a person who has no money, no rank, who lives by work.
The problem of the evolution of tyranny as a social phenomenon is posed in a number of Ostrovsky's plays, and tyrants in his plays in twenty years will become millionaires going to the Paris Industrial Exhibition, handsome merchants listening to Patti and collecting original paintings (probably from the Wanderers or Impressionists) - after all, this already the “sons” of Tit Titych Bruskov, such as Andrey Bruskov. However, even the best of them remain bearers of the brute power of money, which subjugates and corrupts everything. They buy up, like the strong-willed and charming Velikatov, the benefit performances of actresses together with the “hostesses” of the benefit performances, since the actress cannot, without the support of a rich “patron,” resist the tyranny of petty predators and exploiters who have seized the provincial stage (“Talents and Admirers”); they, like the respectable industrialist Frol Fedulych Pribytkov, do not interfere in the intrigues of moneylenders and Moscow business gossips, but willingly reap the fruits of these intrigues, helpfully presented to them in gratitude for patronage, monetary bribes, or out of voluntary servitude (“The Last Victim,” 1877). From Ostrovsky's play to Ostrovsky's play, the viewer with the playwright's characters came close to Chekhov's Lopakhin - a merchant with the thin fingers of an artist and a delicate, dissatisfied soul, who, however, dreams of profitable dachas as the beginning of a “new life.” Lopakhin tyranny, in a frenzy of joy from the purchase of a master’s estate, where his grandfather was a serf, demands that the music play “clearly”: “Let everything be as I wish!” - he shouts, shocked by the awareness of the power of his capital.
The compositional structure of the play is based on the opposition of two camps: carriers of caste egoism, social exclusivity, posing as defenders of traditions and moral norms developed and approved by the centuries-old experience of the people, on the one hand, and on the other - “experimenters”, spontaneously, at the behest of the heart and the requirement of the disinterested mind of those who have taken upon themselves the risk of expressing social needs, which they feel as a kind of moral imperative. Ostrovsky's heroes are not ideologists. Even the most intellectual of them, to which the hero of “A Profitable Place” Zhadov belongs, solve immediate life problems, only in the process of their practical activities “encountering” the general patterns of reality, “hurting themselves,” suffering from their manifestations and coming to the first serious generalizations.
Zhadov considers himself a theorist and connects his new ethical principles with the movement of world philosophical thought, with the progress of moral concepts. He proudly says that he did not invent new rules of morality himself, but heard about them at the lectures of leading professors, read them in “the best literary works of ours and foreign” (2, 97), but it is precisely this abstraction that makes his beliefs naive and lifeless. Zhadov gains real convictions only when, having gone through real trials, he turns to these ethical concepts at a new level of experience in search of answers to the tragic questions posed to him by life. “What kind of person am I! I am a child, I have no idea about life. All this is new to me “…” It’s hard for me! I don't know if I can stand it! There is debauchery all around, there is little strength! Why were we taught!” - Zhadov exclaims in despair, faced with the fact that “social vices are strong”, that the fight against inertia and social egoism is not only difficult, but also harmful (2, 81).
Each environment creates its own everyday forms, its own ideals, corresponding to its social interests and historical function, and in this sense, people are not free in their actions. But the social and historical conditioning of the actions of not only individual people, but also the entire environment does not make these actions or entire systems of behavior indifferent to moral assessment, “beyond the jurisdiction” of the moral court. Ostrovsky saw historical progress, first of all, in the fact that, by abandoning old forms of life, humanity becomes more moral. The young heroes of his works, even in those cases when they commit actions that from the point of view of traditional morality can be regarded as a crime or sin, are more moral, honest and purer than the keepers of “established concepts” who reproach them. This is the case not only in “The Pupil” (1859), “The Thunderstorm”, “The Forest”, but also in the so-called “Slavophile” plays, where inexperienced, inexperienced and mistaken young heroes and heroines often teach their fathers tolerance, mercy, force for the first time to think about the relativity of their indisputable principles.
Ostrovsky combined an educational attitude, a belief in the importance of the movement of ideas, in the influence of mental development on the state of society, with recognition of the importance of spontaneous feeling, expressing the objective tendencies of historical progress. Hence the “childishness,” spontaneity, and emotionality of Ostrovsky’s young “rebellious” heroes. Hence their other feature - a non-ideological, everyday approach to essentially ideological problems. Young predators who cynically adapt to the untruths of modern relations are deprived of this childish spontaneity in Ostrovsky’s plays. Next to Zhadov, for whom happiness is inseparable from moral purity, stands the careerist Belogubov - illiterate, greedy for material wealth; his desire to turn public service into a means of profit and personal prosperity meets with sympathy and support from those at the highest levels of the state administration, while Zhadov’s desire to work honestly and be content with a modest remuneration without resorting to “secret” sources of income is perceived as freethinking, a subversion of the fundamentals .
While working on “A Profitable Place,” where for the first time the phenomenon of tyranny was put in direct connection with the political problems of our time, Ostrovsky conceived a cycle of plays “Nights on the Volga,” in which folk poetic images and historical themes were to become central.
Interest in the historical problems of the existence of the people, in identifying the roots of modern social phenomena, not only did not dry out in Ostrovsky during these years, but acquired obvious and conscious forms. Already in 1855 he began work on the drama about Minin, and in 1860 he worked on “The Voevoda”.
The comedy “The Voevoda,” depicting Russian life in the 17th century, was a unique addition to “A Profitable Place” and other plays by Ostrovsky, denouncing the bureaucracy. From the confidence of the heroes of “A Profitable Place” Yusov, Vyshnevsky, Belogubov that public service is a source of income and that the position of an official gives them the right to impose tribute on the population, from their conviction that their personal well-being means the well-being of the state, and an attempt to resist their dominance and arbitrariness - an encroachment on the holy of holies, a direct thread stretches to the morals of the rulers of that distant era, when the governor was sent to the city “to be fed.” The bribe-taker and rapist Nechai Shalygin from “The Voevoda” turns out to be the ancestor of modern embezzlers and bribe-takers. Thus, by presenting the audience with the problem of corruption of the state apparatus, the playwright did not push them towards a simple and superficial solution. Abuses and lawlessness were interpreted in his works not as a product of the last reign, the shortcomings of which could be eliminated by the reforms of the new king, - they appeared in his plays as a consequence of a long chain of historical circumstances, the struggle against which also has its own historical tradition. As a hero who embodies this tradition, “The Voivode” depicts the legendary robber Khudoyar, who:
“...the people did not rob
And my hands didn’t bleed; and on the rich
Places quitrent, servants and clerks
He doesn’t favor us, the local nobles, either.
It’s really scary..."(4, 70)
This folk hero in the drama is identified with a fugitive townsman, hiding from the oppression of the governor and uniting around himself the offended in the dissatisfied.
The ending of the play is ambiguous - the victory of the residents of the Volga city, who managed to “overthrow” the governor, entails the arrival of a new governor, whose appearance is marked by a gathering from the townspeople’s “wake” to “honor” the new arrival. The dialogue between two folk choirs about the governors indicates that, having gotten rid of Shalygin, the townspeople did not “get rid of” the troubles:
"Old townspeople
Well, the old one is bad, the new one will be different.
Young townspeople
Yes, it must be the same, if not worse” (4, 155)
Dubrovin’s last remark, answering the question of whether he will remain in the settlement, by admitting that if the new governor “squeezes the people,” he will again leave the city and return to the forests, opens up an epic perspective on the historical struggle of the zemshchina with bureaucratic predators.
If “The Voevoda,” written in 1864, in its content was a historical prologue to the events depicted in “A Profitable Place,” then the play “Enough Simplicity for Every Wise Man” (1868) in its historical concept was a continuation of “A Profitable Place.” The hero of the satirical comedy “For Every Wise Man...” - a cynic who allows himself to be frank only in a secret diary - builds a bureaucratic career on hypocrisy and renegadeism, on indulging in stupid conservatism, which he laughs at in his heart, on sycophancy and intrigue. Such people were born of an era when reforms were combined with heavy backward movements. Careers often began with a demonstration of liberalism, with denunciation of abuses, and ended with opportunism and collaboration with the darkest forces of reaction. Glumov, in the past, obviously close to people like Zhadov, contrary to his own reason and feelings expressed in a secret diary, becomes an assistant to Mamaev and Krutitsky - the heirs of Vishnevsky and Yusov, an accomplice of reaction, because the reactionary meaning of the bureaucratic activities of people like Mamaev and Krutitsky in early 60s fully revealed. The political views of officials are made the main content of their characterization in the comedy. Ostrovsky also notices historical changes when they reflect the complexity of society’s slow forward movement. Characterizing the mentality of the 60s, the democratic writer Pomyalovsky put into the mouth of one of his heroes the following witty remark about the state of the ideology of reaction at that time: “This antiquity has never happened before, it is a new antiquity.”
This is exactly how Ostrovsky portrays the “new antiquity” of the era of reforms, the revolutionary situation and the counter-offensive of reactionary forces. The most conservative member of the “circle” of bureaucrats, who talks about the “harm of reforms in general,” Krutitsky, finds it necessary to prove his point of view, make it public through the press, publish projects and notes in magazines. Glumov hypocritically, but in essence, thoroughly points out to him the “illogicality” of his behavior: asserting the harm of all innovations, Krutitsky writes a “project” and wants to express his militant-archaic thoughts in new words, i.e. makes a “concession to the spirit of the times,” which he himself he considers it “an invention of idle minds.” Indeed, in a confidential conversation with a like-minded person, this arch-reactionary recognizes the power of the new, historically established social situation over himself and other conservatives: “The time has passed “...” If you want to be useful, know how to wield a pen,” he states, however, willingly joining in the vow discussion (5, 119).
This is how political progress manifests itself in a society that is constantly experiencing the icy winds of a lurking, but living and influential reaction, forced progress, wrested from the government elite by an irresistible historical movement of society, but not based on its healthy forces and is always “ready to reverse.” Cultural and moral development of society , its true spokesmen and supporters are constantly under suspicion, and at the threshold of the “new institutions”, which, as the very influential Krutitsky confidently declares, “will soon close,” there are ghosts and guarantees of complete regression - superstition, obscurantism and retrograde in everything that concerns culture, science, art. Smart, modern people who have their own independent opinion and incorruptible conscience are not allowed within a mile of the “renewing” administration, and liberal figures in it are represented by people “feigning” free-thinking, who do not believe in anything, cynical and interested only in simple success. This cynicism and corruption make Glumov the “right person” in the bureaucratic circle.
Gorodulin is the same, taking nothing seriously except comfort and a pleasant life for himself. This figure, influential in the new, post-reform institutions, is the least likely to believe in their importance. He is a greater formalist than the Old Believers around him. Liberal speeches and principles for him are a form, a conventional language that exists to alleviate the “necessary” social hypocrisy and gives a pleasant secular streamliness to words that could be “dangerous” if false eloquence did not devalue and discredit them. Thus, the political function of people like Gorodulin, to which Glumov is also involved, is to depreciate the concepts that arise again in connection with the irresistible progressive movement of society, to bleed the very ideological and moral content of progress. It is not surprising that Gorodulin is not intimidated, that he even likes Glumov’s sharply accusatory phrases. After all, the more decisive and bold the words, the more easily they lose their meaning if behavior does not correspond to them. It is also not surprising that the “liberal” Glumov is his own man in the circle of old-type bureaucrats.
“Simplicity is enough for every wise man” is a work that develops the most important artistic discoveries made by the writer before, at the same time it is a comedy of a completely new type. The main problem that the playwright poses here is again the problem of social progress, its moral consequences and historical forms. Again, as in the plays “My People...” and “Poverty is not a Vice,” he points out the danger of progress that is not accompanied by the development of ethical ideas and culture; again, as in “A Profitable Place,” he depicts the historical invincibility of the development of society, the inevitability of the destruction of the old administrative system, its deep archaism, but at the same time the complexity and painfulness of liberating society from it. Unlike “A Profitable Place,” the satirical comedy “For Every Wise Man…” is devoid of a hero who directly represents the young forces interested in the progressive change of society. Neither Glumov nor Gorodulin actually oppose the world of reactionary bureaucrats. However, the presence of the hypocrite Glumov’s diary, where he expresses sincere disgust and contempt for the circle of influential and powerful people to whom he is forced to bow, speaks of how much the rotten rags of this world contradict modern needs and the minds of people.
“Simplicity is enough for every wise man” is Ostrovsky’s first openly political comedy. It is undoubtedly the most serious of the political comedies of the post-reform era that hit the stage. In this play, Ostrovsky posed to the Russian audience the question of the significance of modern administrative reforms, their historical inferiority and the moral state of Russian society at the time of the breakdown of feudal relations, which took place with government “containment” and “freezing” of this process. It reflected the complexity of Ostrovsky’s approach to the didactic and educational mission of the theater. In this regard, the comedy “For Every Wise Man...” can be put on a par with the drama “The Thunderstorm,” which represents the same focus of the lyrical-psychological line in the playwright’s work as “For Every Wise Man...” is satirical.
If the comedy “Every Wise Man Has Enough Simplicity” expresses the moods, questions and doubts that lived in Russian society in the second half of the 60s, when the nature of the reforms was determined and the best people of Russian society experienced more than one serious and bitter disappointment, then “The Thunderstorm” ", written several years earlier, conveys the spiritual upsurge of society in the years when a revolutionary situation arose in the country and it seemed that serfdom and the institutions it generated would be swept away and the entire social reality would be renewed. These are the paradoxes of artistic creativity: a cheerful comedy embodies fears, disappointments and anxiety, and a deeply tragic play embodies optimistic faith in the future. The action of “The Thunderstorm” takes place on the banks of the Volga, in an ancient city, where, as it seems, nothing has changed for centuries, and cannot change, and it is in the conservative patriarchal family of this city that Ostrovsky sees manifestations of an irresistible renewal of life, its selfless and rebellious beginning. In “The Thunderstorm,” as in many of Ostrovsky’s plays, the action “flares up” like an explosion, an electric discharge that arises between two oppositely “charged” poles, characters, human natures. The historical aspect of the dramatic conflict, its correlation with the problem of national cultural traditions and social progress in “The Thunderstorm” is especially strongly expressed. Two “poles”, two opposing forces of people’s life, between which the “lines of force” of conflict in the drama run, are embodied in the young merchant’s wife Katerina Kabanova and in her mother-in-law, Marfa Kabanova, nicknamed “Kabanikha” for her steep and stern disposition. Kabanikha is a convinced and principled keeper of antiquity, once and for all found and established norms and rules of life. Katerina is an ever-searching, creative person who takes bold risks for the sake of the living needs of her soul.
Not recognizing the admissibility of change, development and even diversity of phenomena of reality, Kabanikha is intolerant and dogmatic. She “legitimizes” familiar forms of life as an eternal norm and considers it her highest right to punish those who have violated the laws of everyday life, large or small. Being a convinced supporter of the immutability of the entire way of life, the “eternity” of the social and family hierarchy and the ritual behavior of each person who takes his place in this hierarchy, Kabanova does not recognize the legitimacy of individual differences between people and the diversity of life of peoples. Everything in which the life of other places differs from the life of the city of Kalinov testifies to “infidelity”: people who live differently from the Kalinovites must have the heads of dogs. The center of the universe is the pious city of Kalinov, the center of this city is the house of the Kabanovs, - this is how the experienced wanderer Feklusha characterizes the world to please the stern mistress. She, noticing the changes taking place in the world, claims that they threaten to “diminish” time itself. Any change seems to Kabanikha to be the beginning of sin. She is a champion of a closed life that excludes communication between people. They look out of the windows, she is convinced, for bad, sinful reasons; leaving for another city is fraught with temptations and dangers, which is why she reads endless instructions to Tikhon, who is leaving, and forces him to demand from his wife that she not look out of the windows. Kabanova listens with sympathy to stories about the “demonic” innovation - “cast iron” and claims that she would never travel by train. Having lost an indispensable attribute of life - the ability to change and die, all the customs and rituals affirmed by Kabanova turned into an “eternal”, lifeless, perfect in their own way, but meaningless form.
From religion she extracted poetic ecstasy and a heightened sense of moral responsibility, but the form of churchliness was indifferent to her. She prays in the garden among the flowers, and in the church she sees not the priest and parishioners, but angels in a ray of light falling from the dome. From art, ancient books, icon painting, wall painting, she learned the images she saw in miniatures and icons: “golden temples or some extraordinary gardens “...” and the mountains and trees seem to be the same as usual, but as they write on the images” - everything lives in her mind, turns into dreams, and she no longer sees paintings and books, but the world into which she has moved, hears the sounds of this world, smells its smells. Katerina carries within herself a creative, ever-living principle, generated by the irresistible needs of the time; she inherits the creative spirit of that ancient culture, which Kabanikh seeks to turn into a meaningless form. Throughout the entire action, Katerina is accompanied by the motif of flight and fast driving. She wants to fly like a bird, and she dreams about flying, she tried to sail along the Volga, and in her dreams she sees herself racing in a troika. She turns to both Tikhon and Boris with a request to take her with them, to take her away.
However, all this movement with which Ostrovsky surrounded and characterized the heroine has one feature - the absence of a clearly defined goal.
Where did the soul of the people migrate from the inert forms of ancient life, which became the “dark kingdom”? Where does she take the treasures of enthusiasm, truth-seeking, magical images of ancient art? The drama does not answer these questions. It only shows that the people are looking for a life that corresponds to their moral needs, that the old relationships do not satisfy them, they have moved away from the place they have been fixed for centuries and are in motion.
In “The Thunderstorm,” many of the most important motifs of the playwright’s work were combined and given new life. Contrasting the “warm heart” - a young, brave and uncompromising heroine in her demands - with the “inertia and numbness” of the older generation, the writer followed the path that began with his early essays and on which, even after “The Thunderstorm,” he found new ones, endlessly rich sources of exciting, searing drama and “big” comedy. As defenders of two basic principles (the principle of development and the principle of inertia), Ostrovsky brought out heroes of different character types. It is often believed that Kabanikha’s “rationalism” and rationality are contrasted with Katerina’s spontaneity and emotionality. But next to the sensible “guardian” Marfa Kabanova, Ostrovsky placed her like-minded person - Savel Dikiy, “ugly” in his emotional irrepressibility, and “supplemented” the desire for the unknown, the thirst for happiness of Katerina, expressed in an emotional outburst, with the thirst for knowledge, the wise rationalism of Kuligin.
The “dispute” of Katerina and Kabanikha is accompanied by the dispute of Kuligin and Dikiy, the drama of the slavish position of feelings in the world of calculation (Ostrovsky’s constant theme - from “The Poor Bride” to “Dowry” and the playwright’s last play “Not of This World”) is here accompanied by an image the tragedy of the mind in the “dark kingdom” (the theme of the plays “Profitable Place”, “Truth is good, but happiness is better” and others), the tragedy of the desecration of beauty and poetry - the tragedy of the enslavement of science by wild “patrons of the arts” (cf. “In someone else’s feast hangover").
At the same time, “The Thunderstorm” was a completely new phenomenon in Russian drama, an unprecedented folk drama that attracted the attention of society, expressed its current state, and alarmed it with thoughts about the future. That is why Dobrolyubov dedicated a special large article to her, “A Ray of Light in a Dark Kingdom.”
The uncertainty of the future fate of the new aspirations and modern creative forces of the people, as well as the tragic fate of the heroine, who was not understood and passed away, does not remove the optimistic tone of the drama, permeated with the poetry of love of freedom, glorifying a strong and integral character, the value of direct feeling. The emotional impact of the play was aimed not at condemning Katerina and not at arousing pity for her, but at the poetic exaltation of her impulse, justifying it, elevating it to the rank of the feat of a tragic heroine. Showing modern life as a crossroads, Ostrovsky believed in the future of the people, but could not and did not want to simplify the problems facing his contemporaries. He awakened the thoughts, feelings, and conscience of the audience, and did not lull them to sleep with ready-made simple solutions.
Its dramaturgy, evoking a strong and immediate response from the viewer, made sometimes not very developed and educated people sitting in the hall participants in the collective experience of social collisions, general laughter at social vice, general anger and reflection generated by these emotions. In the Table Address, delivered during the celebrations on the occasion of the opening of the monument to Pushkin in 1880, Ostrovsky stated: “The first merit of the great poet is that through him everything that can grow smarter becomes smarter. In addition to pleasure, in addition to forms for expressing thoughts and feelings, the poet also gives the very formulas for thoughts and feelings. The rich results of the most perfect mental laboratory are made common property. The highest creative nature attracts and aligns everyone with itself” (13, 164).
With Ostrovsky, the Russian audience cried and laughed, but most importantly, they thought and hoped. His plays were loved and understood by people of different education and preparedness; Ostrovsky served as a kind of intermediary between the great realistic literature of Russia and its mass audiences. Seeing how Ostrovsky's plays were perceived, writers could draw conclusions about the moods and abilities of their readers.
A number of authors have mentioned the impact of Ostrovsky’s plays on ordinary people. Turgenev, Tolstoy, Goncharov wrote to Ostrovsky about the nationality of his theater; Leskov, Reshetnikov, Chekhov included in their works the judgments of artisans and workers about Ostrovsky’s plays, about performances based on his plays (“Where is better?” Reshetnikov, “The Spendthrift” by Leskov, “My Life” by Chekhov). In addition to this, Ostrovsky's dramas and comedies, relatively small, laconic, monumental in their problematics, always directly related to the main question of the historical path of Russia, the national traditions of the country's development and its future, were an artistic crucible that forged poetic means that turned out to be important for development of narrative genres. Outstanding Russian literary artists closely followed the work of the playwright, often arguing with him, but more often learning from him and admiring his skill. Having read Ostrovsky’s play abroad, Turgenev wrote: “And Ostrovsky’s “The Voevoda” brought me to the point of emotion. No one had written such a nice, tasty, pure Russian language before him! “...” What odorous poetry in places, like our Russian grove in summer! “...” Ah, master, master, this bearded man! He got the books in his hands “...” He greatly stirred the literary vein in me!”
Goncharov I. A. Collection op. in 8 volumes, vol. 8. M., 1955, p. 491--492.
Ostrovsky A. N. Full collection soch., t. 12. M, 1952, p. 71 and 123. (The links below in the text are for this edition).
Gogol N.V. Full collection soch., vol. 5. M., 1949, p. 169.
There, p. 146.
Cm.: Emelyanov B. Ostrovsky and Dobrolyubov. -- In the book: A. N. Ostrovsky. Articles and materials. M., 1962, p. 68--115.
On the ideological positions of individual members of the “young editorial” circle of Moskvityanin and their relationships with Pogodin, see: Vengerov S. A. The young editors of Moskvityanin. From the history of Russian journalism. - West. Europe, 1886, No. 2, p. 581--612; Bochkarev V. A. On the history of the young editorial staff of Moskvityanin. - Scientist. zap. Kuibyshev. ped. Institute, 1942, issue. 6, p. 180--191; Dementiev A. G. Essays on the history of Russian journalism 1840-1850. M.-L., 1951, p. 221--240; Egorov B.F. 1) Essays on the history of Russian literary criticism of the mid-19th century. L., 1973, p. 27--35; 2) A. N. Ostrovsky and the “young editors” of Moskvityanin. -- In the book: A. N. Ostrovsky and the Russian writer. Kostroma, 1974, p. . 21--27; Lakshin V. A.N. Ostrovsky. M., 1976, p. 132--179.
“Domostroy” developed as a set of rules regulating the duties of the Russian people in relation to religion, church, secular power and family in the first half of the 16th century; it was later revised and partly supplemented by Sylvester. A. S. Orlov stated that the way of life raised to normal by Domostroy “lived up to the Zamoskvoretsk epic of A. N. Ostrovsky” ( Orlov A. S. Ancient Russian literature XI-XVI centuries. M.-L., 1937, p. 347).
Pomyalovsky N. G. Op. M.-L., 1951, p. 200.
For the reflection of the current political circumstances of the era in the play “Simplicity is enough for every wise man”, see: Lakshin V.“The Wise Men” of Ostrovsky in history and on stage. -- In the book: Biography of the book. M., 1979, p. 224--323.
For a special analysis of the drama “The Thunderstorm” and information about the public resonance generated by this work, see the book: Revyakin A. I.“The Thunderstorm” by A. N. Ostrovsky. M., 1955.
On the principles of organizing action in Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy, see: Kholodov E. Ostrovsky's mastery. M., 1983, p. 243--316.
Turgenev I. S. Full collection op. and letters in 28 volumes. Letters, vol. 5. M.--L., 1963, p. 365.
What is the merit of A.N. Ostrovsky? Why, according to I.A. Goncharov, only after Ostrovsky could we say that we have our own Russian national theater? (Refer to the lesson epigraph)
Yes, there were “The Minor”, “Woe from Wit”, “The Inspector General”, there were plays by Turgenev, A.K. Tolstoy, Sukhovo-Kobylin, but there were not enough of them! Most of the theaters' repertoire consisted of empty vaudevilles and translated melodramas. With the advent of Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, who devoted all his talent exclusively to drama, the repertoire of theaters changed qualitatively. He alone wrote as many plays as all the Russian classics combined did not write: about fifty! Every season for more than thirty years, theaters received a new play, or even two! Now there was something to play!
A new school of acting arose, a new theatrical aesthetics, the Ostrovsky Theater appeared, which became the property of all Russian culture!
What determined Ostrovsky’s attention to the theater? The playwright himself answered this question like this: “Dramatic poetry is closer to the people than all other branches of literature. All other works are written for educated people, but dramas and comedies are written for the whole people...” Writing for the people, awakening their consciousness, shaping their taste is a responsible task. And Ostrovsky took her seriously. If there is no exemplary theater, the common public may mistake operettas and melodramas, which irritate curiosity and sensitivity, for real art.”
So, let us note the main services of A.N Ostrovsky to the Russian theater.
1) Ostrovsky created the theater repertoire. He wrote 47 original plays and 7 plays in collaboration with young authors. Twenty plays were translated by Ostrovsky from Italian, English, and French.
2) No less important is the genre diversity of his dramaturgy: these are “scenes and pictures” from Moscow life, dramatic chronicles, dramas, comedies, the spring fairy tale “The Snow Maiden”.
3) In his plays, the playwright depicted various classes, characters, professions, he created 547 characters, from the king to the tavern servant, with their inherent characters, habits, and unique speech.
4) Ostrovsky’s plays cover a huge historical period: from the 17th to the 19th centuries.
5) The action of the plays takes place in landowners' estates, inns and on the banks of the Volga. On the boulevards and on the streets of county towns.
6) Ostrovsky’s heroes - and this is the main thing - are living characters with their own characteristics, manners, with their own destiny, with a living language unique to this hero.
A century and a half has passed since the first play was staged (January 1853; “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh”), and the playwright’s name remains on theater posters; performances are performed on many stages around the world.
Interest in Ostrovsky is especially acute in troubled times, when a person is looking for answers to the most important questions of life: what is happening to us? Why? what are we like? Perhaps it is precisely at such times that a person lacks emotions, passions, and a sense of fullness of life. And we still need what Ostrovsky wrote about: “And a deep sigh for the whole theater, and unfeigned warm tears, hot speeches that would pour straight into the soul.”
Composition
The playwright almost did not pose 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, are Khlynov’s retinue and the gentleman with a mustache in “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 emerges 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 natural 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 derived by Ostrovsky “often 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 “fit in.” And the question of how exactly this new system “fit in,” and 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, household, 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 perspective of 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.
