Oct 30 2010
A completely new page in the history of Russian theater is associated with the name of A. N. Ostrovsky. This greatest Russian playwright was the first to set himself the task of democratizing the theater, and therefore he brings new themes to the stage, brings out new heroes and creates what can confidently be called the Russian national theater. Dramaturgy in Russia, of course, had a rich tradition even before Ostrovsky. The audience was familiar with numerous plays from the era of classicism; there was also a realistic tradition, represented by such outstanding works as “Woe from Wit”, “The Inspector General” and “Marriage” by Gogol.
But Ostrovsky enters literature precisely as a “natural school,” and therefore the object of his research becomes undistinguished people and the life of the city. Ostrovsky makes the life of the Russian merchants a serious, “high” topic; the writer clearly experiences the influence of Belinsky, and therefore connects the progressive significance of art with its nationality, and notes the importance of the accusatory orientation of literature. Defining the task of artistic creativity, he says: “The public expects art to present its judgment on life in a living, elegant form, awaits the combination into complete images of the modern vices and shortcomings noticed in the century...”
It is “judgment of life” that becomes the defining artistic principle of Ostrovsky’s work. In the comedies “Our People - Let's Be Numbered,” the playwright ridicules the basics of life of the Russian merchants, showing that people are driven, first of all, by a passion for profit. In the comedy "Poor Bride" the theme of property relations between people occupies a large place; an empty and vulgar nobleman appears. The playwright is trying to show how the environment corrupts a person. The vices of his characters are almost always a consequence not of their personal qualities, but of the environment in which they live
The theme of “tyranny” occupies a special place in Ostrovsky. The writer brings out images of people whose meaning of life is to suppress the personality of another person. Such are Samson Bolshoye, Marfa Kabanova, Dikoy. But the writer, of course, is not interested in the samoda itself: the ditch. He explores the world in which his heroes live. The heroes of the play “The Thunderstorm” belong to the patriarchal world, and their blood connection with it, their subconscious dependence on it is the hidden spring of the entire action of the play, the spring that forces the heroes to perform mostly “puppet” movements. constantly emphasizes their lack of independence. The figurative system of the drama almost repeats the social and family model of the patriarchal world.
The family and family problems are placed at the center of the narrative, as well as at the center of the patriarchal community. The dominant of this small world is the eldest in the family, Marfa Ignatievna. Around her, family members are grouped at various distances - daughter, son, daughter-in-law and the almost powerless inhabitants of the house: Glasha and Feklusha. The same “alignment of forces” organizes the entire life of the city: in the center - Dikoya (and merchants of his level not mentioned), on the periphery - persons of less and less significance, without money and social status.
Ostrovsky saw the fundamental incompatibility of the patriarchal world and normal life, the doom of a frozen ideology incapable of renewal. Resisting the impending innovations, displacing it with “all rapidly rushing life,” the patriarchal world generally refuses to notice this life, it creates around itself a special mythologized space in which - the only one - its gloomy, hostile isolation to everything else can be justified. Such a world crushes the individual, and it does not matter who actually carries out this violence. According to Dobrolyubov, the tyrant “is powerless and insignificant in itself; he can be deceived, eliminated, thrown into a hole, finally... But the fact is that with his destruction, tyranny does not disappear.”
Of course, “tyranny” is not the only evil that Ostrovsky sees in his contemporary society. The playwright ridicules the pettiness of the aspirations of many of his contemporaries. Let us remember Misha Balzaminov, who dreams in life only of a blue raincoat, “a gray horse and a racing droshky.” This is how the theme of philistinism arises in plays. The images of the nobles - the Murzavetskys, Gurmyzhskys, Telyatevs - are marked with the deepest irony. A passionate dream of sincere human relationships, and not love built on calculation, is the most important feature of the play “Dowry.” Ostrovsky always advocates honest and noble relationships between people in the family, society, and life in general.
Ostrovsky always considered theater as a school for educating morals in society, and understood the high responsibility of the artist. Therefore, he strove to depict the truth of life and sincerely wanted his art to be accessible to all people. And Russia will always admire the work of this brilliant playwright. It is no coincidence that the Maly Theater bears the name of A. N. Ostrovsky, a man who devoted his entire life to the Russian stage.
Need a cheat sheet? Then save - "The meaning of Ostrovsky's dramaturgy. Literary essays!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 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.”
Ostrovsky wrote for the theater. This is the peculiarity of his talent. The images and pictures of life he created are intended for the stage. That’s why the speech of Ostrovsky’s heroes is so important, that’s why his works sound so vivid. It is not for nothing that Innokenty Annensky called him an auditory realist. Without staging his works on stage, it was as if his works were not completed, which is why Ostrovsky took the ban on his plays by theater censorship so hard. The comedy “We Will Be Numbered Our Own People” was allowed to be staged in the theater only ten years after Pogodin managed to publish it in the magazine.
With a feeling of undisguised satisfaction, A. N. Ostrovsky wrote on November 3, 1878 to his friend, artist of the Alexandria Theater A. F. Burdin: “I have already read my play in Moscow five times, among the listeners there were people hostile to me, and that’s all.” unanimously recognized “The Dowry” as the best of all my works.” Ostrovsky lived with the “Dowry”, at times only on it, his fortieth thing in a row, he directed “his attention and strength”, wanting to “finish” it in the most careful way. In September 1878, he wrote to one of his acquaintances: “I am working on my play with all my might; It seems like it won’t turn out bad.” Already a day after the premiere, on November 12, Ostrovsky could, and undoubtedly did, learn from Russkiye Vedomosti how he managed to “tire the entire audience, right down to the most naive spectators.” For she - the audience - has clearly “outgrown” the spectacles that he offers her. In the seventies, Ostrovsky's relationship with critics, theaters and audiences became increasingly complex. The period when he enjoyed universal recognition, which he won in the late fifties and early sixties, was replaced by another, increasingly growing in different circles of cooling towards the playwright.
Theatrical censorship was stricter than literary censorship. This is no coincidence. In its essence, theatrical art is democratic; it addresses the general public more directly than literature. Ostrovsky in his “Note on the situation of dramatic art in Russia at the present time” (1881) wrote that “dramatic poetry is closer to the people than other branches of literature. All other works are written for educated people, but dramas and comedies are written for the whole people; dramatic writers must always remember this, they must be clear and strong. This closeness to the people does not in the least degrade dramatic poetry, but, on the contrary, doubles its strength and does not allow it to become vulgar and crushed.” Ostrovsky talks in his “Note” about how the theatrical audience in Russia expanded after 1861. To a new viewer, not experienced in art, Ostrovsky writes: “Fine literature is still boring and incomprehensible for him, music too, only the theater gives him complete pleasure, there he experiences everything that happens on stage like a child, sympathizes with good and recognizes evil, clearly presented." For a “fresh” public, Ostrovsky wrote, “a strong drama, major comedy, provocative, frank, loud laughter, hot, sincere feelings are required.”
It is the theater, according to Ostrovsky, which has its roots in the folk farce, that has the ability to directly and strongly influence the souls of people. Two and a half decades later, Alexander Blok, speaking about poetry, will write that its essence is in the main, “walking” truths, in the ability of theater to convey them to the heart of the reader:
Ride along, mourning nags!
Actors, master your craft,
So that from the walking truth
Everyone felt pain and light!
(“Balagan”, 1906)
The enormous importance that Ostrovsky attached to the theater, his thoughts about theatrical art, about the position of theater in Russia, about the fate of actors - all this was reflected in his plays. Contemporaries perceived Ostrovsky as a successor of Gogol's dramatic art. But the novelty of his plays was immediately noted. Already in 1851, in the article “A Dream on the Occasion of a Comedy,” the young critic Boris Almazov pointed out the differences between Ostrovsky and Gogol. Ostrovsky’s originality lay not only in the fact that he depicted not only the oppressors, but also their victims, not only in the fact that, as I. Annensky wrote, Gogol was primarily a poet of “visual”, and Ostrovsky of “auditory” impressions.
Ostrovsky's originality and novelty were also manifested in the choice of life material, in the subject of the image - he mastered new layers of reality. He was a pioneer, a Columbus not only of Zamoskvorechye - who we don’t see, whose voices we don’t hear in Ostrovsky’s works! Innokenty Annensky wrote: “...This is a virtuoso of sound images: merchants, wanderers, factory workers and Latin teachers, Tatars, gypsies, actors and sex workers, bars, clerks and petty bureaucrats - Ostrovsky gave a huge gallery of typical speeches...” Actors, the theatrical environment - too new vital material that Ostrovsky mastered - everything connected with the theater seemed very important to him.
In the life of Ostrovsky himself, the theater played a huge role. He took part in the production of his plays, worked with the actors, was friends with many of them, and corresponded with them. He put a lot of effort into defending the rights of actors, seeking the creation of a theater school and his own repertoire in Russia. Artist of the Maly Theater N.V. Rykalova recalled: Ostrovsky, “having become better acquainted with the troupe, became our man. The troupe loved him very much. Alexander Nikolaevich was unusually affectionate and courteous with everyone. Under the serfdom regime that reigned at that time, when the artist’s superiors said “you,” when most of the troupe were serfs, Ostrovsky’s treatment seemed to everyone like some kind of revelation. Usually Alexander Nikolaevich himself staged his plays... Ostrovsky assembled a troupe and read the play to them. He could read amazingly skillfully. All his characters appeared to be alive... Ostrovsky knew well the inner, behind-the-scenes life of the theater, hidden from the eyes of the audience. Starting with the Forest" (1871), Ostrovsky develops the theme of the theater, creates images of actors, depicts their fates - this play is followed by "Comedian of the 17th Century" (1873), "Talents and Admirers" (1881), "Guilty Without Guilt" (1883 ).
The position of the actors in the theater and their success depended on whether the rich audience who set the tone in the city liked them or not. After all, provincial troupes lived mainly on donations from local patrons, who felt like masters in the theater and could dictate their terms. Many actresses lived off expensive gifts from wealthy fans. The actress, who took care of her honor, had a hard time. In “Talents and Admirers,” Ostrovsky depicts such a life situation. Domna Panteleevna, Sasha Negina’s mother, laments: “There is no happiness for my Sasha! He maintains himself very carefully, and there is no goodwill between the public: no special gifts, nothing like the others, which... if...".
Nina Smelskaya, who willingly accepts the patronage of wealthy fans, essentially turning into a kept woman, lives much better, feels much more confident in the theater than the talented Negina. But despite the difficult life, adversity and grievances, as depicted by Ostrovsky, many people who dedicated their lives to the stage and theater retain kindness and nobility in their souls. First of all, these are tragedians who on stage have to live in a world of high passions. Of course, nobility and generosity of spirit are not limited to tragedians. Ostrovsky shows that genuine talent, selfless love for art and theater lift and elevate people. These are Narokov, Negina, Kruchinina.
In his early romantic stories, Maxim Gorky expressed his attitude to life and people, his view of the era. The heroes of many of these stories are so-called tramps. The writer portrays them as brave, strong-hearted people. The main thing for them is freedom, which tramps, like all of us, understand in their own way. They passionately dream of some kind of special life, far from everyday life. But they can’t find her, so they go wandering, drink themselves to death, and commit suicide. One of these people is depicted in the story “Chelkash”. Chelkash - “an old poisoned wolf, well known to the Havana people, an avid drunkard and l
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More than a hundred years ago, in a small provincial town in Denmark - Odense, on the island of Funen, extraordinary events took place. The quiet, slightly sleepy streets of Odense were suddenly filled with the sounds of music. A procession of artisans with torches and banners marched past the brightly lit ancient town hall, greeting the tall blue-eyed man standing at the window. In honor of whom did the inhabitants of Odense light their fires in September 1869? It was Hans Christian Andersen, who had recently been elected an honorary citizen of his hometown. Honoring Andersen, his fellow countrymen sang the heroic feat of a man and writer,
The literary life of Russia was stirred up when Ostrovsky's first plays entered it: first in reading, then in magazine publications and, finally, on the stage. Perhaps the largest and most profound critical legacy dedicated to his dramaturgy was left by Ap.A. Grigoriev, a friend and admirer of the writer’s work, and N.A. Dobrolyubov. Dobrolyubov’s article “A Ray of Light in a Dark Kingdom” about the drama “The Thunderstorm” has become well-known and textbook.
Let us turn to the estimates of Ap.A. Grigorieva. An extended article entitled “After Ostrovsky’s “The Thunderstorm”. Letters to Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev” (1860), largely contradicts Dobrolyubov’s opinion and polemicizes with him. The disagreement was fundamental: the two critics had different understandings of nationality in literature. Grigoriev considered nationality not so much a reflection in the artistic creativity of the life of the working masses, like Dobrolyubov, as an expression of the general spirit of the people, regardless of position and class. From Grigoriev’s point of view, Dobrolyubov reduces the complex issues of Ostrovsky’s plays to denouncing tyranny and the “dark kingdom” in general, and assigns the playwright only the role of a satirist-accuser. But not the “evil humor of a satirist”, but the “naive truth of a people’s poet” - this is the strength of Ostrovsky’s talent, as Grigoriev sees it. Grigoriev calls Ostrovsky “a poet who plays in all the modes of folk life.” “The name for this writer, for such a great writer, despite his shortcomings, is not a satirist, but a people’s poet” - this is the main thesis of Ap.A. Grigoriev in polemics with N.A. Dobrolyubov.
The third position, which does not coincide with the two mentioned, was held by D.I. Pisarev. In the article “Motives of Russian Drama” (1864), he completely denies everything positive and bright that A.A. Grigoriev and N.A. Dobrolyubov was seen in the image of Katerina in “The Thunderstorm”. The “realist” Pisarev has a different view: Russian life “does not contain any inclinations of independent renewal,” and only people like V.G. can bring light into it. Belinsky, the type that appeared in the image of Bazarov in “Fathers and Sons” by I.S. Turgenev. The darkness of Ostrovsky’s artistic world is hopeless.
Finally, let us dwell on the position of the playwright and public figure A.N. Ostrovsky in the context of the struggle in Russian literature between the ideological currents of Russian social thought - Slavophilism and Westernism. The time of Ostrovsky's collaboration with the magazine "Moskvityanin" M.P. Pogodin is often associated with his Slavophile views. But the writer was much broader than these positions. Someone caught a statement from this period, when from his Zamoskvorechye he looked at the Kremlin on the opposite bank and said: “Why were these pagodas built here?” (seemingly clearly “Western”), also did not reflect his true aspirations. Ostrovsky was neither a Westerner nor a Slavophile. The playwright’s powerful, original, folk talent blossomed during the period of formation and rise of Russian realistic art. The genius P.I. awakened Tchaikovsky; arose at the turn of the 1850-1860s XIX century creative community of Russian composers “The Mighty Handful”; Russian realistic painting flourished: they created I.E. Repin, V.G. Perov, I. N. Kramskoy and other major artists - this is how intense life was in the visual and musical art of the second half, rich in talents XIX centuries. The portrait of A. N. Ostrovsky belongs to the brush of V. G. Perov, N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov creates an opera based on the fairy tale “The Snow Maiden”. A.N. Ostrovsky entered the world of Russian art naturally and fully.
As for the theater itself, the playwright himself, assessing the artistic life of the 1840s - the time of his first literary quests, speaks of a great variety of ideological trends and artistic interests, a variety of circles, but notes that everyone was united by a common, craze for theater . Writers of the 1840s who belonged to the natural school, everyday life writers and essayists (the first collection of the natural school was called “Physiology of St. Petersburg”, 1844-1845) included an article by V.G. in the second part. Belinsky "Alexandrinsky Theater". The theater was perceived as a place where classes of society collided “to get a good look at each other.” And this theater was waiting for a playwright of such caliber, which manifested itself in A.N. Ostrovsky. The significance of Ostrovsky’s work for Russian literature is extremely great: he truly was the successor of the Gogol tradition and the founder of a new, national Russian theater, without which the emergence of A.P.’s dramaturgy would have been impossible. Chekhov. The second half of the 19th century in European literature did not produce a single playwright comparable in scale to A. N. Ostrovsky. The development of European literature proceeded differently. The French romanticism of W. Hugo, George Sand, the critical realism of Stendhal, P. Mérimée, O. de Balzac, then the work of G. Flaubert, the English critical realism of C. Dickens, W. Thackeray, C. Bronte paved the way not for drama, but for epic , first of all - the novel, and (not so noticeably) the lyrics. The issues, characters, plots, depiction of Russian character and Russian life in Ostrovsky's plays are so nationally unique, so understandable and in tune with the Russian reader and viewer that the playwright did not have such an influence on the world literary process as Chekhov later did. And in many ways the reason for this was the language of Ostrovsky’s plays: it turned out to be impossible to translate them, preserving the essence of the original, to convey that special and special thing with which he fascinates the viewer.
Source (abbreviated): Mikhalskaya, A.K. Literature: Basic level: 10th grade. At 2 p.m. Part 1: study. allowance / A.K. Mikhalskaya, O.N. Zaitseva. - M.: Bustard, 2018
In connection with the 35th anniversary of Ostrovsky’s activity, Goncharov wrote to him: “You alone built the building, the foundation of which was laid by Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Gogol. But only after you can we, Russians, proudly say: “We have our own, Russian, national theater.” It, in fairness, should be called “Ostrovsky Theater”.
The role played by Ostrovsky in the development of Russian theater and drama can well be compared with the significance that Shakespeare had for English culture, and Moliere for French culture. Ostrovsky changed the nature of the Russian theater repertoire, summed up everything that had been done before him, and opened new paths for dramaturgy. His influence on theatrical art was extremely great. This especially applies to the Moscow Maly Theater, which is traditionally also called the Ostrovsky House. Thanks to numerous plays by the great playwright, who established the traditions of realism on stage, the national school of acting was further developed. A whole galaxy of wonderful Russian actors, based on Ostrovsky’s plays, were able to clearly demonstrate their unique talent and establish the originality of Russian theatrical art.
At the center of Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy is a problem that has passed through all of Russian classical literature: the conflict of a person with the unfavorable living conditions opposing him, the diverse forces of evil; assertion of the individual’s right to free and comprehensive development. A wide panorama of Russian life is revealed to readers and spectators of the plays of the great playwright. This is, in essence, an encyclopedia of life and customs of an entire historical era. Merchants, officials, landowners, peasants, generals, actors, businessmen, matchmakers, businessmen, students - several hundred characters created by Ostrovsky gave a total idea of Russian reality of the 40s-80s . in all its complexity, diversity and inconsistency.
Ostrovsky, who created a whole gallery of wonderful female images, continued that noble tradition that had already been defined in Russian classics. The playwright exalts strong, integral natures, which in some cases turn out to be morally superior to the weak, insecure hero. These are Katerina (“The Thunderstorm”), Nadya (“The Pupil”), Kruchinina (“Guilty Without Guilt”), Natalya (“Labor Bread”), etc.
Reflecting on the uniqueness of Russian dramatic art, on its democratic basis, Ostrovsky wrote: “People’s writers want to try their hand in front of a fresh public, whose nerves are not very pliable, which requires strong drama, great comedy, provocativeness.” great frank, loud laughter, hot, sincere feelings, lively and strong characters.” Essentially this is a characteristic of Ostrovsky’s own creative principles.
The dramaturgy of the author of “The Thunderstorm” is distinguished by genre diversity, a combination of tragic and comic elements, everyday and grotesque, farcical and lyrical. His plays are sometimes difficult to classify into one specific genre. He wrote not so much drama or comedy, but rather “plays of life,” according to Dobrolyubov’s apt definition. The action of his works is often carried out into a wide living space. The noise and chatter of life burst into action and become one of the factors determining the scale of events. Family conflicts develop into public conflicts. Material from the site
The playwright's skill is manifested in the accuracy of social and psychological characteristics, in the art of dialogue, in accurate, lively folk speech. The language of the characters becomes one of his main means of creating an image, a tool of realistic typification.
An excellent connoisseur of oral folk art, Ostrovsky made extensive use of folklore traditions, the richest treasury of folk wisdom. A song can replace a monologue, a proverb or a saying can become the title of a play.
Ostrovsky's creative experience had a tremendous impact on the further development of Russian drama and theatrical art. V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko and K. S. Stanislavsky, the founders of the Moscow Art Theater, sought to create “a people’s theater with approximately the same tasks and plans as Ostrovsky dreamed.” The dramatic innovation of Chekhov and Gorky would have been impossible without their mastery of the best traditions of their remarkable predecessor.
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On this page there is material on the following topics:
- Essay on Ostpovsky's life and his significance in the development of Russian theater
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- summary of the Ostrovsky Theater
