Periods of Ostrovsky's life. The creative and life path of Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky

Born on March 31 (April 12), 1823 in Moscow, he grew up in a merchant environment. His mother died when he was 8 years old. And the father married again. There were four children in the family.

Ostrovsky was educated at home. His father had a large library, where little Alexander first began to read Russian literature. However, the father wanted to give his son a legal education. In 1835, Ostrovsky began his studies at the gymnasium, and then entered Moscow University at the Faculty of Law. Due to his interests in theater and literature, he never completed his studies at the university (1843), after which he worked as a scribe in court at the insistence of his father. Ostrovsky served in the courts until 1851.

Ostrovsky's creativity

In 1849, Ostrovsky’s work “Our People – Let’s Be Numbered!” was written, which brought him literary fame; he was highly appreciated by Nikolai Gogol and Ivan Goncharov. Then, despite censorship, many of his plays and books were published. For Ostrovsky, writings are a way to truthfully portray the life of the people. The plays “The Thunderstorm”, “Dowry”, “Forest” are among his most important works. Ostrovsky's play "Dowry", like other psychological dramas, non-standardly describes the characters, the inner world, and the torment of the heroes.

Since 1856, the writer has been participating in the publication of the Sovremennik magazine.

Ostrovsky Theater

In the biography of Alexander Ostrovsky, theater takes pride of place.
Ostrovsky founded the Artistic Circle in 1866, thanks to which many talented people appeared in the theater circle.

Together with the Artistic Circle, he significantly reformed and developed the Russian theater.

Ostrovsky's house was often visited by famous people, including I. A. Goncharov, D. V. Grigorovich, Ivan Turgenev, A. F. Pisemsky, Fyodor Dostoevsky, P. M. Sadovsky, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Leo Tolstoy, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, M. N. Ermolova and others.

In a brief biography of Ostrovsky, it is worth mentioning the emergence in 1874 of the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers, where Ostrovsky was chairman. With his innovations, he achieved improvement in the lives of theater actors. Since 1885, Ostrovsky headed the theater school and was the head of the repertoire of Moscow theaters.

Writer's personal life

It cannot be said that Ostrovsky’s personal life was successful. The playwright lived with a woman from a simple family, Agafya, who had no education, but was the first to read his works. She supported him in everything. All their children died at an early age. Ostrovsky lived with her for about twenty years. And in 1869 he married the artist Maria Vasilyevna Bakhmetyeva, who bore him six children.

Last years of life

Until the end of his life, Ostrovsky experienced financial difficulties. Hard work greatly depleted the body, and the writer’s health increasingly failed. Ostrovsky dreamed of reviving a theater school in which professional acting could be taught, but the death of the writer prevented the implementation of his long-conceived plans.

Ostrovsky died on June 2(14), 1886 on his estate. The writer was buried next to his father, in the village of Nikolo-Berezhki, Kostroma province.

Chronological table

Other biography options

• Since childhood, Ostrovsky knew Greek, German and French, and at a later age he also learned English, Spanish and Italian. All his life he translated plays into different languages, thus improving his skills and knowledge.
• The writer’s creative path spans 40 years of successful work on literary and dramatic works. His activities influenced an entire era of theater in Russia. For his works, the writer was awarded the Uvarov Prize in 1863.
• Ostrovsky is the founder of modern theatrical art, whose followers were such outstanding personalities as Konstantin Stanislavsky and

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky (1823–1886)- a talented Russian playwright and theater figure. During his creative life he wrote more than 50 plays.

Ostrovsky was born in 1823 and spent his childhood in one of the districts of Moscow - Zamoskvorechye, where merchants and artisans lived. His father, Nikolai Fedorovich Ostrovsky, had a private legal practice. Mother - Lyubov Ivanovna Savvina, the daughter of a Moscow priest, was distinguished by her beauty and high spiritual qualities.

In 1831, when Ostrovsky was not yet nine years old, his mother died; after her early death, her stepmother took care of the upbringing and education of the children.

In September 1835, Nikolai Fedorovich submitted a request to the Moscow provincial gymnasium to admit his eldest son there. Ostrovsky studied at the gymnasium with moderate success and did not shine with special abilities.

Ostrovsky successfully studied with music teachers, learned to read music, and knew how to pick out a melody on the piano and write it down. His passion is Pushkin, Griboyedov, Gogol.

In 1840, Ostrovsky successfully graduated from the prestigious First Moscow Gymnasium with a humanitarian focus and continued his studies at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University. But the future playwright was interested in art. He attended performances at the Moscow Maly Theater, read and wrote a lot, and became interested in music. Having lost interest in his studies, Ostrovsky left the university and decided to take up literature.

Since 1843, at the insistence of his father, Ostrovsky began working as a clerk in the Moscow Conscientious Court, where criminal and civil cases were heard.

Since 1845, Ostrovsky served in the Moscow Commercial Court. Work in the courts enriched the life experience of the future playwright and gave him knowledge of the language, life and psychology of various segments of the population.

1847–1851 – the beginning of literary activity, the formation of Ostrovsky’s literary and aesthetic views under the influence of articles by Belinsky and Herzen. Writing an essay “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky resident.” The purpose of the essay is to describe the life and types of Zamoskvorechye. Ostrovsky begins to try his hand at drama. Two plays are being produced at the same time - “Petition of Claim” and “Insolvent Debtor”.

On January 9, 1847, “Scenes from the comedy “The Insolvent Debtor” were successfully published in the Moscow City List.

In his autobiographical notes, A. N. Ostrovsky wrote: “The most memorable day of my life for me: February 14, 1847... From that day on, I began to consider myself a Russian writer...” It was on this day that Ostrovsky read the first drafts of the comedy “Bankrupt,” which was later called “Our People – Let’s Be Numbered!” The play was completed in 1849. The characteristic merchant types, life, and environment were depicted exclusively through the dialogues of the characters. The play was a success.

At the end of 1847, he met a woman who lived next door. Agafya Ivanovna was a year or two older than Ostrovsky, but he could not decide to marry her - this would mean completely quarreling with his father and remaining in the darkest need. But Agafya Ivanovna did not demand anything from him. She waited patiently for him, loved him, warmed him, and the further he went, the more difficult it was for him to part with her. So, as Ostrovsky’s unmarried wife, she lived modestly and with dignity side by side with the great playwright for eighteen years.

1852–1854 – the Muscovite period in Ostrovsky’s work. This is the time of active participation of the playwright in the magazine “Moskvityanin”. Creation of plays “Don’t get into your own sleigh”, “Poverty is not a vice”, “Don’t live the way you want”. The playwright takes a different approach to depicting the types of Russian merchants: he admires the patriarchal relationships that developed in merchant families between the owners and their servants and workers.

1855–1860 - the pre-reform period, when Ostrovsky became close to the editors of Sovremennik and published his works in the magazines Sovremennik and Otechestvennye zapiski: “The characters didn’t get along!”, “Profitable place” and others. The best work of this period is “The Thunderstorm” (1859).

1861–1886 - the post-reform period, which lasted until the death of the playwright. Ostrovsky writes satirical plays reflecting the life of post-reform Russia: “Mad Money”, “Dowry”, “Talents and Admirers”, “Guilty Without Guilt”, “Forest”, “Wolves and Sheep”, the fairy tale “The Snow Maiden”.

Alexander Nikolaevich was not a democratic revolutionary; in his plays he did not directly address political issues. But his path and views were quite contradictory.

The playwright's life in his later years was not happy and prosperous.

The hopelessness of the situation forced the playwright to give plays to the theater almost free of charge.

The difficult situation of the Russian theater, playwrights and actors led Ostrovsky to engage in social activities.

1865 – initiator of the creation of the “Artistic Circle”.

1874 – organizer of the “Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Composers”.

1881 – compiler of a note to the government on the creation of the Russian national theater.

1886 – head of the repertory department of Moscow theaters and director of the theater school.

But Ostrovsky’s health was undermined. In the spring of 1886, the writer left for the village of Shchelykovo, Kostroma province. Ostrovsky died at his desk in Shchelykovo, working on a translation of Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are four periods in Ostrovsky’s creative development:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is unlikely that it will be possible to briefly describe the work of Alexander Ostrovsky, since this man left a great contribution to the development of literature.

He wrote about many things, but most of all in the history of literature he is remembered as a good playwright.

Popularity and features of creativity

Popularity of A.N. Ostrovsky brought the work “Our people - we will be numbered.” After it was published, his work was appreciated by many writers of that time.

This gave confidence and inspiration to Alexander Nikolaevich himself.

After such a successful debut, he wrote many works that played a significant role in his work. These include the following:

• "Forest"
• "Talents and Fans"
• "Dowry."

All of his plays can be called psychological dramas, since in order to understand what the writer wrote about, you need to delve deeply into his work. The characters in his plays were versatile personalities that not everyone could understand. In his works, Ostrovsky examined how the country’s values ​​were collapsing.

Each of his plays has a realistic ending; the author did not try to end everything with a positive ending, like many writers; for him, the most important thing was to show real, rather than fictional, life in his works. In his works, Ostrovsky tried to depict the life of the Russian people, and, moreover, he did not embellish it at all - but wrote what he saw around him.

Childhood memories also served as subjects for his works. A distinctive feature of his work can be called the fact that his works were not entirely censored, but despite this, they remained popular. Perhaps the reason for his popularity was that the playwright tried to present Russia to readers as it is. Nationality and realism are the main criteria that Ostrovsky adhered to when writing his works.

Work in recent years

A.N. Ostrovsky became particularly involved in creativity in the last years of his life; it was then that he wrote the most significant dramas and comedies for his work. All of them were written for a reason; mainly his works describe the tragic fates of women who have to deal with their problems alone. Ostrovsky was a playwright from God; it would seem that he managed to write very easily, thoughts themselves came to his head. But he also wrote works where he had to work hard.

In his latest works, the playwright developed new techniques for presenting text and expressiveness - which became distinctive in his work. His style of writing works was highly appreciated by Chekhov, which for Alexander Nikolaevich is beyond praise. He tried in his work to show the internal struggle of the heroes.

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky is a Russian playwright and writer, whose work played an important role in the development of the Russian national theater. He is the author of several famous works, some of which are included in the literature for the school curriculum.

Writer's family

Ostrovsky's father, Nikolai Fedorovich, the son of a priest, served as a lawyer in the capital and lived in Zamoskvorechye. He graduated from the Moscow Theological Seminary, as well as the seminary in Kostroma. His mother was from a rather poor family and died when Ostrovsky was seven years old. In addition to Alexander, three more children were born in the family. When their mother died, a couple of years later their father remarried, and Baroness Emilia Andreevna von Tessin became his chosen one. She further took care of the children, taking upon herself the troubles of raising them and receiving a proper education.

In 1835, Alexander Ostrovsky entered the Moscow gymnasium, and 5 years later he entered the university of the capital to study law. It was during this period of time that he began to experience an increased interest in theatrical productions. Young Ostrovsky often visits the Petrovsky and Maly theaters. His studies are suddenly interrupted by failure to pass an exam and a quarrel with one of the teachers, and he leaves the university of his own free will, after which he gets a job as a scribe in a Moscow court. In 1845 he finds work in a commercial court, in the chancery department. All this time, Ostrovsky is accumulating information for his future literary work.

During his life, the writer was married twice. He lived with his first wife, Agafya, whose last name has not survived to this day, for about 20 years. His children from this marriage, unfortunately, died while still very young. His second wife was Maria Bakhmetyeva, from her he had six children - two daughters and four sons.

Creative activity

The first literary publication, “Waiting for the Groom,” appeared in 1847 in the Moscow City List, describing scenes from the merchant life of those times. Next year, Ostrovsky finishes writing the comedy “Our People - We Will Be Numbered!” It was staged on the theater stage and received considerable success, which served as an incentive for Alexander to finally come to the decision to devote all his energies to drama. Society reacted warmly and with interest to this work, but it also became the reason for persecution by the authorities, due to its too frank satire and oppositional nature. After the first showing, the play was banned from production in theaters, and the writer was under police surveillance for about five years. As a result, in 1859 the play was significantly altered and republished with a completely different ending.

In 1850, the playwright visited a circle of writers, where he received the unspoken title of singer of a civilization untouched by falsehood. Since 1856, he became the author of the Sovremennik magazine. At the same time, Ostrovsky and his colleagues went on an ethnographic expedition, the task of which was to describe the peoples living on the banks of the rivers of Russia, in its European part. Basically, the writer studied the life of the peoples living on the Volga, in connection with which he wrote a large work, “Journey along the Volga from its origins to Nizhny Novgorod,” reflecting in it the main ethnic features of the people from those places, their life and customs.

In 1860, Ostrovsky’s most famous play, “The Thunderstorm,” was released, the action of which takes place precisely on the banks of the Volga. In 1863 he received a prize and honorary membership in the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
Ostrovsky died in 1886 and was buried in the village of Nikolo-Berezhki.

• Ostrovsky's conceptual view of theater is the construction of scenes based on convention, using the riches of Russian speech and its competent use in revealing characters;
• The theater school, which Ostrovsky founded, was further developed under the leadership of Stanislavsky and Bulgakov;
• Not all actors responded well to the playwright's innovations. For example, the founder of realism in Russian theatrical art, actor M. S. Shchepkin, left the dress rehearsal of “The Thunderstorm,” which was held under the direction of Ostrovsky.