“All decent people live either in ideas, or hopes, or, perhaps, dreams; but everyone has their own task. My task is to serve the Russian drama theatre.” This was said by Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky. Of the 64 years of his life (born in 1823, died in 1886), 41 years were devoted to dramaturgy. Of these, 35 - theater. 48 plays. In practice, he created the repertoire of the Russian theater.
Ostrovsky said: “The national theater is a sign of the coming of age of the nation, just like the academy, universities, museums.
The theater before Ostrovsky was going through a difficult time. There were no good, real plays. The public was entertained in the cheapest and easiest way. A playwright was needed who would help restore moral content to the theater, because it is dramaturgy that is the basis of the theater.
On February 14, 1847, a group of Moscow writers gathered in the house of Professor Shevyrev, and an unknown 23-year-old official of the Commercial Court, Alexander Ostrovsky, read the first play to the audience: “The Family Picture”. Ostrovsky recalled: “The most memorable day for me in my life is February 14, 1847. From that day on, I began to consider myself a Russian writer and already, without doubts and hesitations, believed in my vocation.
The playwright discovered a country that has not been known in detail to anyone until now and has not been described by any of the travelers. This country was called Zamoskvorechye, the Moscow merchant district.
How does the theme of merchants develop, main topic creativity of the playwright throughout his life?
Let's turn to the play "Thunderstorm". It is studied in detail in the lessons, so we will only note how the Ostrovsky city of Kalinov, a merchant city, draws. The main characters are his merchants, there are only a few characters from other classes: Kuligin, Shapkin, a crazy lady. Let's leave Katerina aside for now. Who stands out from the merchant environment? Savel Prokofievich and Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova, Kabanikha, as she is called in the city .. Imagine for a moment that they became poor. Will their characters, their manner of behaving remain the same? As for Wild, it is quite clear that his strength is in money. Money will leave - power will also leave ... And Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova is the ideologist of this world. She should not be perceived as an evil woman or a bad mother-in-law. She is the bearer of superhuman evil. She herself does not feel evil towards Katerina, the widow Kabanova simply wants everything to be as it should be: when parting, the wife should howl and bow to her husband from the waist; guests should be greeted like this, and thanked - that way. Her power is stronger and more inevitable, it is not for nothing that the scolder of the Wild is afraid of her. There is even tragedy in Marfa Ignatyevna, because her world is leaving, she herself feels it, her time is running out, literally running out. Feklusha: Days and hours have remained the same: and time is becoming shorter and shorter for our sins...
Kabanova: And worse than that, my dear, it will be.
Feklusha: We just wouldn't live to see it.
Kabanova: Maybe we'll live.
And the fact that her world is falling apart, cracking is obvious. Musty, stuffy, unenlightened, wild world, afraid of everything, and most of all - fresh air, wind, flight. No wonder Kuligin will say angrily: “Thunderstorm! Yes, everything is a thunderstorm!” Melnikov-Pechersky drew attention to the fact that Kuligin's protest was the strongest. This is a protest of enlightenment, which is already penetrating into the dark masses of the Domostroy life.
And what will change, how will enlightenment affect the merchant class?
This question is answered by the play "Mad Money" (1870, it is separated from "Thunderstorm" by eleven years). In it, we meet Vasilkov, Ostrovsky's new hero, who caused bewilderment among critics and readers. Yes, and the characters of the play, the Moscow bar Telyatev, Princess Kuchumov, Glumov, are trying to unravel this person. Who is he, this provincial, talking like a sailor from a Volga ship, and shaking hands in such a way that his interlocutor is ready to scream? Who is this person who writes down all expenses in a book, and at the same time, apparently, is not stingy and carries in his pocket a thick wallet about half an arshin, which brings the ruined noblemen into awe? This little man - a kerzhachok is rude and awkward, even uncouth, his simple name Savva makes Glumov laugh ... But it immediately turns out that Vasilkov is educated as a philologist - he understands both Greek and English, he knows Tatar. He comes from somewhere in a remote province, but meanwhile he traveled all over the world: he came to the Crimea from London, through Suez, where he was interested in "engineering structures".
Vasilkov is so businesslike and rationalistic that he even chooses his wife, in accordance, as he thinks, solely with the arguments of reason. He constantly assures that, no matter how he gets carried away, but "it will not work out of the budget." But compared to Wild, with Kit Kitichs, he wins a lot. His efficiency is the efficiency of an honest entrepreneur; there is no Asian licentiousness, deceit, lies, dirty trickery in him. True, Vasilkov is honest because “a lie is not economically profitable,” he says directly: “In a practical age, being honest is not only better, but also more profitable.” His money is smart money. He knows their value, but they are not everything to him. No wonder Ostrovsky emphasizes the nobility of his nature, makes him even with a touch of sentimentality talk about his “infant soul” and the “good heart” insulted by Lydia. And, as Vladimir Lakshin, a researcher of Ostrovsky’s work, correctly notes, “Vasilkov forgets all his methodological calculations and calculations, and in a fit of jealousy, like a real romantic hero, calls Telyatev to the barrier: “Ah, I can’t tell you what is going on in my chest ... You see, I’m crying ... Here are the pistols!” And can the author not sympathize with him when, after Lydia's mockery of his good impulse, he puts into his mouth such a lyrical, such an "island" phrase: "My soul is killed"
We will see something from Vasilkov later in Vozhevatov and Knurov (“The Dowry”). In this play, Ostrovsky's two main themes converged - the merchant class and the theme of "hot heart". Lydia Cheboksarova and Glafira from the play "Sheep and Wolves" are a rarity for Ostrovsky. Usually his young heroine is the main female role in the play - a noble, passionate, courageous and defenseless woman with a warm heart. One of Ostrovsky's plays is called "A Warm Heart".
Katerina is the first of this gallery of beautiful female images. She is more tragic than dramatic. As a tragic heroine is supposed to, Katerina transgresses the ban, the play even has a “choice scene”, a necessary accessory for every tragedy. Katerina wants a lot - she craves love and pays for it.
But Larisa, the heroine of The Dowry, a play written twenty years after The Storm, no longer dreams of love. She knows that she, a dowry, has nothing to dream about marriage for love. She wants only one thing - to leave for the village, beyond the Volga, with her unloved husband Karandyshev, but only to be left alone. And even in this smallness, society refuses her. Larisa - in Greek means "seagull", a swift white bird among animals: Knurova (knur-boar), Vozhevaty, a young predator, Paratov (paratai - daring, dexterous, fast). Not only Paratov, but all of them "have nothing cherished." There are no traditions, there is no conscience, there is no god, and there is no formerly constrained authority of the “seniors”. What is there? Money and goods. “Every product has a price,” says Vozhevatov, and this is absolutely correct, but it’s scary when a person turns out to be a product. Everyone talks about Larisa, admires her, claims her attention, decides her future for her, and she herself all the time seems to be on the sidelines: her desires, her feelings do not seriously interest anyone. Larisa will have to admit the correctness of Karandyshev's insulting, like a slap in the face, words: “They do not look at you as a woman, as a person - a person himself controls his own destiny; they look at you like a thing."
But in this world - all things. Knurov with his European scope, Vozhevatov with his only moral principle- “an honest merchant’s word”, which he cannot violate under any circumstances, is not what Vasilkov has. They don't have a soul. Their souls were eaten by money. That's why they are drawn to Larisa because she has a soul. And talent. But talent cannot awaken good feelings in them, because they do not exist. And Larisa's divine singing evokes completely different feelings in them, dark, heavy ... In Larisa there is no integrity of Katerina, there is no desperate determination of the heroine of "Hot Heart"; the thought of suicide comes to her, but something, contrary to her despair, does not let her in, keeps her alive.
“A pitiful weakness: to live, at least somehow, but to live ... when you can’t live and don’t need to. What a miserable, unfortunate I am…” says Larisa, standing over the cliff near the grate.
Ostrovsky wrote to the actress Savina that everything best plays his "are written for some strong talent and under the influence of this talent." He once dedicated “Thunderstorm” to Kositskaya, an actress of reckless sincerity, who had the gift of bringing the experiences of a whole, open soul into the hall - these features are partly captured in Katerina. Larisa was meant for the young Savina, an intelligent, highly talented actress, famous not so much for her charm of openness, but for her modern “nerve”, bewitching transitions from spiritual coldness to hot passion. But the best Larisa was Vera Fedorovna Komissarzhevskaya. The actress played the eternal female soul, for which in this world there were no faithful and strong male hands that could accept, hold, protect this beauty. But Larisa Komissarzhevskaya is a poetic, painful, attractive, not benign character. Here is how a contemporary describes the scene at the bars:
“Larisa-Komissarzhevskaya approaches the cliff and looks down into the destructive and saving abyss. She wants to put an end to everything at once, because Katerina managed to save herself in her death. And here the way out is not to become a thing, to leave this terrible, dirty life ... But the hands so greedily clutched the bars of the bars, but the body, young, alive, so resists death - and Larisa departs from the abyss, destroyed and despising herself.
"Dowry" was the last drama created by Ostrovsky.
Two years after Ostrovsky's death, Chekhov would write the play Ivanov, and soon The Seagull would appear. And in this same Alexandrinsky Theater, the same actress who played the white bird Larisa in The Dowry, Vera Fyodorovna Komissarzhevskaya, will play the Seagull Nina Zarechnaya in Chekhov's play. And a new stage in the history of the Russian theater will begin, a stage that would not have happened if the great Russian playwright Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky had not devoted his entire life to the Russian theater.
>>Literature: A. N. Ostrovsky and the Russian National Theater
A. N. Ostrovsky and the Russian National Theater
An analysis of the first plays by the playwright allowed N. A. Dobrolyubov to recognize his extraordinary talent and note that the plays Ostrovsky- this is "not a comedy of intrigue and not a comedy of characters in fact, but something new, to which we would give the name" plays of life ". New genre dramas - “plays of life”, discovered by Ostrovsky in practice and theoretically substantiated by Dobrolyubov in his article “ dark kingdom”, contributed to an even closer approximation of the scene to the present. Critics N. A. Dobrolyubov I Ap. A. Grigoriev, who stood on opposite positions, saw in the works of Ostrovsky a complete picture of the life of the people. All layers of Russian society and the very life of Russia appeared in his dramas, starting from the 50s and ending with the 80s of the XIX century. In historical chronicles, the playwright showed the distant past of his country, but the problems posed in them were relevant to the present.
Comprehensive knowledge folk life, life, customs, deep organic connection with folk art present characteristics Ostrovsky the artist. Him drama became the basis of the theater repertoire, raised stage art to the highest level. Ostrovsky was sure that the playwright's work in creating a national theater was a high public service. He was “a knight of the theatre, undividedly devoted to one passion and ready for any trials for her sake, for selfless labor without immediate remuneration” (V. Lakshin).
A decade and a half before the creation of the first play by A. N. Ostrovsky, V. G. Belinsky wrote in the article “Literary Dreams”: “Oh, how good it would be if we had our own, folk Russian theater! .. Indeed, to see on stage all of Russia, with its good and evil, with its lofty and ridiculous ... ”The repertoire of the Russian stage in the 40s of the 19th century was really very poor. Several wonderful plays “Undergrowth” by D. I. Fonvizin, “Woe from Wit” by A. S. Griboyedov, “ Auditor»N.V. Gogol) were a brilliant exception against the background of little works of art far from real Russian reality. These were melodramas and vaudevilles, most often translated ones. The theatrical repertoire was enriched by the plays of the largest Western European playwrights Shakespeare, Molière and others.
The creation of a Russian national, folk theater, which Belinsky dreamed of, is associated with the name of A. N. Ostrovsky. In connection with the 35th anniversary of the playwright, I. A. Goncharov wrote in his welcoming speech: “You brought literature as a gift a whole library works of art, created for the stage: their own special world. You alone completed the building, in the foundation of which the cornerstones Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Gogol were laid. But only after you, we Russians can proudly say: “We have our own Russian national theatre". It, in fairness, should be called: "The Ostrovsky Theatre." Ostrovsky's theater is not only the number of plays: (over forty), not counting those written in collaboration, this is a new quality of dramaturgy, the creation of "its own special world" for the stage.
Ostrovsky's dramas give a true, lively idea of Russian life in the 50s-80s of the 19th century. There are hundreds of characters in the plays, including merchants and nobles, officials different degrees and ranks, bourgeois businessmen and landowners, raznochintsy, actors, historical figures, residents of the fabulous Berendeev kingdom; morally ugly natures, whose main passion is money, and spiritually rich, possessing a "hot heart", capable of deep feelings. And all these people do not live in the plays of the playwright on their own, but become “in certain relations to each other” property, family, office, companionship, friendship, hostility, love, “as in life itself” (E. Kholodov).
Ostrovsky began by opening up for literature and theater "a country hitherto unknown in detail and not described by any of the travelers," as he himself notes in his "Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident" - this country, according to official news, lies directly against The Kremlin, on the other side of the Moskva River, which is probably why it is called Zamoskvorechye.
Questions and tasks
1. Why, in your opinion, does I. A. Goncharov associate the birth of the Russian National Theater with the name of A. N. Ostrovsky?
2. What “bitter truths dressed in the form of art” were contained in the plays of A. N. Ostrovsky?
3. What scenes in the drama "Dowry" made the strongest impression on you? How does Ostrovsky achieve such an impact on the reader? What is the tragedy of Larisa's fate?
4. How is the world of businessmen depicted by Ostrovsky in "Dowry"? Involving the text of the drama, trace Vozhevatov's line of behavior, his actions and, based on them, make your conclusion about the hero (you can take other heroes, Knurov or Paratov, if you wish).
5. “You will be superfluous,” says Karandyshev to Robinson. But is Robinson "superfluous" in Ostrovsky's play? What is his purpose in the play? Why did the playwright need in the last act to bring together two figures alien to each other - Larisa and Robinson, to put them side by side?
6. Why did Katerina choose death over life? Strength or weakness of character manifested in this act?
7. Do you agree with the statement of N. A. Dobrolyubov that Boris is the same Tikhon, only educated?
8. Try to refute the judgments of critics who reacted negatively to the drama of A. N. Ostrovsky " Thunderstorm».
Essay topics
1. Why can Katerina be considered a tragic heroine? (According to the "Thunderstorm" by A. N. Ostrovsky.)
2. Katerina's monologues and their role in revealing the character of the heroine (based on the "Thunderstorm" by A. N. Ostrovsky).
3. The role of antithesis in revealing the ideological content of the drama "Thunderstorm" by A. N. Ostrovsky.
4. How is the author's position manifested in A. N. Ostrovsky's drama "Thunderstorm"?
5. "The powers that be" in the plays "Thunderstorm" and "Dowry" by A. N. Ostrovsky.
Topics of reports and abstracts
1. The role of the title of the drama in revealing it ideological sense(based on one of the plays by A. N. Ostrovsky).
2. Katerina Kabanova and Larisa Ogudalova. The dramatic skill of A. N. Ostrovsky in creating heroines with a "hot heart".
3. The theme of money in the plays "Thunderstorm" and "Dowry" by A. N. Ostrovsky.
4. the city of Kalinov and its inhabitants (according to the "Thunderstorm" by A. N. Ostrovsky).
5. Screen versions of the play by A. N. Ostrovsky "Dowry".
A n a s t a c e in A. N. "Thunderstorm" by Ostrovsky. M., 1975. Drama by A. N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm" In Russian criticism. L., 1990. -
Zh u r a v l e v a A. I. Ostrovsky is a comedian. M., 1981.
Recommended reading
L a k sh i n V. Ya. Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky. M., 1982.
Lotman L. M. Ostrovsky and the dramaturgy of his time. M; L., 1961.
R e in I k and N A. I. "Thunderstorm" A. N. Ostrovsky. M., 1962.
H o l o do in E.G. The skill of A. N. Ostrovsky. M., 1963.
Shtein A. L. Three masterpieces of A. N. Ostrovsky. M., 1967.
Literature. 10 cells : textbook for general education. institutions / T. F. Kurdyumova, S. A. Leonov, O. E. Maryina and others; ed. T. F. Kurdyumova. M. : Bustard, 2007.
The Russian theater of the 19th century reached its pinnacle. achieved thanks to A. N. Ostrovsky. He created more than 50 plays that enriched the repertoire of the Russian theater. Alexander Nikolaevich not only continued the realistic traditions of Gogol, but significantly developed them. The Russian stage no longer needed to imitate foreign models, because it had its own rich, rich repertoire.
The language and themes of Ostrovsky's plays: vitality and colors
There is no doubt that Ostrovsky, at one stage or another, drew on the heritage of the playwright, which can be traced in some of his plays. But at the same time, on the basis of extensive material and in a greater number of plays, he created his own, new Russian national theater. This was especially evident in the language of the characters. For example, some researchers believe, of course, they use live speech, but at the same time they are the essence of the author himself, who supplements their speech with his wit. Gogol seems to create the quintessence of living speech.
The speech of the author's characters creates the impression of real life: they conduct a real life dialogue - they interrupt each other, jump from place to place, distort words. The author uses a lot of archaisms, provincial words, incorrect borrowings from foreign languages. Ostrovsky does not embellish the nature of language - he shows it in all liveliness and reality.
Gogol does not use the speech of the characters to achieve the goal, so their speech is not verbose. The speech of Alexander Nikolayevich's characters, on the contrary, is eloquent, as if they talk a lot because they cannot stop.
Ostrovsky: attitude towards heroes
It is also possible to evaluate in different ways how both playwrights give the reader and viewer an idea of their characters. Gogol needs to show the viewer the character immediately - a hero appears who is already endowed with certain features. True, this does not exclude the possibility that later the author will introduce some important detail that will deepen the image.
The images of Gogol's heroes are often brought to the grotesque, which corresponds to the author's goal.
Ostrovsky, on the other hand, draws the appearance of the characters, gradually introducing more and more new characteristic details. One cannot judge his characters by the first line, the image of each character grows and deepens in the course of the play.
The playwright is interested in inner world heroes, the psychology of its development.
The world of his heroes is diverse: of course, this is primarily the merchants, especially the Moscow Zamoskvorechye. But in the future, representatives of all Russian strata became the heroes of the playwright: merchants and landowners, petty nobles and officials, petty bourgeois and clerks, matchmakers and God's people, and many, many others.
Light and dark: the meaning of plays or the meaning of life?
Gogol cruelly ridiculed the vices of society. Ostrovsky also noticed the shortcomings of his heroes, but he, nevertheless, loved them. This attitude allowed him, in a different way than Gogol, to show the very essence of Russian life.
He called Ostrovsky "the herald of the secrets of the Russian people."
Probably because the playwright in his characters reveals the secret and obvious features of the Russian character. He also denounces his heroes.
But not a single negative Gogol character has in himself positive traits, while all the heroes of Ostrovsky cause a certain amount of sympathy.
The theater exposes the most unattractive aspects of merchant life and, at the same time, paints the most sincere scenes of love. And sometimes his most cruel heroes suddenly turn for the viewer into a completely different side of their nature, as is often the case with Russian people.
Evil in the plays of Ostrovsky the playwright comes not from the very nature of man, but from cruel life circumstances, the absence or abundance of money and the darkness of the Russian people.
Therefore, the most beloved characters of the playwright are poor people. Although the author understands that poverty leads to drunkenness and humiliation, people who do not take or give bribes can only cause a smile, education often reigns superficial, and a deep culture simply cannot stand life in such a “dark kingdom”.
Therefore, the meaning of his plays is the struggle between light and dark principles, where a bright individuality perishes, and sometimes cunning and vile people survive.
At the same time, the author clearly sees the need for education in order to defeat the evil and darkness of people's life. This desire to express himself directly in Ostrovsky often manifests itself in the title of the play. The playwright, as a rule, uses Russian folk proverbs in the titles of plays, which once again emphasizes the Russian spirit that imbues his creations.
“Don’t get into your own sleigh”, “An old friend is better than two new ones”, “Your own dogs fight, don’t pester someone else’s”, “Our people - we’ll settle down” and many others.
Plots and conflicts of Ostrovsky's plays
His works, at first glance, are quite simple, and the strings are vital. A petty clerk wants to marry profitably, a poor man falls in love with a rich merchant's wife, and a father tells his daughter to marry for convenience. The official wants to serve honestly and not take bribes, but everyone around them takes them. At first, this is limited to the framework of one family, but gradually the conflict grows, involving representatives of different social strata.
In what Ostrovsky knows no equal, it is in the description of life. Life creates the background that allows the author, as it were, to get out of the gloomy framework of the plot. Alexander Nikolaevich loves Russian life with its bright holidays, merry festivities, and national traditions.
These scenes give the playwright's works brightness, brilliance, figurativeness, otherwise the life described in the plays would seem too gloomy and hopeless. But this darkness and these bright colors are the basis of Russian life, such as it really was.
In his plays, he could not pass by what worried the whole of Russian society at that time - the position of a woman. While she lives in her parents' house, she is allowed to run to gatherings, live a free life, stealthily kiss guys. But her parents choose her husband, guided solely by his material and social position. And this tyranny, directed against the bright feelings of love, revolts the author. After all, from a despot father, a woman ends up in a house with a despotic husband and mother-in-law. Someone closes on the life of the family, someone attracts God's people to themselves, someone tries to find their pluses in married life, someone rebels against it.
Ostrovsky's works and transformations in the Russian theater
Ostrovsky's plays demanded a change in the very essence of acting. It is believed that even such an innovator in acting as was not realistic enough in the plays of the playwright. The texts themselves demanded vitality and psychologism from the actor. A friend of Alexander Nikolayevich, Prov Sadovsky, continuing, laid the foundations for a new approach to the acting performance of a role: the main thing was naturalness, which could convey an unadorned reality. Of course, the transformations in the actor's manner did not take place instantly, but the very desire for vitality and truthfulness of the actor's performance became the law of the Russian stage.
Gradually, innovations affected all areas. The scenery has changed, which conveyed the atmosphere of the action with greater certainty. The stage costumes of the characters also changed: they became closer to reality, replacing the pompous outfits of past years. The artist Chitau made a splash, appearing on stage in a chintz dress and with a smooth hairdo. The audience was shocked by this simplicity and the closeness of acting to real life. The audience was also amazed by the pose of the actress in one of the performances: she stood with her back to the audience, leaning against the door frame. Sadovsky demanded internal drama from acting.
The audience was amazed by everything that happened on the stage, from the scenery, costumes and ending with acting. Thus was the creation of the Russian school of dramatic art.
Ostrovsky understood his role in the creation of the national theater. It was he who got the honor of creating the first truly Russian theatrical repertoire. However, one should not think that his creative fate was cloudless. Many of his plays were banned. Sometimes he had to make censorship changes to the text - rewrite the ending. But until the end of his life, the playwright did not stop working. It is to him that we owe the creation of our national theater and theatrical repertoire. It is to his plays, as well as to the innovative aspirations of Shchepkin and Sadovsky, that we owe the creation of the Russian acting school.
Did you like it? Do not hide your joy from the world - share"All decent people live either with ideas, or hopes, or, perhaps, dreams; but everyone has their own task. My task is to serve the Russian drama theater."
"Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky said this. Out of 64 years of his life (born in 1823, died in 1886), 41 years were given to dramaturgy. Of these, 35 to the theater. Not a single day outside of art. Not a single hour outside of creativity. 48 plays. Practically he created the repertoire of the Russian theater. Was the theater worth such asceticism? Previously, such a question would not have arisen. "The theater is a department from which you can say a lot to the people," - Gogol had in mind not only the department of the university, but also the place of a preacher..
Ostrovsky said: "The national theater is a sign of the coming of age of the nation, just like the academy, universities, museums."
How many people in Moscow, in the last century, before the creation of the Moscow Art Theater, to the question: "Where did you get your education?" - answered: "I studied at the Maly Theater and attended the university." But the Maly Theater is called the "House of Ostrovsky", as in Paris there is a theater called the "House of Molière".
But the theater before Ostrovsky was going through a difficult time. There were no good, real plays. The stage was filled with trifles like: "Husband to Tver, wife at the door", "The young lady-hussar", endless vaudeville. The public was entertained in the cheapest and easiest way. A playwright was needed to help return moral content to the theater, because it is dramaturgy that is the basis of the theater.
On February 14, 1847, a group of Moscow writers gathered in the house of Professor Shevyrev, and an unknown 23-year-old official of the Commercial Court, Alexander Ostrovsky, read to the audience the first play: "The Family Picture". After the young man finished reading, the owner of the house approached him, took his hand and said: "Congratulations as a dramatic writer." Here is how Ostrovsky himself recalled this: "The most memorable day for me in my life is February 14, 1847. From that day on, I began to consider myself a Russian writer and already, without doubts and hesitations, believed in my vocation."
The playwright discovered a country that has not been known in detail to anyone until now and has not been described by any of the travelers. This country was called Zamoskvorechye, the Moscow merchant district.
"I live in that side where the days are divided into light and hard; where people are firmly convinced that the earth stands on three fish and that, according to the latest information, it seems that one begins to move: it means that it's bad; where they get sick from the evil eye, but they are treated with sympathy; where there are their own astronomers who observe comets and examine two people on the moon; where there is their own policy, and dispatches are also received, but more and more from White Arapia and the countries adjacent to it ... ".
<...>How does the theme of merchants develop, the main theme of the playwright's work throughout his life? Let's trace this on the example of several works created at different times.
Let's turn to the play "Thunderstorm". It is studied in detail in the lessons, so we will only note how the Ostrovsky city of Kalinov, a merchant city, draws. The main characters are his merchants, there are only a few characters from other classes: Kuligin, Shapkin, a crazy lady. Let's leave Katerina aside for now. Who stands out from the merchant environment? Savel Prokofievich and Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova, Kabanikha, as she is called in the city. Imagine for a moment that they became poor. Will their characters, their manner of behaving remain the same? As for Wild, it is quite clear that his strength is in money. Money will leave - power will also leave ... And Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova is the ideologist of this world. She should not be perceived as an evil woman or a bad mother-in-law. She is the bearer of superhuman evil. She herself does not feel evil towards Katerina, the widow Kabanova simply wants everything to be as it should be: when parting, the wife should howl and bow to her husband from the waist; guests should be greeted like this, and thanked - that way. Her power is stronger and more inevitable, it is not for nothing that the scolder of the Wild is afraid of her. There is even tragedy in Marfa Ignatyevna, because her world is leaving, she herself feels it, her time is running out, literally running out. Feklusha: Days and hours have remained the same: and time is getting shorter and shorter for our sins...
Kabanova: And worse than that, dear, it will be.
Feklusha: We just don't want to live to see it.
Kabanova: Maybe we'll live.
And the fact that her world is falling apart, cracking is obvious. Musty, stuffy, unenlightened, wild world, afraid of everything, and most of all - fresh air, wind, flight. No wonder Kuligin will say angrily: "Thunderstorm! Yes, you have everything - a thunderstorm!" Melnikov-Pechersky drew attention to the fact that "Kuligin's protest is the strongest.
And what will change, how will enlightenment affect the merchant class?
This question is answered by the play "Mad Money" (1870, it is separated from "Thunderstorm" by eleven years). In it, we meet Vasilkov, Ostrovsky's new hero, who caused bewilderment among critics and readers. Yes, and the characters of the play, the Moscow bar Telyatev, Princess Kuchumov, Glumov, are trying to unravel this person. Who is he, this provincial, talking "like a sailor from a Volga steamer" and shaking hands in such a way that his interlocutor is ready to scream? Who is this person who writes down all expenses in a book, and at the same time, apparently, is not stingy and carries in his pocket a thick wallet about half an arshin, which leads ruined noblemen to awe? This little man - a kerzhachok is rude and awkward, even uncouth, his simple name Savva makes Glumov laugh ... But it immediately turns out that Vasilkov is educated as a philologist - he understands both Greek and English, he knows Tatar. He comes from somewhere in a remote province, but meanwhile he traveled all over the world: he came to the Crimea from London, through Suez, where he was interested in "engineering structures".
Vasilkov is so businesslike and rationalistic that he even chooses his wife, in accordance, as he thinks, solely with the arguments of reason. He constantly assures that, no matter how he gets carried away, but "it will not work out of the budget." But compared to Wild, with Kit Kitichs, he wins a lot. His efficiency is the efficiency of an honest entrepreneur; there is no Asian licentiousness, deceit, lies, dirty trickery in him. True, Vasilkov is honest because "a lie is not economically profitable," he says directly: "In a practical age, being honest is not only better, but also more profitable." His money is smart money. He knows their value, but they are not everything to him. No wonder Ostrovsky emphasizes the nobility of his nature, makes him even with a touch of sentimentality talk about his “infant soul” and the “good heart” insulted by Lydia. And, as Vladimir Lakshin, a researcher of Ostrovsky’s work, correctly notes, “Vasilkov forgets all his methodical calculations and calculations, and in a fit of jealousy, like a real romantic hero, calls Telyatev to the barrier: “Oh, I can’t tell you what is happening in my chest ... You see, I'm crying... Here are the pistols!" And can the author not sympathize with him when, after Lydia's mockery of his good impulse, he puts into his mouth such a lyrical, such an "island" phrase: "My soul is killed."
We will see something from Vasilkov later in Vozhevatov and Knurov ("Dowry"). In this play, two main themes of Ostrovsky converged - the merchant class and the theme of "hot heart". Lydia Cheboksarova and Glafira from the play "Sheep and Wolves" are a rarity for Ostrovsky. Usually his young heroine - the main female role in the play - is a noble, passionate, courageous and defenseless woman with a warm heart. One of Ostrovsky's plays is called "Hot Heart".
Katerina is the first of this gallery of beautiful female images. She is more tragic than dramatic. As a tragic heroine is supposed to, Katerina transgresses the ban, the play even has a "scene of choice", a necessary attribute of every tragedy. Katerina wants a lot - she craves love and pays for it.
But Larisa, the heroine of "Dowry", a play written twenty years after "Thunderstorm", no longer dreams of love. She knows that she, a dowry, has nothing to dream about marriage for love. She wants only one thing - to leave for the village, beyond the Volga, with her unloved husband Karandyshev, but only to be left alone. And even in this smallness, society refuses her. Larisa - in Greek means "seagull", a swift white bird among animals: Knurova (knur-boar), Vozhevaty, a young predator, Paratov (paratai - daring, dexterous, fast). Not only Paratov, but all of them "have nothing cherished." There are no traditions, there is no conscience, there is no god, and there is no formerly constrained authority of the “seniors”. What is there? Money and goods. "Every product has a price," says Vozhevatov, and this is absolutely correct, but it's scary when a person turns out to be a product. Everyone talks about Larisa, admires her, claims her attention, decides her future for her, and she herself all the time seems to be on the sidelines: her desires, her feelings do not seriously interest anyone. Larisa will have to admit the correctness of Karandyshev's insulting, like a slap in the face, words: "They do not look at you as a woman, as a person - a person controls his own fate; they look at you like a thing."
But in this world - all things. Knurov with his European scope, Vozhevatov with his only moral principle - the "honest merchant's word", which he cannot violate under any circumstances - does not have what Vasilkov has. They don't have a soul. Their souls were eaten by money. That's why they are drawn to Larisa because she has a soul. And talent. But talent cannot awaken good feelings in them, because they do not exist. And Larisa's divine singing evokes in them completely different feelings, dark, heavy ... In Larisa there is no integrity of Katerina, there is no desperate determination of the heroine of "Hot Heart"; the thought of suicide comes to her, but something, contrary to her despair, does not let her in, keeps her alive.
“A pitiful weakness: to live, at least somehow, but to live ... when you can’t live and don’t need to. How pathetic, unhappy I am” ... - says Larisa, standing over a cliff near the grate.
Ostrovsky wrote to the actress Savina that all his best plays "were written for some strong talent and under the influence of this talent." He once dedicated "Thunderstorm" to Kositskaya, an actress of reckless sincerity, who had the gift of bringing to the hall the experiences of a whole, open soul - these traits are partly captured in Katerina. Larisa was meant for the young Savina - an intelligent, highly talented actress, famous not so much for the charm of openness, but for her modern "nerve", bewitching transitions from spiritual coldness to hot passion. But the best Larisa was Vera Fedorovna Komissarzhevskaya. The actress played the eternal female soul, for which in this world there were no faithful and strong male hands that could accept, hold, protect this beauty. But Larisa Komissarzhevskaya is a poetic, painful, attractive, not benign character. Here is how a contemporary describes the scene at the bars:
“Larisa-Komissarzhevskaya approaches the cliff and looks down into the destructive and saving abyss. She wants to end everything at once, because Katerina managed to save herself in her death. And here the way out is not to become a thing, to leave this terrible, dirty life ... But the hands so greedily clung to the bars of the lattice, but the body, young, alive, so resists death - and Larisa departs from the abyss, destroyed and despising herself.
"Dowry" was the last drama created by Ostrovsky.<...>
Writing
A completely new page in history is connected with the name of A. N. Ostrovsky Russian theater. 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, introduces new heroes and creates what can be called Russian with confidence. national theater.
Dramaturgy in Russia, of course, had a rich tradition even before Ostrovsky. The viewer was familiar with numerous plays of the Classical era, and there was also a realistic tradition represented by such outstanding works as Gogol's Woe from Wit, The Government Inspector and The Marriage. But Ostrovsky enters literature precisely as a writer of the "natural school", and therefore the life of undistinguished people, the life of the city, becomes the object of his research. Ostrovsky makes the life of the Russian merchants the subject of a serious, “high” comedy, the writer is clearly influenced by Belinsky, and therefore connects the progressive significance of art with its nationality, and notes the significance of the accusatory orientation of literature. Defining the task artistic creativity, he says: “The public expects art to clothe itself in a living, elegant form of its judgment on life, it expects the combination in full images of modern vices and shortcomings noticed in the century ...”
It is the "judgment of life" that becomes the defining artistic principle of Ostrovsky's work. In the comedy "Our people - let's settle" the playwright ridicules the foundations of the life of the Russian merchant class, showing that people are driven, above all, by a passion for profit. In the comedy "The Poor Bride" a large place is occupied by the theme of property relations between people, the image of 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 the result not of their personal qualities, but of the environment in which people live.
A special place in the work of Ostrovsky is occupied by the theme of "tyranny". The writer displays images of people whose meaning of life is to suppress the personality of another person. Such are Samson Bolshov, Marfa Kabanova, Wild. But the writer, of course, is not interested in the personality of petty tyrants. He explores the world in which his characters 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 whole action of the play, the spring that makes the heroes make mostly "puppet" movements. The author 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 - a daughter, a son, a daughter-in-law and almost disenfranchised residents of the house: Glasha and Feklusha. The same “alignment of forces” organizes the entire life of the city: in the center - Wild (and merchants of his level not mentioned in the play), on the periphery - less and less significant people, who do not have 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, which displaces it "all the rapidly rushing life", the patriarchal world refuses to notice this life at all, it creates around itself a special mythologized space in which - the only one - its gloomy, hostile to everything alien isolation can be justified. Such a world crushes the individual, and it doesn't matter who actually carries out this violence. According to Dobrolyubov, the tyrant “is powerless and insignificant in itself; You can deceive him, eliminate him, put him in a hole, finally ... But the fact is that with the destruction of him, tyranny does not disappear.
Of course, "tyranny" is not the only evil that Ostrovsky sees in 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 the plays. The deepest irony marked the images of noblemen - the Murzavetskys, the Gurmyzhskys, the Telyatevs. A passionate dream of sincere human relationships, and not love built on the basis of calculation, is the most important feature of the image of Larisa from the play "Dowry". Ostrovsky always stands for honest and noble relations between people in the family, society, and life in general.
Ostrovsky always considered the theater to be a school for the education of morals in society, he understood the high responsibility of the artist. That is why he strove to depict the truth of life and sincerely wanted his art to be accessible to all the 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 whole life to the Russian stage.
