Ostrovsky, general characteristics of the playwright's work. A.N

Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky was born on March 31 (April 12), 1823 in Moscow. His father, a graduate of the Moscow Theological Seminary, served in the Moscow City Court. He was engaged in private litigation in property and commercial cases. Mother from a family of the clergy, the daughter of a sexton and a prosvir, died when the future playwright was eight years old. Ostrovsky spends his childhood and early youth in Zamoskvorechye - a special corner of Moscow with its well-established merchant-petty-bourgeois way of life. It was easier for him to follow Pushkin's advice: "It's not a bad thing for us sometimes to listen to Moscow mallows. They speak surprisingly pure and correct language." Grandmother Natalya Ivanovna lived in the Ostrovsky family and served as a parish maid. Nanny Avdotya Ivanovna Kutuzova was famous as a great master of telling fairy tales. His godfather is a titular adviser, his godmother is a court adviser. From them and from his father's colleagues who were in the house, the future author of Profitable Place could hear plenty of bureaucratic conversations. And since the father leaves the service and becomes a private attorney for trading firms, merchants have not been transferred to the house.

Alexander was addicted to reading as a child, receives a good education at home, knows Greek, Latin, French, German, and later - English, Italian, Spanish. When Alexander was thirteen years old, his father married a second time to the daughter of a Russified Swedish baron, who was not too busy raising children from her husband's first marriage. With her arrival, the household way of life noticeably changes, the official life is redrawn in a noble manner, the environment changes, new speeches are heard in the house. By this time, the future playwright had read almost the entire father's library.

Here you can find the first editions of "Ruslan and Lyudmila", "Gypsies", "Woe from Wit" and many other exemplary works of Russian literature.

From 1835-1840 - Ostrovsky studies at the First Moscow Gymnasium. In 1840, after graduating from the gymnasium, he was enrolled in the law faculty of Moscow University. At the university, a law student Ostrovsky was lucky enough to listen to lectures by such connoisseurs of history, jurisprudence and literature as T.N. Granovsky, N.I. Krylov, M.P. Pogodin. Here, for the first time, the riches of Russian chronicles are revealed to the future author of "Minin" and "Voevoda", the language appears before him in a historical perspective. But in 1843, Ostrovsky left the university, not wanting to retake the exam. Then he entered the office of the Moscow Constituent Court, later served in the Commercial Court (1845-1851). This experience played a significant role in the work of Ostrovsky.

The second university is the Maly Theatre. Having become addicted to the stage back in his gymnasium years, Ostrovsky became a regular in the oldest Russian theater.

1847 - Ostrovsky publishes the first draft of the future comedy "Our People - Let's Settle" under the title "Insolvent Debtor" in the Moscow City List, then the comedy "Painting of Family Happiness" (later "Family Picture") and an essay in prose "Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky resident" .

"The most memorable day for me in my life," Ostrovsky recalled, "was February 14, 1847 ... From that day on, I began to consider myself a Russian writer and already believed in my vocation without doubt or hesitation."

Ostrovsky's recognition comes from the comedy "Our People - Let's Settle" (original title - "Bankrut", completed at the end of 1849). Even before publication, it became popular (in the reading of the author and P.M. Sadovsky), evoked approving responses from H.V. Gogol, I.A. Goncharova, T.H. Granovsky and others.

"He started unusually ..." - testifies I.S. Turgenev. His very first big play, "Own People - Let's Settle" made a huge impression. She was called the Russian "Tartuffe", the "Brigadier" of the 19th century, the merchant's "Woe from Wit", compared with the "Inspector"; Yesterday, the still unknown name of Ostrovsky was put next to the names of the greatest comedians - Moliere, Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Gogol.

After the comedy "Our People - Let's Settle" Ostrovsky releases one, and sometimes two or three plays every year, thus writing 47 plays of various genres - from tragedy to dramatic episodes. In addition, there are also plays written jointly with other playwrights - S.A. Gedeonov, N.Ya. Solovyov, P.M. Nevezhin, as well as over 20 translated plays (C. Goldoni, N. Macchiavelli, M. Cervantes, Terence, etc.). In 1859, Ostrovsky translated "Getsira" by the ancient Roman playwright Terentius, in which the theme of the daughter-in-law and mother-in-law is important (compare with the play "Thunderstorm").

Possessing an outstanding social temperament, Ostrovsky fought all his life actively for the creation of a realistic theater of a new type, for a truly artistic national repertoire, for a new ethics of the actor. In 1865, he created the Moscow Artistic Circle, founded and headed the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers (1870), wrote numerous "Notes", "Projects", "Considerations" to various departments, proposing to take urgent measures to stop the decline of theatrical art. Creativity Ostrovsky had a decisive influence on the development of Russian drama and Russian theater. As a playwright and director, Ostrovsky contributed to the formation of a new school of realistic acting, the promotion of a galaxy of actors (especially in the Moscow Maly Theater: the Sadovsky family, S.V. Vasiliev, L.P. Kositskaya, later - G.N. Fedotova, M.N. Ermolova and etc.).

Ostrovsky's theatrical biography did not coincide at all with his literary biography. The audience got acquainted with his plays in a completely different order in which they were written and printed. Only six years after Ostrovsky began to publish, on January 14, 1853, the curtain went up at the first performance of the comedy Don't Get in Your Sleigh at the Maly Theater. The play shown to the audience first was Ostrovsky's sixth completed play.

At the same time, the playwright entered into a civil marriage with the girl Agafya Ivanovna Ivanova (who had four children from him), which led to a break in relations with his father. According to eyewitnesses, she was a kind, warm-hearted woman, to whom Ostrovsky owed much of his knowledge of Moscow life.

In 1869, after the death of Agafya Ivanovna from tuberculosis, Ostrovsky entered into a new marriage with the actress of the Maly Theater Maria Vasilyeva. From his second marriage, the writer had five children.

Corresponding Member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1863)

Ostrovsky's literary views were formed under the influence of the aesthetics of V.G. Belinsky. For Ostrovsky, as for other writers who began in the 40s, the artist is a kind of researcher-physiologist who subjects various parts of the social organism to a special study, opening up to his contemporaries as yet unexplored areas of life. In the open field, these tendencies found expression in the genre of the so-called "physiological essay", which was widespread in the literature of the 1940s and 1950s. Ostrovsky was one of the most staunch exponents of this trend. Many of his early works were written in the manner of a "physiological sketch" (sketches of life outside Moscow; dramatic sketches and "pictures": "Family Picture", "Morning of a Young Man", "An Unexpected Case"; later, in 1857, - "The characters did not agree" ).

In a more complex refraction, the features of this style were also reflected in most of Ostrovsky's other works: he studied the life of his era, observing it as if under a microscope, like an attentive researcher-experimenter. This is clearly shown by the diaries of his trips around Russia, and especially the materials of a many-month trip (1865) along the upper Volga with the aim of a comprehensive survey of the region.

Ostrovsky's published report on this trip and draft notes represent a kind of encyclopedia of information on the economy, population composition, customs, and mores of this region. At the same time, Ostrovsky does not cease to be an artist - after this trip, the Volga landscape as a poetic leitmotif is included in many of his plays, starting with "Thunderstorm" and ending with "Dowry" and "Voivode (Dream on the Volga)". In addition, an idea arises for a cycle of plays called "Nights on the Volga" (partially realized).

Guilty Without Guilt is the last of Ostrovsky's masterpieces. In August 1883, just at the time of work on this play, the playwright wrote to his brother: “Writing concern: there is a lot to start, there are good plots, but ... they are inconvenient, you need to choose something smaller. I’m already living out my life When will I have time to speak out? And go to the grave without doing everything that I could do?

At the end of his life, Ostrovsky finally achieved material prosperity (he received a lifetime pension of 3 thousand rubles), and in 1884 he took the position of head of the repertoire of Moscow theaters (the playwright dreamed of serving the theater all his life). But his health was undermined, his strength was exhausted.

Ostrovsky not only taught, he studied. Numerous experiments of Ostrovsky in the field of translation of ancient, English, Spanish, Italian and French dramatic literature not only testified to his excellent acquaintance with the dramatic literature of all times and peoples, but were rightly considered by the researchers of his work as a kind of school of dramatic skill, which Ostrovsky went through all his life (he began in 1850 with a translation of Shakespeare's comedy The Taming of the Shrew).

Death found him translating Shakespeare's tragedy "Anthony and Cleopatra") on June 2 (14), 1886 in the Shchelykovo estate, Kostroma region, from a hereditary disease - angina pectoris. He went down to the grave without doing all that he could do, but he did exceedingly much.

After the death of the writer, the Moscow Duma set up a reading room named after A.N. Ostrovsky. On May 27, 1929, in Moscow, on Theater Square in front of the building of the Maly Theater, where his plays were staged, a monument to Ostrovsky was unveiled (sculptor N.A. Andreev, architect I.P. Mashkov).

A.N. Ostrovsky is listed in the Russian Book of Records "Divo" as "the most prolific playwright" (1993).

Ostrovsky's work can be divided into three periods: 1st - (1847-1860), 2nd - (1850-1875), 3rd - (1875-1886).

FIRST PERIOD

It includes plays that reflect the life of pre-reform Russia. At the beginning of this period, Ostrovsky actively collaborated as an editor and as a critic with the Moskvityanin magazine, publishing his plays in it. Starting as a continuer of Gogol's accusatory tradition ("Our people - let's settle", "Poor Bride", "We didn't get along"), then, partly under the influence of the main ideologist of the Moskvityanin magazine A.A. Grigoriev, Ostrovsky's plays begin to sound motifs of the idealization of Russian patriarchy, the customs of antiquity ("Do not get into your sleigh" (1852), "Poverty is not a vice" (1853), "Do not live as you want" (1854). These moods muffle Ostrovsky's critical pathos.

Since 1856, Ostrovsky, a permanent contributor to the Sovremennik magazine, has been close to the leaders of democratic Russian journalism. During the years of social upsurge before the peasant reform of 1861, social criticism again intensifies in his work, the drama of conflicts becomes sharper ("Hangover in someone else's feast" (1855), "Profitable place" (1856), "Thunderstorm", (1859).

SECOND PERIOD

It includes plays that reflect the life of Russia after the reform. Ostrovsky continues to write everyday comedies and dramas ("Hard Days", 1863, "Jokers", 1864, "Abyss", 1865), still highly talented, but rather reinforcing already found motives than mastering new ones. At this time, Ostrovsky also turned to the problems of national history, to the patriotic theme. Based on the study of a wide range of sources, he creates a cycle of historical plays: "Kozma Zakharyich Minin - Sukhoruk" (1861; 2nd edition 1866), "Voevoda" (1864; 2nd edition 1885), "Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky" (1866), "Tushino" (1866). In addition, a cycle of satirical comedies is being created ("There is Enough Simplicity for Every Wise Man" (1868), "A Warm Heart" (1868), "Mad Money" (1869), "Forest" (1870), "Wolves and Sheep "(1875). Standing apart among the plays of the second period is the dramatic poem in verse "Snow Maiden" (1873) - "spring tale", according to the author's definition, created on the basis of folk tales, beliefs, customs.

THIRD PERIOD

Almost all of Ostrovsky's dramatic works of the 70s and early 80s. published in the journal "Domestic Notes". During this period, Ostrovsky created significant socio-psychological dramas and comedies about the tragic fate of richly gifted, sensitive women in a world of cynicism and self-interest ("Dowry", 1878, "The Last Victim", 1878, "Talents and Admirers", 1882, etc.). Here the writer also develops new forms of stage expression, in some respects anticipating the plays of A.P. Chekhov: while retaining the characteristic features of his dramaturgy, Ostrovsky strives to embody the "internal struggle" in an "intelligent, subtle comedy" (see A.N. Ostrovsky in the memoirs of his contemporaries, 1966, p. 294).

The playwright remained in the history of Russian literature not just as the "Columbus of Zamoskvorechye", as literary criticism called him, but the creator of the Russian democratic theater, who applied the achievements of Russian psychological prose of the 19th century to theatrical practice. Ostrovsky is a rare example of stage longevity, his plays do not leave the stage - this is a sign of a truly folk writer.

Ostrovsky's dramaturgy contained the whole of Russia - its way of life, its customs, its history, its fairy tales, its poetry. It is even difficult for us to imagine how much poorer our idea of ​​Russia, of the Russian man, of Russian nature, and even of ourselves would be if the world of Ostrovsky's creations did not exist for us.

Not with cold curiosity, but with pity and anger, we look at the life embodied in Ostrovsky's plays. Sympathy for the disadvantaged and indignation against the "dark kingdom" - these are the feelings that the playwright experienced and which he invariably arouses in us. But the hope and faith that have always lived in this remarkable artist are especially close to us. And we know - this hope is in us, this is faith in us.

18. Depiction of the life of the humiliated and offended in F. M. Dostoevsky's novel "Crime and Punishment"

Raskolnikov's theory is organically connected with the living conditions that surround this poor student. The first pages of the novel immerse the reader in the miserable atmosphere of the St. Petersburg slums, in one of the alleys of which Rodion Raskolnikov lives, struggles with poverty, creates a theory and commits murder. The author describes in great detail and detail his wretched, stuffy closet, located under the very roof, more reminiscent of a closet than an apartment. This tiny cell, six paces long, with dusty yellow wallpaper peeling off the walls and a low, oppressive ceiling, recreates an atmosphere of crampedness and hopelessness, which is enhanced by the description of a stuffy July day in St. Petersburg. The figure of a remarkably handsome young man, dressed in rags, strangely harmonizes with the disgusting and sad coloring of the craft quarter, with the unbearable stench from the taverns in which poor officials and shop workers whiled away their time. Everywhere there is closeness, stuffiness, crowding of people forced to huddle in miserable apartments, which further exacerbate the feeling of spiritual loneliness in the crowd. People are disunited and embittered, suspicious and incredulous. They lose the ability to pity and compassion, and this is clearly manifested in the reaction of the visitors of the tavern to the drunken confession of the poor official Marmeladov. In his story about his fate, a terrible life drama of a man who was crushed and crippled by a cruel world unfolds. The soul of a normal, intelligent, conscientious person cannot endure the daily humiliations when one has to be a silent witness to the insult of one's own wife, to see hungry children, to know that a daughter, a pure, honest girl, lives on a yellow ticket. Overwhelmed with suffering, Marmeladov does not require anything from the listeners, except for simple human participation. But his sincere, agitated confession evokes only giggles and mocking curiosity, in which contempt clearly emerges.

In general, it is on the example of the Marmeladov family that the theme of humiliated and insulted people, their numerous disasters in "this magnificent and decorated with numerous monuments capital" is largely revealed. This is how the image of Petersburg appears in the novel, a cold, dead city, indifferently looking at the grief and suffering of people. The magnificent panorama of the Russian capital further emphasizes the poverty, the hopelessness of the situation of the inhabitants of the St. Petersburg slums. Strict, refined lines of luxurious buildings are set off by miserable, smoky rooms with holes in the sheets and a tattered sofa, in one of which the Marmeladov family huddles. The world of the humiliated and offended in the novel is many-sided and varied. The fate of Katerina Ivanovna, an exhausted and tormented woman to the limit, trying to clean up a wretched apartment, not knowing how to feed hungry children, is unlike the fate of her stepdaughter Sonya, who goes to the panel to help the family. Dramatic is the life of Raskolnikov's sister, the beautiful Dunya, who is forced to endure bullying and undeserved disgrace, possessing her brother's pride and pride. Everywhere crippled, broken destinies, the cause of which is a constant, hopeless need, terrible living conditions, unworthy of a person.

All these examples naturally lead to the conclusion that it is impossible in this cruel world to live according to the norms of universal morality. Poverty, lack of rights, humiliation push people to violate Christian commandments. The hero of Dostoevsky's novel sooner or later faces a choice: to die or to live at the cost of deals with conscience.

Ostrovsky's chronological table helps to highlight the main stages of the writer's life. This article presents information about the life and work of Ostrovsky by dates in a convenient form. Information about the biography of A.N. Ostrovsky, a famous Russian playwright, will be of interest to schoolchildren and everyone who is interested in Russian classical literature.

Ostrovsky made a unique contribution to theatrical art. Theatrical work occupies an honorable place in Ostrovsky's life. The periodization of his creative path reflects the dates of the development of the Russian theater associated with the founding of the Artistic Circle. The works of Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky in the table are listed in chronological order. You can learn more about the work of the playwright in a special section.

1823 March 31- Born A.N. Ostrovsky in Moscow in the family of the official of the Moscow departments of the Senate Nikolai Fedorovich Ostrovsky and his wife Lyubov Ivanovna.

1831 - Death of mother A.N. Ostrovsky.

1835 - Admission to the third grade of the 1st Moscow gymnasium.

1840 – Admission to the law faculty of Moscow University.

determined to serve in the Moscow conscientious court.

1847 February 14- Reading the play "The Picture of Family Happiness" by S.P. Shevyreva, the first success.

1853 January 14- Premiere on the stage of the Maly Theater of the comedy "Do not get into your sleigh" - the first play by A. N. Ostrovsky, staged at the theater.

1856 – Collaboration with the Sovremennik magazine.

1860 January– The play "Thunderstorm" was first published in No. 1 of the Library for Reading magazine.

1865, March-April– The charter of the Moscow artistic circle was approved (A.N. Ostrovsky, V.F. Odoevsky, N.G. Rubinshtein).

opening of the Artistic circle.

1868 November– In issue 11 of Otechestvennye Zapiski magazine, the comedy “Enough Stupidity for Every Wise Man” was published.

1870 November– On the initiative of A. N. Ostrovsky, the Assembly of Russian Dramatic Writers was established in Moscow, later transformed into the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers.

1874 - A. N. Ostrovsky was unanimously elected chairman of the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers.

1879 – In No. 5 of “Notes of the Fatherland” the drama “Dowry” was published.

"A table word about Pushkin".

1882 January- The comedy Talents and Admirers was published in No. 1 of Otechestvennye Zapiski.

1882 February- Honoring A. N. Ostrovsky on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of his creative activity.

1886 June 2- Death of A.N. Ostrovsky. He was buried in the cemetery in Nikolo-Berezhki near Shchelykovo.

The most popular October materials for your class.

(1843 – 1886).

Alexander Nikolaevich "Ostrovsky is a "giant of theatrical literature" (Lunacharsky), he created the Russian theater, a whole repertoire on which many generations of actors were brought up, the traditions of stage art were strengthened and developed. It is difficult to overestimate his role in the history of the development of Russian drama and the entire national culture. He did as much for the development of Russian dramaturgy as Shakespeare did in England, Lope de Vega in Spain, Molière in France, Goldoni in Italy, and Schiller in Germany.

"History left the name of the great and brilliant only for those writers who knew how to write for the whole people, and only those works survived the centuries that were truly popular at home; such works eventually become understandable and valuable for other peoples, and finally, and for the whole world." These words of the great playwright Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky can be attributed to his own work.

Despite the harassment inflicted by the censorship, the theatrical and literary committee and the directorate of the imperial theaters, despite the criticism of reactionary circles, Ostrovsky's dramaturgy gained more and more sympathy every year both among democratic spectators and among artists.

Developing the best traditions of Russian dramatic art, using the experience of progressive foreign dramaturgy, tirelessly learning about the life of his native country, constantly communicating with the people, closely connecting with the most progressive contemporary public, Ostrovsky became an outstanding depiction of the life of his time, who embodied the dreams of Gogol, Belinsky and other progressive figures. literature about the appearance and triumph on the national stage of Russian characters.

The creative activity of Ostrovsky had a great influence on the entire further development of progressive Russian drama. It was from him that our best playwrights studied, he taught. It was to him that aspiring dramatic writers were drawn in their time.

The strength of Ostrovsky's influence on the writers of his day can be evidenced by a letter to the playwright poetess A. D. Mysovskaya. “Do you know how great was your influence on me? It was not love for art that made me understand and appreciate you: on the contrary, you taught me to love and respect art. I am indebted to you alone for the fact that I withstood the temptation to fall into the arena of miserable literary mediocrity, did not chase after cheap laurels thrown by the hands of sweet and sour half-educated. You and Nekrasov made me fall in love with thought and work, but Nekrasov gave me only the first impetus, you are the direction. Reading your works, I realized that rhyming is not poetry, and a set of phrases is not literature, and that only by processing the mind and technique, the artist will be a real artist.

Ostrovsky had a powerful impact not only on the development of domestic drama, but also on the development of the Russian theater. The colossal importance of Ostrovsky in the development of the Russian theater is well emphasized in a poem dedicated to Ostrovsky and read in 1903 by M. N. Yermolova from the stage of the Maly Theater:

On the stage, life itself, from the stage blows the truth,

And the bright sun caresses and warms us ...

The live speech of ordinary, living people sounds,

On stage, not a “hero”, not an angel, not a villain,

But just a man ... Happy actor

In a hurry to quickly break the heavy fetters

Conditions and lies. Words and feelings are new

But in the secrets of the soul, the answer sounds to them, -

And all the mouths whisper: blessed is the poet,

Tore off the shabby, tinsel covers

And shed a bright light into the kingdom of darkness

The famous artist wrote about the same in her memoirs in 1924: “Together with Ostrovsky, truth itself and life itself appeared on the stage ... The growth of original drama began, full of responses to modernity ... They started talking about the poor, the humiliated and insulted.”

The realistic direction, muffled by the theatrical policy of the autocracy, continued and deepened by Ostrovsky, turned the theater onto the path of close connection with reality. Only it gave life to the theater as a national, Russian, folk theater.

“You brought a whole library of works of art as a gift to literature, you created your own special world for the stage. You alone completed the building, at the foundation of which the cornerstones of Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Gogol were laid. This wonderful letter was received among other congratulations in the year of the thirty-fifth anniversary of literary and theatrical activity, Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky from another great Russian writer - Goncharov.

But much earlier, about the very first work of the still young Ostrovsky, published in Moskvityanin, a subtle connoisseur of elegance and a sensitive observer V. F. Odoevsky wrote: this man is a great talent. I consider three tragedies in Rus': “Undergrowth”, “Woe from Wit”, “Inspector”. I put number four on Bankrupt.

From such a promising first assessment to Goncharov's anniversary letter - a full, busy life; labor, and led to such a logical relationship of assessments, because talent requires, first of all, great labor on itself, and the playwright did not sin before God - he did not bury his talent in the ground. Having published the first work in 1847, Ostrovsky has since written 47 plays, and translated more than twenty plays from European languages. And in total, in the folk theater he created, there are about a thousand actors.

Shortly before his death, in 1886, Alexander Nikolayevich received a letter from L. N. Tolstoy, in which the brilliant prose writer admitted: “I know from experience how people read, listen and remember your things, and therefore I would like to help you have now quickly become in reality what you are, undoubtedly, a writer of the whole people in the broadest sense.

Even before Ostrovsky, progressive Russian dramaturgy had magnificent plays. Let us recall Fonvizin's "Undergrowth", Griboedov's "Woe from Wit", Pushkin's "Boris Godunov", Gogol's "Inspector General" and Lermontov's "Masquerade". Each of these plays could enrich and embellish, as Belinsky rightly wrote, the literature of any Western European country.

But these plays were too few. And they did not determine the state of the theatrical repertoire. Figuratively speaking, they towered above the level of mass dramaturgy like lonely, rare mountains in an endless desert plain. The vast majority of the plays that filled the then theater scene were translations of empty, frivolous vaudeville and sentimental melodramas woven from horrors and crimes. Both vaudeville and melodrama, terribly far from life, were not even its shadow.

In the development of Russian dramaturgy and domestic theater, the appearance of plays by A.N. Ostrovsky constituted a whole era. They sharply turned dramaturgy and theater back to life, to its truth, to what truly touched and excited people of the unprivileged stratum of the population, working people. Creating "plays of life", as Dobrolyubov called them, Ostrovsky acted as a fearless knight of truth, a tireless fighter against the dark kingdom of autocracy, a merciless exposer of the ruling classes - the nobility, the bourgeoisie and the officials who faithfully served them.

But Ostrovsky was not limited to the role of a satirical accuser. He vividly, sympathetically depicted the victims of socio-political and domestic despotism, workers, truth-seekers, enlighteners, warm-hearted Protestants against arbitrariness and violence.

The playwright not only made people of labor and progress, bearers of the people's truth and wisdom, the positive heroes of his plays, but also wrote in the name of the people and for the people.

Ostrovsky portrayed in his plays the prose of life, ordinary people in everyday circumstances. Taking the universal problems of evil and goodness, truth and injustice, beauty and ugliness as the content of his plays, Ostrovsky outlived his time and entered our era as her contemporary.

The creative path of A.N. Ostrovsky lasted four decades. He wrote his first works in 1846, and his last in 1886.

During this time, he wrote 47 original plays and several plays in collaboration with Solovyov (“Balzaminov's Marriage”, “Savage”, “Shines but does not warm”, etc.); made many translations from Italian, Spanish, French, English, Indian (Shakespeare, Goldoni, Lope de Vega - 22 plays). There are 728 roles, 180 acts in his plays; all Rus' is represented. Variety of genres: comedies, dramas, dramatic chronicles, family scenes, tragedies, dramatic sketches are presented in his dramaturgy. He acts in his work as a romantic, householder, tragedian and comedian.

Of course, any periodization is to some extent conditional, but in order to better navigate the diversity of Ostrovsky's work, we will divide his work into several stages.

1846 - 1852 - the initial stage of creativity. The most important works written during this period: “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky resident”, the plays “A Picture of Family Happiness”, “Own People - Let's Settle”, “The Poor Bride”.

1853 - 1856 - the so-called "Slavophile" period: "Don't get into your sleigh." "Poverty is not a vice", "Do not live as you want."

1856 - 1859 - rapprochement with the circle of Sovremennik, a return to realistic positions. The most important plays of this period: "A Profitable Place", "The Pupil", "A Hangover in Someone else's Feast", "The Balzaminov Trilogy", and, finally, created during the period of the revolutionary situation, "Thunderstorm".

1861 - 1867 - deepening in the study of national history, the result is the dramatic chronicles of Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk, Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky, Tushino, the drama Vasilisa Melentievna, the comedy Voyevoda or Dream on the Volga.

1869 - 1884 - the plays created during this period of creativity are devoted to social and domestic relations that developed in Russian life after the reform of 1861. The most important plays of this period: “Enough simplicity for every wise man”, “Hot Heart”, “Mad Money”, “Forest”, “Wolves and Sheep”, “Last Victim”, “Late Love”, “Talents and Admirers”, “ Guilty without guilt."

Ostrovsky's plays did not appear out of nowhere. Their appearance is directly connected with the plays of Griboedov and Gogol, which absorbed everything valuable that the Russian comedy that preceded them achieved. Ostrovsky knew the old Russian comedy of the 18th century well, he specially studied the works of Kapnist, Fonvizin, Plavilshchikov. On the other hand - the influence of the prose of the "natural school".

Ostrovsky came to literature in the late 1940s, when Gogol's dramaturgy was recognized as the greatest literary and social phenomenon. Turgenev wrote: "Gogol showed the way how our dramatic literature will go with time." Ostrovsky, from the first steps of his activity, realized himself as a successor to the traditions of Gogol, the "natural school", he considered himself among the authors of "a new trend in our literature."

The years 1846 - 1859, when Ostrovsky worked on his first big comedy "Our People - Let's Settle", were the years of his formation as a realist writer.

The ideological and artistic program of Ostrovsky, the playwright, is clearly set out in his critical articles and reviews. The article "Mistake", the story of Madame Tour" ("Moskvityanin", 1850), an unfinished article on Dickens' novel "Dombey and Son" (1848), a review of Menshikov's comedy "Fads", ("Moskvityanin" 1850), "Note on the situation Dramatic Art in Russia at the Present Time" (1881), "A Table Word on Pushkin" (1880).

Ostrovsky's socio-literary views are characterized by the following main provisions:

First, he believes that drama should be a reflection of people's life, people's consciousness.

The people for Ostrovsky are, first of all, the democratic mass, the lower classes, ordinary people.

Ostrovsky demanded that the writer study the life of the people, those problems that concern the people.

“In order to be a people's writer,” he writes, “love for one's homeland is not enough… one must know one's people well, get along with them better, become related. The best school for talent is the study of one's nationality.

Secondly, Ostrovsky talks about the need for national identity for dramaturgy.

The nationality of literature and art is understood by Ostrovsky as an integral consequence of their nationality and democracy. "Only that art is national, which is popular, for the true bearer of nationality is the popular, democratic mass."

In the "Table Word about Pushkin" - an example of such a poet is Pushkin. Pushkin is a people's poet, Pushkin is a national poet. Pushkin played a huge role in the development of Russian literature because he "gave the courage to the Russian writer to be Russian."

And, finally, the third provision is about the socially accusatory nature of literature. “The more popular the work, the more accusatory element in it, because the “distinctive feature of the Russian people” is “aversion from everything that is sharply defined”, unwillingness to return to the “old, already condemned forms” of life, the desire to “seek the best”.

The public expects art to denounce the vices and shortcomings of society, to judge life.

Condemning these vices in his artistic images, the writer arouses disgust in the public, makes them be better, more moral. Therefore, “the social, denunciatory direction can be called moral and public,” Ostrovsky emphasizes. Speaking of the social accusatory or moral-public direction, he means:

accusatory criticism of the dominant way of life; protection of positive moral principles, i.e. protecting the aspirations of ordinary people and their pursuit of social justice.

Thus, the term "moral accusatory direction" in its objective meaning approaches the concept of critical realism.

The works of Ostrovsky, written by him in the late 40s and early 50s, “A Picture of Family Happiness”, “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident”, “Our People - Let's Settle”, “The Poor Bride - are organically connected with the literature of the natural school.

“The picture of family happiness” is largely in the nature of a dramatized essay: it is not divided into phenomena, there is no completion of the plot. Ostrovsky set himself the task of depicting the life of the merchants. The hero interests Ostrovsky solely as a representative of his estate, his way of life, his way of thinking. Goes beyond the natural school. Ostrovsky reveals the close connection between the morality of his characters and their social existence.

He puts the family life of the merchants in direct connection with the monetary and material relations of this environment.

Ostrovsky completely condemns his heroes. His heroes express their views on the family, marriage, education, as if demonstrating the wildness of these views.

This technique was common in the satirical literature of the 40s - the method of self-exposure.

The most significant work of Ostrovsky 40-ies. - came the comedy "Our people - let's settle" (1849), which was perceived by contemporaries as a major conquest of the natural school in drama.

"He started out extraordinary," Turgenev writes of Ostrovsky.

The comedy immediately attracted the attention of the authorities. When the censorship submitted the play to the tsar for consideration, Nicholas I wrote: “Printed in vain! To play same ban, in any case.

Ostrovsky's name was put on the list of unreliable persons, and the playwright was placed under covert police surveillance for five years. The “Case of the writer Ostrovsky” was opened.

Ostrovsky, like Gogol, criticizes the very foundations of relations that dominate society. He is critical of contemporary social life and in this sense he is a follower of Gogol. And at the same time, Ostrovsky immediately defined himself as a writer - an innovator. Comparing the works of the early stage of his work (1846-1852) with the traditions of Gogol, let's see what new things Ostrovsky brought to literature.

The action of Gogol's "high comedy" takes place as if in a world of unreasonable reality - "The Government Inspector".

Gogol tested a person in his attitude to society, to civic duty - and showed - that's what these people are like. This is the center of vices. They don't care about society at all. They are guided in their behavior by narrowly selfish calculations, selfish interests.

Gogol does not focus on everyday life - laughter through tears. The bureaucracy for him acts not as a social stratum, but as a political force that determines the life of society as a whole.

Ostrovsky has something completely different - a thorough analysis of social life.

Like the heroes of the essays of the natural school, Ostrovsky's heroes are ordinary, typical representatives of their social environment, which is shared by their ordinary everyday life, all its prejudices.

a) In the play "Our people - we will settle" Ostrovsky creates a typical biography of a merchant, talks about how capital is accumulated.

Bolshov sold pies from a stall as a child, and then became one of the first rich men in Zamoskvorechye.

Podkhalyuzin made up his capital by robbing the owner, and, finally, Tishka is an errand boy, but, however, he already knows how to please the new owner.

Here are given, as it were, three stages of a merchant's career. Through their fate, Ostrovsky showed how capital is made up.

b) The peculiarity of Ostrovsky's dramaturgy was that he showed this question - how capital is made up in a merchant environment - through consideration of intra-family, daily, ordinary relations.

It was Ostrovsky who was the first in Russian drama to consider thread by thread the web of daily, everyday relationships. He was the first to introduce into the sphere of art all these trifles of life, family secrets, petty economic affairs. A huge place is occupied by seemingly meaningless everyday scenes. Much attention is paid to the poses, gestures of the characters, their manners of speaking, their very speech.

Ostrovsky's first plays seemed to the reader to be unusual, not for the stage, more like narrative rather than dramatic works.

The circle of Ostrovsky's works, directly related to the natural school of the 40s, closes with the play The Poor Bride (1852).

In it, Ostrovsky shows the same dependence of a person on economic, monetary relations. Several suitors seek the hand of Marya Andreevna, but the one who gets it does not need to make any effort to achieve the goal. The well-known economic law of a capitalist society works for him, where everything is decided by money. The image of Marya Andreevna begins in the work of Ostrovsky, a new topic for him, the position of a poor girl in a society where everything is determined by commercial calculation. ("Forest", "Pupil", "Dowry").

So, for the first time in Ostrovsky (unlike Gogol) not only vice appears, but also a victim of vice. In addition to the masters of modern society, there are those who oppose them - aspirations whose needs are in conflict with the laws and customs of this environment. This entailed new colors. Ostrovsky discovered new aspects of his talent - dramatic satirism. “Own people - we will count” - satire.

The artistic manner of Ostrovsky in this play is even more different from Gogol's dramaturgy. The plot loses its edge here. It is based on an ordinary case. The theme that was voiced in Gogol's "Marriage" and received satirical coverage - the transformation of marriage into a purchase and sale, here acquired a tragic sound.

But at the same time, this is a comedy in terms of characterization, in terms of positions. But if the heroes of Gogol cause laughter and condemnation of the public, then in Ostrovsky the viewer saw his daily life, felt deep sympathy for some - condemned others.

The second stage in the activities of Ostrovsky (1853 - 1855) is marked by the seal of Slavophile influences.

First of all, this transition of Ostrovsky to Slavophile positions should be explained by the intensification of the atmosphere, the reaction that is established in the "gloomy seven years" of 1848-1855.

In what specific way did this influence appear, what ideas of the Slavophiles turned out to be close to Ostrovsky? First of all, Ostrovsky’s rapprochement with the so-called “young editors” of The Moskvityanin, whose behavior should be explained by their characteristic interest in Russian national life, folk art, and the historical past of the people, which was very close to Ostrovsky.

But Ostrovsky was unable to distinguish in this interest the main conservative principle, which manifested itself in the prevailing social contradictions, in a hostile attitude towards the concept of historical progress, in admiration for everything patriarchal.

In fact, the Slavophils acted as ideologists of the socially backward elements of the petty and middle bourgeoisie.

One of the most prominent ideologists of the "Young Edition" of "Moskvityanin" Apollon Grigoriev argued that there is a single "national spirit" that constitutes the organic basis of people's life. Capturing this national spirit is the most important thing for a writer.

Social contradictions, the struggle of classes - these are historical stratifications that will be overcome and that do not violate the unity of the nation.

The writer must show the eternal moral principles of the people's character. The bearer of these eternal moral principles, the spirit of the people, is the “middle, industrial, merchant” class, because it was this class that preserved the patriarchy of the traditions of old Rus', preserved the faith, customs, and language of the fathers. This class has not been touched by the falsity of civilization.

Ostrovsky's official recognition of this doctrine is his letter in September 1853 to Pogodin (the editor of Moskvityanin), in which Ostrovsky writes that he has now become a supporter of the "new direction", the essence of which is to appeal to the positive principles of everyday life and folk character.

The former view of things now seems to him "young and too cruel." The denunciation of social vices does not seem to be the main task.

“Correctors will be found even without us. In order to have the right to correct the people without offending them, one must show them that one knows the good behind them” (September 1853), writes Ostrovsky.

A distinctive feature of the Russian people of Ostrovsky at this stage is not his willingness to renounce the outdated norms of life, but patriarchy, adherence to the unchanged, fundamental conditions of life. Ostrovsky now wants to combine the “high with the comic” in his plays, understanding by the high the positive features of merchant life, and by the “comic” - everything that lies outside the merchant circle, but exerting its influence on it.

These new views of Ostrovsky found their expression in three so-called "Slavophile" plays by Ostrovsky: "Do not sit in your sleigh", "Poverty is not a vice", "Do not live as you want."

All three Slavophile plays by Ostrovsky have one defining beginning - an attempt to idealize the patriarchal foundations of life and the family morality of the merchant class.

And in these plays, Ostrovsky turns to family and everyday subjects. But behind them there are no longer economic, social relations.

Family, domestic relations are interpreted in purely moral terms - everything depends on the moral qualities of people, there are no material, monetary interests behind this. Ostrovsky tries to find a way to resolve the contradictions in moral terms, in the moral rebirth of the characters. (The moral enlightenment of Gordey Tortsov, the nobility of the soul of Borodkin and Rusakov). Tyranny is justified not so much by the existence of capital, economic relations, but by the personal properties of a person.

Ostrovsky depicts those aspects of merchant life, in which, as it seems to him, the national, the so-called "national spirit" is concentrated. Therefore, he focuses on the poetic, bright sides of merchant life, introduces ritual, folklore motifs, showing the "folk-epic" beginning of the life of the heroes to the detriment of their social certainty.

Ostrovsky emphasized in the plays of this period the closeness of his heroes-merchants to the people, their social and domestic ties with the peasantry. They say about themselves that they are “simple”, “ill-mannered” people, that their fathers were peasants.

From the artistic side, these plays are clearly weaker than the previous ones. Their composition is deliberately simplified, the characters turned out to be less clear, and the denouement less justified.

The plays of this period are characterized by didacticism, they openly contrast light and dark principles, the characters are sharply divided into “good” and “evil”, vice is punished at the denouement. The plays of the "Slavophile period" are characterized by open morality, sentimentality, and edification.

At the same time, it should be said that during this period, Ostrovsky, in general, remained on a realistic position. According to Dobrolyubov, "the power of direct artistic feeling could not leave the author here either, and therefore private positions and individual characters are distinguished by genuine truth."

The significance of Ostrovsky's plays written during this period lies, first of all, in the fact that they continue to ridicule and condemn tyranny in whatever form it manifests /Lubim Tortsov/. (If Bolshov - rudely and straightforwardly - is a type of tyrant, then Rusakov is softened and meek).

Dobrolyubov: “In Bolshov we saw a vigorous nature, influenced by merchant life, in Rusakov it seems to us: but this is how even honest and gentle natures come out with him.”

Bolshov: “What am I and my father to do if I don’t give orders?”

Rusakov: "I will not give for the one whom she loves, but for the one whom I love."

The glorification of the patriarchal life in these plays is contradictory combined with the formulation of acute social issues, and the desire to create images that would embody national ideals (Rusakov, Borodkin), with sympathy for young people who bring new aspirations, opposition to everything patriarchal, old. (Mitya, Lyubov Gordeevna).

In these plays, Ostrovsky's desire to find a bright, positive beginning in ordinary people was expressed.

This is how the theme of folk humanism arises, the breadth of the nature of a simple person, which is expressed in the ability to boldly and independently look at the environment and in the ability to sometimes sacrifice one's own interests for the sake of others.

This theme was then sounded in such central plays by Ostrovsky as "Thunderstorm", "Forest", "Dowry".

The idea of ​​creating a folk performance - a didactic performance - was not alien to Ostrovsky when he created "Poverty is not a vice" and "Do not live as you want."

Ostrovsky sought to convey the ethical principles of the people, the aesthetic basis of his life, to evoke a response from the democratic viewer to the poetry of his native life, national antiquity.

Ostrovsky was guided in this by the noble desire "to give the democratic spectator an initial cultural inoculation." Another thing is the idealization of humility, humility, conservatism.

The assessment of Slavophile plays in Chernyshevsky's articles "Poverty is no vice" and Dobrolyubov's "Dark Kingdom" is curious.

Chernyshevsky published his article in 1854, when Ostrovsky was close to the Slavophiles, and there was a danger of Ostrovsky departing from realistic positions. Chernyshevsky calls Ostrovsky's plays "Poverty is not a vice" and "Do not sit in your own sleigh" "false", but further continues: "Ostrovsky has not yet ruined his wonderful talent, he needs to return to a realistic direction." “In truth, the power of talent, an erroneous direction destroys even the strongest talent,” concludes Chernyshevsky.

Dobrolyubov's article was written in 1859, when Ostrovsky freed himself from Slavophile influences. It was pointless to recall previous misconceptions, and Dobrolyubov, limiting himself to a dull hint on this score, focuses on revealing the realistic beginning of these same plays.

The assessments of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov complement each other and are an example of the principles of revolutionary democratic criticism.

At the beginning of 1856, a new stage began in the work of Ostrovsky.

The playwright approaches the editors of Sovremennik. This rapprochement coincides with the period of the rise of progressive social forces, with the maturing of a revolutionary situation.

He, as if following the advice of Nekrasov, returns to the path of studying social reality, the path of creating analytical plays in which pictures of modern life are given.

(In a review of the play “Don’t Live the Way You Want,” Nekrasov advised him, abandoning all preconceived ideas, to follow the path that his own talent would lead: “give free development to your talent” - the path of depicting real life).

Chernyshevsky emphasizes Ostrovsky's "wonderful talent, strong talent. Dobrolyubov - "the power of artistic flair" of the playwright.

During this period, Ostrovsky created such significant plays as "The Pupil", "Profitable Place", the trilogy about Balzaminov and, finally, during the period of the revolutionary situation - "Thunderstorm".

This period of Ostrovsky's work is characterized, first of all, by the expansion of the scope of life phenomena, the expansion of topics.

Firstly, in the field of his research, which includes the landlord, serf environment, Ostrovsky showed that the landowner Ulanbekova (“The Pupil”) mocks her victims just as cruelly as illiterate, ignorant merchants.

Ostrovsky shows that the same struggle between the rich and the poor, the older and the younger, is going on in the landowner-noble environment, as well as in the merchant one.

In addition, in the same period, Ostrovsky raises the topic of philistinism. Ostrovsky was the first Russian writer to notice and artistically discover philistinism as a social group.

The playwright discovered in philistinism a predominating and overshadowing all other interests interest in the material, what Gorky later defined as "an ugly developed sense of ownership."

In the trilogy about Balzaminov (“Festive sleep - before dinner”, “Your own dogs bite, don’t pester someone else’s”, “What you go for, you will find”) / 1857-1861 /, Ostrovsky denounces the petty-bourgeois way of existence, with its mentality, limitations , vulgarity, greed, ridiculous dreams.

In the trilogy about Balzaminov, not just ignorance or narrow-mindedness is revealed, but some kind of intellectual wretchedness, the inferiority of a tradesman. The image is built on the opposition of this mental inferiority, moral insignificance - and complacency, confidence in one's right.

In this trilogy there are elements of vaudeville, buffoonery, features of external comedy. But internal comedy prevails in it, since the figure of Balzaminov is internally comical.

Ostrovsky showed that the realm of the philistines is the same dark realm of impenetrable vulgarity, savagery, which is directed towards one goal - profit.

The next play - "Profitable Place" - testifies to the return of Ostrovsky to the path of "moral and accusatory" dramaturgy. In the same period, Ostrovsky was the discoverer of another dark kingdom - the kingdom of officials, the royal bureaucracy.

During the years of the abolition of serfdom, the denunciation of bureaucratic orders had a special political meaning. The bureaucracy was the most complete expression of the autocratic-feudal system. It embodied the exploitative-predatory essence of the autocracy. It was no longer just domestic arbitrariness, but a violation of common interests in the name of the law. It is in connection with this play that Dobrolyubov expands the concept of "tyranny", understanding it as autocracy in general.

“Profitable Place” reminds N. Gogol's comedy “Inspector General” in terms of issues. But if in The Inspector General the officials who commit lawlessness feel guilty and fear retribution, Ostrovsky's officials are imbued with the consciousness of their rightness and impunity. Bribery, abuse, seem to them and others the norm.

Ostrovsky emphasized that the distortion of all moral norms in society is the law, and the law itself is something illusory. Both officials and people dependent on them know that the laws are always on the side of those who have power.

Thus, officials - for the first time in literature - Ostrovsky are shown as a kind of dealers in the law. (The official can turn the law however he wants).

A new hero also came to Ostrovsky's play - a young official Zhadov, who had just graduated from the university. The conflict between the representatives of the old formation and Zhadov acquires the force of an irreconcilable contradiction:

a / Ostrovsky managed to show the failure of the illusions about an honest official as a force capable of stopping the abuses of the administration.

b/ fight against "Yusovism" or compromise, betrayal of ideals - Zhadov has no other choice.

Ostrovsky denounced that system, those living conditions that give rise to bribe-takers. The progressive significance of comedy lies in the fact that in it the irreconcilable denial of the old world and "Yusovism" merged with the search for a new morality.

Zhadov is a weak man, he cannot stand the fight, he also goes to ask for a "lucrative position".

Chernyshevsky believed that the play would have been even stronger if it had ended with the fourth act, i.e., with Zhadov’s cry of despair: “Let’s go to uncle to ask for a profitable job!” In the fifth, Zhadov is confronted with the abyss that nearly ruined him morally. And, although the end of Vyshimirsky is not typical, there is an element of chance in Zhadov’s salvation, his words, his belief that “somewhere there are other, more persistent, worthy people” who will not compromise, will not reconcile, will not give in, talk about the prospect of further development of new social relations. Ostrovsky foresaw the coming social upsurge.

The rapid development of psychological realism, which we observe in the second half of the 19th century, also manifested itself in dramaturgy. The secret of Ostrovsky's dramatic writing lies not in the one-dimensional characteristics of human types, but in the desire to create full-blooded human characters, the internal contradictions and struggles of which serve as a powerful impetus for the dramatic movement. G.A. Tovstonogov spoke well about this feature of Ostrovsky’s creative manner, referring, in particular, to Glumov from the comedy Enough Simplicity for Every Wise Man, a far from ideal character: “Why is Glumov charming, although he commits a number of vile deeds? he is unsympathetic to us, then there is no performance. What makes him charming is hatred of this world, and we inwardly justify his way of retribution with him.

Interest in the human personality in all its states forced writers to look for means to express them. In the drama, the main such means was the stylistic individualization of the characters' language, and it was Ostrovsky who played the leading role in the development of this method. In addition, in psychologism, Ostrovsky made an attempt to go further, along the path of giving his characters the maximum possible freedom within the framework of the author's intention - the result of such an experiment was the image of Katerina in The Thunderstorm.

In "Thunderstorm" Ostrovsky rose to the image of a tragic collision of living human feelings with the deadly house-building life.

Despite the variety of types of dramatic conflicts presented in Ostrovsky's early works, their poetics and their general atmosphere were determined, first of all, by the fact that tyranny was given in them as a natural and inevitable phenomenon of life. Even the so-called "Slavophile" plays, with their search for bright and good principles, did not destroy and did not violate the oppressive atmosphere of tyranny. The play "The Thunderstorm" is also characterized by this general coloring. And at the same time, there is a force in her that resolutely opposes the terrible, deadly routine - this is the folk element, expressed both in folk characters (Katerina, first of all, Kuligin and even Kudryash), and in Russian nature, which becomes an essential element of dramatic action. .

The play "Thunderstorm", which raised the complex issues of modern life and appeared in print and on stage just on the eve of the so-called "liberation" of the peasants, testified that Ostrovsky was free from any illusions about the ways of social development in Russia.

Even before the publication of "Thunderstorm" appeared on the Russian scene. The premiere took place on November 16, 1859 at the Maly Theatre. Magnificent actors were involved in the play: S. Vasiliev (Tikhon), P. Sadovsky (Wild), N. Rykalova (Kabanova), L. Nikulina-Kositskaya (Katerina), V. Lensky (Kudryash) and others. The production was directed by N. Ostrovsky himself. The premiere was a huge success, and subsequent performances were triumphant. A year after the brilliant premiere of The Thunderstorm, the play was awarded the highest academic award - the Great Uvarov Prize.

In The Thunderstorm, the social system of Russia is sharply denounced, and the death of the main character is shown by the playwright as a direct consequence of her hopeless situation in the "dark kingdom". The conflict in The Thunderstorm is built on the irreconcilable collision of freedom-loving Katerina with the terrible world of wild and wild boars, with bestial laws based on "cruelty, lies, mockery, humiliation of the human person. Katerina went against tyranny and obscurantism, armed only with the power of her feelings, consciousness the right to life, happiness and love.According to the fair remark of Dobrolyubov, she "feels the opportunity to satisfy the natural thirst of her soul and can no longer remain motionless: she yearns for a new life, even if she had to die in this impulse."

From childhood, Katerina was brought up in a peculiar environment that developed in her romantic dreaminess, religiosity and a thirst for freedom. These character traits further determined the tragedy of her position. Brought up in a religious spirit, she understands all the "sinfulness" of her feelings for Boris, but she cannot resist the natural attraction and completely surrenders to this impulse.

Katerina opposes not only "Kabanov's concepts of morality." She openly protests against the immutable religious dogmas that affirmed the categorical inviolability of church marriage and condemned suicide as contrary to Christian teaching. Bearing in mind this fullness of Katerina’s protest, Dobrolyubov wrote: “Here is the true strength of character, which in any case you can rely on! This is the height to which our folk life reaches in its development, but to which very few in our literature have been able to rise, and no one has been able to hold on to it as well as Ostrovsky.

Katerina does not want to put up with the surrounding deadly situation. “I don’t want to live here, so I won’t, even if you cut me!” she says to Varvara. And she commits suicide. Katerina's character is complex and multifaceted. This complexity is most eloquently evidenced, perhaps, by the fact that many outstanding performers, starting from seemingly completely opposite dominants of the main character's character, have not been able to exhaust it to the end. All these various interpretations did not fully reveal the main thing in Katerina's character: her love, to which she gives herself with all the immediacy of a young nature. Her life experience is negligible, most of all in her nature a sense of beauty, a poetic perception of nature is developed. However, her character is given in movement, in development. One contemplation of nature, as we know from the play, is not enough for her.We need other areas of application of spiritual forces.Prayer, service, myths are also means of satisfying the poetic feelings of the main character.

Dobrolyubov wrote: “It is not rituals that occupy her in the church: she does not hear at all what they sing and read there; she has other music in her soul, other visions, for her the service ends imperceptibly, as if in one second. She is occupied with trees strangely drawn on images, and she imagines a whole country of gardens, where all such trees are, and everything is in bloom, fragrant, everything is full of heavenly singing. Otherwise, on a sunny day, she will see how “such a bright pillar goes down from the dome, and smoke is walking in this pillar, like clouds,” and now she already sees, “as if angels are flying and singing in this pillar.” Sometimes she will introduce herself - why shouldn't she fly? And when she stands on a mountain, she is drawn to fly like that: like this, she would run away, raise her hands, and fly ... ".

A new, yet unexplored sphere of manifestation of her spiritual powers was her love for Boris, which ultimately became the cause of her tragedy. “The passion of a nervous passionate woman and the struggle with debt, falling, repentance and heavy atonement for guilt - all this is filled with the liveliest dramatic interest, and is conducted with extraordinary art and knowledge of the heart,” I. A. Goncharov rightly noted.

How often is the passion, the immediacy of Katerina's nature, condemned, and her deep spiritual struggle is perceived as a manifestation of weakness. Meanwhile, in the memoirs of the artist E. B. Piunova-Shmidthof we find Ostrovsky’s curious story about his heroine: “Katerina,” Alexander Nikolayevich told me, “is a woman with a passionate nature and a strong character. She proved this with her love for Boris and suicide. Katerina, although overwhelmed by the environment, at the first opportunity gives herself up to her passion, saying before that: “Come what may, but I will see Boris!” In front of the picture of hell, Katerina does not rage and hysteria, but only with her face and whole figure must portray mortal fear. In the scene of farewell to Boris, Katerina speaks quietly, like a patient, and only the last words: “My friend! My joy! Goodbye!" - He speaks as loudly as possible. Katherine's position became hopeless. You can’t live in your husband’s house ... There is nowhere to go. To parents? Yes, by that time they would have tied her up and brought her to her husband. Katerina came to the conclusion that it was impossible to live as she lived before, and, having a strong will, drowned herself ... ".

“Without fear of being accused of exaggeration,” wrote I. A. Goncharov, “I can honestly say that there was no such work as a drama in our literature. She undoubtedly occupies and probably will for a long time occupy the first place in high classical beauties. From whatever side it is taken, whether from the side of the creation plan, or the dramatic movement, or, finally, the characters, it is everywhere imprinted with the power of creativity, the subtlety of observation and the elegance of decoration. In The Thunderstorm, according to Goncharov, "a broad picture of national life and customs subsided."

Ostrovsky conceived The Thunderstorm as a comedy and then called it a drama. N. A. Dobrolyubov spoke very carefully about the genre nature of The Thunderstorm. He wrote that "the mutual relations of tyranny and voicelessness are brought in it to the most tragic consequences."

By the middle of the 19th century, Dobrolyubov’s definition of the “play of life” turned out to be more capacious than the traditional subdivision of dramatic art, which was still under the burden of classicistic norms. In Russian drama, there was a process of convergence of dramatic poetry with everyday reality, which naturally affected their genre nature. Ostrovsky, for example, wrote: “The history of Russian literature has two branches that have finally merged: one branch is grafting and is the offspring of a foreign, but well-rooted seed; it goes from Lomonosov through Sumarokov, Karamzin, Batyushkov, Zhukovsky, and so on. to Pushkin, where he begins to converge with another; the other - from Kantemir, through the comedies of the same Sumarokov, Fonvizin, Kapnist, Griboedov to Gogol; in him both are completely merged; dualism is over. On the one hand: laudatory odes, French tragedies, imitations of the ancients, the sensibility of the late eighteenth century, German romanticism, frantic youthful literature; and on the other hand: satires, comedies, comedies and "Dead Souls", Russia, as if at the same time, in the person of its best writers, lived period after period the life of foreign literatures and raised its own to universal human significance.

Comedy, thus, turned out to be closest to the everyday phenomena of Russian life, it sensitively responded to everything that worried the Russian public, reproduced life in its dramatic and tragic manifestations. That is why Dobrolyubov so stubbornly held on to the definition of "the play of life", seeing in it not so much a conventional genre meaning as the very principle of reproducing modern life in drama. Actually, Ostrovsky spoke about the same principle: “Many conditional rules have disappeared, and some more will disappear. Now dramatic works are nothing but a dramatized life. "This principle determined the development of dramatic genres throughout the subsequent decades of the 19th century. In terms of its genre, The Thunderstorm is a social tragedy.

A.I. Revyakin rightly notes that the main feature of the tragedy - "the image of irreconcilable life contradictions that cause the death of the protagonist, who is an outstanding person" - is evident in The Thunderstorm. The depiction of the folk tragedy, of course, led to new, original constructive forms of its embodiment. Ostrovsky repeatedly spoke out against the inert, traditional manner of constructing dramatic works. Thunderstorm was also innovative in this sense. He spoke about this, not without irony, in a letter to Turgenev dated June 14, 1874, in response to a proposal to print The Thunderstorm in French translation: “It does not interfere with printing The Thunderstorm in a good French translation, it can impress with its originality; but whether it should be put on stage - one can think about it. I highly appreciate the ability of the French to make plays and I am afraid to offend their delicate taste with my terrible ineptitude. From the French point of view, the construction of the Thunderstorm is ugly, but it must be admitted that it is generally not very coherent. When I wrote The Thunderstorm, I was carried away by finishing the main roles and, with unforgivable frivolity, "reacted to the form, and at the same time I was in a hurry to keep up with the late Vasiliev's benefit performance."

A.I. Zhuravleva’s reasoning about the genre originality of “Thunderstorm” is curious: “The problem of genre interpretation is the most important in the analysis of this play. If we turn to the scientific-critical and theatrical traditions of the interpretation of this play, we can distinguish two prevailing trends. One of them is dictated by the understanding of The Thunderstorm as a social and domestic drama, in which everyday life is of particular importance. The attention of the directors and, accordingly, the spectators is, as it were, equally distributed among all participants in the action, each person receives equal importance.

Another interpretation is determined by the understanding of "Thunderstorm" as a tragedy. Zhuravleva believes that such an interpretation is deeper and has "greater support in the text", despite the fact that the interpretation of "Thunderstorm" as a drama is based on the genre definition of Ostrovsky himself. The researcher rightly notes that "this definition is a tribute to tradition." Indeed, the entire previous history of Russian dramaturgy did not provide examples of a tragedy in which the heroes would be private individuals, and not historical figures, even legendary ones. "Thunderstorm" in this respect remained a unique phenomenon. The key point for understanding the genre of a dramatic work in this case is not the "social status" of the characters, but, above all, the nature of the conflict. If we understand the death of Katerina as the result of a collision with her mother-in-law, to see her as a victim of family oppression, then the scale of the heroes really looks small for a tragedy. But if you see that the fate of Katerina was determined by the clash of two historical eras, then the tragic nature of the conflict seems quite natural.

A typical sign of the tragic structure is the feeling of catharsis experienced by the audience during the denouement. By death, the heroine is freed both from oppression and from internal contradictions that torment her.

Thus, the social drama from the life of the merchant class develops into a tragedy. Ostrovsky was able to show the epoch-making turning point that is taking place in the common people's consciousness through a love-everyday collision. The awakening sense of personality and a new attitude to the world, based not on individual will, turned out to be in irreconcilable antagonism not only with the real, worldly reliable state of Ostrovsky's modern patriarchal way of life, but also with the ideal idea of ​​morality inherent in a high heroine.

This transformation of drama into tragedy was also due to the triumph of the lyrical element in The Thunderstorm.

The symbolism of the title of the play is important. First of all, the word "thunderstorm" has a direct meaning in her text. The title image is included by the playwright in the development of the action, directly participates in it as a natural phenomenon. The motive of a thunderstorm develops in the play from the first to the fourth act. At the same time, the image of a thunderstorm was also recreated by Ostrovsky as a landscape: dark clouds filled with moisture (“as if a cloud is curling in a ball”), we feel stuffiness in the air, we hear thunder, we freeze before the light of lightning.

The title of the play also has a figurative meaning. The storm is raging in Katerina's soul, it is reflected in the struggle of creative and destructive principles, the collision of bright and gloomy forebodings, good and sinful feelings. The scenes with Grokha seem to push forward the dramatic action of the play.

The thunderstorm in the play also acquires a symbolic meaning, expressing the idea of ​​the whole work as a whole. The appearance in the dark kingdom of such people as Katerina and Kuligin is a thunderstorm over Kalinov. The thunderstorm in the play conveys the catastrophic nature of life, the state of the world split in two. The many-sidedness and versatility of the title of the play becomes a kind of key to a deeper understanding of its essence.

“In Mr. Ostrovsky’s play, which bears the name “Thunderstorm,” wrote A. D. Galakhov, “the action and atmosphere are tragic, although many places excite laughter.” The Thunderstorm combines not only the tragic and the comic, but, what is especially important, the epic and the lyrical. All this determines the originality of the composition of the play. V.E. Meyerhold wrote excellently about this: “The peculiarity of the construction of the Thunderstorm is that Ostrovsky gives the highest point of tension in the fourth act (and not in the second picture of the second act), and the strengthening is noted in the script is not gradual (from, the second act through the third to the fourth), but with a push, or rather, with two pushes; the first rise is indicated in the second act, in the scene of Katerina's farewell to Tikhon (the rise is strong, but not yet very), and the second rise (very strong - this is the most sensitive push) in the fourth act, at the moment of Katerina's repentance.

Between these two acts (set as if on the tops of two unequal, but sharply rising hills) - the third act (with both pictures) lies, as it were, in a valley.

It is easy to see that the internal scheme of the construction of The Thunderstorm, subtly revealed by the director, is determined by the stages of development of Katerina's character, the stages of her development, her feelings for Boris.

A. Anastasiev notes that Ostrovsky's play has its own special destiny. For many decades, "Thunderstorm" has not left the stage of Russian theaters, N. A. Nikulina-Kositskaya, S. V. Vasilyev, N. V. Rykalova, G. N. Fedotova, M. N. Ermolova became famous for their performances of the main roles, P. A. Strepetova, O. O. Sadovskaya, A. Koonen, V. N. Pashennaya. And at the same time, "theater historians have not witnessed integral, harmonious, outstanding performances." The unsolved mystery of this great tragedy lies, according to the researcher, "in its many ideas, in the strongest alloy of undeniable, unconditional, concrete historical truth and poetic symbolism, in the organic combination of real action and a deeply hidden lyrical beginning."

Usually, when they talk about the lyricism of "Thunderstorm", they mean, first of all, the lyrical system of the worldview of the main character of the play, they also talk about the Volga, which is opposed in its most general form to the "barn" way of life and which causes Kuligin's lyrical outpourings . But the playwright could not - by virtue of the laws of the genre - include the Volga, the beautiful Volga landscapes, in general, nature in the system of dramatic action. He showed only the way in which nature becomes an integral element of the stage action. Nature here is not only an object of admiration and admiration, but also the main criterion for evaluating everything that exists, allowing you to see the alogism, the unnaturalness of modern life. “Did Ostrovsky write Thunderstorm? "Thunderstorm" Volga wrote! - exclaimed the famous theater critic and critic S. A. Yuryev.

“Every true everyday worker is at the same time a true romantic,” the well-known theater figure A. I. Yuzhin-Sumbatov will later say, referring to Ostrovsky. Romantic in the broad sense of the word, surprised by the correctness and severity of the laws of nature and the violation of these laws in public life. Ostrovsky talked about this in one of his early diary entries after arriving in Kostroma places: “And on the other side of the Volga, directly opposite the city, there are two villages; one is especially picturesque, from which the curliest grove stretches all the way to the Volga, the sun at sunset somehow miraculously climbed into it, from the root, and did many miracles.

Starting from this landscape sketch, Ostrovsky reasoned:

“I'm exhausted looking at this. Nature - you are a faithful lover, only terribly lustful; no matter how you love you, you are still dissatisfied; unsatisfied passion boils in your eyes, and no matter how you swear that you are unable to satisfy your desires, you do not get angry, do not move away, but look at everything with your passionate eyes, and these eyes full of expectation are execution and torment for a person.

The lyricism of The Thunderstorm, so specific in form (Ap. Grigoriev subtly remarked about it: “... as if not a poet, but a whole people created here ...”), arose precisely on the basis of the closeness of the world of the hero and the author.

In the 1950s and 1960s, orientation toward a healthy natural beginning became the social and ethical principle of not only Ostrovsky, but of all Russian literature: from Tolstoy and Nekrasov to Chekhov and Kuprin. Without this peculiar manifestation of the "author's" voice in dramatic works, we cannot fully understand the psychologism of "The Poor Bride", and the nature of the lyric in "Thunderstorm" and "Dowry", and the poetics of the new drama of the late 19th century.

By the end of the 1960s, Ostrovsky's work was expanding thematically. He shows how the new is mixed with the old: in the usual images of his merchants, we see gloss and secularity, education and "pleasant" manners. They are no longer stupid despots, but predatory acquirers, holding in their fist not only a family or a city, but entire provinces. In conflict with them are the most diverse people, their circle is infinitely wide. And the accusatory pathos of the plays is stronger. The best of them: "Hot Heart", "Mad Money", "Forest", "Wolves and Sheep", "Last Victim", "Dowry", "Talents and Admirers".

The shifts in the work of Ostrovsky of the last period are very clearly visible, if we compare, for example, "Hot Heart" with "Thunderstorm". Merchant Kuroslepov is an eminent merchant in the city, but not as formidable as Wild, he is rather an eccentric, he does not understand life and is busy with his dreams. His second wife, Matryona, is clearly having an affair with the clerk Narkis. They both rob the owner, and Narkis wants to become a merchant himself. No, the “dark kingdom” is not monolithic now. The Domostroevsky way of life will no longer save the self-will of the mayor Gradoboev. The unbridled revelry of the wealthy merchant Khlynov is a symbol of the burning of life, decay, nonsense: Khlynov orders the streets to be poured with champagne.

Parasha is a girl with a "hot heart". But if Katerina in The Thunderstorm turns out to be a victim of an unrequited husband and a weak-willed lover, then Parasha is aware of her powerful spiritual strength. She also wants to fly. She loves and curses the weakness of character, the indecisiveness of her lover: “What kind of guy is this, what kind of crybaby imposed on me ... Apparently, I myself should think about my own head.”

With great tension, the development of Yulia Pavlovna Tugina's love for her unworthy young reveler Dulchin is shown in The Last Victim. In the later dramas of Ostrovsky, there is a combination of action-packed situations with a detailed psychological description of the main characters. Great emphasis is placed on the vicissitudes of the torment they experience, in which the struggle of the hero or heroine with himself, with his own feelings, mistakes, and assumptions begins to occupy a large place.

In this regard, "Dowry" is characteristic. Here, perhaps, for the first time, the author focuses on the very feeling of the heroine, who has escaped from the care of her mother and the old way of life. In this play, there is not a struggle between light and darkness, but the struggle of love itself for its rights and freedom. Larisa Paratova herself preferred Karandysheva. The people around her cynically abused Larisa's feelings. The mother who wanted to “sell” her daughter, a “dowryless” for a money man, conceited that he would be the owner of such a treasure, was outraged. Paratov abused her, deceiving her best hopes and considering Larisa's love one of the fleeting pleasures. Knurov and Vozhevatov also abused, playing Larisa in toss among themselves.

What kind of cynics, ready to go for forgery, blackmail, bribery for selfish purposes, landowners turned into in post-reform Russia, we learn from the play "Sheep and Wolves". The “wolves” are the landowner Murzavetskaya, the landowner Berkutov, and the “sheep” are the young rich widow Kupavina, the weak-willed elderly gentleman Lynyaev. Murzavetskaya wants to marry her dissolute nephew to Kupavina, "scaring" her with the old bills of her late husband. In fact, the bills were forged by a trusted solicitor, Chugunov, who equally serves Kupavina. Berkutov swooped in from St. Petersburg, a landowner - and a businessman, more vile than local scoundrels. He instantly realized what was the matter. Kupavina with its huge capitals took over, without talking about feelings. Deftly "parroting" Murzavetskaya by exposing the forgery, he immediately concluded an alliance with her: it is important for him to win the ballot in the elections for the leaders of the nobility. He is a real "wolf" and is, all the rest next to him are "sheep". At the same time, there is no sharp division into scoundrels and innocents in the play. Between the "wolves" and "sheep" as if there is some kind of vile conspiracy. Everyone plays war with each other and at the same time easily put up and find a common benefit.

One of the best plays in Ostrovsky's entire repertoire, apparently, is the play Guilty Without Guilt. It combines the motifs of many previous works. The actress Kruchinina, the main character, a woman of high spiritual culture, experienced a great life tragedy. She is kind and generous hearted and wise Kruchinina stands at the pinnacle of goodness and suffering. If you like, she and the “ray of light” in the “dark kingdom”, she and the “last victim”, she and the “hot heart”, she and the “dowry”, around her are “admirers”, that is, predatory “wolves”, money-grubbers and cynics. Kruchinina, not yet assuming that Neznamov is her son, instructs him in life, reveals her unhardened heart: “I am more experienced than you and have lived more in the world; I know that in people there is a lot of nobility, a lot of love, selflessness, especially in women.

This play is a panegyric to the Russian woman, the apotheosis of her nobility and self-sacrifice. This is the apotheosis of the Russian actor, whose real soul Ostrovsky knew well.

Ostrovsky wrote for the theatre. This is the peculiarity of his gift. The images and pictures of life he created are intended for the stage. That is why the speech of Ostrovsky's characters is so important, that is why his works sound so bright. No wonder Innokenty Annensky called him a "realist-auditor". Without staging on stage, his works were as if not completed, which is why Ostrovsky took the prohibition of his plays by theatrical censorship so hard. (The comedy "Our People - Let's Settle" was allowed to be staged in the theater only ten years after Pogodin managed to publish it in a magazine.)

With a feeling of undisguised satisfaction, A. N. Ostrovsky wrote on November 3, 1878 to his friend, artist of the Alexandrinsky Theater A. F. Burdin: "The Dowry" was unanimously recognized as the best of all my works.

Ostrovsky lived "Dowry", at times only on her, his fortieth thing, directed "his attention and strength", wanting to "finish" her in the most thorough way. In September 1878, he wrote to one of his acquaintances: "I am working on my play with all my might; it seems that it will not turn out badly."

Already a day after the premiere, on November 12, Ostrovsky could find out, and undoubtedly learned from Russkiye Vedomosti, how he managed to "tire out the entire audience, even the most naive spectators." For she - the audience - has clearly "outgrown" those spectacles that he offers her.

In the 1970s Ostrovsky's relationship with critics, theaters and audiences became more and more complicated. The period when he enjoyed universal recognition, won by him in the late fifties and early sixties, was replaced by another, which was growing more and more in different circles of cooling towards the playwright.

Theatrical censorship was more severe than literary censorship. This is no coincidence. In essence, theatrical art is democratic, it is more direct than literature, it is addressed to the general public. Ostrovsky in his "Note on the situation of dramatic art in Russia at the present time" (1881) wrote that "dramatic poetry is closer to the people than other branches of literature. All other works are written for educated people, and dramas and comedies - for the whole people; dramatic writers must always remember this, they must be clear and strong. This closeness to the people does not in the least humiliate dramatic poetry, but, on the contrary, doubles its strength and prevents it from becoming vulgar and petty." Ostrovsky speaks in his "Note" about how the theatrical audience in Russia expanded after 1861. Ostrovsky writes about a new spectator, not experienced in art: “Fine literature is still boring for him and incomprehensible, music too, only the theater gives him complete pleasure, there he experiences everything that happens on the stage like a child, sympathizes with good and recognizes evil, clearly presented." For a "fresh audience," Ostrovsky wrote, "strong drama, big comedy, defiant, frank, loud laughter, hot, sincere feelings are required." It is the theater, according to Ostrovsky, which has its roots in the folk show, has the ability to directly and strongly influence the souls of people. Two and a half decades later, Alexander Blok, speaking about poetry, will write that its essence lies in the main, "walking" truths, in the ability to convey them to the reader's heart.

Move on, mourning nags!

Actors, master the craft,

To from the walking truth

Everyone felt sick and light!

("Balagan"; 1906)

The great importance that Ostrovsky attached to the theater, his thoughts about theatrical art, about the position of the theater in Russia, about the fate of the actors - all this was reflected in his plays.

In the life of Ostrovsky himself, the theater played a huge role. He took part in the production of his plays, worked with actors, was friends with many of them, corresponded. He put a lot of effort into defending the rights of actors, seeking to create a theater school in Russia, his own repertoire.

Ostrovsky knew well the inner, hidden from the eyes of the audience, backstage life of the theater. Starting with "The Forest" (1871), Ostrovsky develops the theme of the theater, creates images of actors, depicts their fate - this play is followed by "Comedian of the 17th century" (1873), "Talents and Admirers" (1881), "Guilty Without Guilt" ( 1883).

The theater in the image of Ostrovsky lives according to the laws of that world, which is familiar to the reader and the viewer from his other plays. The way the fates of the artists are formed is determined by the customs, relationships, circumstances of the "common" life. Ostrovsky's ability to recreate an accurate, lively picture of time is also fully manifested in plays about actors. This is Moscow of the era of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich ("Comedian of the 17th century"), a provincial city modern to Ostrovsky ("Talents and Admirers", "Guilty Without Guilt"), a noble estate ("Forest").

In the life of the Russian theater, which Ostrovsky knew so well, the actor was a forced person, who was in multiple dependence. “Then there was a time for favorites, and all the managerial diligence of the repertoire inspector consisted in instructions to the chief director to take every possible care when compiling the repertoire so that favorites who receive large pay per performance play every day and, if possible, at two theaters,” Ostrovsky wrote in “A Note on Draft Rules on Imperial Theaters for Dramatic Works" (1883).

In the portrayal of Ostrovsky, the actors could turn out to be almost beggars, like Neschastlivtsev and Schastlivtsev in The Forest, humiliated, losing their human form due to drunkenness, like Robinson in The Dowry, like Shmaga in Guilty Without Guilt, like Erast Gromilov in Talents and admirers", "We, the artists, our place is in the buffet", - Shmaga says with defiance and malicious irony.

Theater, the life of provincial actresses in the late 70s, at about the time when Ostrovsky wrote plays about actors, shows M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in the novel "Gentlemen Golovlyov". Yudushka's nieces Lyubinka and Anninka become actresses, escaping Golovlev's life, but end up in a nativity scene. They had no talent, no training, they had not studied acting, but all this was not required on the provincial stage. The life of actors appears in Anninka's memoirs as hell, like a nightmare: "Here is a scene with scenery sooty, captured and slippery from dampness; here she herself is spinning on the stage, just spinning, imagining that she is playing ... Drunk and pugnacious nights; passers-by landowners hurriedly taking out a green one from their skinny wallets; merchant-grip cheering the “actors” almost with a whip in their hands. And backstage life is ugly, and what is played out on stage is ugly: "... And the Duchess of Gerolstein, stunning with a hussar mentic, and Cleretta Ango, in a wedding dress, with a slit in front to the very waist, and Beautiful Elena, with a slit in front, behind and from all sides ... Nothing but shamelessness and nakedness ... that's what life has been like!" This life drives Lubinka to suicide.

The coincidences between Shchedrin and Ostrovsky in depicting the provincial theater are natural - both of them write about what they knew well, they write the truth. But Shchedrin is a merciless satirist, he exaggerates so much, the image becomes grotesque, while Ostrovsky gives an objective picture of life, his "dark kingdom" is not hopeless - it was not for nothing that N. Dobrolyubov wrote about a "ray of light".

This feature of Ostrovsky was noted by critics even when his first plays appeared. "... The ability to depict reality as it is - "mathematical fidelity to reality", the absence of any exaggeration ... All these are not the hallmarks of Gogol's poetry; all these are the hallmarks of the new comedy," B. Almazov wrote in the article "Dream by occasion of a comedy. Already in our time, the literary critic A. Skaftymov in his work "Belinsky and the dramaturgy of A.N. Ostrovsky" noted that "the most striking difference between the plays of Gogol and Ostrovsky is that Gogol does not have a victim of vice, and Ostrovsky always has a suffering victim vice... Depicting vice, Ostrovsky protects something from it, protects someone... Thus, the entire content of the play changes. in order to sharply put forward the inner legitimacy, truth and poetry of genuine humanity, oppressed and driven out in an atmosphere of dominant self-interest and deceit. Ostrovsky's approach to depicting reality, which is different from that of Gogol, is explained, of course, by the originality of his talent, the "natural" properties of the artist, but also (this should not be overlooked) by the changed time: increased attention to the individual, to his rights, recognition of his value.

IN AND. Nemirovich-Danchenko in his book "The Birth of the Theatre" writes about what makes Ostrovsky's plays especially scenic: "the atmosphere of kindness", "clear, firm sympathy on the side of the offended, to which the theater hall is always extremely sensitive."

In plays about the theater and actors, Ostrovsky certainly has the image of a true artist and a wonderful person. In real life, Ostrovsky knew many excellent people in the theater world, highly appreciated and respected them. An important role in his life was played by L. Nikulina-Kositskaya, who brilliantly performed Katerina in The Thunderstorm. Ostrovsky was friends with the artist A. Martynov, he highly appreciated N. Rybakov, G. Fedotova, M. Yermolova played in his plays; P. Strepetova.

In the play Guilty Without Guilt, actress Elena Kruchinina says: "I know that people have a lot of nobility, a lot of love, selflessness." And Otradina-Kruchinina herself belongs to such wonderful, noble people, she is a wonderful artist, smart, significant, sincere.

“Oh, don’t cry; they are not worth your tears. You are a white dove in a black flock of rooks, so they peck at you. Your whiteness, your purity is offensive to them,” Narokov says to Sasha Negina in Talents and Admirers.

The most vivid image of a noble actor created by Ostrovsky is the tragedian Neschastlivtsev in The Forest. Ostrovsky depicts a "living" person, with a difficult fate, with a sad life story. Neschastlivtsev, who drinks heavily, cannot be called a "white dove". But he changes throughout the play, the plot situation gives him the opportunity to fully reveal the best features of his nature. If at first Neschastlivtsev's behavior shows through the posturing inherent in the provincial tragedian, a predilection for pompous recitation (at these moments he is ridiculous); if, playing the master, he finds himself in ridiculous situations, then, having understood what is happening in the Gurmyzhskaya estate, what rubbish his mistress is, he takes an ardent part in the fate of Aksyusha, shows excellent human qualities. It turns out that the role of a noble hero is organic for him, this is really his role - and not only on stage, but also in life.

In his view, art and life are inextricably linked, the actor is not a hypocrite, not a pretender, his art is based on genuine feelings, genuine experiences, it should have nothing to do with pretense and lies in life. This is the meaning of the remark that Gurmyzhskaya and her entire company of Neschastlivtsev throws: "... We are artists, noble artists, and comedians are you."

Gurmyzhskaya turns out to be the main comedian in the life performance that is played out in The Forest. She chooses for herself an attractive, pretty role of a woman of strict moral rules, a generous philanthropist who has devoted herself to good deeds ("Gentlemen, do I live for myself? All that I have, all my money belongs to the poor. I am only a clerk with my money, and their master is every poor, every unfortunate one," she inspires those around her). But all this is hypocrisy, a mask that hides her true face. Gurmyzhskaya is deceiving, pretending to be kind-hearted, she did not even think of doing something for others, helping someone: “Why did I get emotional! Gurmyzhskaya not only plays a role that is completely alien to her, she also forces others to play along with her, imposes on them roles that should present her in the most favorable light: Neschastlivtsev is assigned to play the role of a grateful, loving nephew. Aksyusha - the role of the bride, Bulanov - Aksyusha's groom. But Aksyusha refuses to break a comedy for her: "I won't marry him, so why this comedy?" Gurmyzhskaya, no longer hiding the fact that she is the director of the play being played, rudely puts Aksyusha in her place: "Comedy! How dare you? But even a comedy; I feed and clothe you, and I will make you play a comedy."

The comedian Schastlivtsev, who turned out to be more perceptive than the tragic Neschastlivtsev, who at first accepted Gurmyzhskaya’s performance on faith, figured out the real situation before him, tells Neschastlivtsev: “The high school student, apparently, is smarter; he plays a better role here than yours ... He’s a lover plays, and you are ... a simpleton.

Before the viewer appears the real, without a protective pharisaic mask, Gurmyzhskaya - a greedy, selfish, deceitful, depraved lady. The spectacle that she played pursued low, vile, dirty goals.

Many of Ostrovsky's plays present such a false "theater" of life. Podkhalyuzin in Ostrovsky's first play "Our People - Let's Settle" plays the role of the most devoted and faithful owner of a person and thus achieves his goal - having deceived Bolshov, he himself becomes the owner. Glumov in the comedy "Enough Stupidity for Every Wise Man" builds his career on a complex game, putting on one or another mask. Only chance prevented him from achieving his goal in the intrigue he had started. In "Dowry" not only Robinson, entertaining Vozhevatov and Paratov, appears as a lord. The funny and pitiful Karandyshev tries to look important. Having become Larisa's fiancé, he "... raised his head so high that he would stumble upon someone. And he put on glasses for some reason, but he never wore them. He bows - barely nods," says Vozhevatov. Everything that Karandyshev does is artificial, everything is for show: the miserable horse he got, and the carpet with cheap weapons on the wall, and the dinner he arranges. Paratov's man - prudent and soulless - plays the role of a hot, unrestrainedly broad nature.

Theater in life, imposing masks are born of the desire to disguise, hide something immoral, shameful, pass off black for white. Behind such a performance is usually calculation, hypocrisy, self-interest.

Neznamov in the play "Guilty Without Guilt", being a victim of the intrigue that Korinkina started, and believing that Kruchinina only pretended to be a kind and noble woman, bitterly says: "Actress! actress! so play on stage. They pay money for a good pretense And to play in life over simple, gullible hearts that don't need a game, who ask for the truth... they should be executed for this... we don't need deceit! Give us the truth, the pure truth!" The hero of the play here expresses a very important idea for Ostrovsky about the theater, about its role in life, about the nature and purpose of acting. Ostrovsky contrasts comedy and hypocrisy in life with art full of truth and sincerity on stage. A real theater, an inspired play by an artist is always moral, brings good, enlightens a person.

Ostrovsky's plays about actors and theater, which accurately reflected the circumstances of Russian reality in the 1970s and 1980s, contain thoughts about art that are still alive today. These are thoughts about the difficult, sometimes tragic fate of a true artist, who, while realizing himself, spends, burns himself, about the happiness he finds in creativity, complete self-giving, about the lofty mission of art, which affirms goodness and humanity. Ostrovsky himself expressed himself, revealed his soul in the plays he created, perhaps especially frankly in plays about the theater and actors. Much in them is consonant with what the poet of our century writes in wonderful verses:

When the feeling dictates the line

It sends a slave to the stage,

And this is where the art ends.

And the soil and fate breathe.

(B. Pasternak " Oh I would know

what happens... ").

Entire generations of remarkable Russian artists grew up on the productions of Ostrovsky's plays. In addition to the Sadovskys, there are also Martynov, Vasiliev, Strepetov, Yermolov, Massalitinov, Gogolev. The walls of the Maly Theater saw the great playwright live, and his traditions are still growing on the stage.

The dramatic skill of Ostrovsky is the property of the modern theater, the subject of close study. It is not at all outdated, despite some old-fashionedness of many techniques. But this old-fashionedness is exactly the same as in the theater of Shakespeare, Moliere, Gogol. These are old, genuine diamonds. Ostrovsky's plays contain limitless possibilities for stage performance and acting growth.

The main strength of the playwright is the all-conquering truth, the depth of typification. Dobrolyubov also noted that Ostrovsky depicts not just types of merchants, landowners, but also universal types. Before us are all the signs of the highest art, which is immortal.

The originality of Ostrovsky's dramaturgy, its innovation is especially clearly manifested in typification. If ideas, themes and plots reveal the originality and innovation of the content of Ostrovsky's dramaturgy, then the principles of typification of characters already relate to its artistic depiction, its form.

A. H. Ostrovsky, who continued and developed the realistic traditions of Western European and Russian drama, was attracted, as a rule, not by exceptional personalities, but by ordinary, ordinary social characters of greater or lesser typicality.

Almost any character of Ostrovsky is original. At the same time, the individual in his plays does not contradict the social.

Individualizing his characters, the playwright discovers the gift of the deepest penetration into their psychological world. Many episodes of Ostrovsky's plays are masterpieces of realistic depiction of human psychology.

“Ostrovsky,” Dobrolyubov rightly wrote, “knows how to look into the depths of a person’s soul, knows how to distinguish nature from all externally accepted deformities and growths; that is why the external oppression, the heaviness of the whole situation that crushes a person, is felt in his works much more strongly than in many stories, terribly outrageous in content, but the external, official side of the matter completely obscures the inner, human side. Dobrolyubov recognized one of the main and best properties of Ostrovsky's talent in the ability to "notice nature, penetrate into the depths of a person's soul, catch his feelings, regardless of the image of his external official relations."

In working on the characters, Ostrovsky constantly improved the methods of his psychological skill, expanding the range of colors used, complicating the colors of the images. In his very first work, we have before us bright, but more or less one-linear characters of the characters. Further works are examples of a more in-depth and complicated disclosure of human images.

In Russian dramaturgy, the school of Ostrovsky is quite naturally designated. It includes I. F. Gorbunov, A. Krasovsky, A. F. Pisemsky, A. A. Potekhin, I. E. Chernyshev, M. P. Sadovsky, N. Ya. Soloviev, P. M. Nevezhin, and A. Kupchinsky. Learning from Ostrovsky, I. F. Gorbunov created wonderful scenes from the petty-bourgeois merchant and craft life. Following Ostrovsky, A. A. Potekhin revealed in his plays the impoverishment of the nobility (“The Newest Oracle”), the predatory essence of the wealthy bourgeoisie (“Guilty”), bribery, the careerism of bureaucracy (“Tinsel”), the spiritual beauty of the peasantry (“Sheep’s Fur Coat - the human soul”), the emergence of new people of a democratic warehouse (“Cut off chunk”). Potekhin's first drama, The Judgment of Man Not God, which appeared in 1854, is reminiscent of Ostrovsky's plays written under the influence of Slavophilism. At the end of the 1950s and at the very beginning of the 1960s, the plays of I. E. Chernyshev, an artist of the Alexandrinsky Theater and a permanent contributor to the Iskra magazine, were very popular in Moscow, St. Petersburg and the provinces. These plays, written in a liberal-democratic spirit, clearly imitating Ostrovsky's artistic style, made an impression with the exclusivity of the main characters, the sharp formulation of moral and domestic issues. For example, in the comedy The Bridegroom from the Debt Office (1858) it was told about a poor man who tried to marry a wealthy landowner, in the comedy Happiness Is Not in Money (1859), a soulless predator-merchant is depicted, in the drama Father of the Family (1860) tyrant-landlord, and in the comedy "Spoiled Life" (1862) depicts an extremely honest, kind official, his naive wife and a dishonorably treacherous veil that violated their happiness.

Under the influence of Ostrovsky, later, at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, such playwrights as A.I. Sumbatov-Yuzhin, Vl.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko, S. A. Naidenov, E. P. Karpov, P. P. Gnedich and many others.

Ostrovsky's indisputable authority as the country's first playwright was recognized by all progressive literary figures. Highly appreciating the dramaturgy of Ostrovsky as “nationwide”, listening to his advice, L. N. Tolstoy sent him the play “The First Distiller” in 1886. Calling Ostrovsky the "father of Russian dramaturgy," the author of "War and Peace" asked him in a cover letter to read the play and express his "father's verdict" about it.

Ostrovsky's plays, the most progressive in the dramaturgy of the second half of the 19th century, constitute a step forward in the development of world dramatic art, an independent and important chapter.

The enormous influence of Ostrovsky on the dramaturgy of the Russian, Slavic and other peoples is indisputable. But his work is connected not only with the past. It lives actively in the present. By his contribution to the theatrical repertoire, which is an expression of current life, the great playwright is our contemporary. Attention to his work does not decrease, but increases.

Ostrovsky will long attract the hearts and minds of domestic and foreign viewers with the humanistic and optimistic pathos of his ideas, the deep and broad generalization of his heroes, good and evil, their universal human properties, the uniqueness of his original dramatic skill.

Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky is a great Russian playwright, author of 47 original plays. In addition, he translated more than 20 literary works: from Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, English.

Alexander Nikolayevich was born in Moscow in the family of a raznochinets official who lived in Zamoskvorechye, on Malaya Ordynka. It was an area where the merchants settled for a long time. Merchant mansions with their blind fences, pictures of everyday life and peculiar customs of the merchant world from early childhood sunk into the soul of the future playwright.

After graduating from the gymnasium, Ostrovsky, on the advice of his father, entered the law faculty of Moscow University in 1840. But legal sciences were not his vocation. In 1843, he left the university without completing his course of study, and decided to devote himself entirely to literary activity.

Not a single playwright showed pre-revolutionary life with such completeness as A. N. Ostrovsky. Representatives of the most diverse classes, people of different professions, origins, upbringing pass before us in the artistically truthful images of his comedies, dramas, scenes from life, historical chronicles. Life, customs, characters of the philistines, nobles, officials and mainly merchants - from "very important gentlemen", rich bar and businessmen to the most insignificant and poor - are reflected by A. N. Ostrovsky with amazing breadth.

The plays were written not by an indifferent writer of everyday life, but by an angry accuser of the world of the “dark kingdom”, where for the sake of profit a person is capable of anything, where the elders rule over the younger, the rich over the poor, where the state power, the church and society in every possible way support the cruel morals that have developed over the centuries.

The works of Ostrovsky contributed to the development of public consciousness. Their revolutionary influence was perfectly defined by Dobrolyubov; he wrote: "By drawing to us in a vivid picture false relations with all their consequences, he through the very same serves as an echo of aspirations that require a better device." No wonder the defenders of the existing system did everything in their power to prevent Ostrovsky's plays from being staged. His first one-act "Picture of Family Happiness" (1847) was immediately banned by theatrical censorship, and this play appeared only 8 years later. The first big four-act comedy “Our people - we will settle” (1850) was not allowed on the stage by Nicholas I himself, imposing a resolution: “It has been printed in vain, it is forbidden to play in any case.” And the play, heavily altered at the request of censorship, was staged only in 1861. The Tsar demanded information about the way of life and thoughts of Ostrovsky and, having received a report, ordered: "To have it under supervision." The secret office of the Moscow governor-general started the "Case of the writer Ostrovsky", behind him was established an unspoken gendarmerie supervision. The apparent "unreliability" of the playwright, who then served in the Moscow Commercial Court, so worried the authorities that Ostrovsky was forced to resign.

The comedy “Our people - let's settle” that was not allowed on the stage made the author widely known. It is not difficult to explain the reasons for such a major success of the play. As if alive, the faces of the tyrant-owner Bolshov, his unrequited, stupidly submissive wife, daughter Lipochka, distorted by an absurd education, and the rogue clerk Podkhalyuzin stand before us. "The Dark Kingdom" - this is how the great Russian critic N. A. Dobrolyubov described this musty, rough life based on despotism, ignorance, deceit and arbitrariness. Together with the actors of the Moscow Maly Theater Provo Sadovsky and the great Mikhail Shchepkin, Ostrovsky read comedy in various circles.

The huge success of the play, which, according to N. A. Dobrolyubov, “belonged to the most striking and seasoned works of Ostrovsky” and conquered “with the truth of the image and a true sense of reality,” made the guardians of the existing system alert. Almost every new play by Ostrovsky was banned by the censors or not approved for presentation by the theater authorities.

Even such a wonderful drama as The Thunderstorm (1859) was met with hostility by the reactionary nobility and the press. On the other hand, representatives of the democratic camp saw in Groz a sharp protest against the feudal-serf system and fully appreciated it. The artistic integrity of the images, the depth of the ideological content and the accusatory power of The Thunderstorm allow us to recognize it as one of the most perfect works of Russian drama.

The significance of Ostrovsky is great not only as a playwright, but also as the creator of the Russian theater. “You brought literature as a gift a whole library of works of art,” I. A. Goncharov wrote to Ostrovsky, “you created your own special world for the stage. You alone completed the building, at the base of which the cornerstones Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Gogol were laid. But only after you, we, Russians, can proudly say: we have our own Russian national theater. Ostrovsky's work constituted a whole epoch in the history of our theater. The name of Ostrovsky is especially strongly connected with the history of the Moscow Maly Theatre. Almost all of Ostrovsky's plays were staged in this theater during his lifetime. They brought up several generations of artists who grew into wonderful masters of the Russian stage. Ostrovsky's plays have played such a role in the history of the Maly Theater that it proudly calls itself the Ostrovsky House.

To perform new roles, a whole galaxy of new actors had to appear and appeared, as well as Ostrovsky, who knew Russian life. Ostrovsky's plays established and developed the national Russian school of realistic acting. Starting with Prov Sadovsky in Moscow and Alexander Martynov in St. Petersburg, several generations of capital and provincial actors, up to the present day, have grown up playing roles in Ostrovsky's plays. “Fidelity to reality, to the truth of life,” Dobrolyubov spoke of Ostrovsky’s works in this way, has become one of the essential features of our national stage art.

Dobrolyubov pointed out another feature of Ostrovsky's dramaturgy - "accuracy and fidelity of the folk language." No wonder Gorky called Ostrovsky "the sorcerer of the language." Each character of Ostrovsky speaks a language typical of his class, profession, upbringing. And the actor, creating this or that image, had to be able to use the necessary intonation, pronunciation and other speech means. Ostrovsky taught the actor to listen and hear how people speak in life.

The works of the great Russian playwright recreate not only his contemporary life. They also depict the years of Polish intervention at the beginning of the 17th century. (“Kozma Minin”, “Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky”), and the legendary times of ancient Rus' (the spring fairy tale “The Snow Maiden”).

In the pre-revolutionary years, bourgeois audiences gradually began to lose interest in Ostrovsky's theater, considering it obsolete. On the Soviet stage, Ostrovsky's dramaturgy revived with renewed vigor. His plays are also performed on foreign stages.

L. N. Tolstoy wrote to the playwright in 1886: “I know from experience how your things are read, listened to and remembered by the people, and therefore I would like to help you become now as soon as possible in reality what you are, undoubtedly – nationwide – in the broadest sense, a writer”.

After the Great October Socialist Revolution, the work of A. N. Ostrovsky became popular among the people.

Ostrovsky Alexander Nikolaevich (1823-1886). Born in Moscow, grew up in a merchant environment. Father is a judge. O. himself graduated from the gymnasium, did not finish the law faculty of Moscow State University, after (1843-1851) he served in the army, holding low posts. There are four periods in the creative development of Ostrovsky:

1) First period (1847-1851)- the time of the first literary experiments. Ostrovsky began quite in the spirit of the time - with narrative prose. In essays on the life and customs of Zamoskvorechie, 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 "Bankrupt" (“Own people - let's settle!»), which became the main work of the early period. (Published in the Moskvityanin magazine in 1850. The story of the merchant Samson Silych Bolshov, who decided to deceive his creditors and declare himself bankrupt, and as a result found himself deceived and sent to a debtor's prison by his unscrupulous daughter Lipochka and her husband, the clerk Podkhalyuzin. The play was banned from staging , the playwright was put under police supervision.The work saw the light after 12 years (68 g)).

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

3) Third period (1856-1860) marked by Ostrovsky's refusal to seek positive beginnings in the life of the patriarchal merchant class (this was typical of plays written in the first half of the 1850s). The playwright, sensitive to the changes in the social and ideological life of Russia, became close to the leaders of the raznochinskaya democracy - the staff of the Sovremennik magazine. The creative result of this period was the play “Hangover in someone else’s feast”, "Profitable place" and "Thunderstorm","the most decisive", according to the definition of N.A. Dobrolyubov, the work of Ostrovsky.

4) Fourth period (1861-1886)- the longest period of creative activity. The genre range expanded, the poetics of his works became more diverse. For twenty years, plays have been created that can be divided into several genre-thematic groups: 1) comedies from merchant life (“Not everything is Shrovetide for a cat”, “Truth is good, but happiness is better”, “The heart is not a stone”), 2) satirical comedy ("There is enough simplicity for every wise man,""Hot Heart", "Mad Money", "Wolves and Sheep", "Forest"), 3) plays, which 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 a trilogy about Balzaminov), 4) historical chronicle plays (“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.

10. Thunderstorm. Drama or tragedy (TRAGEDY!).

The unity of the "Thunderstorm" is not complete (i.e. classicism violated = so this is not a drama):

1. Time is not 24 hours, but 10 days. 2. Locations are constantly changing. 3. Action - Ekaterina + Feklusha, not 1 character. In addition, the main character is from a low class, and for classicism, heroes are gods, demigods, kings, etc.

Construction scheme tragedy complied with: 1. The presence of a tragic hero; 2. Hero of the highest class; 3. The presence of a tragic conflict (a conflict that cannot be resolved peacefully = Euripides "God from the Machine"); 4. catharsis (purification of both the hero and the viewer) - occurs with Tikhon, Barbara (runs away with Kudryash), Kulibin (changes).

In "Thunderstorm" - 2 conflicts - this is INNOVATION IN EUROPEAN LITERATURE.

- External. Katya is a ray of light in a good kingdom; kingdom - Feklusha is personified.

- Internal. Catherine is a believer and she sinned = doomed. BUT! She cannot but sin, because 1. she does not love her husband, she does not need him. 2. cannot help but love (be left alone); all this leads her to SUICIDE.

RESULT: TRAGEDY: 1. hero. 2. conflict. 3. catharsis.

11. Life and work of Goncharov.

One novel to choose from "Oblomov", "Cliff", "Ordinary History". Know the essence of his travels.

Ivan Alexandrovich Goncharov (1812–1891), was born into a merchant family with 4 children Education in a private boarding school - familiarization with books by Western European and Russian authors, studying French. language. 1823 - Moscow State University, Faculty of Philology.

After university, he served in the office of the Simbirsk governor, then moved to St. Petersburg - an interpreter at the Ministry of Finance. Goncharov's first creative experiments - poetry, anti-romantic story "Dashing Pain" and story "Lucky Mistake"- were published in a handwritten journal. In 1842 he wrote essay "Ivan Savich Podzhabrin", published only six years after its creation. In 1847, the novel An Ordinary Story was published in the Sovremennik magazine. The novel is based on the clash of two central characters - Aduev-uncle and Aduev-nephew, personifying sober practicality and enthusiastic idealism. Each of the characters is psychologically close to the writer and represents different projections of his spiritual world. "Ordinary History" was approved by V. G. Belinsky(in the article "A Look at Russian Literature of 1847"), whose assessment was the subject of Goncharov's special pride throughout his life. The leaders of the democratic trend in the literature of that time welcomed the novel for its deep artistic research and a sharp rejection of romance in its many forms. Aduev writes poetry, but his romanticism is lifeless, which is mockingly stated by his uncle, Pyotr Ivanovich Aduev. In explaining the reasons why the life of Aduev Jr. turns out to be meaningless and useless, Goncharov anticipates the main idea of ​​the novel "Oblomov". The empty enthusiastic rantings of the hero act as a consequence of his lordly upbringing. Goncharov began work on this novel as early as the 1940s. In 1849 in the almanac "Literary collection with illustrations" under the journal "Contemporary" was published "Oblomov's Dream". An episode of an unfinished novel. But before G. finishes the novel, many more events will happen. In October 1852 of the year G Oncharov became a participant in a round-the-world trip on a sailing warship - the Pallada frigate - as secretary to the head of the expedition, Vice Admiral Putyatin. She was equipped to inspect Russian possessions in North America - Alaska, which at that time belonged to Russia, as well as to establish political and trade relations with Japan. Cycle of travel essays "Frigate" Pallada ""(1855-1857) - a kind of "diary of a writer ». During the trip, he kept careful notes, characterizing in them everything he saw in Europe, Africa and Asia. Records = a true depiction of life. The sailor-traveler is simultaneously in his “own” world of the ship and in the “foreign” world of geographic space. He returned, entered the service of the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee (provided assistance to Turgenev's Notes of a Hunter, Pisemsky's A Thousand Souls, etc.). In 1859, the novel "Oblomov" was published (10 years have passed since the publication of the chapter in the journal). Immediately Art. Dobrolyubov "What is Oblomovism?".

Goncharov's last novel "break", published in 1869, presents a new version of Oblomovism in the image of the main character - Boris Raisky. It was conceived in 1849 as a novel about the complex relationship between the artist and society, but the writer changed his plan: the fate of the revolutionary-minded youth, presented in the image of the “nihilist” Mark Volokhov, turned out to be at the center of the novel. The novel "Cliff" caused a mixed assessment of criticism. Many questioned the author's talent and denied him the right to judge today's youth. Further, Goncharov rarely published.

1871 - literary critical article "A million torments" dedicated to the staging of Griboedov's comedy "Woe from Wit". After "Notes on the Personality of Belinsky", the article "Hamlet", feature article "Literary Evening" and newspaper feuilletons. The result of Goncharov's creative activity in the 70s. considered a critical work on his own work entitled " Better late than never". In recent years he lived alone, worked quite a lot, but before his death he burned everything.