Why did you choose the topic of the world of merchants from Gogol? Early works of A

Brykina Yu.Ya. — Early works of A. N. Ostrovsky as a historical source for studying the objective world of merchants (using the example of a merchant’s house) // Genesis: historical research. - 2016. - No. 5. - P. 166 - 173. DOI: 10.7256/2409-868X.2016.5.18476 URL: https://nbpublish.com/library_read_article.php?id=18476

Early works of A. N. Ostrovsky as a historical source for studying the objective world of merchants (using the example of a merchant house)

10.7256/2409-868X.2016.5.18476

Abstract.

The subject of this research is the description of the merchant house in the compositions of A. N. Ostrovsky of the pre-reforming period. The goal of this work consists in establishing the level of authenticity in description of the house and elements of the home interior in the early oeuvres of the playwright. Stereotype about the creative work of A. N. Ostrovsky as the literary pathfinder of the merchant class, formed during the playwright’s lifetime. His plays were perceived as the “image of life” of the tradespeople, which in the 1830-1850’s has existed in its own, hidden from the strangers’ eyes of the world. Even the very first works of Ostrovsky attracted the interest of the critics and audience. The acquaintance with the environment from inside, language, and artistic manner of Ostrovsky imparted his compositions with a specific believability. The comparison of description of the elements of the merchant house in the works of A. N. Ostrovsky with the similar facts from the memories of the representatives of this class allow establishing the level of authenticity in depiction of the realities of the merchants. The memoir heritage, which has records of the life of Moscow merchants of 1845-1860’s, is not quite large. The scientific novelty consists in the use of the dramaturgical compositions for examination of the real life of the merchant class. The relevance of the work lies in the fact that home interior can be viewed as a cultural code towards understanding not only of the characters of its dwellers in particular, but also the social group which they belong to as a whole. The description of the house contains two parts: description of the interior and exterior. The research demonstrated that the plays do not depict the outside view of the merchant house. A. N. Ostrovsky just mentions the place of action. The memories of the merchant class representatives help to fulfill this gap in lack of information. As of the interior scenery, the comparative analysis of the works of A. N. Ostrovsky with the memoirs indicates the complete identity of the interiors pictured in the literary compositions and existed in reality.

Keywords:

Merchants, Cultural code, Memoirs of the merchant representatives, Historical source, Exterior of the merchant house, Interior of the merchant house, Realities of the merchant world, Daily life of the merchants, Early dramaturgy of A. N. Ostrovsky , A. N Ostrovsky

The problem of using works of fiction as a historical source has been relevant for several decades. A historiographical review of this issue is thoroughly presented in the article by I. A. Mankevich. While the source study approach to fiction as a whole has become part of the practice of historical research, the use of drama as a historical source has been practically not reflected in research.

The first articles devoted to the works of A. N. Ostrovsky began to appear immediately after the publication of the playwright’s first plays, and somewhat later studies of his work followed. However, the bulk of these works were and continue to be of a biographical or literary nature. The novelty of the research lies in the use of works by A. N. Ostrovsky as a historical source for recreating the objective world of the merchants.

The subject of this study was the description of a merchant's house in the early works of A.N. Ostrovsky.

The use of the comparative method made it possible to establish the degree of reliability in the description of the merchant's house in the works of A. N. Ostrovsky. For this purpose, the memoirs of representatives of the merchant families Vishnyakov, Krestovnikov, and Naydenov were selected, describing the home life of their families.

In his plays, A. N. Ostrovsky portrayed representatives of different classes, however, starting with the appearance of the play “Our People - We Will Be Numbered!”, among the overwhelming majority of critics, the playwright’s fame as a literary pioneer of the merchant class was established. This opinion was supported by the facts of the biography of the aspiring playwright. A. N. Ostrovsky was born in Zamoskvorechye and knew its life very well. Work in the Moscow Conscientious Court, and then in the Moscow Commercial Court, significantly enriched the experience of the young playwright, giving him knowledge of the language, life and psychology of merchant Moscow. Long trips along the Volga helped to feel the spirit of the provincial merchants. “Columbus of Zamoskvorechye”, “Przhevalsky of Inner Asia” - these epithets began to be most often applied to A. N. Ostrovsky. P. N. Polevoy, a historian of Russian and general literature, saw the merits of the playwright in the fact that “he was the first to lift the edge of the veil, which had hitherto hidden the isolated, tightly closed world of the merchants from everyone.” The famous actress A. I. Schubert noted: “But then Ostrovsky appeared, and the roles of merchants received the right of citizenship: before him, merchants were depicted only in caricature.” However, A. N. Ostrovsky was not the first who turned to the merchants as material literary embodiment. The merchant class was “discovered” through the efforts of a number of playwrights of the 18th century, and by prose writers even earlier. Playwrights of the 18th century covered almost all the main aspects of merchant life

Against the background of vaudeville and melodrama, which filled the theater repertoire, domestic drama and comedy, including those with merchant themes, at the beginning of the 19th century. faded into the background. Only in the 1830s. The theater's keen interest in plays about the merchants became apparent. A decade later, the life of a merchant in dramatic literature is already turning into a cliche. “The entire use of Russian imagination and humor on stage,” a theater observer wrote in 1847, “is limited ... in comedy to two or three stereotypical figures of petty officials and merchants of Shchukin’s court, whom the authors in each new play, like dolls, dress only in a new costume , depending on the time and location of the action." During this period, numerous essays appeared about the merchants. Revival of interest in the merchant class in the 1830s - 1840s. explained by the increasing role of the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie. Already in 1832, most of the houses in Moscow belonged to the “middle class”. In 1845, V. G. Belinsky writes: “The core of the indigenous Moscow population is the merchant class. How many ancient noble houses have now become the property of the merchants!” The depiction of merchants at this time reflected public interest in this class. A. N. Ostrovsky managed to emphasize its most characteristic features. According to the remark of one of the largest researchers of the work of A. N. Ostrovsky, A. I. Revyakin, the playwright “found the essence of the general (requirements - Yu. B.’s note) of life at a time when they were hidden and expressed by very few and very weakly” . It was with the image of the merchants that A.N. began. Ostrovsky his work. The playwright discovered a country “until now unknown to anyone in detail and undescribed by any traveler... This country, according to official news, lies directly opposite the Kremlin, on the other side of the Moskva River, which is probably why it is called “Zamoskvorechye” ... Until now, only the position and name of this country were known; as for its inhabitants, that is, their way of life, language, morals, customs, degree of education - all this was covered in the darkness of the unknown.”

The choice of location for the early plays of A. N. Ostrovsky played an important role in his work. It is noteworthy that while very reliably describing the Moscow way of life, which was well known to him, when transferring the scene of the play to the provinces, the playwright preferred fictional cities. This formed the typical image of the provincial merchants.

The location of the first plays by A. N. Ostrovsky is Moscow. In the plays “Picture of Family Happiness” and “Our People – Let’s Be Numbered!” - Zamoskvorechye. The playwright moves the actions of the so-called “Slavophile” plays from the capital to the district towns (the fictional Cheremukhin, “Don’t sit in your own sleigh”), then returns again to the capital (“At someone else’s feast, a hangover,” “Holiday dream,” “Didn’t get along”) characters"). Moreover, the last two plays are designated by A.N. Ostrovsky as pictures of Moscow life. The drama "The Thunderstorm" takes place in the fictional city of Kalinov on the banks of the Volga. The events described in the comedies “Picture of Family Happiness” and “Our People - Let's Be Numbered!” unfold in the merchant houses of the Puzatovs and Bolshovs. The scenes of “The Morning of a Young Man” were played out in Nedopekin’s room, but in which one it is not known exactly. If in the first plays of A.N. Ostrovsky, all events take place in the enclosed space of a house, then in the play “Don’t Sit in Your Own Sleigh,” the action moves from a tavern to a merchant’s house, to a Russian wooden hut. The same can be observed in “The Thunderstorm”, where only the 2nd act takes place in the house, and all the rest - in a public garden, on the banks of the Volga. Thus, A. N. Ostrovsky gradually takes the characters out of the houses, trying to show their relationships , both with each other and with representatives of other social groups. This allows us to determine the difference in behavior at home and in public places. However, while expanding the location of the plays, the playwright rarely moved it outside of Moscow. Thus, the plays of the pre-reform period form a stereotype about the life and morals of the Moscow merchants.

There are practically no descriptions of the house's exterior in the plays. Memoirs help fill in the missing information. For example, from the memoirs of N.A. Naydenov, you can find out that the house in which the family lived was built in the 1820s. and for a long time (until the 1870s) it was not equipped. The house had a stone extension and was surrounded by two gardens.

The Vishnyakov family lived in a house that consisted of two stone buildings: the front, main, two-story with a mezzanine, overlooking Malaya Yakimanka, and the back, three-story, standing in the courtyard. The house had a large garden and courtyard with a bathhouse, a storage room, a barn and a stable. The family kept 5 horses: one ceremonial riding pair, a simpler pair and a single horse. The bathhouse was dilapidated and was rarely used, preferring public baths. Little Nikolai Vishnyakov was washed in the kitchen, on a Russian stove.

A. N. Ostrovsky pays more attention to the interior decoration of the house. In the first plays this trait is still weakly expressed. For example, the playwright does not mention the situation in Bolshov’s house (“We are our own people!”), however, from Lipochka’s conversation about her future home and her desire to decorate it with “puketas” and “birds of paradise,” we can conclude that despite Bolshov’s wealth and fashionable trends did not in any way affect Bolshov’s house. Lipochka could dream of a house like the Puzatovs had, for example (“Family Picture”). A. N. Ostrovsky described one of the rooms in this house: the room was furnished “without taste”; above the sofa there are portraits, on the ceiling there are “birds of paradise” (which Lipochka dreamed of so much), on the windows there are multi-colored draperies and bottles of castor oil.

The rooms of the young merchants were different from the rooms in the Puzatovs’ house. For example, Podkhalyuzin’s living room (“We’ll count our own people!”) is richly furnished, and Nedopekin’s room (“Morning of a Young Man”) meets the requirements of fashion, but does not look tasteless. In the young man’s room there was a Turkish sofa and “all kinds of upholstered furniture,” a desk with rich accessories, a dressing table; the windows are “luxuriously” draped, there are prints on the walls.

The “Slavophile” plays of A. N. Ostrovsky already describe merchant houses in more detail. Depicting the life of Rusakov (“Don’t sit in your own sleigh”), the playwright seems to be trying to show the house of one of the best representatives of the merchant class (unlike Bolshov and Puzatov), ​​the guardian of Russian life (unlike Tortsov, “Poverty is not a vice” ). The room in Rusakov’s house has the “usual interior of a merchant’s house”: a table, a sofa, flowers on the windows, a guitar. In his notes to the play, A. N. Ostrovsky describes the room as follows: “a room in a merchant’s house, cleanly decorated and well furnished, there are flowers on the windows, family portraits and an old clock on the walls.” In this house there are no longer “birds of paradise”, “capidons”, “pouquets”, or bottles on the windows. Tortsov's living room is the exact opposite of Rusakov's room. There is a sofa, a large table and six armchairs, mirrors, and under the mirrors there are small tables. The living room of Gordey Karpych cannot have the “ordinary interior of a merchant’s house,” since Tortsov strives to follow fashion in everything and is ashamed of everything Russian and traditional. Although the houses of Rusakov and Tortsov are very different from each other, they have nothing in common with the tasteless house of the Puzatovs. In addition to the living room in Tortsov’s house, A. N. Ostrovsky described the rooms of Pelageya Egorovna (the wife of Gordey Karpych) and the clerk Mitya. Tortsova’s room is a “hostess’s office”, from where she manages the entire house and where she receives guests. The “office” is furnished with various types of cabinets, chests and shelves with dishes and silver; The furniture in the room includes sofas, armchairs, tables: “everything is very rich and placed closely.”

In subsequent plays, A. N. Ostrovsky pays little attention to interior details. From the playwright’s notes, you can find out that the living rooms in the houses of Bruskov (“At Someone Else’s Feast, a Hangover”) and Nichkina (“A Festive Dream - Before Dinner”) are rich. In addition to good furniture, Nichkina’s living room also had a piano. There is not even such information about the houses of Dikiy (“Thunderstorm”), Kabanikha (“Thunderstorm”), Tolstogorazdov (“They didn’t get along”).

Thus, the objective life of the merchants is described in most detail in the early and “Slavophile” plays of A. N. Ostrovsky. Probably, using this technique, the playwright tried to complement the characters. Subsequently, the playwright uses other techniques, but to achieve the same goal.

Describing the home environment is one of the techniques that allows you to reveal the character of the inhabitants of the house. The negative traits of the Bolshovs and Puzatovs are emphasized by their passion for “birds of paradise” and colorful draperies. The playwright focuses on the bad taste of the characters. The well-furnished room of Nedopekin, the living room of Tortsov, these followers of fashion, reveal other character traits. The house of the merchant Rusakov differs from previous interiors in the absence of both fashionable elements and “bundles” with “birds of paradise”. There are no frills, everything is modest and neat.

The early works of A. N. Ostrovsky include the essay “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident.” This genre allowed A. N. Ostrovsky to describe in more detail one of the merchant interiors: “It is she (the Zamoskvoretsk force - Yu. B.’s note) that drives a man into a stone house and locks the iron gates behind him<…>she puts a cross on the gate because of an evil spirit, and because of evil people she lets dogs roam the yard. She places bottles in the windows, buys annual quantities of fish, honey, cabbage and salts corned beef for future use.” Rich merchants painted their houses in an “amazing way.” The “house” of the moneylender Mavra Agurevna was “littered and filled with things of all kinds: there were pianos, tables, and chests of drawers, clocks of various shapes on the tables, cloaks hung in the corners under the sheets, overcoats warm and cold, silver in the cupboards, table linen and, in a word, everything that a person can pawn in need.”

Memoirists also paid attention to describing the home environment. The Vishnyakov family owned a house with 20 rooms. N.P. Vishnyakov describes it as follows: “The mezzanine of the main house faced the street with three large, high and bright windows - a hall and two living rooms. According to the custom of that time, they were intended exclusively “for the parade,” i.e. for receiving guests." The living rooms, “distinguished by their relatively modest size, low ceilings and small windows into the courtyard,” occupied the third floor of the second house. The walls of the main staircase were painted with landscapes with shepherdesses, sheep, deer and birds of paradise. The state rooms were decorated with glass cabinets with shelves, “on which were placed a lot of things that were valuable from memories - those sometimes expensive trinkets that had historical significance in the lives of their owners” (gilded cups, painted snuff boxes, bottles, ivory fans, bronze incense burners of various shapes, cups for flowers and bouquets, gifts and offerings from relatives and friends). In the first living room there was a large English Benjamin Ward clock with mechanics. In the second living room, above the large sofa hung large oil portraits of P. M. Vishnyakov and his first wife. According to N. P. Vishnyakov, the situation in the house did not change for years, remaining the same from day to day, from year to year.

The Krestovnikov family also owned a large house, consisting of a main building in the style of the Alexander era, three large stone outbuildings and large servants' quarters. There were two gardens near the house. The main staircase was made of granite. The vast living room and hall with choirs were painted on the walls and ceiling with landscapes depicting Naples with Vesuvius spewing fiery lava, views of Switzerland, flying cupids, etc. There were many living rooms on all floors; the lower floor housed an office and rooms for employees.

Thus, A. N. Ostrovsky’s plays and memoirs in describing the interior of a merchant’s house do not contradict each other. The playwright’s works say practically nothing about the exterior of the house. Drama, more focused on the viewer, as a historical source for studying the objective world of the merchants, is labor-intensive to research. However, A.N. Ostrovsky did not neglect the opportunity to introduce additional, very subtle, but apt semantic accents into his works, laconically describing the elements of the home environment. This allows us to more fully reveal the characters of the inhabitants of the house and allows us to reconstruct not only the objective, but also the spiritual world of the merchants.

Bibliography

Here he is sitting in the capital with his back to the Maly Theater and scowling at the Bolshoi Theater. He is the singer of the Russian merchants, playwright Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky. The 190th anniversary of his birth is a good reason to remember the playwright, who vividly described a life incomprehensible to the average person, giving his works titles borrowed from Russian proverbs and sayings. The class merchant obscured his human features for him.

The playwright Ostrovsky never rose above the mercantile view of the merchant class. He knew the life of these people very well, but the eternally human was inaccessible to him. It is difficult to determine the genre of Ostrovsky's dramatic works. By the way, Anton Chekhov called his not the funniest production “The Cherry Orchard” a comedy. Ostrovsky does not have a single comedy, even by name. It is also difficult to call them a tragedy. Despite all the hopelessness and poor outlook of the characters. The state for which such people work, who were written out by the everyday life writer Ostrovsky, is worthless. Nevertheless, despite the playwright, the great Russian Empire existed and the merchants he reviled made their contribution to its prosperity.

Tipsy actors, a gypsy camp, reckless revelry, and so on - all this is taken seriously not only by Ostrovsky’s heroes, but by the author himself. Lermontov in the preface to “A Hero of Our Time” wrote that there is no need to identify a literary character and his author, but this does not apply to the dramaturgy of Alexander Nikolaevich. His heroes are the playwright himself. He is neither higher nor lower than his heroes - the merchants. Ostrovsky is the flesh of these merchants in every sense of the word. There is no indignation of Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chekhov's mockery or some of Leskov's detachment.

Soviet literary criticism considered “The Thunderstorm” to be Ostrovsky’s iconic work. Only in anecdotes, for twenty years now they have been remembering “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom,” as the democrat Dobrolyubov called Katerina, and also the heroine’s desire to “fly,” oh, if only on a hang glider... Thanks to cinema, the domestic audience knows only of Ostrovsky’s works "Dowry." More precisely, its next version called “Cruel Romance”. The nobleman Nikita Mikhalkov, singing “gypsy” poems supposedly by Kipling (the translation is not only not equivalent to the original, if without insults, then it is vulgar). The delightful Larisa Guzeeva, who does not speak or sing in her own voice, and outstanding actors - Alisa Freindlikh, Alexei Petrenko, Viktor Proskurin - were turned by the director's genius of Eldar Ryazanov into a two-part mess of a cult film. Soviet criticism still managed to kick Ryazanov for the so-called “petty topics.”

The plot of this film is familiar to many, but it is fundamentally different from Ostrovsky’s plan. The dowryless Larisa Ogudalova in the play, and not in the modernized film, suffers not so much because of her unrequited passion for the impoverished master Paratov, but because of her lack of a dowry. For the merchant singer, love and money are equivalent things. With or without money, Larisa’s moral character would not have undergone any changes. Long before Material Girl performed by the pop singer Madonna, our home-grown Ostrovsky brought such heroines and heroes to the theatrical podium. However, heroes is an understatement. The heroes could have been in an ancient Greek tragedy, in Lermontov's drama "Masquerade".

But in Alexander Ostrovsky we find everything we want: a patriarchal way of life, “tasty” dialogues (now, alas, Russian people don’t say that anymore), pictures of everyday life, but not true tragedy. It’s typical, but the playwright was more successful with the image of the creative Snow Maiden than the full-blooded, real-life Kupava. It’s just that Kupava initially “melted” from weakness as a writer, and Snegurochka - as a result of literary intention. At the same time, the writer lost all his fabulous simplicity and naivety. Some purists see in his epic style of speech not primordial folk, but deliberate stylization.