Assessment of the drama thunderstorm. The controversy of critics around the drama "Thunderstorm". The play is estimated by N. Dobrolyubov, D. I. Pisarev, A. A. Grigoriev. Final word of the teacher

M. I. Pisarev

"Thunderstorm". Drama by A. N. Ostrovsky

Drama by A. N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm" in Russian criticism Sat. articles / Comp., ed. intro. articles and comments Sukhikh I. N.-- L .: Publishing House of Leningrad. un-ta, 1990.-- 336 p. A storm rose up on Ostrovsky's Thunderstorm, it seems to be a land storm, preceded by a dusty hurricane. 1 We did not see the storm itself, but the hurricane crumbled into dust in the open and disappeared without a trace. Another sophisticated Moscow newspaper has risen to Groza, which you will not understand in old age: it is cunning, and blushing, and this newspaper gossips like an old maid. (Youth and beauty and naturalness are not to her liking - and so she took up arms against the "Thunderstorm" with all the tricks of a stunted mind. But neither the storms of "Our Time", nor mental gymnastics on tightly stretched conclusions are needed in order to approach the work, which, nevertheless, stands out brightly and far from a number of our dozen dramas. A storm of soul reveals an inner anxiety stemming from some extraneous considerations; mental subtleties show premeditation, and both reveal annoyance stemming from the fact that although the berry our field, but everyone likes it. In our opinion, we must approach a work of art directly and boldly, and calmly, without further ado, believe it with our taste. We should not care about the fawn gloves of a neighbor. taste, brought up on the best, if not all of the same high-society examples - that's what critics also need: without this, he will certainly let it slip and hint at his a hell of a thought... Mr. Ostrovsky's new work is full of life, freshness of colors and the greatest truth. Only by studying directly the environment from which its content was taken, it was possible to write it. In terms of its content, the drama refers to the merchant life of a remote town, but even in this life, crushed by senseless ritualism, petty arrogance, a spark of human feeling sometimes breaks through. To catch this spark of moral freedom and notice its struggle against the heavy oppression of customs, against fanaticism of concepts, against the capricious whim of arbitrariness, to respond with poetic feeling to this spark of God, bursting into light and space, means to find content for the drama. In whatever life this struggle takes place, no matter how it ends, but if it already exists, then there is also the possibility of drama. The rest is in the talent of the writer himself. The essence of Mr. Ostrovsky's drama obviously consists in the struggle between the freedom of moral feeling and the autocracy of family life. On the one hand, slavish obedience to the elder in the house according to ancient custom, frozen motionless, without exception, in its inexorable severity; on the other hand, family despotism according to the same law is expressed in the Kabanovs: Tikhon and his mother. Driven, intimidated, downtrodden, forever led by someone else's mind, someone else's will, the eternal slave of the family, Tikhon could neither develop his mind nor give scope to his free will. That is why it lacks either one or the other. Nothing is so deadly to the mind as eternal walking on the harness, as guardianship, which orders to do this and that without any reflection. If Tikhon is stupid, it is because others thought for him; if, breaking free, he greedily seizes every minute of the vulgar pleasures of life, like drunkenness, and rushes headlong into insane revelry, it is because he never lived in freedom; if he acts surreptitiously, it is because he was the eternal slave of a jealous family, inviolable charter. He only honors his mother; he could love his wife, but his mother constantly stifles all free impulses of love in him, demanding that the wife, in the old way, fear and honor her husband. All feelings of conjugal love should be manifested only in a known, consecrated by ancient custom, form. Whether they are present or not, they must be in this form where custom requires them, and not be where custom does not require them. Any freedom of moral movement is suppressed: rite, custom, antiquity have formed into an immovable form and shackled the whole person from his birth right up to the grave, life development stalls under this pound oppression. Anyone who has read The Thunderstorm will agree with us in the main points by which we defined family victims like Tikhon; Even more, we hope, will agree those who saw "Thunderstorm" on the stage, where Tikhon's face comes to life in a wonderful game of Messrs. Vasiliev and Martynov. 2 Each of these two first-rate artists took on the role in his own way and gave it the shade that is determined by the means of the artist. This, however, did not prevent them from living in the role, moving into it in such a way that their own personality completely disappeared into it. There are many Tikhonov in the world; each of them has its own distinction, but they all look like Tikhon, brought to the stage in "Thunderstorm". So Messrs. Vasiliev and Martynov each gave Tikhon a special distinction, but evenly reproduced the face conceived by the author. There is no doubt that the author conceived this face in only one form; nevertheless, the gift of creativity, which goes to the share of the actor, cannot rest on the mere transmission of words and the main traits of character, which we notice in mediocre actors. A mediocre actor grasps a little in a role, sometimes very correctly, but, not entering the role completely, so as to live in it as a whole, living face from head to toe, he sins, does not fit into the tone in the details, which, taken together, make up a complete human being. shape. That is why the desire only to convey, and not to revive the face depicted in the drama, leads mediocre actors to read from a memorized, monotonous voice, to this dryness, deadness of the game, in which one can easily say that one played the role better, the other worse. But the actor, gifted with creativity, guessing the thoughts of the author with his artistic flair, creates the role so that it comes to life as a truly living person; and if two such actors take on the same role, then general, generic or ideal features remain the same for them, or everything that makes up the personality of a person as a living and actually existing unit, this flesh, so to speak, imprinted with common, typical features, is already created by the means that the actor himself possesses. And since there are no two actors who are completely similar in nature, although equally talented, they also do not have completely similar creatures. Just as an ideal or type is realized in society in different faces, with different shades, so the role can, in the performance of this or that actor, acquire different shades, different flesh, different sides, depending on how the actor imagines this type in real life. . In a word, the transformation of the author's thoughts into living reality depends on the actor's creativity; the author shows how the face should be, the actor portrays this face as it really is, with his appearance, voice, techniques, posture, with his sincere features. And this creativity of the actor, this difference in acting in one and the same role, is in no way hindered by the fact that the actor is obliged to literally convey the words of the original. Let us imagine such a happy combination of names as the names of Messrs. Ostrovsky, Martynov and Vasiliev; Let us remember that in drama each person is determined in no other way than by himself. Having conceived the face of Tikhon, Mr. Ostrovsky, of course, gave him the best definition in himself, so that the actor, having guessed the author's thought, has only to coincide with the author in the very expressions. It is possible, of course, to improvise speech on the stage, when the author sets out only the content of the play and determines what character should be expressed in this or that person, and the actor himself conducts the conversation. Such impromptu performances once existed throughout Europe, when stage art was just emerging, now it remains only in ballets, where the actor replaces verbal expressions with facial expressions. We have mentioned this only to clarify our thought. In a good drama, a ready-made speech is not a difficulty for a good actor, but, on the contrary, a relief; for he cannot imagine the face intended by the author otherwise, if only he understood it, than with this same speech. Another thing is mediocre plays, mediocre performers. A good actor, playing in a mediocre play and guessing the thoughts of the author, often stumbles over expressions that the author uses out of tune with the general character of the face, stumbles over all those irregularities, inconsistencies that do not fit into his concepts of the general features of the face. Then a good actor covers up the author's blunders with his creativity, and a bad play, in a good setting, seems good. On the contrary, a mediocre actor who does not have enough creativity and artistic flair in himself to move into the role with all his being, who relates to his role only from the outside, only as a performer, and not as a person who has come to life in that role, especially if he does not know his role well. or strays into memorized and monotonous methods of acting and pronunciation - such an actor, not fully understanding the author and not being able to control himself until complete transformation, will certainly go out of the general tone, will not be able to convey the speech and appearance of the face in constant accordance with the author’s thought, and his role will be either pale or false to itself. Here is the secret of the situation. Happy are good writers when their plays find a good setting. The actor transfers the face from the verbal world to the living world, gives it an appearance, flesh, voice, movement, expression, why inner world of this face, expressed by the author only in words, becomes even more convex, even brighter: a face that lives in the word and is only imaginary becomes really alive on the stage, tangible to the eyes and ears. This is where two good actors in the same role can differ: they speak with the same expressions; but the very sound and play of the voice, the whole appearance of the face, imprinted by his character, all this transparent appearance, in which the spiritual nature of the face shines through - in a word, the whole stage play is set off by the original features of the performer. We notice the difference in the same role and guess from what point of view this or that actor looked at his role, how it fell according to his means, according to his turn of mind, according to his moral mood. Thus, it seems to us, Mr. Vasilyev has brought to life in Tikhon a miserable creature for whom the struggle against family life, rigid in the immobile antiquity, no longer exists. For him, it is already over - and now this victim, fallen in the struggle, finally took shape in the form of a creature without reason, without will, with one petty cunning, with only base motives. Weak and rare breakthroughs of love are nothing more than unconscious movements of the soul; his mother's last reproach over his wife's corpse is nothing more than a useless complaint, a pitiful, impotent confession of his own weakness. Tikhon, in Mr. Vasiliev's game, does not himself understand what he is and what he could be; in himself there is no protest against his position, and therefore he is pitiful, but he cannot arouse sympathy. G. Martynov took Tikhon a little earlier. In his play, we see Tikhon as a creature who is still struggling with the destructive family principle. True, it falls at every step, subject to the ever-prevailing rite family life, replacing free family relationships ; his last cry is a cry of despair, his reproaches are hopeless; but still we feel in it not a motionless and already frozen nature, but something speaking, something human, moving and independent. These glimpses of the inner voice at parting with the wife, then at the recognition of her misdeed, and finally in the reproaches addressed to the mother, reveal the victim, only falling in the struggle, but not completely fallen and stiff: and we sympathize with this victim, as far as there is still free in her. human. In short, Mr. Vasiliev looked at Tikhon as already the result of a constant, imperceptible struggle of the free human principle with an obsolete, meaningless rite - a struggle that went on insensibly for Tikhon and unconsciously for Kabanikha, and therefore was present everywhere and was not found anywhere, until did not make Tikhon the way he went on stage. And Mr. Martynov looked at Tikhon as if he were only preparing to become the result of a struggle that oppresses him, and therefore this struggle comes out brighter, and outbursts of human feeling will be heard louder and deeper from the chest of a man who is dying alive. Mr. Vasiliev is right, because in fact such a struggle between mother and son should be waged from the very birth of Tikhon, unconsciously for both, and gradually end in the complete fall of the victim; Mr. Martynov is right because the struggle, presented more conspicuously and clearly than usual, acquires more drama and redoubles its amusement, even arouses sympathy, joining Katerina's struggle with the same ruinous ritual life of a dying family. The essential basis of the drama is the struggle of Katerina (Kositskaya), Tikhon's wife, with his mother, Marfa Ignatievna (Rykalov). Before marriage, Katerina was an enthusiastic girl: she lived, did not grieve about anything, like a bird in the wild. Mother doted on her, dressed her up like a doll, did not force her to work. She used to get up early, go to the spring, bring some water and water the flowers; then she goes to mass, and the wanderers and pilgrims are all with her; he comes home, sits down to work, and the wanderers and pilgrims read or tell stories, or sing poetry. In church, she was exactly like in paradise, and she did not see anyone and did not remember, and did not hear how the service was going on, but enjoyed the visions. Either she gets up at night and prays somewhere in a corner, or early in the morning she prays and weeps in the garden - and she herself does not know what. And she dreamed of golden dreams, and she dreamed, as if she were flying like a bird. Married, she remained exactly the same enthusiastic. But love was mixed with innocent dreams. She fell in love with Boris Grigoryevich, the nephew of the neighboring merchant Diky. The husband could not inspire her with love for himself. And now, from the former carefree girlish freedom, she passed into the strict life of a married woman. From her mother she went into the hands of her mother-in-law - the personified family ritual. The mother-in-law does not understand the freedom of feeling and does not care whether the wife loves her son or not, because she herself does not love anyone. Love is only in her head, not in her heart. She seems to be jealous of her daughter-in-law; she is implacable, merciless, cold; she oppresses and strangles her daughter-in-law without pity: this is the real mother-in-law, as Russian songs depict her. She constantly repeats to her son the same thing: “Today, children do not honor their parents; if a parent says something insultingly, it can be endured; the mother is old, stupid, well, and you are smart people, there is nothing to exact from fools; after all, from Parents are sometimes strict about love, from love they scold - everyone thinks to teach good things. Since you got married, I don’t see your former love from you. Al your wife, or something, takes you away from your mother? I have long seen that you I want my will: well, well, wait, live in freedom when I'm gone. Are you up to me? You have a young wife, so you will exchange your wife for your mother? "What kind of husband are you? Look at yourself. Will your wife be afraid of you? She won't be afraid of you, and even more so of me. What will be the order in the house after that! After all, you live tea with her in law? Ali, in your opinion , the law means nothing ... "And for the sake of this law, the old mother-in-law shackles the young daughter-in-law into slavery and, as they say, eats food. She does not like that Katerina does not want to perform rituals in which there is only pretense; for example, that she does not howl at the door when her husband leaves. “You boasted,” she says to her daughter-in-law, “that you love your husband very much; now I see your love. Another good wife, having seen her husband off, howls for an hour and a half, lies on the porch; but you, apparently, nothing. ... cunning is not great. If you loved, you would have learned it. If you don’t know how to do it, you could at least make this example; it’s more decent anyway; otherwise, it’s evident, only in words. And here is how she lets her son go on the road: Why are you standing there, don’t you know the order? Order your wife how to live without you ... so that I can hear what you order her! and then you will come and ask if you did everything right? .. Tell me not to be rude to your mother-in-law; to honor the mother-in-law as her own mother; so that she does not sit idly by, like a lady; so that she doesn’t stare at the windows; so that she doesn’t look at young guys without you ... It’s getting better, as ordered. Having subjugated the mind and will of her son, she secures for herself the obedience of her daughter-in-law. Violating thus the moral freedom of a person, sinning against everything that is best, noblest, holy in a person, killing a person morally, making him a doll dressed up in some external forms of the rite, Kabanova, meanwhile, keeps wanderers and pilgrims, prays for a long time before the icons , strictly observes fasts, sighs in a pious conversation with Feklusha about the vanities of this world and about the corruption of morals, and allows an unmarried daughter to debauchery. Isn't this also ritual piety - piety of the head and not of the heart? Is there even a drop of love, a drop of virtue in all this? Woe, if a person is calmed by the observance of only one form and does not believe himself with the voice of conscience; it is even more bitter if conscience itself hides behind a form and does not listen to itself! Here is a new hypocrisy! A person is pleased with himself, calm, thinking that he lives piously, and does not see, does not want to see that everything he does is evil, hypocrisy, sin, deceit, violence ... Ms. Rykalova, with her clever game, she understood and expressed well this obstinate, calm, strict, insensitive woman, in whom everything free-human, reasonable-moral has died out; in which the custom of antiquity, the immovable rite, reign unconditionally; which, by the outward right of autocracy, restrains everything that repels itself internally. And here are the consequences of this forcible autocracy: the daughter does not love and does not respect her mother, walks at night and runs away from home, unable to endure her mother's moralizing - of course, for Katerina. The son quietly seeks freedom, becomes a bully. Daughter-in-law... but we'll talk more about the daughter-in-law, as the main face of the drama. Some metropolitan critics did not like the comparison of Katerina with a bird. If they were unfavorably affected by the scene, that is another matter; but, rebelling solely against this comparison, they reveal a complete ignorance of the Russian people and Russian songs. Comparison with a bird is the most common in folk poetry: it expresses freedom, enthusiasm. If they don’t listen to folk songs and stories, then we refer them to Pushkin’s Gypsies. 3 In this comparison, the author of "Thunderstorm" revealed a deep knowledge of the people, and this comparison in Katerina's speeches goes, as well as possible, to the memory of the enthusiastic state of her girlish youth; Katerina was an enthusiastic girl, and that she was like that is the will of the author. With that way of life, with that lack of positivity, both in moral and religious mood, it must have become enthusiastic, if by this state we understand the unconscious striving of the soul somewhere, which does not have solid ground under it and takes on increased dimensions. A girl, caressed and pampered in the family, who has not yet endured worldly disappointment and grief, not sobered by positive reality, is prone to hobbies, to the play of a young imagination, to impulses of a passionate soul seeking satisfaction. And suddenly this young, innocent creature falls into the clutches of an obstinate, cold, strict, annoying mother-in-law, should love her husband in vain, in whom she sees only a pitiful nonentity, should experience all the bitterness of married life. The transition to the harsh positivity and prose of a new family life and new duties, in such an unhappy situation as it was in Kabanova's house, could not be completed without internal, even if involuntary, opposition from Katerina, supported by the habit of enthusiasm and enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is a strong support for moral freedom, and Katerina could not force herself to fall in love with Tikhon and fall out of love with Boris. Meanwhile, everything that surrounds her forbids her not only to love a stranger, but even in relations with her husband to be free from ritual. The struggle is inevitable - the struggle not only with the surrounding order, personified in the mother-in-law, but also with herself, because Katerina is married, she understands very well the inappropriateness of her love for Boris. She has a sister-in-law Varvara, the sister of Tikhon (Borozdina 1st), a girl who fully enjoys the native custom, which the old woman Kabanova expressed in a nutshell to her daughter: "Go! walk until your time comes." This means that while you are not married - walk around as much as you want and as you know, and when you get married - you will sit out locked up. And indeed, this Varvara, with the masterful, impeccably perfect play of Madame Borozdina, is an experienced, lively, dexterous girl, with rude and sharp tricks of his life, with the imprint of materiality due to the irresistible, complete influence of the same life. She knows that she will sit up locked up under the formidable power of her husband, and therefore for the lost future, and she wants to reward herself with the present and walk up to her heart's content. Varvara is a very positive and unshy girl, and this positivity gives her sharpness and dexterity: do what you want, as long as it's sewn, but covered - that's her rule. And as a pupil of the same lifeless, ritual life, knowing no better, she understands pleasure only sensually! Having arranged, after Tikhon's departure, a meeting for herself and Katerina, she gives the key to the gate to Katerina. With the supportive influence of Varvara, Katerina's love, from a dreamy one, turns into a positive one. A hostile family, enthusiasm that turned into passion, and the services and persuasions of Varvara push Katerina to love; but on the other hand, family law, rumor and inner voice stop her. This inner voice is joined by the words of a sinister old lady: “What are the beauties? What are you doing here? the very whirlpool. Why are you laughing? Do not rejoice! Everything will burn inextinguishable in fire. Everything will boil inextinguishable in tar!" Katerina must fight both with herself and with the family, personified in her mother-in-law. Ms. Kositskaya, as an experienced and intelligent artist, successfully expresses one side of the struggle - with herself. Let us recall the scene with Varvara and the monologue with the key in hand. Here she has a lot of drama and a lot of naturalness in the oscillation between "no" and "yes". She skilfully conducts all this internal struggle between the movement of passion and the thought of a crime. But the other side of the struggle - with the family, is performed by her less successfully. She reveals irritability, anger and maturity, discontent, so that it is as if you are not afraid for her. Meanwhile, in our opinion, Katerina should have more innocence, femininity, inexperience, resignation to fate, and not consciousness, not complaints, but unconsciously, by herself, her position should arouse sympathy and pity for herself, as for a young, innocent victim, involuntarily drawn by his unfortunate fate to a fatal denouement. These dreams, and these forebodings, this moral weakness, the desire to die or run away, and these words will agree with this character of Katerina: Why do people do not fly like birds? You know, sometimes I feel like I'm a bird. When you stand on a mountain, you are drawn to fly. That's how it would have run up, raised its hands and flew. Try something now?" These words seem strange to some; but this is actually because the game does not fit into the general tone here. However, not all sides of the role can sometimes be in the means of the artist. For this struggle, you just need to get younger in years and soul. In vain does the critic of the Moscow newspaper point to religiosity. The fact of the matter is that he does not know the life of entire localities. Katerina's beliefs were dreamy; her convictions, in the absence of a solid education, could not be supported by willpower. In such cases, in many localities, it is not inner convictions that govern morals, but opinion, custom. An example would be Barbara. False beliefs also convey a false view of behavior: what a girl can do, that a married woman cannot. The lack of religious education gave scope to passion; there was neither firmness of spirit, nor the possibility of higher peace amid oppressive misfortunes and outbursts of passion. In the scene of the 3rd act between Katerina and Boris, the whole course and result of the unequal struggle between passion and reason is visible."Get away from me, get away, you damned man! Do you know: after all, I will not beg for this sin, I will never beg for it! After all, it will lie like a stone on my soul, like a stone." This is what Katerina first says to Boris, having gone out to meet him; but then we hear: "I have no will. If I had my own will, I would not go to you. Now your will is over me, don't you see?" And she throws herself on Boris's neck. The line, in our opinion, is absolutely correct. Let us remember how Katerina, at parting with her husband, as if not vouching for herself, asked him not to leave her, or take him with him, or finally bound her with a terrible oath. It clearly expressed the inability to control oneself, the fear for oneself. A thunderstorm starts. It's funny how some people in The Thunderstorm see only a celestial thunderstorm. No, the celestial storm here only harmonizes with the moral storm, even more terrible. And the mother-in-law is a thunderstorm, and the struggle is a thunderstorm, and the consciousness of a crime is a thunderstorm. And all this has a disturbing effect on Katerina, who is already dreamy and addicted. Added to this is the storm of heaven. Katerina hears a belief that a thunderstorm does not pass in vain; it already seems to her that a thunderstorm will kill her, because she has sin in her soul. Again, real sin appears in the form of an old lady with a stick, sin not repentant, but stopped by passion and pouring out with envious, poisonous malice at everything that bears a sign of youth and beauty. "What are you hiding! There is nothing to hide! It is evident that you are afraid: you don’t want to die! You want to live! How you don’t want to! Into the pool with beauty! Yes, hurry, hurry!" When the terrible judgment written on the wall catches Katerina’s eyes, she can no longer endure the inner thunderstorm - the thunderstorm of conscience, accompanied by a heavenly thunderstorm and the terrible belief and ominous words of the old woman: she admits publicly that she walked with Boris for ten nights. With that anxious mood of spirit, in which her former enthusiastic, dreamy upbringing in the circle of wanderers echoed; when she waited from minute to minute: that thunder would strike and kill the sinner, it is clear that she did not see, did not hear the people around her, and if she confessed, she confessed, being, as it were, in a frenzied state. The criticism of the Moscow newspaper does not like that religious feeling did not save it from its fall; he would like to see more consciousness in Katerina's behavior; but no critic has the right to prescribe to the writer the choice of a dramatic encounter or an outset of a play. There is a lot of drama in when a person falls victim to the struggle, defending principles (essentially precious and sacred, such as moral freedom), which become in conflict with the demand for duty and community and become, as it were, illegal. Katerina was placed between freedom of feeling, which in itself does not imply anything bad, and the duty of a wife. She yielded first, saving herself as a morally free being, but betrayed her duty, and for this violation of the rights of the community, she subjected herself to severe and merciless punishment, which was supposed to come out of herself. It is unbearable for her on earth, and the same enthusiastic imagination draws for her a friendly grave and love over the grave."It's better in the grave... There's a little grave under a tree... How nice!... The sun warms it, wets it with rain... In the spring grass will grow on it... Birds will fly in... Flowers will bloom... I would die now. .. It's all the same that death will come, that itself ... but you can't live! It's a sin! They won't pray! Whoever loves will pray! .. " And Katerina rushes into the Volga with faith in boundless, free love. We reconcile with it in the name of the same Christian love. The crime was voluntary - and the punishment must be voluntary: otherwise the sense of justice will not be satisfied, and the play will lose its artistry. Only hardened villains are subjected to violent punishment; but the unfortunate victim of the collision of two powerful and hostile forces, what moral freedom and duty are, although she falls, but at the same time she is aware of her fall and herself seeks punishment for reconciliation with her conscience and with people. Only Kabanikha, a strict and lifeless guardian of the rite, petrified in obsolete rules, could say: "Enough! It's a sin to cry about her!" We do not think that anyone would want to join Kabanikha and begin to assert that the drama does not satisfy morality. Yes, only a short-sighted person who sees nothing more than the external situation of the event can say this. On the contrary, every work of art is moral, because it makes an intelligent person think about the ways of human life, makes him seek reconciliation of moral freedom with duty in the new charters of community life, so that the evil, false and ugly does not interfere with the good, just and beautiful being what it actually exists. What can be higher, nobler, purer for a person than his humanity? And meanwhile, the violent, ugly, motionless, senseless ritual of the family brings love to crime, the mind to madness, the will to lack of will, chastity to depravity, virtue and piety to vulgarity and hypocrisy, and all because he is alien to love and reconciliation, alien to the free impulses of the soul for goodness, alien to reasonable justice and sincerity of feeling; meanwhile, the rite of family life, which kills everything human in a person, exists in numerous cities and towns. No, the reader or viewer, led by the play to these thoughts, if only he takes the trouble to think about the play, will agree with us that it produces a good, not revolting, but reconciling effect, and will say together with Kuligin: "Here is your Katerina. Do with her what you will! Her body is here, take it; and now the soul is not yours: it is now before a judge who is more merciful than you!" It only remains for us to speak of the other characters in the drama who had little or no part in the family storm. They constitute the necessary setting for the event, as we usually observe in real life. They give fullness and liveliness to the picture. Moreover, almost a new drama takes place between them, the same thunderstorm, only not inside the family, but outside it, in public urban life. One has only to listen to what Kuligin tells about this life. The hero of this external drama is the merchant Wild (Sadovsky). But all these faces are so accurately, so convexly, although with few features, outlined that there is no need to define them. As for the performance, it is difficult to find another, more successful environment. gg. Sadovsky (Wild), Dmitrevsky (Kuligin), V. Lensky (Kudryash), Nikiforov (One of the people) and Mrs. Akimova (Feklusha) live on the stage as real faces of living reality with sharp original features. Their roles are small and secondary: nevertheless, they stand out brightly and semi-preciously, in harmony with the general tone of the whole play. The role of Boris is more general and therefore somewhat paler and more difficult than others. It was originally performed by Mr. Chernyshev, who was blurred into a monotonous, cloying, breathy sensibility and decidedly out of tune; Mr. Cherkasov noticeably corrected the shortcoming of his predecessor, but still, in our opinion, with Boris's love, one must be very careful. The author himself was somehow vague about her: there are scenes where Boris, apparently, sincerely and strongly loves Katerina, and there are cases where he loves her only as if for his own amusement. In general, he loves more in words than in deeds; the fate of Katerina is nothing to him. This is some kind of ideal and, moreover, cowardly love, completely opposite to Kudryash's love for Varvara. The latter, although rougher than Boris, however, runs away with Varvara, saving her from her evil mother; and Boris leaves alone, not worrying much about what will become of Katerina. That is why, we said, one must be very careful with this role and conduct it with restraint, without going into excessive sensitivity and one-sidedness. "Thunderstorm" is a picture from nature, smartly painted with fresh, thick, semi-precious colors. That is why she breathes the greatest truth. Truth is the best basis of conviction for any public figure, whoever he may be: a businessman, a scientist or an artist. With love we stop at the faint glimpses of God's spark, revealing the presence of the true and all-encompassing principle of humanity, with respect we look at those noble movements that make up the essence moral nature, and with sad regret we see how they are being crushed and destroyed by obsolete, ancient habits, beliefs and meaningless rituals. That is our old man. When this antiquity was not antiquity, then it had the meaning of its time, there was a need justified by the look of the time, the life of that time; and the life of a people is not that of one person; in it there is always the basis of humanity, innate to the people everywhere and always. But time flies, boundless, eternal humanity, or the same as the spirit of man, the living principle of life, grows wider and wider in the actual life of the people; the task of humanity is to strengthen goodness and truth, and by them to adorn and ennoble real life in its moral and material flow. Everything that hinders its activity, everything that prevents a person from perfecting himself and fulfilling the noble aspirations of the soul and spirit in themselves - all this is antiquity. The spirit is eternally young and eternally beneficent; but the form in which it manifests itself in real life, as a form or way of life, i.e., as a custom, charter, institution, etc., must be mobile, changing in order to give scope to the spirit. If the form remains motionless, it grows old and puts the best human aspirations into conflict with itself, making them pseudo-lawful, or simply destroying them. Society is offended, but offended because it is closed in a certain, immovable form, and this insult is only temporary, conditioned only by a temporary dominant view. That is why it is the duty of every progressive person to find a way of reconciliation between what society establishes as a duty, as a right, and what asks for free activity, like every good and noble, essentially moral movement. This is the highest truth that should be in a work of art. To deny the spark of God in a living people and to look for a life-giving spirit for them outside of them in others, or to stand for the old days - both are contrary to the truth.

What do you think about when you re-read what Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev wrote about Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky's Thunderstorm? Perhaps, the fact that literature follows geniuses ... The golden Russian literature of the 19th century, which began with a breakthrough at the international level in poetry, by the middle of the century made it in prose as well, serving as a "beam of light" for the entire Russian society. This, of course, is about the non-verse works of Pushkin, Gogol, Ostrovsky.

Civic message of the article

The article about Pisarev's "Thunderstorm" is a citizen's response to the landmark play of the century before last. Written in 1859 by Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, the play in five acts occupies a special place in golden Russian literature. This dramaturgical work served as a powerful stimulus further development realism. Evidence of this was the assessment given to the play by critics. It testifies to a real pluralism of opinions. And the truth was really born in the dispute! In understanding this, it is important to know that the article “Motives of Russian Drama”, in which Pisarev placed his review of “Thunderstorm”, was written as a response to another critical article by the famous literary critic Nikolai Dobrolyubov. The article, with which Pisarev argued, was called brightly - "A ray of light in a dark kingdom." We will try to present to the readers our analysis of the above-mentioned work by Dmitry Pisarev. It occupies a special place in Russian literature. Ostrovsky managed to adequately continue in Russian dramaturgy the realism laid down by Griboyedov in Woe from Wit.

Fundamental disagreement with Dobrolyubov on the play "Thunderstorm"

Dmitri Ivanovich was undoubtedly a fine connoisseur and, undoubtedly, starting to work, he deeply familiarized himself with the article of the outstanding literary critic Dobrolyubov, whom he knew and respected. However, obviously following the wisdom of the ancients (namely, “Socrates is my friend, but the truth is dearer”), Pisarev wrote his review about Ostrovsky’s drama “Thunderstorm”.

He realized the need to express his point of view, because he felt: Dobrolyubov tried to show Katerina as a "hero of the times." Dmitry Ivanovich fundamentally disagreed with such a position, moreover, it is quite motivated. Therefore, he wrote his article "Motives of Russian Drama", where he criticized the main thesis in the work of Nikolai Alexandrovich Dobrolyubov that Katerina Kabanova is "a ray of light in a dark kingdom."

Kalinov as a model of Russia

Undoubtedly, in the article Pisarev expressed his thoughts about the "Thunderstorm", clearly realizing that Dobrolyubov gave such a "dark" characteristic formally to one county town, but in fact to all of Russia in the middle of the 19th century. Kalinov is a small model of a huge country. In it, public opinion and the whole course of city life are manipulated by two people: a merchant, unscrupulous in the methods of enrichment, Savel Prokofyich Dikoy, and a hypocrite of Shakespearean proportions, merchantwoman Kabanova Marfa Ignatyevna (in common people - Kabanikha).

In the 60s of the century before last, Russia itself was a huge country with a population of forty million and developed agriculture. Network already in operation railways. In the near future, after Ostrovsky wrote the play (more precisely, since 1861, after Emperor Alexander II signed the "Manifesto", canceling serfdom) the number of the proletariat increased and, accordingly, an industrial boom began.

However, the suffocating atmosphere of pre-reform society shown in Ostrovsky's play was really true. The product was in demand, suffered ...

The relevance of the ideas of the play

Using simple argumentation, in a language understandable to the reader, Pisarev creates his review of the Thunderstorm. Summary he accurately reproduces the plays in his critical article. How else? After all, the problematic of the play is urgent. And Ostrovsky did a great deed, wishing with all his heart to build a civil society instead of a “dark kingdom”.

However, dear readers… So to speak, hand on heart… Can our society today be called “the kingdom of light, goodness and reason”? Did Kuligin's Ostrovsky monologue write into the void: “Because we will never earn more with honest labor more money make money…”? Bitter, fair words...

Katerina is not a "beam of light"

Pisarev's criticism of The Thunderstorm begins with the formulation of a conclusion about the recklessness of Dobrolyubov's conclusion. He motivates him by citing arguments from the author's text of the play. His polemic with Nikolai Dobrolyubov is reminiscent of a pessimist's summary of the conclusions drawn by the optimist. According to the reasoning of Dmitry Ivanovich, the essence of Katerina is melancholic, there is no real virtue in her, characteristic of people who are called "bright". According to Pisarev, Dobrolyubov made a systematic mistake in the analysis of the image main character plays. He gathered all her positive qualities into a single positive image, ignoring the shortcomings. According to Dmitry Ivanovich, a dialectical view of the heroine is important.

The main character as a suffering part of the dark kingdom

The young woman lives with her husband Tikhon with her mother-in-law, a wealthy merchant who has (as they say now) "heavy energy", which is subtly emphasized by Pisarev's critical article. "Thunderstorm" as tragic play, is largely due to this pattern. The boar (as they call her in the street) is pathologically obsessed with the moral oppression of others, with constant reproaches, she eats them, "like rusty iron." She does this in a sanctimonious way: that is, constantly trying to make the household "act in order" (more precisely, following her instructions).

Tikhon and his sister Varvara adapted to their mother's speeches. Particularly sensitive to her nit-picking and humiliation is her daughter-in-law, Katerina. She, who has a romantic, melancholic psyche, is really unhappy. Her colorful dreams and dreams reveal a completely childish worldview. It's nice, but not a virtue!

Inability to cope with oneself

At the same time, Pisarev's criticism of The Thunderstorm objectively points to Katerina's infantilism and impulsiveness. She does not marry for love. Only the majestic Boris Grigoryevich, the nephew of the merchant Diky, smiled at her, and - the deed is ready: Katya hurries to a secret meeting. At the same time, having become close to this, in principle, a stranger, she does not think at all about the consequences. “Is the author really depicting a “light beam ?!” - Pisarev's critical article asks the reader. "Thunderstorm" displays an extremely illogical heroine, unable not only to cope with circumstances, but also to cope with herself. After betraying her husband, being depressed, childishly frightened by a thunderstorm and the hysteria of a crazy lady, she confesses to her deed and immediately identifies herself with the victim. Banal, isn't it?

On the advice of mother, Tikhon beats her "a little", "for the sake of order". However, the bullying of the mother-in-law herself becomes an order of magnitude more sophisticated. After Katerina learns that Boris Grigorievich is going to Kyakhta (Transbaikalia), she, having neither will nor character, decides to commit suicide: she throws herself into the river and drowns.

Katerina is not a "hero of time"

Pisarev reflects philosophically on Ostrovsky's The Thunderstorm. He wonders whether in a slave society a person who is not endowed with a deep mind, who does not have a will, who does not educate himself, who does not understand people - in principle, can become a ray of light. Yes, this woman is touchingly meek, kind and sincere, she does not know how to defend her point of view. (“She crushed me,” Katerina says about Kabanikh). Yes, she has a creative, impressionable nature. And this type can really charm (as it happened with Dobrolyubov). But this does not change the essence ... "Under the circumstances set forth in the play, a person cannot arise -" a ray of light "!" - says Dmitry Ivanovich.

Maturity of the soul is a condition of adulthood

Moreover, the critic continues his thought, is it really a virtue to capitulate before petty, completely surmountable life difficulties? This obvious, logical question is asked by Pisarev about Ostrovsky's Thunderstorm. Can this be an example for a generation whose destiny is to change slave Russia, which is oppressed by local "princes" like Kabanikhi and Diky? At best, such a suicide can only cause, however, as a result, strong-willed and educated people should fight against the social group of the rich and manipulators!

At the same time, Pisarev does not speak derogatoryly about Katerina. "Thunderstorm", the critic believes, it is not in vain that she portrays her image so consistently, starting from childhood. The image of Katerina in this sense is similar to the unforgettable image of Ilya Ilyich Oblomov! The problem of her unformed personality is in her ideally comfortable childhood and youth. Her parents didn't prepare her for adulthood! Moreover, they did not give her a proper education.

However, it should be recognized that, unlike Ilya Ilyich, if Katerina were in a more favorable environment than the Kabanov family, she would most likely have taken place as a person. Ostrovsky justifies this ...

What is the positive image of the main character

This is an artistically holistic, positive image - Pisarev tells about Katerina. "Thunderstorm" in its reading leads the reader to the realization that the main character really has an internal emotional charge, characteristic of creative personality. It has the potential for a positive attitude towards reality. She intuitively feels the main need of Russian society - human freedom. She has a hidden energy (which she feels but hasn't learned how to control). Therefore, Katya exclaimed the words: “Why are people not birds?”. It was not by chance that the author conceived such a comparison, because the heroine subconsciously wants freedom, similar to that felt by a bird in flight. That freedom, to fight for which she does not have enough mental strength ...

Conclusion

What conclusions does Pisarev draw with his article “Motives of Russian Drama”? "Thunderstorm" depicts not a "hero of time", not a "beam of light". This image is much weaker, but not artistically (everything is just right here), but by the maturity of the soul. The "hero of time" cannot "break" as a person. After all, people who are called "rays of light" are more likely to be killed than broken. Katherine is weak...

Both critics have general direction reflections: Pisarev's article on The Thunderstorm, like Dobrolyubov's article, interprets the title of the play in the same way. This is not only an atmospheric phenomenon that scared Katerina to death. Rather, it is about the social conflict of a lagging non-civil society that has come into conflict with the needs of development.

Ostrovsky's play is a kind of indictment. Both critics showed, following Alexander Nikolaevich, that people are powerless, they are not free, they are, in fact, subordinate to the Boars and the Wild. Why did Dobrolyubov and Pisarev write about The Thunderstorm so differently.

The reason for this is, undoubtedly, the depth of the work, in which there is more than one semantic “bottom”. It has both psychologism and sociality. Each of the literary critics comprehended them in their own way, set priorities differently. Moreover, both one and the other did it with talent, and Russian literature only benefited from this. Therefore, it is completely stupid to ask the question: “Pisarev wrote more precisely about the play“ Thunderstorm ”or Dobrolyubov?”. Definitely worth reading both articles...

I. Nikolai Alexandrovich Dobrolyubov(1836-1861) - critic, publicist, poet, prose writer. Revolutionary Democrat. Born in the family of a priest. He studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of the Main Pedagogical Institute of St. Petersburg. During his studies, his materialistic views were formed. “I am a desperate socialist ...” Dobrolyubov said about himself. Permanent contributor to the Sovremennik magazine. According to the recollections of people who knew him closely, Dobrolyubov did not tolerate compromises, “did not know how to live,” as most people live.

Dobrolyubov entered the history of Russian literature, first of all, as a critic, a successor to Belinsky's ideas. Literary criticism of Dobrolyubov is brightly publicistic.

Dobrolyubov has detailed parallels between literature and life, appeals to the reader - both direct and hidden, "Aesopian". The writer counted on the propaganda effect of some of his articles.

At the same time, Dobrolyubov was a sensitive connoisseur of beauty, a man capable of penetrating deeply into the essence of a work of art.

He develops the principles of "real criticism", the essence of which is that the work must be treated as phenomena of reality, revealing its humanistic potential. Dignity literary work is put in direct connection with its nationality.

Dobrolyubov's most famous literary-critical articles are "Dark Kingdom" (1859), "When will the real day come?" (1859), "What is Oblomovism?" (1859), "A Ray of Light in a Dark Realm" (1860).

II. Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev (1840-1868) – literary critic, publicist. Born into a poor noble family. He studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University. It is at the university that the “poisonous seed of skepticism” germinates in a young man. Since 1861 he has been working in the magazine " Russian word". Pisarev's articles quickly attracted the attention of readers with the sharpness of thought, the fearlessness of the author's position, brought him fame as a daring and ardent polemicist who does not recognize anyone's authorities.

After 1861, Pisarev placed his hopes on useful scientific and practical activity, on the awakening of interest in exact, natural science knowledge. From an extremely pragmatic position, he approaches the analysis of some works of art. Pisarev insists that by all means it is necessary to increase the number of thinking people.

Tragically died in June 1868.

The most famous critical works of Pisarev: "Bazarov" (1862), "Motives of Russian Drama" (1864), "Realists" (1864), "Thinking Proletariat" (1865).

III. The image of Katerina in the assessment of critics

Pisarev openly and clearly polemicizes with Dobrolyubov. In his article, he states: “Dobrolyubov made a mistake in assessing female character". Pisarev remains deaf to the spiritual tragedy of Katerina, he approaches this image from a frankly pragmatic position. He does not see what Dobrolyubov saw - Katerina's piercing conscientiousness and uncompromisingness. Pisarev, based on his own understanding of the specific problems of the new era that came after the collapse of the revolutionary situation, believes that the main sign of a truly bright phenomenon is a strong and developed mind. And since Katerina has no mind, she is not a ray of light, but just an "attractive illusion."

v. The rejection of the interpretation of the image of Katerina Pisarev was expressed in his article by Maxim Antonovich, an employee of the Sovremennik magazine. Maxim Alekseevich Antonovich(1835-1918) - radical Russian literary critic, philosopher, publicist. Born in the family of a deacon. He studied at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. Was an employee of Sovremennik. He defended the views on the art of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. He advocated democratic, raznochinskaya literature. However, he vulgarized the principles of materialistic aesthetics. He argued with the journal D.I. Pisarev "Russian word".

Most notable works M. Antonovich: "Asmodeus of our time" (1862), "Mistakes" (1864).

M. Antonovich was the initiator of the controversy between Sovremennik and Russkiy Slovo. These leading Democratic journals differed in their understanding of the very paths of progressive change. Pisarev's emphasis on scientific progress led to a certain revision of the views of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. This was clearly manifested in Pisarev's interpretation of the image of Katerina. Antonovich in his article "Mistakes" sharply criticized this attempt to revise Dobrolyubov, accusing Pisarev of distorting the meaning of Dobrolyubov's article.

Evaluation of the character of Katerina Kabanova (the heroine of the play "Thunderstorm" by A.N. Ostrovsky) according to the article by N.A. Dobrolyubov "A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom"

Critical article ON THE. Dobrolyubov's "Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom" (1860) is dedicated to the drama by A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm". The focus of criticism is the figure of the main character of the play - Katerina Kabanova.

It is worth noting that he considers the character and actions of Katerina Dobrolyubov from the standpoint of revolutionary democracy, of which he was a staunch supporter. In particular, the critic "considered the equality of men as the 'natural state' of human nature, and oppression as the consequence of an abnormal arrangement that must be destroyed."

So, Dobrolyubov calls Ostrovsky's Thunderstorm "the most decisive work" of the author - in it the playwright frankly shows the darkest aspects of the life of the Russian people. Despite this, however, there is "something refreshing and encouraging" about the play. And this, above all, is "Katerina's very character." From him "blows at us new life which is revealed to us in her very death.

The critic believes that the image of Katerina, her character is a decisive "step forward not only in the dramatic work of Ostrovsky, but also in all our literature." This character is as relevant as ever, because it "corresponds to a new phase of our people's life", it "has long demanded its implementation in literature".

According to Dobrolyubov, Katerina’s character is strong because she is “steadily faithful to the instinct of natural truth, full of faith in new ideals and selfless, in the sense that death is better for him than life under those principles that are contrary to him.”

Katerina listens to herself and does what her heart tells her to do. It is “in this integrity and harmony of character that his strength lies,” the critic is convinced. - Free air and light, contrary to all the precautions of perishing tyranny, burst into Katerina's cell, she yearns for a new life, even if she had to die in this impulse. What is death to her? It doesn't matter - she does not consider life to be the vegetative life that fell to her lot in the Kabanov family.

Further, Dobrolyubov carefully analyzes the motives of Katerina's behavior. The critic considers it deeply symbolic that Ostrovsky chose a woman as his heroine - "the strongest protest is the one that finally rises from the chest of the weakest and most patient." In Russian patriarchal society, a woman is the most powerless creature, which is why if a woman wants to change her fate, then her case will be serious and decisive.

Dobrolyubov emphasizes that the heroine, by nature, is not at all a violent character in need of constant destruction. “This character is predominantly creative”, in need of love and warmth.

In addition, Katerina is a subtle, poetic character: "That's why she tries to comprehend and ennoble everything in her imagination." The heroine needs to “feed off” external impressions, the beauty of the world, people and their relationships. But in the gloomy atmosphere new family Katerina began to feel the lack of appearance. The heroine “still seeks refuge in religious practice, in church attendance, in soul-saving conversations; but even here he does not find the former impressions. As a result - "everything is gloomy, scary around her, everything breathes cold and some kind of irresistible threat."

But these horrific conditions only helped the heroine to grow up: she "matured, she woke up other desires, more real." Katerina is clearly aware that she wants "love and devotion." Previously, when she got married, the heroine did not resist anything, although she did not love Tikhon. Dobrolyubov explains this by the fact that the girl had "little knowledge and a lot of gullibility."

But now everything has changed. And in these new circumstances, Katerina’s strong character appeared: “But when she understands what she needs and wants to achieve something, she will achieve her goal at all costs: then the strength of her character, not wasted in petty antics."

The heroine fell in love and went in her feelings to the end. We see that her upbringing, the environment in which she grew up, make themselves felt: she “retained from her upbringing one strong feeling - the fear of some dark forces, something unknown, which she could not explain to herself well, nor reject." But even here, according to the critic, Katerina conquers herself, her fears. She listens to her nature and goes in her desire to the end. And when she turns out to be betrayed by Boris and realizes that she will have to return to the "dark kingdom", she decides to "free herself" forever.

Dobrolyubov concludes: “Such a release is sad, bitter; But what to do when there is no other way out. It's good that the poor woman found determination at least for this terrible exit. That is the strength of her character, that's why the "Thunderstorm" makes a refreshing impression on us ... "

I largely agree with Dobrolyubov's assessments of Katerina. I also consider her a very whole and harmonious nature, listening to the voice of her soul. Katerina is a bright person, that's why she is so poetic, that's why she sincerely believes in God, that's why she fell in love with Boris with all her heart.

But I do not agree with Dobrolyubov that the heroine dies because she protests against the "dark kingdom". It seems to me that Katerina rushes into the Volga, punishing herself. In my opinion, she could not overcome in herself those views that were instilled in her upbringing. Just deciding on an affair with Boris, she says that she will die soon, because she is committing a big sin. I think that at the last moment, horror, despair, loneliness won over even Katerina's fear of God, and she commits the biggest sin - she commits suicide.

However, I agree with Dobrolyubov that Katerina is “a ray of light in a dark kingdom.” She is the only natural, sincere, beautiful in her desire to live a "bright" life, to exist in accordance with God's laws.

The critical history of The Thunderstorm begins even before its appearance. To argue about "a ray of light in the dark realm", it was necessary to open the "Dark Realm". An article under this title appeared in the July and September issues of Sovremennik in 1859. It was signed by the usual pseudonym of N. A. Dobrolyubov - N. - bov.

The reason for this work was extremely significant. In 1859, Ostrovsky summed up the interim literary activity: his two-volume collected works appear. “We consider it best to apply real criticism to Ostrovsky’s works, consisting in reviewing what his works give us,” Dobrolyubov formulates his main theoretical principle. - Real criticism treats the work of the artist in exactly the same way as it does the phenomena of real life: it studies them, trying to determine their own norm, to collect their essential, character traits, but not at all fussing about why this is oats - not rye, and coal - not a diamond ... ".

What norm did Dobrolyubov see in Ostrovsky's world? “Social activity is little touched upon in Ostrovsky’s comedies, but in Ostrovsky’s, two types of relations are extremely fully and vividly displayed, to which a person can still attach his soul to us - family relations and property relations. It is not surprising, therefore, that the plots and the very titles of his plays revolve around the family, the groom, the bride, wealth and poverty.

The “Dark Kingdom” is a world of senseless tyranny and suffering of “our younger brothers”, “a world of hidden, quietly sighing sorrow”, a world where “outward humility and stupid, concentrated grief, reaching complete idiocy and deplorable depersonalization” are combined with “slavish cunning, the most vile deceit, the most shameless treachery. Dobrolyubov examines in detail the “anatomy” of this world, its attitude to education and love, its moral convictions such as “than others steal, it’s better for me to steal”, “it’s the will of the father”, “so that she doesn’t over me, but I swagger over her as much as you like”, etc.

“But isn’t there any way out of this darkness?” - a question is asked at the end of the article on behalf of an imaginary reader. “It's sad, it's true; but what to do? We must confess: we did not find a way out of the "dark kingdom" in the works of Ostrovsky, - the critic answers. Should the artist be blamed for this? Wouldn’t it be better to look around ourselves and turn our demands to life itself, which weaves so sluggishly and monotonously around us ... But the way out must be sought in life itself: literature only reproduces life and never gives what is not in reality. Dobrolyubov's ideas had a great resonance. ““ The Dark Kingdom ” of Dobrolyubov was read with enthusiasm, with which, perhaps, not a single magazine article was read then, contemporaries recognized the great role of the Dobrolyubov article in establishing the reputation of Ostrovsky. “If you collect everything that was written about me before the appearance of Dobrolyubov’s articles, then at least drop your pen.” A rare, very rare case in the history of literature of absolute mutual understanding between a writer and a critic. Soon each of them will make a response "remark" in the dialogue. Ostrovsky - with new drama, Dobrolyubov - with an article about her, a kind of continuation of the "Dark Kingdom". In July 1859, just at the time when the printing of The Dark Kingdom began in Sovremennik, Ostrovsky began The Thunderstorm.

organic criticism. The article by A. A. Grigoriev “After Ostrovsky’s Thunderstorm” continued the critic’s reflections on one of the most beloved and important writers for him in Russian literature. Grigoriev considered himself, and in many respects justified, one of the "discoverers" of Ostrovsky. Ostrovsky alone, in the present literary era, has his own firm, new, and at the same time ideal worldview. "Ostrovsky's new word was nothing more, nothing less than nationality, in the sense of the word: nationality, national."

In accordance with his concept, Grigoriev brings to the fore in The Thunderstorm the "poetry of folk life", most clearly embodied at the end of the third act (the meeting between Boris and Katerina). “You haven’t been to a performance yet,” he turns to Turgenev, “but you know this moment, magnificent in its poetry, this hitherto unprecedented night of rendezvous in a ravine, all breathing the proximity of the Volga, all fragrant with the smell of herbs, its wide meadows, all sounding free songs, "funny", secret speeches, all full of charm of cheerful and wild passion and no less charm of deep and tragic-fatal passion. After all, it was created as if not an artist, but a whole people created here!

A similar circle of thoughts, with the same high assessment of the poetic merits of The Thunderstorm as Grigoriev's, is developed in a long article by M. M. Dostoevsky (brother of F. M. Dostoevsky). The author, however, without naming Grigoriev by name, refers to him at the very beginning.

M. Dostoevsky considers Ostrovsky’s previous work in the light of the disputes between “Westernizers” and “Slavophiles” and tries to find a different, third position: “In our opinion, Mr. Ostrovsky in his writings is not a Slavophile or a Westernizer, but simply an artist, a deep connoisseur of Russian life and Russian heart. In an obvious polemic with Dobrolyubov’s The Dark Kingdom (“This idea, or if you like it better, the idea of ​​domestic despotism and a dozen other no less humane ideas, perhaps lie in Mr. Ostrovsky’s play. But, probably, not he asked himself when starting his drama”) M. Dostoevsky sees the central conflict of The Thunderstorm not in Katerina’s clash with the inhabitants and customs of the city of Kalinov, but in the internal contradictions of her nature and character: “Katerina alone dies, but she would die without despotism. It is a sacrifice of one's own purity and one's beliefs." Later in the article, this idea acquires a generalized philosophical character: “The chosen natures have their own fate. Only it is not outside of them: they carry it in their own heart.

Is Ostrovsky's world a "dark realm" or a realm of "poetry of folk life"? “A word to unravel his activity”: tyranny or nationality?

A year later, N.A. joined the dispute about the Thunderstorm. Dobrolyubov.

“We consider the best way of criticism to be the presentation of the case itself so that the reader himself, on the basis of the facts put forward, can draw his conclusion ... And we have always been of the opinion that only factual, real criticism can have any meaning for the reader. If there is anything in the work, then show us what it contains; this is much better than indulging in thoughts about what is not in it and what should be in it.

Extracts from the article by N. A. Dobrolyubov “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom”

“We want to say that the general atmosphere of life is always in the foreground for him. He does not punish either the villain or the victim. You see that their position dominates them, and you only blame them for not showing enough energy to get out of this position. And that is why we do not dare to consider as unnecessary and superfluous those characters in Ostrovsky's plays who do not directly participate in the intrigue. From our point of view, these faces are just as necessary for the play as the main ones: they show us the environment in which the action takes place, draw the position that determines the meaning of the activity of the main characters of the play.

The Thunderstorm is, without a doubt, Ostrovsky's most decisive work; the mutual relations of tyranny and voicelessness are brought in it to the most tragic consequences; and for all that, most of those who have read and seen this play agree that it makes an impression less heavy and sad than Ostrovsky's other plays ... There is something refreshing and encouraging in The Thunderstorm. This “something” is, in our opinion, the background of the play, indicated by us and revealing the precariousness and the near end of tyranny. Then the very character of Katerina, drawn against this background, also breathes on us with a new life, which opens up to us in her very death. The fact is that the character of Katerina, as it is performed in The Thunderstorm, is a step forward not only in Ostrovsky's dramatic activity, but in all our literature ... Russian life has finally reached the point where virtuous and respectable, but weak and impersonal creatures do not satisfy the public consciousness and are recognized as worthless. There was an urgent need for people, even if less beautiful, but more active and energetic.

“Look carefully: you see that Katerina was brought up in concepts that are the same as the concepts of the environment in which she lives and cannot get rid of them, having no theoretical education.” This protest is all the more valuable: “In it, a terrible challenge is given to the tyrannical force, it tells it that it is no longer possible to go further, it is no longer possible to live with violent, deadening principles. In Katerina we see a protest against Kabanov's notions of morality, a protest carried through to the end, proclaimed both under domestic torture and over the abyss into which the poor woman threw herself... What a gratifying, fresh life a healthy person breathes on us, finding in herself the determination to put an end to this rotten life, come what may!"

Dobrolyubov analyzes the lines of Feklusha, Glasha, Dikoy, Kudryash, Kuligin, etc. The author analyzes the internal state of the characters " dark kingdom". “Besides them, without asking them, another life has grown, with other beginnings, and although it is not yet clearly visible, it already sends bad visions to the dark arbitrariness of tyrants. And Kabanova is very seriously upset by the future of the old order, with which she has outlived a century. She foresees their end, tries to maintain their significance, but she already feels that there is no former reverence for them and that they will be abandoned at the first opportunity.

“We are pleased to see the deliverance of Katerina - even through death, if it is impossible otherwise. Live in the "dark kingdom" worse than death. Tikhon, throwing himself on the corpse of his wife, pulled out of the water, shouts in self-forgetfulness: “It’s good for you, Katya! And why did I stay to live in the world and suffer! “The play ends with this exclamation, and it seems to us that nothing could be invented stronger and more truthful than such an ending. Tikhon's words make the viewer think not about a love affair, but about this whole life, where the living envy the dead.

The meaning of Dobrolyubov's article is not just a thorough and deep analysis of the conflict and the heroes of Ostrovsky's drama. As we have seen, other critics approached a similar understanding even earlier. Dobrolyubov, through The Thunderstorm, tries to see and understand the essential tendencies of Russian life (the article was written a few months before the peasant reform).

“A Ray of Light…”, like “The Dark Kingdom”, also ends with a question highlighted by Dobrolyubov in insistent italics: “…is the Russian living nature exactly expressed in Katerina, is the Russian situation - in everything surrounding her, is it the need for the emerging movement of Russian life expressed in the sense of the play, as it is understood by us? The best of the critical works have enormous aftereffects. They read the text with such depth and express the time with such force that, like the works of art themselves, they become monuments of the era, already inseparable from it. Dobrolyubovskaya "dilogue" (two works connected with each other) about Ostrovsky is one of the highest achievements of Russian criticism of the 19th century. She, indeed, sets a trend in the interpretation of the "Thunderstorm", which exists to this day.

But next to Dobrolyubovskaya, another, "Grigorievskaya" line took shape. In one case, The Thunderstorm was read as a harsh social drama, in another as a high poetic tragedy.

More than four years have passed. "Thunderstorm" was staged less and less. In 1864 it was held three times at the Maly Theater and six times at the Alexandrinsky Theatre, in 1865 three more times in Moscow and never in St. Petersburg. And suddenly D. I. Pisarev. "Motives of Russian drama"

There are also two polemical objects in Motives of Russian Drama: Katerina and Dobrolyubov. Pisarev builds his analysis of The Thunderstorm as a consistent refutation of Dobrolyubov's view. Pisarev fully agrees with the first part of the Dobrolyubov dilogy about Ostrovsky: “Based on the dramatic works of Ostrovsky, Dobrolyubov showed us in the Russian family that “dark kingdom” in which mental abilities wither and the fresh forces of our young generations are depleted ... As long as the phenomena of the “dark kingdom” exist "and as long as patriotic daydreaming will turn a blind eye to them, until then we will constantly have to remind the reading society of Dobrolyubov's true and lively ideas about our family life." But he resolutely refuses to consider the heroine of The Thunderstorm a “ray of light”: “This article was a mistake on the part of Dobrolyubov; he was carried away by sympathy for the character of Katerina and took her personality for a bright phenomenon.

Like Dobrolyubov, Pisarev proceeds from the principles of “real criticism”, without questioning either the aesthetic viability of the drama or the typical character of the heroine: “Reading The Thunderstorm or watching it on stage, you will never doubt that Katerina should have act in reality exactly as she does in the drama. But the assessment of her actions, her relations with the world is fundamentally different from Dobrolyubov's. “Katerina's whole life,” according to Pisarev, “consists of constant internal contradictions; every minute she rushes from one extreme to another; today she repents of what she did yesterday, and yet she herself does not know what she will do tomorrow; she confuses her own at every step own life and the lives of other people; finally, having mixed up everything that was at her fingertips, she cuts the tightened knots with the most stupid means, suicide, and even such suicide, which is completely unexpected for herself.

Pisarev speaks of "a lot of stupid things" committed by the "Russian Ophelia" and quite clearly contrasts with her "the lonely personality of a Russian progressive", "a whole type that has already found its expression in literature and is called either Bazarov or Lopukhov." (Heroes of the works of I. S. Turgenev and N. G. Chernyshevsky, raznochintsy, prone to revolutionary ideas, supporters of the overthrow of the existing system).

On the eve of the peasant reform, Dobrolyubov optimistically pinned his hopes on Katerina's strong character. Four years later, Pisarev, already on this side of the historical border, sees: the revolution did not work out; hopes that the people would decide their own fate did not come true. We need a different path, we need to look for a way out of the historical impasse. "Our public or folk life she does not need strong characters at all, of which she has enough behind her eyes, but only and exclusively in consciousness alone ... We need only people of knowledge, that is, knowledge must be assimilated by those iron characters with which our folk life is full of Dobrolyubov, estimating Katerina only on the one hand, the critic concentrated all his attention only on the spontaneously rebellious side of her nature; Pisarev was struck exclusively by the darkness of Katerina, the antediluvian nature of her social consciousness, her peculiar social “Oblomovism”, political bad manners.