April 12 marks the birthday of the great Russian writer and playwright Alexander Ostrovsky, whose works made an invaluable contribution to the development of national theater Russia.

Alexander Ostrovsky is one of the creators of the image of a simple Russian person in literature - this is where he saw one of his main services to Russian culture. For the rich creative life- almost forty years of work - he created 49 plays according to some sources, 54 plays according to others. In his works, Alexander Nikolaevich vividly, vitally, truthfully showed those aspects of Russian life that others did not dare to touch upon. The colorful, truly folk language of his plays was so consistent with the speech of the Moscow merchants that Pushkin himself advised Russian writers to learn from Ostrovsky.

Figures and facts

  • 47 original plays;
  • 7 plays in collaboration with other playwrights;
  • He translated 22 plays from Italian, Spanish, French, and Latin. He owns numerous translations from Cervantes, Shakespeare, Goldoni;
  • There are 728 characters in Ostrovsky's plays, not counting the characters without speech.

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The same simplicity and realism distinguishes the Alexander Theater

Nikolaevich. Repeatedly, the playwright wrote “projects” and “notes” about the need for reforms of the Russian theater in various government agencies. In 1885, he was appointed head of the repertoire department of Moscow theaters and head theater school. Ostrovsky said that on stage it is necessary to show not only extreme situations, but also ordinary people in ordinary life, their psychological experiences and dramas. It is from Ostrovsky’s theater that it is customary to count down Russian theater in its modern understanding.

The main ideas of Alexander Ostrovsky proposed for theater reform:

  1. the theater must be built on conventions (there is a 4th wall separating the audience from the actors);
  2. constancy of attitude towards language: mastery speech characteristics, expressing almost everything about the heroes;
  3. the bet is not on one actor;
  4. “People go to watch the game, not the play itself - you can read it.”

An ardent opponent of the proposed innovations was one of the founders of the Russian acting school, Mikhail Shchepkin. Ostrovsky's dramaturgy required the actor to detach himself from his personality, which the artist did not do. Once Mikhail Semenovich even left the dress rehearsal of “The Thunderstorm”, being very dissatisfied with the author of the play. Nevertheless, Ostrovsky's theater received its development, and later his ideas were brought to their logical conclusion by Konstantin Stanislavsky and Mikhail Bulgakov.

Alexander Nikolaevich's plays do not leave the stages of theaters all over the world.

Many of his works served as the basis for the creation of film and television scripts and were completely filmed, for example, the popular comedy by Konstantin Voinov “The Marriage of Balzaminov” with Georgy Vitsin in the title role or “Cruel Romance”, based on the play by Alexander Nikolaevich “Dowry”.

Irkutsk Theatre of Drama has been turning to the plays of Alexander Nikolaevich since 1857: it was here that Alexander Ostrovsky’s comedy “Our People - Let’s Be Numbered!” was performed for the first time in Russia. in the original version. The play was written in 1850, but was immediately banned from performance on stage: censorship did not allow Ostrovsky’s work to be discussed in print. Therefore, immediately after the premiere, the Irkutsk Governor-General sent a request to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in response to which a strict prohibition followed. The next time in Russia, “We Will Be Numbered as Our Own People” was staged in 1861, with a revised ending. Since 1864, Ostrovsky’s “A Profitable Place,” “The Thunderstorm,” and “Poverty is Not a Vice” have been staged on the Irkutsk stage. The Irkutsk Theater has the honor of staging the play “Handsome Man,” written by Ostrovsky in 1883, for the first time in the country.

Biographies) are enormous: closely aligned in his work with the activities of his great teachers Pushkin, Griboyedov and Gogol, Ostrovsky also said his word, strong and intelligent. A realist in his writing style and artistic worldview, he gave Russian literature an unusually large variety of pictures and types, snatched from Russian life.

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky. Educational video

“Reading his works, you are directly amazed by the immense breadth of Russian life, the abundance and diversity of types, characters and positions. As if in a kaleidoscope, Russian people of every possible mental make-up pass before our eyes - here are tyrant merchants, with their downtrodden children and household members, - here are landowners and landowners - from broad Russian natures, wasting their lives, to predatory hoarders, from complacent, pure in heart, to the callous, not knowing any moral restraint, they are replaced by the bureaucratic world, with all its various representatives, starting from the highest steps of the bureaucratic ladder and ending with those who have lost the image and likeness of God, petty drunkards, quarrelsome, - the product of pre-reform courts, then they go simply baseless people, honestly and dishonestly getting by from day to day - all kinds of businessmen, teachers, hangers-on and hangers-on, provincial actors and actresses with the whole world around them.. And along with this passes the distant historical and legendary past of Russia, in the form artistic paintings the life of the Volga daredevils of the 17th century, the formidable Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, the Time of Troubles with the frivolous Dmitry, the cunning Shuisky, the great Nizhny Novgorod Minin, the military boyars and the people of that era,” writes the pre-revolutionary critic Alexandrovsky.

Ostrovsky is one of the most prominent national Russian writers. Having studied to the depths the most conservative layers of Russian life, he was able to consider in this life the good and evil remnants of antiquity. He introduced us more fully than other Russian writers to the psychology and worldview of the Russian person.

Ostrovsky drama dowry psychological

Ostrovsky's services to Russian drama and to the Russian theater are enormous. For almost forty years creative activity A.N. Ostrovsky created a rich repertoire: about fifty original plays, several plays written in collaboration. He was also involved in translations and adaptations of plays by other authors. At one time, greeting the playwright on the occasion of his 35th anniversary creative path, I.A. Goncharov wrote: “You brought a whole library as a gift to literature works of art, for the stage they created their own special world. You alone completed the building, the foundation of which was laid by Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Gogol. But only after you, we Russians can proudly say: “We have our own Russian, national theater. It should rightly be called “Ostrovsky Theater” Zhuravlev A.I., Nekrasov V.N. Theater A.N. Ostrovsky. - M.: Art, 1986, p. 8..

The talent of Ostrovsky, who continued the best traditions of classical Russian drama, affirming the drama of social characters and morals, deep and broad generalization, had a decisive influence on all subsequent development of progressive Russian drama. To a greater or lesser extent, both L. Tolstoy and Chekhov learned from him and came from him. It is precisely with that line of Russian psychological dramaturgy, which Ostrovsky so magnificently represented, that Gorky’s dramaturgy is also connected. Dramatic skill Modern authors are studying and will continue to study Ostrovsky for a long time.

It would be fair to note that even before Ostrovsky, progressive Russian drama had magnificent plays. Let’s remember Fonvizin’s “The Minor,” Griboyedov’s “Woe from Wit,” Pushkin’s “Boris Godunov,” Gogol’s “The Inspector General,” and Lermontov’s “Masquerade.” Each of these plays could enrich and decorate, as Belinsky rightly wrote, the literature of any Western European country.

But these plays were too few. And they did not determine the state of the theatrical repertoire. Figuratively speaking, they rose above the level of mass drama like lonely, rare mountains in an endless desert plain. The overwhelming majority of the plays that filled the then theater stage, compiled translations of empty, frivolous vaudevilles and heartbreaking melodramas, woven from horrors and crimes. And vaudeville and melodrama, terribly far from real life Moreover, they were not even a shadow of the real Russian reality.

The rapid development of psychological realism, which we observe in the second half of the 19th century, also manifested itself in drama. Interest in human personality in all its states forced writers to look for means for their expression. In drama, the main such means was the stylistic individualization of the characters’ language, and the leading role in the development of this method belonged to Ostrovsky.

In addition, Ostrovsky made an attempt to go further in psychologism, along the path of providing his characters with the maximum possible freedom within the framework of the author’s plan - the result of such an experiment was the image of Katerina in “The Thunderstorm”. Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky considered the beginning of his literary journey to be 1847, when he read the play “Family Picture” with great success in the house of the professor and writer SP. Shevyreva. His next play, “Our People - We Will Be Numbered!” (original title “Bankrupt”) made his name known throughout reading Russia. Since the early 50s. he actively collaborates in the journal of the historian M.P. Pogodin “Moskvityanin” and soon, together with A.A. Grigoriev, L.A. Me and others formed the “young editorial board” of “Moskvityanin”, which tried to make the magazine an organ of a new trend of social thought, close to Slavophilism and anticipating pochvenism. The magazine promoted realistic art, interest in people's life and folklore, Russian history, especially the history of the unprivileged classes.

Ostrovsky came to literature as the creator of a nationally distinctive theatrical style, based in poetics on folklore tradition. This turned out to be possible because he began with the depiction of the patriarchal strata of the Russian people, who preserved the pre-Petrine, almost non-Europeanized family, everyday and cultural way of life. This was still a “pre-personal” environment; to depict it, the poetics of folklore could be used as widely as possible with its extreme generality, with stable types, as if immediately recognizable to listeners and spectators, and even with a repeating main plot situation - the struggle of lovers for their happiness. On this basis, Ostrovsky’s type of folk psychological comedy was created. Russian literature of the 19th-20th centuries / Comp. B.S. Bugrov, M.M. Golubkov. - M.: Aspect Press, 2000, p. 202..

It is important to understand what predetermined the presence of psychological drama in the work of Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky. First of all, in our opinion, by the fact that he initially created his works for the theater, for stage implementation. The performance was for Ostrovsky the most complete form of publishing a play. Only during stage performance does the author’s dramatic fiction receive a completely finished form and produces exactly the psychological impact that the author set as his goal. Kotikov P.B. The voice of the viewer - a contemporary. (F.A. Koni about A.N. Ostrovsky) // Literature at school. - 1998. - No. 3. - pp. 18-22..

In addition, in Ostrovsky’s era, the theater audience was more democratic, more “variegated” in its social and educational level than readers. According to Ostrovsky’s fair opinion, for perception fiction some level of education and a habit of serious reading are required. A spectator can go to the theater simply for entertainment, and it is up to the theater and the playwright to make the performance both a pleasure and moral lesson. In other words, a theatrical performance should have the maximum psychological impact on the viewer.

Orientation towards the stage existence of drama determines Special attention the author to the psychological characteristics of each character: both the main and secondary characters.

The psychologism of the description of nature predetermined the future scenery of the scene.

A.N. Ostrovsky assigned a significant role to the title of each of his works, also focusing on further stage production, which in general was not typical for Russian literature of the era of realism. The fact is that the viewer perceives the play at once; he cannot, like the reader, stop and think, or return to the beginning. Therefore, he must immediately be psychologically tuned by the author to this or that type of spectacle that he is about to see. The text of the play, as is known, begins with a poster, that is, a title, a definition of the genre and a list of characters. Already the poster, thus, told the viewer about the content and about “how it will end,” and often also about author's position: who the author sympathizes with, how he evaluates the outcome of the dramatic action. Traditional genres in this sense were the most defined and clear. Comedy means that for the characters with whom the author and the viewer sympathize, everything will end well (the meaning of this well-being can, of course, be very different, sometimes at odds with public perception) Zhuravleva A.I. Plays by A.N. Ostrovsky on the theater stage//Literature at school. - 1998. - No. 5. - pp. 12-16..

But as the life depicted in the play became more complex, it became increasingly difficult to give a clear genre definition. And often refusing the name “comedy”, Ostrovsky calls the genre “scenes” or “pictures”. “Scenes” - this genre appeared in Ostrovsky in his youth. Then it was associated with the poetics of the “natural school” and was something like a dramatized essay, depicting characteristic types in a plot, which is a separate episode, a picture from the life of the characters. In the “scenes” and “pictures” of the 1860s and 1870s we see something different. Here we have a fully developed plot, a consistent unfolding of dramatic action leading to a denouement that completely exhausts the dramatic conflict. The line between “scenes” and comedy is not always easy to determine during this period. Perhaps, we can point out two reasons for Ostrovsky’s refusal of the traditional genre definition. In some cases, it seems to the playwright that the funny incident discussed in the play is not typical and “large-scale” enough for deep generalization and important moral conclusions - and this is exactly how Ostrovsky understood the essence of comedy (for example, “It’s not all Maslenitsa for the cat”). In other cases, in the lives of the heroes there was too much sad and difficult, although the ending turned out to be prosperous (“Abyss”, “ Late love") Zhuravleva A.I. Plays by A.N. Ostrovsky on the theater stage//Literature at school. - 1998. - No. 5. - pp. 12-16..

In the plays of the 1860-1870s, there was a gradual accumulation of drama and the formation of a hero necessary for the genre of drama in the narrow sense of the word. This hero, first of all, must have a developed personal consciousness. As long as he does not internally, spiritually feel opposed to the environment, does not separate himself from it at all, he can evoke sympathy, but cannot yet become the hero of a drama, which requires an active, effective struggle of the hero with circumstances. The formation of personal moral dignity and the extra-class value of a person in the minds of poor workers and the urban masses attracts the keen interest of Ostrovsky. The rise in the sense of individuality caused by the reform, which has captured fairly wide sections of the Russian population, provides material and provides the basis for drama. IN art world Ostrovsky, with his bright comedic gift, a conflict of a dramatic nature often continues to be resolved in a dramatic structure. “Truth is good, but happiness is better” turns out to be a comedy literally standing on the threshold of drama: the next “big play”, which is discussed in the letter quoted above, is “Dowry.” Having originally conceived “scenes” that I did not attach of great importance, Ostrovsky felt the importance of characters and conflict during his work. And I think the point here is primarily in the hero - Platon Zybkin.

A friend of Ostrovsky's youth, a wonderful poet and critic A.A. Grigoriev saw “one of the highest inspirations” of Ostrovsky in Chatsky. He also called Chatsky “the only heroic figure in our literature” (1862). At first glance, the critic's remark may surprise: it is very different worlds portrayed by Griboedov and Ostrovsky. However, at a deeper level, the unconditional correctness of Grigoriev’s judgment is revealed.

Griboyedov created the type of “ tall hero”, that is, the hero, through a direct word, lyrically close to the author, revealing the truth, assessing the events occurring in the play and influencing their course. He was a personal hero who had independence and resisted circumstances. In this regard, Griboedov's discovery influenced the entire further course of the Russian literature of the 19th century century and, of course, on Ostrovsky.

The focus on a broad viewer, immediate in his perceptions and impressions, determined the pronounced originality of Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy. He was convinced that the public audience in dramas and tragedies needed “a deep sigh throughout the entire theater, they needed unfeigned warm tears, hot speeches that would pour straight into the soul.”

In light of these requirements, the playwright wrote plays of great ideological and emotional intensity, comic or dramatic, plays that “captivate the soul, making you forget time and place.” When creating plays, Ostrovsky proceeded mainly from the traditions of folk drama, from the requirements of strong drama and great comedy. “Russian authors want to try their hand,” he declared, “in front of a fresh audience whose nerves are not very pliable, which requires strong drama, great comedy, causing frank, loud laughter, hot, sincere feelings, lively and strong characters.”

Famous theater critic F.A. Kony, famous for his open-mindedness and courage, immediately appreciated high quality works by Ostrovsky. Koni considered one of the advantages of a dramatic work to be the simplicity of the content, and he saw this simplicity, elevated to artistry, in Ostrovsky’s comedies in the depiction of faces. Koni wrote, in particular, about the play “The Muscovites”: “The playwright made me fall in love with the characters he created. made me fall in love with Rusakov, Borodkin, and Dunya, despite their characteristic external clumsiness, because he was able to reveal their inner human side, which could not but affect the humanity of the audience.” Koni A.F. For the play “Muscovites” // Repertoire and pantheon of the Russian stage. - 1853. - No. 4. - P. 34//See. Kotikova P.B. The voice of the viewer - a contemporary. (F.A. Koni about A.N. Ostrovsky) // Literature at school. - 1998. - No. 3. - pp. 18-22..

Also A.F. Koni noted the fact that before Ostrovsky, “even contrasts (psychological) are not allowed in Russian comedy: all faces are on the same block - all, without exception, are scoundrels and fools.” Koni A.F. What is the Russian nationality? // Repertoire and pantheon of the Russian stage. - 1853. - No. 4. - P. 3//See. Kotikova P.B. The voice of the viewer - a contemporary. (F.A. Koni about A.N. Ostrovsky) // Literature at school. - 1998. - No. 3. - pp. 18-22..

We can thus say that already in Ostrovsky’s time, critics noted the presence in his dramatic works of subtle psychologism that could influence the audience’s perception of the characters in the plays.

It should be noted that in his comedies and dramas Ostrovsky did not limit himself to the role of a satirical accuser. He vividly and sympathetically portrayed victims of socio-political and family-domestic despotism, workers, lovers of truth, educators, warm-hearted Protestants against tyranny and violence. These heroes of his were in dark kingdom autocracy with “light rays” that heralded the inevitable victory of justice Lakshin V.Ya. Ostrovsky Theater. - M.: Art, 1985, p. 28..

Punishing those in power, the “oppressors”, tyrants with a terrible judgment, sympathizing with the disadvantaged, drawing heroes worthy of imitation, Ostrovsky turned drama and theater into a school of social morals.

The playwright not only did positive heroes his plays were people of labor and progress, bearers of people's truth and wisdom, but he also wrote in the name of the people and for the people. Ostrovsky depicted in his plays the prose of life, ordinary people in everyday circumstances. But he framed this prose of life artistic types enormous generalization.

Life and work of Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky (1823-1886) “I work all my life...” “My task is to serve Russian dramatic art...” Childhood and youth Born on March 31, 1823 in the family of an official (lawyer). Homeland - Zamoskvorechye district (where most of the Moscow merchants lived). Zamoskvorechye in the 19th century Received a good education at home, studying foreign languages ​​since childhood. Subsequently, he knew Greek, French, German, and later English, Italian, and Spanish.  1840 - graduated from the Moscow gymnasium. Admission to Moscow University at the Faculty of Law. Strong passion for theater  1843 - Expelled from the university. I decided to study literature.  At the request of his father, he serves in the Moscow Conscientious Court (1843 - 1845), where cases between relatives were heard.  1845 - 1851 - transfer to the Moscow Commercial Court. All this is a unique opportunity to observe and analyze the actions of people from different social strata.  1849 - civil marriage (against the will of the father) with Agafya Ivanovna, a girl from the bourgeoisie. Beginning of creativity 1850 (March) - the first comedy “Our People - We Will Be Numbered” (“Bankrut”) was published in the magazine “Moskvityanin”. The author immediately became famous. “Our people - we will be numbered!” The play was under arrest for 10 years, because in it, according to Dobrolyubov, “... human dignity, personal freedom, faith in love and happiness and the sanctity of honest labor were thrown into dust and brazenly trampled by tyrants.” Theatrical activity  In the early 50s years, the repertoire of Russian theaters was scarce. The theater needed a playwright... Ostrovsky begins work on the play “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh”  The premiere took place in January 1853. This is the beginning of Ostrovsky’s theatrical fame.  In August - “The Poor Bride”. Collaboration with the Maly Theater  1853 - 1856 - plays “Poverty is not a vice”, “Don’t live as you want”, “In someone else’s feast there is a hangover”, “Profitable Place” Ostrovsky’s Heroes  1856 - Collaboration with the magazine “Sovremennik”. expedition" along the Volga. The goal is to study the life and customs of the Volga settlements.  1857, summer - continuation of the trip along the Volga.  1859 - premiere of the drama "The Thunderstorm" (as a result of the "expeditions") The play "The Thunderstorm" reflects the period. social upsurge when the foundations of serfdom were crumbling. The title of the drama is social upheaval. Ostrovsky is one of the first Russian writers who revealed the tragic position of women in the family.  1861 - Comedy “What you go for, you will find” (“The Marriage of Balzaminov”)  1863 - Elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences  1866 - Taught in the new Moscow “Artistic Circle”. This served as the basis for the creation of the Russian national theater “Ostrovsky Theater”  1867 - death of his wife, Agafya Ivanovna  1869 - married Maria Bakhmetyeva (Vasilieva), actress of the Maly Theater. The writer’s wife and children 1870 - 1886 - the most fruitful period of his life. Comedies “Mad Money”, “Forest”, “Wolves and Sheep”. Dramas “Dowry”, “Talents and Admirers”, “Guilty Without Guilt” A special place in Ostrovsky’s heritage is occupied by the “spring fairy tale” “The Snow Maiden” (1873) - a look at the ancient, patriarchal, fairy-tale world, in which material relations also dominate. June 2, 1886 - the death of the writer in his Shchelokovo estate (at his desk)  In total, A.N. Ostrovsky wrote 47 plays, 7 plays in collaboration with other playwrights, translated more than 20 plays from Italian, Spanish, French, English and Latin languages.  From 1853 to 1872 his plays were performed 766 times in capital and provincial theaters, bringing the Directorate of Imperial Theaters an income of more than 2 million rubles. The merit of A.N. Ostrovsky    A.N. Ostrovsky revealed to the world a person of a new formation: a merchant-Old Believer and a merchant-capitalist, traveling abroad and running his own business. He is rightly called “Columbus of Zamoskvorechye.” Before A.N. Ostrovsky, Russian theatrical history included only a few names. The playwright made a huge contribution to the development of Russian theater. The work of A.N. Ostrovsky, continuing the traditions of Fonvizin, Griboedov, Pushkin, Gogol, is distinguished by its innovation in the depiction of heroes, in the language of the characters and in the social and moral problems raised. “Columbus of Zamoskvorechye” “You alone completed the building, at the foundation of which Fonvizin, Griboedov and Gogol laid the cornerstones. But only after you, we Russians can proudly say: “We have our own Russian, national theater.” It, in fairness, should be called the “Ostrovsky Theater”. I.A. Goncharov

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky... This is an unusual phenomenon. His role in the history of the development of Russian drama, performing arts and the entire national culture is difficult to overestimate. He did as much for the development of Russian drama as Shakespeare in England, Lone de Vega in Spain, Moliere in France, Goldoni in Italy and Schiller in Germany.

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

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

Ostrovsky's creative activity had a great influence on everything further development progressive Russian drama. It was from him that our best playwrights came and learned from him. It was to him that aspiring dramatic writers in their time gravitated.

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

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

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

And the bright sun caresses us and warms us...

The living speech of ordinary, living people sounds,

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

But just a man... A happy actor

Hastens to quickly break the heavy shackles

Conventions and lies. Words and feelings are new,

But in the recesses of the soul there is an answer to them, -

And all lips whisper: blessed is the poet,

Tore off the shabby, tinsel covers

And shed a bright light into the dark kingdom

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

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

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

But much earlier, about the very first work of the still young Ostrovsky, published in Moskvityanin, the subtle connoisseur of the elegant and sensitive observer V. F. Odoevsky wrote: “If this is not a momentary flash, not a mushroom squeezed out of the ground by itself, cut by all kinds of rot, then this man has an enormous talent. I think there are three tragedies in Rus': “The Minor,” “Woe from Wit,” “The Inspector General,” I put number four on “Bankrupt.”

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

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

Life and work of A.N. Ostrovsky

Childhood and adolescence

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky was born in Moscow into a cultured, bureaucratic family on April 12 (March 31, old style) 1823. The family's roots were in the clergy: the father was the son of a priest, the mother the daughter of a sexton. Moreover, my father, Nikolai Fedorovich, himself graduated from the Moscow Theological Academy. But he preferred the career of an official to the profession of a clergyman and succeeded in it, as he achieved material independence, a position in society, and a noble title. This was not a dry official, confined only to his service, but a widely educated person, as evidenced by his passion for books - the Ostrovskys’ home library was very respectable, which, by the way, played an important role in the self-education of the future playwright.

The family lived in those wonderful places in Moscow, which were then accurately reflected in Ostrovsky’s plays - first in Zamoskvorechye, at the Serpukhov Gate, in a house on Zhitnaya, bought by the late father Nikolai Fedorovich at a cheap price, at auction. The house was warm, spacious, with a mezzanine, outbuildings, an outbuilding that was rented out to residents, and a shady garden. In 1831, grief befell the family - after giving birth to twin girls, Lyubov Ivanovna died (in total she gave birth to eleven children, but only four survived). The arrival of a new person in the family (Nikolai Fedorovich married the Lutheran Baroness Emilia von Tessin for his second marriage), naturally, introduced some innovations of a European nature into the house, which, however, benefited the children; the stepmother was more caring, helped the children in learning music, languages, formed a social circle. At first, both brothers and sister Natalya avoided the new mother. But Emilia Andreevna, good-natured, calm in character, with her care and love for the remaining orphans, attracted their children's hearts, slowly achieving the replacement of the nickname “dear auntie” with “dear mummy.”

Now everything has become different for the Ostrovskys. Emilia Andreevna patiently taught Natasha and the boys music, French and German languages which she knew perfectly, decent manners, and social behavior. There were musical evenings in the house on Zhitnaya, even dancing to the piano. Nannies and nurses for newborn babies, and a governess appeared here. And now they ate at the Ostrovskys, as they say, like a nobleman: on porcelain and silver, with starched napkins.

Nikolai Fedorovich liked all this very much. And having received hereditary nobility based on the rank achieved in the service, whereas previously he was listed as “of the clergy,” daddy grew cutlet sideburns for himself and now received merchants only in his office, sitting at a large table littered with papers and plump volumes from the code of laws of the Russian Empire.