The playwright almost never included political and philosophical problems, facial expressions and gestures, through playing out the details of their costumes and household furnishings. To enhance comic effects the playwright usually introduced minor persons into the plot - relatives, servants, hangers-on, random passers-by - and incidental circumstances of everyday life. Such, for example, is Khlynov’s retinue and the gentleman with a mustache in “A Warm Heart,” or Apollo Murzavetsky with his Tamerlane in the comedy “Wolves and Sheep,” or the actor Schastlivtsev with Neschastlivtsev and Paratov in “The Forest” and “Dowry,” etc. The playwright continued to strive to reveal the characters’ characters not only in the course of events, but no less through the peculiarities of their everyday dialogues - “characterological” dialogues, which he aesthetically mastered in “His People...”.
Thus, in the new period of creativity, Ostrovsky appears as an established master, possessing a complete system of dramatic art. His fame and his social and theatrical connections continue to grow and become more complex. The sheer abundance of plays created in the new period was the result of an ever-increasing demand for Ostrovsky's plays from magazines and theaters. During these years, the playwright not only worked tirelessly, but found the strength to help less gifted and beginning writers, and sometimes actively participate with them in their work. Thus, in the creative collaboration with Ostrovsky, a number of plays were written by N. Solovyov (the best of them are “The Marriage of Belugin” and “Savage”), as well as by P. Nevezhin.
Constantly promoting the production of his plays on the stages of the Moscow Maly and St. Petersburg Alexandria theaters, Ostrovsky was well aware of the state of theatrical affairs, which were mainly under the jurisdiction of the bureaucratic state apparatus, and was bitterly aware of their glaring shortcomings. He saw that he did not portray the noble and bourgeois intelligentsia in their ideological quests, as Herzen, Turgenev, and partly Goncharov did. In his plays, he showed the everyday social life of ordinary representatives of the merchants, bureaucrats, and nobility, life where personal, particularly love, conflicts revealed clashes of family, monetary, and property interests.
But Ostrovsky’s ideological and artistic awareness of these aspects of Russian life had a deep national-historical meaning. Through the everyday relationships of those people who were the masters and masters of life, their general social condition was revealed. Just as, according to Chernyshevsky’s apt remark, the cowardly behavior of the young liberal, the hero of Turgenev’s story “Asya,” on a date with a girl was a “symptom of the disease” of all noble liberalism, its political weakness, so the everyday tyranny and predation of merchants, officials, and nobles appeared a symptom of a more terrible disease is their complete inability to at least in any way give their activities national progressive significance.
This was quite natural and logical in the pre-reform period. Then the tyranny, arrogance, and predation of the Voltovs, Vyshnevskys, and Ulanbekovs were a manifestation of the “dark kingdom” of serfdom, already doomed to be scrapped. And Dobrolyubov correctly pointed out that, although Ostrovsky’s comedy “cannot provide the key to explaining many of the bitter phenomena depicted in it,” nevertheless, “it can easily suggest many analogous considerations related to everyday life that it does not directly concern.” And the critic explained this by the fact that the “types” of tyrants drawn by Ostrovsky “are not. rarely contain not only exclusively merchant or bureaucratic, but also national (i.e. national) features.” In other words, Ostrovsky's plays of 1840-1860. indirectly exposed all the “dark kingdoms” of the autocratic-serf system.
In the post-reform decades, the situation changed. Then “everything turned upside down” and a new, bourgeois system of Russian life gradually began to “establish itself.” And the question of how exactly this “fitted out” was of great national importance. new system, to what extent the new ruling class, the Russian bourgeoisie, could take part in the struggle for the destruction of the remnants of the “dark kingdom” of serfdom and the entire autocratic-landowner system.
Almost twenty new plays by Ostrovsky on modern themes gave a clear negative answer to this fatal question. The playwright, as before, depicted the world of private social, household, family and property relations. Not everything was clear to him about the general trends of their development, and his “lyre” sometimes made not quite the “right sounds” in this regard. But in general, Ostrovsky's plays contained a certain objective orientation. They exposed both the remnants of the old “dark kingdom” of despotism and the newly emerging “ dark kingdom” bourgeois predation, money rush, death of all moral values in an atmosphere of general buying and selling. They showed that Russian businessmen and industrialists are not capable of rising to the level of awareness of the interests of national development, that some of them, such as Khlynov and Akhov, are only capable of indulging in crude pleasures, others, like Knurov and Berkutov, can only subjugate everything around them with their predatory, “wolf” interests, and for still others, such as Vasilkov or Frol Pribytkov, the interests of profit are only covered up by external decency and very narrow cultural demands. Ostrovsky’s plays, in addition to the plans and intentions of their author, objectively outlined a certain perspective of national development - the prospect of the inevitable destruction of all remnants of the old “dark kingdom” of autocratic-serf despotism, not only without the participation of the bourgeoisie, not only over its head, but along with the destruction of its own predatory "dark kingdom"
The reality depicted in Ostrovsky's everyday plays was a form of life devoid of nationally progressive content, and therefore easily revealed internal comic inconsistency. Ostrovsky dedicated his outstanding dramatic talent to its disclosure. Based on the tradition of Gogol’s realistic comedies and stories, rebuilding it in accordance with the new aesthetic demands put forward by “ natural school” of the 1840s and formulated by Belinsky and Herzen, Ostrovsky traced the comic inconsistency of the social and everyday life of the ruling strata of Russian society, delving into the “world of details,” examining thread by thread the “web of daily relationships.” This was the main achievement of the new dramatic style created by Ostrovsky.
Essay on literature on the topic: The significance of Ostrovsky’s work for the ideological and aesthetic development of literature
Other writings:
- A.S. Pushkin entered the history of Russia as an extraordinary phenomenon. It's not only greatest poet, but also the founder of Russian literary language, founder of new Russian literature. “Pushkin’s muse,” according to V. G. Belinsky, “was nourished and educated by the works of previous poets.” On Read More......
- Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky... This is an unusual phenomenon. His role in the history of the development of Russian drama, performing arts and all national culture difficult to overestimate. For the development of Russian drama, he did as much as Shakespeare in England, Lone de Vega in Spain, Moliere Read More ......
- Tolstoy was very strict about artisan writers who composed their “works” without real passion and without the conviction that people needed them. Tolstoy retained his passionate, selfless enthusiasm for creativity until last days life. While working on the novel “Resurrection,” he admitted: “I Read More ......
- A. N. Ostrovsky is rightfully considered a singer merchant environment, father of Russian domestic drama, Russian theater. He is the author of about sixty plays, of which the most famous are “Dowry”, “ Late love”, “Forest”, “Simplicity is enough for every wise man”, “Our own people - we will be numbered”, “Thunderstorm” and Read More ......
- Discussing the power of “inertia, numbness” that hobbles a person, A. Ostrovsky noted: “It is not without reason that I called this force Zamoskvoretskaya: there, beyond the Moscow River, is its kingdom, there is its throne. She drives a man into a stone house and locks the iron gates behind him, she dresses Read More ......
- IN European culture the novel embodies ethics, just as church architecture embodies the idea of faith, and the sonnet embodies the idea of love. An outstanding novel is not only a cultural event; it means much more than just a step forward in the literary craft. This is a monument to the era; monumental monument, Read More ......
- The merciless truth spoken by Gogol about his contemporary society, his ardent love for the people, the artistic perfection of his works - all this determined the role that he played great writer in the history of Russian and world literature, in establishing the principles critical realism, in the development of democratic Read More ......
- Krylov belonged to the Russian enlighteners of the 18th century, led by Radishchev. But Krylov was unable to rise to the idea of uprising against autocracy and serfdom. He thought he could improve social order it is possible through moral re-education of people that social issues should be allowed Read More......
Ostrovsky wrote for the theater. This is the peculiarity of his talent. The images and pictures of life he created are intended for the stage. That’s why the speech of Ostrovsky’s heroes is so important, that’s why his works sound so vivid. It’s not for nothing that Innokenty Annensky called him an auditory realist. Without staging his works on stage, it was as if his works were not completed, which is why Ostrovsky took the ban on his plays by theater censorship so hard. The comedy “We Will Be Numbered Our Own People” was allowed to be staged in the theater only ten years after Pogodin managed to publish it in the magazine.
With a feeling of undisguised satisfaction, A. N. Ostrovsky wrote on November 3, 1878 to his friend, the artist Alexandria Theater To A.F. Burdin: “I have already read my play in Moscow five times, among the listeners there were people hostile to me, and everyone unanimously recognized “Dowry” as the best of all my works.” Ostrovsky lived with the “Dowry”, at times only on it, his fortieth thing in a row, he directed “his attention and strength”, wanting to “finish” it in the most careful way. In September 1878, he wrote to one of his acquaintances: “I am working on my play with all my might; It seems like it won’t turn out bad.” Already a day after the premiere, on November 12, Ostrovsky could, and undoubtedly did, learn from Russkiye Vedomosti how he managed to “tire the entire public, right down to the most naive spectators.” For she - the audience - has clearly “outgrown” the spectacles that he offers her. In the seventies, Ostrovsky's relationship with critics, theaters and audiences became increasingly complex. The period when he enjoyed universal recognition, which he won in the late fifties and early sixties, was replaced by another, increasingly growing in different circles of cooling towards the playwright.
Theatrical censorship was stricter than literary censorship. This is no coincidence. In its essence, theatrical art is democratic; it addresses the general public more directly than literature. Ostrovsky in his “Note on the situation of dramatic art in Russia at the present time” (1881) wrote that “dramatic poetry is closer to the people than other branches of literature. All other works are written for educated people, but dramas and comedies are written for the whole people; dramatic writers must always remember this, they must be clear and strong. This closeness to the people does not in the least degrade dramatic poetry, but, on the contrary, doubles its strength and does not allow it to become vulgar and crushed.” Ostrovsky talks in his “Note” about how the theatrical audience in Russia expanded after 1861. To a new viewer, not experienced in art, Ostrovsky writes: “Fine literature is still boring and incomprehensible for him, music too, only the theater gives him complete pleasure, there he experiences everything that happens on stage like a child, sympathizes with good and recognizes evil, clearly presented." For a “fresh” public, Ostrovsky wrote, “a strong drama, major comedy, provocative, frank, loud laughter, hot, sincere feelings are required.”
It is the theater, according to Ostrovsky, which has its roots in folk farce, has the ability to directly and strongly influence the souls of people. Two and a half decades later, Alexander Blok, speaking about poetry, will write that its essence is in the main, “walking” truths, in the ability of theater to convey them to the heart of the reader:
Ride along, mourning nags!
Actors, master your craft,
So that from the walking truth
Everyone felt pain and light!
(“Balagan”, 1906)
The enormous importance that Ostrovsky attached to the theater, his thoughts about theatrical art, about the position of theater in Russia, about the fate of actors - all this was reflected in his plays. Contemporaries perceived Ostrovsky as a successor of Gogol's dramatic art. But the novelty of his plays was immediately noted. Already in 1851, in the article “A Dream on the Occasion of a Comedy,” the young critic Boris Almazov pointed out the differences between Ostrovsky and Gogol. Ostrovsky’s originality lay not only in the fact that he depicted not only the oppressors, but also their victims, not only in the fact that, as I. Annensky wrote, Gogol was primarily a poet of “visual”, and Ostrovsky of “auditory” impressions.
Ostrovsky's originality and novelty were also manifested in the choice of life material, in the subject of the image - he mastered new layers of reality. He was a pioneer, a Columbus not only of Zamoskvorechye - who we don’t see, whose voices we don’t hear in Ostrovsky’s works! Innokenty Annensky wrote: “...This is a virtuoso of sound images: merchants, wanderers, factory workers and Latin teachers, Tatars, gypsies, actors and sex workers, bars, clerks and petty bureaucrats - Ostrovsky gave a huge gallery of typical speeches...” Actors, the theatrical environment - too new vital material that Ostrovsky mastered - everything connected with the theater seemed very important to him.
In the life of Ostrovsky himself, the theater played a huge role. He took part in the production of his plays, worked with the actors, was friends with many of them, and corresponded with them. He put a lot of effort into defending the rights of actors, seeking the creation in Russia theater school, own repertoire. Artist of the Maly Theater N.V. Rykalova recalled: Ostrovsky, “having become better acquainted with the troupe, became our man. The troupe loved him very much. Alexander Nikolaevich was unusually affectionate and courteous with everyone. Under the serfdom regime that reigned at that time, when the artist’s superiors said “you,” when most of the troupe were serfs, Ostrovsky’s behavior seemed to everyone like some kind of revelation. Usually Alexander Nikolaevich himself staged his plays... Ostrovsky assembled a troupe and read the play to them. He could read amazingly skillfully. All the characters appeared to him to be alive... Ostrovsky knew well the inner, hidden from the eyes of the audience, behind the scenes life theater Starting with the Forest" (1871), Ostrovsky develops the theme of the theater, creates images of actors, depicts their fates - this play is followed by "Comedian XVII century"(1873), "Talents and Admirers" (1881), "Guilty Without Guilt" (1883).
The position of the actors in the theater and their success depended on whether or not the rich audience who set the tone in the city liked them. After all, provincial troupes lived mainly on donations from local patrons, who felt like masters of the theater and could dictate their terms. Many actresses lived off expensive gifts from wealthy fans. The actress, who took care of her honor, had a hard time. In “Talents and Admirers” Ostrovsky portrays such life situation. Domna Panteleevna, Sasha Negina’s mother, laments: “There is no happiness for my Sasha! He maintains himself very carefully, well, there is no goodwill between the public: no special gifts, nothing like the others, which... if...".
Nina Smelskaya, who willingly accepts the patronage of wealthy fans, essentially turning into a kept woman, lives much better, feels much more confident in the theater than the talented Negina. But despite the difficult life, adversity and grievances, as depicted by Ostrovsky, many people who dedicated their lives to the stage and theater retain kindness and nobility in their souls. First of all, these are tragedians who on stage have to live in a world of high passions. Of course, nobility and generosity of spirit are not limited to tragedians. Ostrovsky shows that genuine talent, selfless love they raise and elevate people to art and theater. These are Narokov, Negina, Kruchinina.
In the early romantic stories Maxim Gorky expressed his attitude towards life and people, his view of the era. The heroes of many of these stories are so-called tramps. The writer portrays them as brave people, strong at heart. The main thing for them is freedom, which tramps, like all of us, understand in their own way. They passionately dream of some kind of special life, far from everyday life. But they can’t find her, so they go wandering, drink themselves to death, and commit suicide. One of these people is depicted in the story “Chelkash”. Chelkash - “an old poisoned wolf, well known to the Havana people, an avid drunkard and l
In Fet's poetry, the feeling of love is woven from contradictions: it is not only joy, but also torment and suffering. In Fetov’s “songs of love,” the poet surrenders so completely to the feeling of love, the intoxication of the beauty of the woman he loves, which in itself brings happiness, in which even sorrowful experiences constitute great bliss. From the depths of world existence, love grows, which became the subject of Fet’s inspiration. The innermost sphere of the poet’s soul is love. He put into his poems various shades love feeling: not only bright love, admiration of beauty, admiration, delight, happiness of reciprocity, but also
At the end of the 90s of the 19th century, the reader was amazed by the appearance of three volumes of “Essays and Stories” by a new writer - M. Gorky. “Great and original talent,” was the general judgment about the new writer and his books. Growing dissatisfaction in society and the expectation of decisive changes caused increased romantic tendencies in literature. These trends were reflected especially clearly in the work of young Gorky, in such stories as “Chelkash”, “Old Woman Izergil”, “Makar Chudra”, and in revolutionary songs. The heroes of these stories are people “with the sun in their blood”, strong, proud, beautiful. These heroes are Gorkog's dream
More than a hundred years ago, in a small provincial town in Denmark - Odense, on the island of Funen, extraordinary events took place. The quiet, slightly sleepy streets of Odense were suddenly filled with the sounds of music. A procession of artisans with torches and banners marched past the brightly lit ancient town hall, greeting the tall blue-eyed man standing at the window. In honor of whom did the inhabitants of Odense light their fires in September 1869? It was Hans Christian Andersen, who had recently been elected an honorary citizen hometown. Honoring Andersen, his fellow countrymen sang the heroic feat of a man and writer,
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 situations. 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, honest and dishonest, 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.
What is the merit of A.N. Ostrovsky? Why, according to I.A. Goncharov, only after Ostrovsky we could say that we have our own Russian national theater? (Refer to the epigraph of the lesson)
Yes, there were “The Minor”, “Woe from Wit”, “The Inspector General”, there were plays by Turgenev, A.K. Tolstoy, Sukhovo-Kobylin, but there were not enough of them! Most of the theaters' repertoire consisted of empty vaudevilles and translated melodramas. With the advent of Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, who devoted all his talent exclusively to drama, the repertoire of theaters changed qualitatively. He alone wrote as many plays as all the Russian classics combined: about fifty! Every season for more than thirty years, theaters received new play, or even two! Now there was something to play!
Arose new school acting, new theatrical aesthetics, the Ostrovsky Theater appeared, which became the property of all Russian culture!
What determined Ostrovsky’s attention to the theater? The playwright himself answered this question like this: “Dramatic poetry is closer to the people than all other branches of literature. All other works are written for educated people, but dramas and comedies are written for the whole people...” Writing for the people, awakening their consciousness, shaping their taste is a responsible task. And Ostrovsky took her seriously. If not exemplary theater, the common public may mistake operettas and melodramas, which irritate curiosity and sensitivity, for real art.”
So, let us note the main services of A.N Ostrovsky to the Russian theater.
1) Ostrovsky created the theater repertoire. He wrote 47 original plays and 7 plays in collaboration with young authors. Twenty plays were translated by Ostrovsky from Italian, English, and French.
2) No less important is the genre diversity of his dramaturgy: these are “scenes and pictures” from Moscow life, dramatic chronicles, dramas, comedies, spring fairy tale"Snow Maiden".
3) In his plays, the playwright depicted various classes, characters, professions, he created 547 characters, from the king to the tavern servant, with their inherent characters, habits, and unique speech.
4) Ostrovsky’s plays cover a huge historical period: from the XVII to the XΙX centuries.
5) The plays take place in landowners' estates, in inns and on the banks of the Volga. On the boulevards and on the streets of county towns.
6) Ostrovsky’s heroes - and this is the main thing - are living characters with their own characteristics, manners, with their own destiny, with a living language unique to this hero.
A century and a half has passed since the first performance was staged (January 1853; “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh”), and the playwright’s name remains on theater posters; performances are performed on many stages around the world.
Interest in Ostrovsky is especially acute in troubled times when a person is looking for answers to the most important issues life: what is happening to us? Why? what are we like? Perhaps it is precisely at such times that a person lacks emotions, passions, and a sense of the fullness of life. And we still need what Ostrovsky wrote about: “And a deep sigh for the whole theater, and unfeigned warm tears, hot speeches that would pour straight into the soul.”
In connection with the 35th anniversary of Ostrovsky’s activity, Goncharov wrote to him: “You alone built the building, the foundation of which was laid by Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Gogol. But only after you can we, Russians, proudly say: “We have our own, Russian, national theater.” It, in fairness, should be called “Ostrovsky Theater”.
The role played by Ostrovsky in the development of Russian theater and drama can well be compared with the significance that Shakespeare had for English culture, and Moliere for French culture. Ostrovsky changed the nature of the Russian theater repertoire, summed up everything that had been done before him, and opened new paths for dramaturgy. His influence on theatrical art was extremely great. This especially applies to the Moscow Maly Theater, which is traditionally also called the Ostrovsky House. Thanks to numerous plays by the great playwright, who established the traditions of realism on stage, she received further development national school of acting. A whole galaxy of wonderful Russian actors, based on Ostrovsky’s plays, were able to clearly demonstrate their unique talent and establish the originality of the Russian theatrical arts.
At the center of Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy is a problem that has passed through all of Russian classical literature: the conflict of a person with the unfavorable living conditions opposing him, the diverse forces of evil; assertion of the individual’s right to free and comprehensive development. A wide panorama of Russian life is revealed to readers and spectators of the plays of the great playwright. This is, in essence, an encyclopedia of life and customs of an entire historical era. Merchants, officials, landowners, peasants, generals, actors, businessmen, matchmakers, businessmen, students - several hundred characters created by Ostrovsky gave a total idea of Russian reality of the 40s-80s . in all its complexity, diversity and inconsistency.
Ostrovsky, who created a whole gallery of remarkable female images, continued that noble tradition that had already been defined in Russian classics. The playwright exalts strong, integral natures, which in some cases turn out to be morally superior to the weak, insecure hero. These are Katerina (“The Thunderstorm”), Nadya (“The Pupil”), Kruchinina (“Guilty Without Guilt”), Natalya (“Labor Bread”), etc.
Reflecting on the uniqueness of Russian dramatic art, on its democratic basis, Ostrovsky wrote: “ Folk writers want to try their hand 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" Essentially this is a characteristic creative principles Ostrovsky himself.
The dramaturgy of the author of “The Thunderstorm” is distinguished by genre diversity, a combination of tragic and comic elements, everyday and grotesque, farcical and lyrical. His plays are sometimes difficult to classify into one specific genre. He wrote not so much drama or comedy, but rather “plays of life”, according to apt definition Dobrolyubova. The action of his works is often carried out into a wide living space. The noise and chatter of life burst into action and become one of the factors determining the scale of events. Family conflicts turn into public ones. Material from the site
The playwright's skill is manifested in the accuracy of social and psychological characteristics, in the art of dialogue, in apt, lively folk speech. The language of the characters becomes one of his main means of creating an image, a tool of realistic typification.
An excellent connoisseur of oral folk art, Ostrovsky widely used folklore traditions, the richest treasury of folk wisdom. A song can replace a monologue, a proverb or a saying can become the title of a play.
Ostrovsky's creative experience had a tremendous impact on the further development of Russian drama and theatrical art. V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko and K. S. Stanislavsky, founders of the Moscow Art Theater, sought to create " folk theater with approximately the same tasks and plans as Ostrovsky dreamed.” The dramatic innovation of Chekhov and Gorky would have been impossible without their mastery of the best traditions of their remarkable predecessor.
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On this page there is material on the following topics:
- Essay on Ostpovsky's life and his significance in the development of Russian theater
- Ostrovsky articles about the theater
- summary of the Ostrovsky Theater