The value of Ostrovsky's creativity for the present. The role of A.N. Ostrovsky in the creation of the Russian theater

What is the merit of A.N. Ostrovsky? Why, according to I.A. Goncharov, only after Ostrovsky could we say that we have our own Russian national theater? (Return to the epigraph of the lesson)

Yes, there were "Undergrowth", "Woe from Wit", "Inspector General", there were plays by Turgenev, A.K. Tolstoy, Sukhovo-Kobylin, but they were not enough! Most of the theater repertoire consisted of empty vaudeville and translated melodramas. With the advent of Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky, who devoted all his talent exclusively to dramaturgy, the repertoire of theaters changed qualitatively. He alone wrote as many plays as all the Russian classics put together did not write: about fifty! Every season for more than thirty years, theaters received a new play, or even two! Now there was something to play!

There was a new school of acting, a new theatrical aesthetics, the "Ostrovsky Theater" appeared, which became the property of all Russian culture!

What caused Ostrovsky's attention to the theater? The playwright himself answered this question as follows: “Dramatic poetry is closer to the people than all other branches of literature. All other works are written for educated people, and 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 it seriously. If there is no exemplary theater, the simple public may mistake operettas and melodramas that irritate curiosity and sensibility for real art.

So, we note the main merits 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 have been 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, the spring fairy tale “The Snow Maiden”.

3) In his plays, the playwright portrayed various classes, characters, professions, he created 547 actors, 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 17th to the 10th century.

5) The action of the plays takes place in landowners' estates, in inns and on the banks of the Volga. On the boulevards and on the streets of county towns.

6) The heroes of Ostrovsky - and this is the main thing - are living characters with their own characteristics, manners, with their own destiny, with a living language inherent only to this hero.

A century and a half has passed since the first performance was staged (January 1853; Don’t Get in Your Sleigh), and the name of the playwright does not leave the posters of theaters, performances are staged on many stages of the world.

Particularly acute interest in Ostrovsky in troubled times when a person is looking for answers to the most important questions of life: what is happening to us? Why? what are we? Maybe it is at such a time that a person lacks emotions, passions, 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 flow straight into the soul."

Introduction

Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky... This is an unusual phenomenon. The significance of Alexander Nikolaevich for the development of Russian dramaturgy and the stage, his role in the achievements of all Russian culture are undeniable and enormous. Continuing the best traditions of Russian progressive and foreign dramaturgy, Ostrovsky wrote 47 original plays. Some constantly go on stage, filmed in films and on television, others are almost never staged. But in the minds of the public and the theater there lives a certain stereotype of perception in relation to what is called "Ostrovsky's play". Ostrovsky's plays are written for all time, and it is not difficult for the audience to see our current problems and vices in it.

Relevance:His role in the history of the development of Russian dramaturgy, performing arts and the entire national culture can hardly be overestimated. He did as much for the development of Russian dramaturgy as Shakespeare did in England, Lope de Vega in Spain, Molière in France, Goldoni in Italy, and Schiller in Germany.

Ostrovsky appeared in literature in very difficult conditions of the literary process, favorable and unfavorable situations met on his creative path, but in spite of everything, he became an innovator and an outstanding master dramatic art.

The influence of the dramatic masterpieces of A.N. Ostrovsky was not limited to the theatrical stage. It also applied to other forms of art. The folk character characteristic of his plays, the musical and poetic element, the colorfulness and clarity of large-scale characters, the deep vitality of the plots have aroused and continue to arouse the attention of outstanding composers of our country.

Ostrovsky, being an outstanding playwright, a remarkable connoisseur of stage art, also showed himself as a public figure of a large scale. This was greatly facilitated by the fact that the playwright throughout his life was "on a par with the century."
Target:The influence of the dramaturgy of A.N. Ostrovsky in the creation of the national repertoire.
Task:Follow the creative path of A.N. Ostrovsky. Ideas, path and innovation of A.N. Ostrovsky. Show the significance of A.N. Ostrovsky.

1. Russian dramaturgy and playwrights preceding A.N. Ostrovsky

.1 Theater in Russia before A.N. Ostrovsky

The origins of Russian progressive drama, in line with which Ostrovsky's work arose. The national folk theater has a wide repertoire, consisting of buffoon games, interludes, Petrushka's comedic adventures, farcical jokes, "bear" comedies and dramatic works of a wide variety of genres.

The folk theater is characterized by a socially pointed theme, freedom-loving, accusatory satirical and heroic-patriotic ideology, deep conflict, large, often grotesque characters, a clear, clear composition, colloquial colloquial language, skillfully using a wide variety of comic means: omissions, confusion, ambiguity, homonyms, oxymorons.

“By its character and manner of playing, the folk theater is a theater of sharp and clear movements, sweeping gestures, extremely loud dialogue, powerful song and daring dance - here everything is heard and seen far away. By its very nature, the folk theater does not tolerate an inconspicuous gesture, words rendered in an undertone, all that can easily be perceived in a theater hall with the audience in complete silence.

Continuing the traditions of oral folk drama, Russian written drama has made great strides. In the second half of the 18th century, with the overwhelming role of translation and imitative dramaturgy, writers appeared various directions, who aspired to depict domestic customs, cared about the creation of a nationally original repertoire.

Among the plays of the first half of the 19th century, such masterpieces of realistic dramaturgy as Griboyedov's Woe from Wit, Fonvizin's Undergrowth, Gogol's The Government Inspector and Marriage stand out.

Pointing to these works, V.G. Belinsky said that they "would do honor to any European literature". Most appreciating the comedies "Woe from Wit" and "The Government Inspector", the critic believed that they could "enrich any European literature."

The outstanding realistic plays by Griboedov, Fonvizin and Gogol clearly outlined the innovative trends in Russian dramaturgy. They consisted in topical social topics, in a pronounced public and even socio-political pathos, in a departure from the traditional love and household plot that determines the entire development of the action, in violation of the plot and compositional canons of comedy and intrigue drama, in the setting for the development of typical and at the same time individual characters, closely related to the social environment.

These innovative trends, manifested in best plays progressive domestic drama, writers and critics began to realize and theoretically. So, Gogol connects the emergence of Russian progressive dramaturgy with satire and sees the originality of comedy in its true public. He rightly noted that "comedy has not yet taken such an expression from any of the peoples."

By the time A.N. Ostrovsky, Russian progressive dramaturgy already had world-class masterpieces. But these works were still extremely few in number, and therefore did not determine the face of the then theatrical repertoire. A great damage to the development of progressive domestic drama was that the plays of Lermontov and Turgenev, delayed by censorship, could not appear in time.

The vast majority of works that filled theater stage, compiled translations and adaptations of Western European plays, as well as stage experiments by domestic writers of the protective sense.

The theatrical repertoire was not created spontaneously, but under the active influence of the gendarme corps and the watchful eye of Nicholas I.

Preventing the appearance of accusatory-sateric plays, the theatrical policy of Nicholas I in every possible way patronized the production of purely entertaining, autocratic-patriotic dramatic works. This policy proved unsuccessful.

After the defeat of the Decembrists, vaudeville came to the fore in the theatrical repertoire, which had long lost its social sharpness and turned into a light, thoughtless, sharply effective comedy.

Most often, a one-act comedy was distinguished by an anecdotal plot, playful, topical, and often frivolous couplets, punning language and ingenious intrigue woven from funny, unexpected incidents. In Russia, vaudeville gained momentum in the 1910s. The first, though unsuccessful, vaudeville is considered to be “The Cossack Poet” (1812) by A.A. Shakhovsky. A whole swarm of others followed him, especially after 1825.

Vaudeville enjoyed the special love and patronage of Nicholas I. And his theatrical policy had its effect. Theater - 30-40s of the XIX century became the realm of vaudeville, in which attention was mainly given to love situations. “Alas,” Belinsky wrote in 1842, “like bats, a beautiful building has taken possession of our stage by vulgar comedies with gingerbread love and an inevitable wedding! This is what we call "plot". Looking at our comedies and vaudevilles and taking them as an expression of reality, you will think that our society is only engaged in love, only lives and breathes, that it is love!

The distribution of vaudeville was also facilitated by the system of benefit performances that existed at that time. For a benefit performance, which was a material reward, the artist often chose a narrowly entertaining play, calculated to be a box office success.

The theatrical stage was filled with flat, hastily sewn works, in which the main place was occupied by flirting, farcical scenes, anecdote, mistake, chance, surprise, confusion, dressing up, hiding.

Under the influence of social struggle, vaudeville changed in its content. According to the nature of the plots, his development went from love-erotic to everyday life. But compositionally, he remained mostly standard, relying on the primitive means of external comedy. Describing the vaudeville of this time, one of the characters in Gogol's "Theatrical Journey" aptly said: "Go only to the theater: there every day you will see a play where one hid under a chair, and the other pulled him out by the leg."

The essence of the mass vaudeville of the 30-40s of the 19th century is revealed by such titles: "Confusion", "They came together, got mixed up and parted." Emphasizing the playful and frivolous properties of vaudeville, some authors began to call them vaudeville farce, joke vaudeville, etc.

Having fixed "insignificance" as the basis of content, vaudeville became effective tool distracting viewers from the fundamental issues and contradictions of reality. Entertaining the audience with stupid situations and cases, vaudeville "from evening to evening, from performance to performance, inoculated the viewer with the same ridiculous serum, which was supposed to protect him from the infection of superfluous and unreliable thoughts." But the authorities sought to turn it into a direct glorification of Orthodoxy, autocracy, and serfdom.

Vaudeville, which took over the Russian stage in the second quarter of the 19th century, as a rule, was not domestic and original. For the most part, these were plays, in the words of Belinsky, "forcibly dragged" from France and somehow adapted to Russian customs. We observe a similar picture in other genres of dramaturgy of the 1940s. Dramatic works that were considered original turned out to be largely disguised translations. In pursuit of a sharp word, for effect, for a light and funny plot, the vaudeville-comedy play of the 30s and 40s was most often very far from depicting the true life of its time. People of reality, everyday characters were most often absent in it. This was repeatedly pointed out by the then critics. Regarding the content of vaudeville, Belinsky wrote with discontent: “The scene of action is always in Russia, characters marked with Russian names; but neither Russian life, nor Russian society, nor Russian people will you recognize or see here.” Pointing to the isolation of the vaudeville of the second quarter of the 19th century from concrete reality, one of the later critics rightly noted that it would be "a stunning misunderstanding" to study the then Russian society on the basis of it.

Vaudeville, developing, quite naturally showed a desire for the specificity of the language. But at the same time, the speech individualization of characters in it was carried out purely externally - by stringing unusual, funny morphologically and phonetically distorted words, introducing incorrect expressions, ridiculous phrases, sayings, proverbs, national accents, etc.

In the middle of the 18th century, melodrama was very popular in the theatrical repertoire along with vaudeville. Its formation as one of the leading dramatic types occurs at the end of the 18th century in the context of the preparation and implementation of Western European bourgeois revolutions. The moral and didactic essence of Western European melodrama of this period is determined mainly by common sense, practicality, didacticism, the moral code of the bourgeoisie, going to power and opposing their ethnic principles to the depravity of the feudal nobility.

And vaudeville and melodrama in the vast majority were very far from life. However, they were not merely negative phenomena. In some of them, not alienated by satirical tendencies, progressive tendencies - liberal and democratic - made their way. Subsequent dramaturgy, undoubtedly, used the art of vaudeville in the conduct of intrigue, external comedy, sharply honed, elegant pun. She did not pass by the achievements of melodramatists in the psychological depiction of characters, in the emotionally intense development of the action.

While melodrama historically preceded romantic drama in the West, in Russia these genres appeared simultaneously. At the same time, most often they acted in relation to each other without a sufficiently precise accentuation of their features, merging, passing one into another.

About the rhetoric of romantic dramas, using melodramatic, falsely pathetic effects, Belinsky spoke sharply many times. “And if you,” he wrote, “want to take a closer look at the“ dramatic performances ”of our romanticism, you will see that they are kneaded according to the same recipes that pseudo-classical dramas and comedies were composed of: the same hackneyed plots and violent denouements, that the same unnaturalness, the same "decorated nature", the same images without faces instead of characters, the same monotony, the same vulgarity and the same skill.

Melodramas, romantic and sentimental, historical-patriotic dramas of the first half of the 19th century were mostly false not only in their ideas, plots, characters, but also in language. Compared with the classicists, the sentimentalists and romantics undoubtedly took a big step in terms of the democratization of the language. But this democratization, especially among the sentimentalists, often did not go beyond the colloquial language of the noble drawing room. The speech of the unprivileged strata of the population, the broad working masses, seemed to them too rude.

Along with the domestic conservative plays of the romantic genre, translated plays close to them in spirit also widely penetrate the stage at this time: "romantic operas", "romantic comedies" are usually combined with ballet, "romantic performances". The translations of the works of progressive playwrights of Western European romanticism, such as Schiller and Hugo, also enjoyed great success at this time. But in rethinking these plays, the translators reduced their work of "translation" to arousing sympathy in the audience for those who, experiencing the blows of life, retained meek resignation to fate.

In the spirit of progressive romanticism, Belinsky and Lermontov created their plays during these years, but none of them were staged in the theater in the first half of the 19th century. The repertoire of the 1940s does not satisfy not only progressive critics, but also artists and spectators. The remarkable artists of the 1940s, Mochalov, Shchepkin, Martynov, Sadovsky, had to waste their energy on trifles, on playing in non-fiction one-day plays. But, recognizing that in the 1940s plays "are born in swarms, like insects", and "there is nothing to see", Belinsky, like many other progressive figures, did not look hopelessly at the future of the Russian theater. Unsatisfied with the flat humor of vaudeville and the false pathos of melodrama, the advanced audience has long lived with the dream that original realistic plays would become defining and leading in the theatrical repertoire. In the second half of the 1940s, the dissatisfaction of the advanced audience with the repertoire began to be shared to some extent by the mass theater visitor from noble and bourgeois circles. In the late 40s, many viewers, even in vaudeville, "were looking for hints of reality." They were no longer satisfied with melodramatic and vaudeville effects. They wanted the plays of life, they wanted to see ordinary people on the stage. The progressive spectator found an echo of his aspirations only in a few, rarely appearing productions of plays by Russian (Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Gogol) and Western European (Shakespeare, Molière, Schiller) dramatic classics. At the same time, every word associated with protest, free, the slightest hint of feelings and thoughts that disturbed him, acquired a tenfold value in the perception of the viewer.

Gogol's principles, which were so clearly reflected in the practice of the "natural school", contributed to the establishment of realistic and national identity in the theater. Ostrovsky was the clearest exponent of these principles in the field of dramaturgy.

1.2 From early creativity to mature

OSTROVSKY Alexander Nikolaevich, Russian playwright.

Ostrovsky was addicted to reading as a child. In 1840, after graduating from the gymnasium, he was enrolled in the law faculty of Moscow University, but left in 1843. Then he entered the office of the Moscow Constituent Court, later served in the Commercial Court (1845-1851). This experience played a significant role in the work of Ostrovsky.

He entered the literary field in the second half of the 1840s. as a follower of the Gogol tradition, focused on the creative principles of the natural school. At this time, Ostrovsky created the prose essay "Notes of a Resident from the Moscow Region", the first comedies (the play "Family Picture" was read by the author on February 14, 1847 in the circle of Professor S.P. Shevyrev and approved by him).

The playwright became widely known for the satirical comedy "The Bankrupt" ("Our people - let's get along", 1849). The plot (the false bankruptcy of the merchant Bolshov, the deceit and heartlessness of his family members - the daughter of Lipochka and the clerk, and then the son-in-law of Podkhalyuzin, who did not redeem the old father from the debt hole, Bolshov's later insight) were based on Ostrovsky's observations on the analysis of family litigations, obtained during service in the conscience court. The strengthened mastery of Ostrovsky, a new word that sounded on the Russian stage, affected, in particular, in a combination of spectacularly developing intrigue and vivid everyday descriptive inserts (speech of a matchmaker, squabbles between mother and daughter), which slow down the action, but also make you feel the specifics of life and mores of the merchant environment. A special role here was played by the unique, at the same time class, and individual psychological coloring of the characters' speech.

Already in Bankrut, a cross-cutting theme of Ostrovsky's dramatic work was identified: the patriarchal, traditional way of life, as it was preserved in the merchant and petty-bourgeois environment, and its gradual degeneration and collapse, as well as the complex relationships that a person enters into with a gradually changing way of life.

Having created fifty plays over the course of forty years of literary work (some of them co-authored), which became the repertoire basis of the Russian public, democratic theater, Ostrovsky at different stages of his creative path presented in different ways main topic of your creativity. So, having become in 1850 an employee of the Moskvityanin magazine known for its soil trend (editor M.P. Pogodin, employees A.A. Grigoriev, T.I. Filippov, etc.), Ostrovsky, who was a member of the so-called "young editorial board", tried to give the magazine a new direction - to focus on the ideas of national identity and identity, but not the peasantry (unlike the "old" Slavophiles), but the patriarchal merchant class. In his subsequent plays “Do not sit in your sleigh”, “Poverty is not a vice”, “Do not live as you want” (1852-1855), the playwright tried to reflect poetry folk life: “In order to have the right to correct the people without offending them, it is necessary to show them that you know good behind them; this is what I am doing now, combining the lofty with the comic,” he wrote in the “Muscovite” period.

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

The “Muscovite” plays are characterized by a well-known utopianism in resolving conflicts between generations (in the comedy “Poverty is no vice”, 1854, a happy accident upsets the marriage imposed by the tyrant father and hated by the daughter, arranges the marriage of a rich bride - Lyubov Gordeevna - with a poor clerk Mitya) . But this feature of Ostrovsky's "Muscovite" dramaturgy does not negate the high realistic quality of the works of this circle. The image of Lyubim Tortsov, the drunken brother of the tyrant merchant Gordey Tortsov, in the play “Hot Heart” (1868), written much later, turns out to be complex, dialectically connecting seemingly opposite qualities. At the same time, Lyubim is the herald of truth, the bearer of folk morality. He makes Gordey see clearly, having lost a sober view of life because of his own vanity, passion for false values.

In 1855, the playwright, dissatisfied with his position in the Moskvityanin (constant conflicts and meager fees), left the magazine and became close to the editors of the St. Petersburg Sovremennik (N.A. Nekrasov considered Ostrovsky "undoubtedly the first dramatic writer"). In 1859 the first collected works of the playwright were published, which brought him both fame and human joy.

Subsequently, two trends in the coverage of the traditional way of life - critical, accusatory and poetic - fully manifested and merged in Ostrovsky's tragedy The Thunderstorm (1859).

The work, written within the genre framework of social drama, is endowed with tragic depth and historical significance of the conflict at the same time. Clash of two female characters- Katerina Kabanova and her mother-in-law Marfa Ignatievna (Kabanikha) - in scale far exceeds the conflict between generations, traditional for the Ostrovsky theater. Character main character(called by N.A. Dobrolyubov “a ray of light in a dark kingdom”) consists of several dominants: the ability to love, the desire for freedom, a sensitive, vulnerable conscience. Showing the naturalness, inner freedom of Katerina, the playwright at the same time emphasizes that she is, nevertheless, the flesh of the flesh of the patriarchal way of life.

Living by traditional values, Katerina, having betrayed her husband, surrendering to her love for Boris, takes the path of breaking with these values ​​and is acutely aware of this. The drama of Katerina, who denounced herself in front of everyone and committed suicide, turns out to be endowed with the features of the tragedy of an entire historical order, which is gradually being destroyed, becoming a thing of the past. The stamp of eschatologism, the feeling of the end, is also marked by the attitude of Marfa Kabanova, the main antagonist of Katerina. At the same time, Ostrovsky's play is deeply imbued with the experience of "poetry folk life”(A. Grigoriev), song and folklore elements, a sense of natural beauty (the features of the landscape are present in the remarks, stand up in the replicas of the characters).

Subsequent big period the work of the playwright (1861-1886) reveals the proximity of Ostrovsky's searches to the development paths of the contemporary Russian novel - from M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin to the psychological novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

The comedies of the “post-reform” years resound powerfully with the theme of “mad money”, self-seeking, shameless careerism of representatives of the impoverished nobility, combined with the richness of the psychological characteristics of the characters, with the ever-increasing art of plot construction of the playwright. So, the "anti-hero" of the play "Enough Stupidity for Every Wise Man" (1868) Egor Glumov is somewhat reminiscent of Griboyedov's Molchalin. But this is Molchalin new era: for the time being, Glumov's inventive mind and cynicism contribute to his dizzying career that had begun. These same qualities, the playwright hints, in the finale of the comedy will not let Glumov fall into the abyss even after his exposure. The theme of the redistribution of life's blessings, the emergence of a new social and psychological type - a businessman ("Mad Money", 1869, Vasilkov), and even a predatory businessman from nobles ("Wolves and Sheep", 1875, Berkutov) existed in Ostrovsky's work until the end of his writer's path. In 1869 Ostrovsky joined new marriage after the death of Agafya Ivanovna from tuberculosis. From his second marriage, the writer had five children.

Genre and compositionally complex, full of literary allusions, hidden and direct quotations from Russian and foreign classical literature (Gogol, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Molière, Schiller), the comedy The Forest (1870) sums up the first post-reform decade. The play touches on themes developed by the Russian psychological prose, - the gradual ruin of the "noble nests", the spiritual decline of their owners, the stratification of the second estate and those moral collisions in which people are involved in new historical and social conditions. In this social, domestic and moral chaos, the bearer of humanity and nobility is a man of art - a declassed nobleman and provincial actor Neschastlivtsev.

In addition to the “folk tragedy” (“Thunderstorm”), the satirical comedy (“Forest”), Ostrovsky at the late stage of his work also creates exemplary works in the genre of psychological drama (“Dowry”, 1878, “Talents and Admirers”, 1881, “Without Guilty Guilty", 1884). The playwright in these plays expands, psychologically enriches the stage characters. Correlating with traditional stage roles and with commonly used dramatic moves, characters and situations turn out to be able to change in an unforeseen way, thereby demonstrating ambiguity, inconsistency. inner life man, the unpredictability of every everyday situation. Paratov is not only a "fatal man", the fatal lover of Larisa Ogudalova, but also a man of simple, rough worldly calculation; Karandyshev is not only a "little man" who tolerates cynical "masters of life", but also a person with immense, painful pride; Larisa is not only a heroine suffering from love, ideally different from her environment, but also under the influence of false ideals ("Dowry"). The character of Negina (“Talents and Admirers”) is psychologically ambiguously resolved by the playwright: the young actress not only chooses the path of serving art, preferring it to love and personal happiness, but also agrees to the fate of a kept woman, that is, she “practically reinforces” her choice. in destiny famous artist Kruchinina (“Guilty Without Guilt”) intertwined and climbing theatrical Olympus, and a terrible personal drama. Thus, Ostrovsky follows a path that is comparable with the paths of contemporary Russian realistic prose - the path of an ever deeper awareness of the complexity of the inner life of the individual, the paradoxical nature of the choice she makes.

2. Ideas, themes and social characters in dramatic works A.N. Ostrovsky

.1 Creativity (Ostrovsky's democracy)

In the second half of the 1950s, a number of major writers (Tolstoy, Turgenev, Goncharov, Ostrovsky) entered into an agreement with the Sovremennik magazine on preferential provision of their works to it. But soon this agreement was violated by all writers except Ostrovsky. This fact is one of the testimonies of the great ideological closeness of the playwright with the editors of the revolutionary democratic journal.

After the closure of Sovremennik, Ostrovsky, consolidating his alliance with the revolutionary democrats, with Nekrasov and Saltykov-Shchedrin, published almost all of his plays in the journal Fatherland Notes.

Ideologically maturing, the playwright reaches the heights of his democracy, alien Westernism and Slavophilism by the end of the 60s. In my own way ideological pathos Ostrovsky's dramaturgy is the dramaturgy of peaceful-democratic reformism, ardent propaganda of enlightenment and humanity, protection of working people.

Ostrovsky's democracy explains organic connection his work with oral folk poetry, the material of which he so wonderfully used in his artistic creations.

The playwright highly appreciates M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. He speaks of him "in the most enthusiastic way, declaring that he considers him not only an outstanding writer, with incomparable methods of satire, but also a prophet in relation to the future."

Closely associated with Nekrasov, Saltykov-Shchedrin and other leaders of the revolutionary peasant democracy, Ostrovsky, however, was not a revolutionary in his socio-political views. In his works there are no calls for a revolutionary transformation of reality. That is why Dobrolyubov, completing the article "The Dark Kingdom", wrote: "We must confess: we did not find a way out of the" dark kingdom "in the works of Ostrovsky." But in the totality of his works, Ostrovsky gave fairly clear answers to questions about the transformation of reality from the standpoint of peaceful reformist democracy.

Ostrovsky's inherent democracy determined great power his sharply satirical guise of the nobility, the bourgeoisie and the bureaucracy. In a number of cases these guises were raised to the level of the most resolute criticism of the ruling classes.

The accusatory satirical power of many of Ostrovsky's plays is such that they objectively serve the cause of the revolutionary transformation of reality, as Dobrolyubov said: negative side. Drawing to us in a vivid picture false relationships, with all their consequences, he through the very same serves as an echo of aspirations that require a better device. Concluding this article, he said, and even more definitely: "Russian life and Russian strength are called by the artist in The Thunderstorm to a decisive task."

In the very last years, Ostrovsky has a tendency to improve, which is reflected in the substitution of clear social characteristics for abstract moralizing ones, in the appearance of religious motives. For all that, the tendency to improve does not violate the foundations of Ostrovsky's work: it manifests itself within the boundaries of his inherent democracy and realism.

Each writer is distinguished by his curiosity and observation. But Ostrovsky possessed these qualities to the highest degree. He watched everywhere: on the street, at a business meeting, in a friendly company.

2.2 Innovation A.N. Ostrovsky

Ostrovsky's innovation manifested itself already in the subject matter. He sharply turned dramaturgy to life, to its everyday life. It was with his plays that the content of Russian dramaturgy became life as it is.

Developing a highly wide circle At the same time, Ostrovsky used mainly the material of the life and customs of the upper Volga region and Moscow in particular. But regardless of the place of action, Ostrovsky's plays reveal the essential features of the main social classes, estates and groups of Russian reality at a certain stage of their historical development. "Ostrovsky," Goncharov rightly wrote, "scribbled the whole life of the Moscow, that is, the Great Russian state."

Along with the coverage of the most important aspects of the life of the merchants, the dramaturgy of the 18th century did not pass by such private phenomena of merchant life as the passion for dowry, which was prepared in monstrous proportions (“The Bride under a Veil, or the Petty-bourgeois Wedding” unknown author 1789)

Expressing the socio-political demands and aesthetic tastes of the nobility, vaudeville and melodrama, which flooded the Russian theater in the first half of the 19th century, greatly muted the development of everyday drama and comedy, in particular drama and comedy with merchant themes. The theater's keen interest in plays with merchant themes emerged only in the 1930s.

If in the late 30s and at the very beginning of the 40s the life of the merchants in dramatic literature was still perceived as a new phenomenon in the theater, then in the second half of the 40s it already becomes a literary cliché.

Why did Ostrovsky turn to the merchant theme from the very beginning? Not only because merchant life literally surrounded him: he met with the merchants in the house of his father, in the service. On the streets of Zamoskvorechye, where he lived for many years.

In the conditions of the collapse of feudal-serf relations, landowners' Russia rapidly turned into capitalist Russia. The commercial and industrial bourgeoisie was rapidly advancing onto the public stage. In the process of transforming landowner Russia into capitalist Russia, Moscow becomes a commercial and industrial center. Already in 1832, most of the houses in it belonged to the "middle class", i.e. merchants and townspeople. In 1845, Belinsky stated: “The core of the indigenous Moscow population is the merchant class. How many old noble houses have now passed into the ownership of the merchants!

A significant part of Ostrovsky's historical plays is devoted to the events of the so-called "Time of Troubles". This is no coincidence. The turbulent time of the “troubles”, clearly marked by the national liberation struggle of the Russian people, clearly echoes the growing peasant movement of the 60s for their freedom, with the sharp struggle of reactionary and progressive forces that unfolded during these years in society, in journalism and literature.

Depicting the distant past, the playwright had in mind the present. Exposing the ulcers of the socio-political system and the ruling classes, he scourged the contemporary autocratic order. Drawing in plays about the past images of people boundlessly devoted to their homeland, reproducing the spiritual greatness and moral beauty of the common people, he thereby expressed sympathy for the working people of his era.

Ostrovsky's historical plays are an active expression of his democratic patriotism, an effective realization of his struggle against the reactionary forces of modernity, for its progressive aspirations.

Ostrovsky's historical plays, which appeared during the years of a fierce struggle between materialism, idealism, atheism and religion, revolutionary democratism and reaction, could not be raised to the shield. Ostrovsky's plays emphasized the importance of the religious principle, and the revolutionary democrats waged irreconcilable atheistic propaganda.

In addition, advanced criticism negatively perceived the very departure of the playwright from the present into the past. Ostrovsky's historical plays began to find more or less objective evaluation later. Their true ideological and artistic value begins to be realized only in Soviet criticism.

Ostrovsky, depicting the present and the past, was carried away by his dreams into the future. In 1873. He creates a wonderful fairy tale play "The Snow Maiden". This is a social utopia. It has a fabulous plot, characters, and setting. Profoundly different in its form from the playwright's social plays, it organically enters the system of democratic, humanistic ideas of his work.

In the critical literature about The Snow Maiden, it was rightly pointed out that Ostrovsky draws here a “peasant kingdom”, a “peasant community”, once again emphasizing his democracy, his organic connection with Nekrasov, who idealized the peasantry.

It is with Ostrovsky that the Russian theater in its modern sense begins: the writer created a theater school and a holistic concept of acting in the theater.

The essence of Ostrovsky's theater is the absence of extreme situations and opposition to the actor's gut. Alexander Nikolaevich's plays depict ordinary situations with ordinary people, whose dramas go into everyday life and human psychology.

The main ideas of the theater reform:

· the theater should be built on conventions (there is a 4th wall separating the audience from the actors);

· invariability of attitude to language: mastery of speech characteristics, expressing almost everything about the characters;

· betting on more than one actor;

· "People go to see the game, not the play itself - you can read it."

Ostrovsky's theater demanded a new stage aesthetics, new actors. In accordance with this, Ostrovsky creates an ensemble of actors, which includes such actors as Martynov, Sergei Vasilyev, Evgeny Samoilov, Prov Sadovsky.

Naturally, innovations met opponents. They were, for example, Shchepkin. The dramaturgy of Ostrovsky demanded from the actor detachment from his personality, which M.S. Shchepkin did not. For example, he left the dress rehearsal of The Thunderstorm, being very dissatisfied with the author of the play.

Ostrovsky's ideas were carried to their logical end by Stanislavsky.

.3 Socio-ethical dramaturgy of Ostrovsky

Dobrolyubov said that Ostrovsky "extremely fully exposed two types of relations - family relations and property relations." But these relations are always given to them in a broad social and moral framework.

Ostrovsky's dramaturgy is socio-ethical. It raises and solves the problems of morality, human behavior. Goncharov rightly drew attention to this: “Ostrovsky is usually called a writer of everyday life, morals, but this does not exclude the mental side ... he does not have a single play where this or that purely human interest, feeling, life truth is not affected.” The author of "Thunderstorm" and "Dowry" has never been a narrow everyday worker. Continuing the best traditions of Russian progressive dramaturgy, he organically fuses in his plays family and everyday, moral and everyday motives with deeply social or even socio-political ones.

At the heart of almost any of his plays is the main, leading theme of great social resonance, which is revealed with the help of subordinate private themes, mostly everyday ones. Thus, his plays acquire a thematically complex complexity, versatility. So, for example, the leading theme of the comedy "Own people - let's settle!" - unbridled predation, which led to malicious bankruptcy - is carried out in an organic interweaving with its subordinate private topics: education, relationships between elders and younger, fathers and children, conscience and honor, etc.

Shortly before the appearance of "Thunderstorm" N.A. Dobrolyubov published the articles "Dark Kingdom", in which he argued that Ostrovsky "possesses a deep understanding of Russian life and is great at portraying its most essential aspects sharply and vividly."

The Thunderstorm served as new proof of the correctness of the propositions expressed by the revolutionary-democratic critic. In The Thunderstorm, the playwright so far showed with exceptional force the clash between old traditions and new trends, between the oppressed and the oppressors, between the aspirations of the oppressed people for the free manifestation of their spiritual needs, inclinations, interests and the social and family-household orders that dominated in the conditions of pre-reform life.

Solving the urgent problem of illegitimate children, their social powerlessness, Ostrovsky in 1883 created the play Guilty Without Guilt. This problem was touched upon in the literature both before and after Ostrovsky. Democratic fiction paid particular attention to it. But in no other work did this theme sound with such penetrating passion as in the play Guilty Without Guilt. Confirming its relevance, a contemporary of the playwright wrote: "The question of the fate of the illegitimate is a question inherent in all classes."

In this play, the second problem is also loud - art. Ostrovsky skillfully, justifiably tied them into a single knot. He turned a mother looking for her child into an actress and unfolded all the events in an artistic environment. Thus, two heterogeneous problems merged into an organically inseparable life process.

Ways to create a work of art are very diverse. The writer can go from the one who struck him real fact or the problems that agitated him, ideas, from a glut life experience or from the imagination. A.N. Ostrovsky, as a rule, started from the concrete phenomena of reality, but at the same time he defended a certain idea. The playwright fully shared Gogol's judgment that “idea, thought governs the play. Without it, there is no unity in it.” Guided by this position, on October 11, 1872, he wrote to his co-author N.Ya. Solovyov: “I worked on “The Savage Woman” all summer, and I thought for two years, I not only have not a single character or position, but there is not a single phrase that would not strictly follow from the idea ... "

The playwright has always been an opponent of frontal didactics, so characteristic of classicism, but at the same time he defended the need for complete clarity of the author's position. In his plays, one can always feel the author-citizen, a patriot of his country, a son of his people, a champion of social justice, acting either as a passionate defender, lawyer, or as a judge and prosecutor.

Ostrovsky's social, ideological, and ideological position is clearly revealed in relation to the various depicted social classes and characters. Showing the merchants, Ostrovsky reveals with particular fullness his predatory egoism.

Along with selfishness, an essential feature of the bourgeoisie portrayed by Ostrovsky is acquisitiveness, accompanied by insatiable greed and shameless cheating. The acquisitive greed of this class is all-consuming. Kindred feelings, friendship, honor, conscience are exchanged here for money. The glitter of gold overshadows in this environment all the usual concepts of morality and honesty. Here, a wealthy mother gives her only daughter to an old man only because he “doesn’t peck for money” (“Family Picture”), and a rich father is looking for a groom for his, also only daughter, considering only that he has “ there were money and a smaller dowry ache "(" "Own people - let's settle!").

In the trading environment portrayed by Ostrovsky, no one takes into account other people's opinions, desires and interests, considering only their own will and personal arbitrariness as the basis of their activity.

An integral feature of the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie portrayed by Ostrovsky is hypocrisy. The merchants strove to hide their fraudulent nature under the mask of sedateness and piety. The religion of hypocrisy professed by the merchants became their essence.

Predatory egoism, acquisitive greed, narrow practicality, a complete lack of spiritual inquiries, ignorance, tyranny, hypocrisy and hypocrisy - these are the leading moral and psychological features of the pre-reform commercial and industrial bourgeoisie portrayed by Ostrovsky, its essential properties.

Reproducing the pre-reform commercial and industrial bourgeoisie with its pre-construction way of life, Ostrovsky clearly showed that in life the forces opposing it were already growing, inexorably undermining its foundations. The ground under the feet of self-indulgent despots became more and more shaky, foreshadowing their inevitable end in the future.

The post-reform reality has changed a lot in the position of the merchant class. The rapid development of industry, the growth of the domestic market, and the expansion of trade relations with foreign countries have turned the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie not only into an economic but also into a political force. The type of the old pre-reform merchant began to be replaced by a new one. A merchant of a different fold came to replace him.

Responding to the new that the post-reform reality introduced into the life and customs of the merchants, Ostrovsky even more sharply poses in his plays the struggle of civilization with patriarchy, of new phenomena with antiquity.

Following the changing course of events, the playwright in a number of his plays draws a new type of merchant, who was formed after 1861. Acquiring a European gloss, this merchant hides his selfish and predatory essence under external plausibility.

Drawing representatives of the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie of the post-reform era, Ostrovsky exposes their utilitarianism, narrow-mindedness, spiritual poverty, preoccupation with the interests of hoarding and domestic comfort. “The bourgeoisie,” we read in the Communist Manifesto, “broke off family relations their touchingly sentimental cover and reduced them to purely monetary relations. We see a convincing confirmation of this position in the family and everyday relations of both the pre-reform and, in particular, the post-reform Russian bourgeoisie, depicted by Ostrovsky.

Marriage and family relations are subordinated here to the interests of entrepreneurship and profit.

Civilization has undoubtedly streamlined the technique of professional relations between the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie and has imparted to it the gloss of an external culture. But the essence of the social practice of the pre-reform and post-reform bourgeoisie remained unchanged.

Comparing the bourgeoisie with the nobility, Ostrovsky prefers the bourgeoisie, but nowhere, except for three plays - “Do not sit in your sleigh”, “Poverty is not a vice”, “Do not live as you want”, - does not idealize it as an estate. It is clear to Ostrovsky that the moral foundations of the representatives of the bourgeoisie are determined by the conditions of their environment, their social existence, which is a particular expression of the system, which is based on despotism, the power of wealth. The commercial and entrepreneurial activity of the bourgeoisie cannot serve as a source of spiritual growth of the human personality, humanity and morality. The social practice of the bourgeoisie can only disfigure the human personality, instilling in it individualistic, anti-social properties. The bourgeoisie, historically replacing the nobility, is vicious in its essence. But it has become a force not only economic, but also political. While the merchants of Gogol were afraid of the mayor like fire and wallowed at his feet, the merchants of Ostrovsky treat the mayor in familiarity.

Depicting the affairs and days of the commercial and industrial bourgeoisie, its old and young generation, the playwright showed a gallery of images full of individual originality, but, as a rule, without soul and heart, without shame and conscience, without pity and compassion.

The Russian bureaucracy of the second half of the 19th century, with its inherent properties of careerism, embezzlement, and bribery, was also subjected to harsh criticism by Ostrovsky. Expressing the interests of the nobility and the bourgeoisie, it was in fact the dominant socio-political force. “Tsarist autocracy is,” Lenin said, “the autocracy of officials.”

The power of the bureaucracy, directed against the interests of the people, was uncontrolled. Representatives of the bureaucratic world are the Vyshnevskys ("Profitable Place"), the Potrokhovs ("Labor Bread"), the Gnevyshevs ("The Rich Bride") and the Benevolenskys ("The Poor Bride").

The concepts of justice and human dignity exist in the bureaucratic world in an egoistic, extremely vulgar sense.

Revealing the mechanics of bureaucratic omnipotence, Ostrovsky paints a picture of the terrible formalism that brought to life such dark businessmen as Zakhar Zakharych (“Hangover at a Strange Feast”) and Mudrov (“Hard Days”).

It is quite natural that the representatives of autocratic-bureaucratic omnipotence are stranglers of any free political thought.

Embezzling, bribery, perjury, whitewashing the evil and drowning the just cause in a paper stream of casuistic cunning gossip, these people are morally devastated, everything human in them is weathered, there is nothing cherished for them: conscience and honor are sold for profitable places, ranks, money.

Ostrovsky convincingly showed the organic merging of the bureaucracy, the bureaucracy with the nobility and the bourgeoisie, the unity of their economic and socio-political interests.

Reproducing the heroes of the conservative bourgeois bureaucratic life with their vulgarity and impenetrable ignorance, carnivorous greed and rudeness, the playwright creates a magnificent trilogy about Balzaminov.

Looking ahead in his dreams to the future, when he marries a rich bride, the hero of this trilogy says: “Firstly, I would sew myself a blue cloak with a black velvet lining ... I would buy myself a gray horse and a racing droshky and drive along the Hook, mother, and he ruled ... ".

Balzaminov is the personification of vulgar petty-bourgeois bureaucratic limitations. This is a type of great generalizing power.

But a significant part of the petty bureaucracy, being socially between a rock and a hard place, itself endured oppression from the autocratic-despotic system. Among the petty officials there were many honest workers who bent, and often fell under an unbearable burden. social injustices, deprivation and need. Ostrovsky treated these workers with ardent attention and sympathy. He dedicated a number of plays to the little people of the bureaucratic world, where they act as they were in reality: good and evil, smart and stupid, but both of them are destitute, deprived of the opportunity to reveal their best abilities.

More acutely felt their social infringement, more deeply felt their futility people in one way or another outstanding. And so their lives were mostly tragic.

Representatives of the working intelligentsia in the image of Ostrovsky are people of spiritual vivacity and bright optimism, goodwill and humanism.

Principled directness, moral purity, a firm belief in the truth of one's deeds and the bright optimism of the working intelligentsia find ardent support from Ostrovsky. Depicting the representatives of the labor intelligentsia as true patriots of his fatherland, as carriers of light, called to dispel the darkness of the dark kingdom, based on the power of capital and privileges, arbitrariness and violence, the playwright puts his cherished thoughts into their speeches.

Ostrovsky's sympathies belonged not only to the working intelligentsia, but also to ordinary working people. He found them among the philistinism - a motley, complex, contradictory class. By their own aspirations, the petty-bourgeois are attached to the bourgeoisie, and by their labor essence, to the common people. Ostrovsky portrays from this estate mainly working people, showing obvious sympathy for them.

As a rule, ordinary people in Ostrovsky's plays are carriers of natural intelligence, spiritual nobility, honesty, innocence, kindness, human dignity and sincerity of the heart.

Showing the working people of the city, Ostrovsky penetrates with deep respect for their spiritual merits and ardent sympathy for the difficult situation. He acts as a direct and consistent defender of this social stratum.

Deepening the satirical tendencies of Russian dramaturgy, Ostrovsky acted as a merciless denunciator of the exploiting classes and, thereby, of the autocratic system. The playwright portrayed a social system in which the value of the human personality is determined only by its material wealth, in which poor workers experience heaviness and hopelessness, and careerists and bribe-takers prosper and triumph. Thus, the playwright pointed out his injustice and depravity.

That is why in his comedies and dramas all positive characters are predominantly in dramatic situations: they suffer, suffer and even die. Their happiness is accidental or imaginary.

Ostrovsky was on the side of this growing protest, seeing in it a sign of the times, an expression of a nationwide movement, the beginnings of what was to change all life in the interests of working people.

Being one of the brightest representatives of the Russian critical realism, Ostrovsky not only denied, but also affirmed. Using all the possibilities of his skill, the playwright attacked those who oppressed the people and disfigured their souls. Permeating his work with democratic patriotism, he said: “As a Russian, I am ready to sacrifice everything I can for the fatherland.”

Comparing Ostrovsky’s plays with his contemporary liberal-accusatory novels and stories, Dobrolyubov rightly wrote in the article “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom”: “It is impossible not to admit that Ostrovsky’s work is much more fruitful: he captured such general aspirations and needs that permeate the entire Russian society whose voice is heard in all the phenomena of our life, whose satisfaction is a necessary condition for our further development.

Conclusion

The vast majority of Western European dramaturgy of the 19th century reflected the feelings and thoughts of the bourgeoisie, which dominated all spheres of life, praised its morals and heroes, and affirmed the capitalist order. Ostrovsky expressed the mood, moral principles, ideas of the working strata of the country. And this determined the height of his ideology, that strength of his public protest, that truthfulness in his depiction of the types of reality with which he so clearly stands out against the background of all the world drama of his time.

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

Ostrovsky had a tremendous impact on the further development of Russian drama and theatrical art. IN AND. Nemirovich-Danchenko and K.S. Stanislavsky, founders of the Moscow Art Theater, sought to create "a folk theater with approximately the same tasks and plans as Ostrovsky dreamed of." The dramatic innovation of Chekhov and Gorky would have been impossible without mastering the best traditions of their remarkable predecessor. Ostrovsky became an ally and comrade-in-arms of playwrights, directors, and actors in their struggle for nationality and the high ideology of Soviet art.

Bibliography

Ostrovsky dramatic ethical play

1.Andreev I.M. " creative path A.N. Ostrovsky "M., 1989

2.Zhuravleva A.I. “A.N. Ostrovsky - comedian "M., 1981

.Zhuravleva A.I., Nekrasov V.N. “Theater A.N. Ostrovsky "M., 1986

.Kazakov N.Yu. “The life and work of A.N. Ostrovsky "M., 2003

.Kogan L.R. “Chronicle of the life and work of A.N. Ostrovsky "M., 1953

.Lakshin V. “Theater A.N. Ostrovsky "M., 1985

.Malygin A.A. “The Art of Drama by A.N. Ostrovsky "M., 2005

Internet resources:

.#"justify">9. Lib.ru/ classic. Az.lib.ru

.Shchelykovo www. Shelykovo.ru

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Similar works to - The role of Ostrovsky in the creation of the national repertoire

Biographies) are enormous: closely adjacent in his work to the activities of his great teachers Pushkin, Griboyedov and Gogol, Ostrovsky also said his word, strong and smart. A realist in his manner of writing and artistic outlook, he gave Russian literature an unusually large amount of the most various paintings and types snatched from Russian life.

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky. Educational video

“Reading his works, one is directly struck by the immense breadth of Russian life, the abundance and variety of types, characters and situations. As in a kaleidoscope, Russian people of all sorts of mental make-up pass before our eyes - here are tyrant merchants, with their downtrodden children and households, - here are landowners and landowners - from broad Russian natures, burning through life, to predatory hoarders, from complacent, pure in heart, to the callous, who do not know any moral restraints, they are replaced by the bureaucratic world, with all its various representatives, ranging from the highest rungs of the bureaucratic ladder and ending with those who have lost the image and likeness of God, petty drunkards, quarrelers - a product of pre-reform courts, then there are simply groundless people , honestly and dishonestly living day by day - all kinds of businessmen, teachers, hookers and hookers, provincial actors and actresses with the whole world around them .. And along with this, the distant historical and legendary past of Russia passes, in the form of artistic pictures of life 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 boyars, military people and the people of that era, ”writes the pre-revolutionary critic Aleksandrovsky.

Ostrovsky is one of the brightest 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, more fully than other Russian writers, introduced us to the psychology and worldview of the Russian people.

In connection with the 35th anniversary of Ostrovsky's activity, Goncharov wrote to him: “You alone built the building, at the base of which you laid the cornerstones of Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Gogol. 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.

The role played by Ostrovsky in the development of Russian theater and drama may well be compared with the importance that Shakespeare had for English culture, and Molière for French. Ostrovsky changed the nature of the Russian theater repertoire, summed up everything that had been done before him, and opened up new paths for dramaturgy. His influence on theatrical art was exceptionally great. This is especially true of the Moscow Maly Theatre, which is also traditionally called the Ostrovsky House. Thanks to the numerous plays of the great playwright, who affirmed the traditions of realism on the stage, the national school of acting was further developed. A whole galaxy of remarkable Russian actors on the material of Ostrovsky's plays was able to vividly show their unique talent, to affirm the originality of Russian theatrical art.

At the center of Ostrovsky's dramaturgy is a problem that has gone through all of Russian classical literature: the conflict of man with the unfavorable conditions of life opposing him, the diverse forces of evil; assertion of the individual's right to free and comprehensive development. Before readers and spectators of the plays of the great playwright, a wide panorama of Russian life is revealed. This is, in essence, an encyclopedia of life and customs of an entire historical era. Merchants, officials, landlords, peasants, generals, actors, merchants, matchmakers, businessmen, students - several hundred characters created by Ostrovsky gave a total idea of ​​​​Russian reality in the 40-80s . in all its complexity, diversity and inconsistency.

Ostrovsky, who created a whole gallery of wonderful female images, continued that noble tradition, which has already been determined in the Russian classics. The playwright exalts strong, integral natures, which in a number of cases turn out to be morally superior to a weak, insecure hero. These are Katerina (“Thunderstorm”), Nadya (“Pupil”), Kruchinina (“Guilty Without Guilt”), Natalia (“Labor Bread”), and others.

Reflecting on the originality of Russian dramatic art, on its democratic basis, Ostrovsky wrote: “Folk writers want to try their hand at a fresh audience, whose nerves are not very pliable, which requires strong drama, big comedy, causing frank, loud laughter, hot, sincere feelings, lively and strong characters. In essence, this is a characteristic of the creative principles of Ostrovsky himself.

The dramaturgy of the author of "Thunderstorm" is distinguished by genre diversity, a combination of tragic and comic, everyday and grotesque, farcical and lyrical elements. His plays are sometimes difficult to attribute to one specific genre. He wrote not so much drama or comedy as "plays of life", according to the apt definition of Dobrolyubov. The action of his works is often carried out on a wide living space. The noise and talk of life burst into action, become one of the factors determining the scale of events. Family conflicts develop into social ones. material from the site

The skill of the playwright 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 for him one of the main means of creating an image, an instrument of realistic typification.

A great connoisseur of oral folk art, Ostrovsky widely used folk traditions, the richest treasury of folk wisdom. The song can replace his monologue, proverb or saying and become the title of the play.

The creative experience of Ostrovsky had a huge impact on the further development of Russian drama and theatrical art. V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko and K. S. Stanislavsky, the founders of the Moscow Art Theater, sought to create “a folk theater with approximately the same tasks and in the same plans as Ostrovsky dreamed of.” The dramatic innovation of Chekhov and Gorky would have been impossible without mastering the best traditions of their remarkable predecessor.

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

With a feeling of undisguised satisfaction, A. N. Ostrovsky wrote on November 3, 1878 to his friend, artist Alexandria Theater A.F. Burdin: “I have already read my play in Moscow five times, among the listeners there were people who were hostile to me, and everyone unanimously recognized The Dowry as the best of all my works.” Ostrovsky lived "Dowry", at times only on her, his fortieth thing, directed "his attention and strength", wanting to "finish" her in the most thorough way. In September 1878, he wrote to one of his acquaintances: “I am working on my play with all my might; it doesn't look bad." Already a day after the premiere, on November 12, Ostrovsky could find out, and undoubtedly learned from Russkiye Vedomosti, how he managed to "tire out the entire audience, right down to the most naive spectators." For she - the audience - has clearly "outgrown" those spectacles that he offers her. In the 1970s Ostrovsky's relationship with critics, theaters and audiences became more and more complicated. The period when he enjoyed universal recognition, won by him in the late fifties and early sixties, was replaced by another, which was growing more and more in different circles of cooling towards the playwright.

Theatrical censorship was more severe than literary censorship. This is no coincidence. In essence, theatrical art is democratic, it is more direct than literature, it is addressed to the general public. Ostrovsky in his “Note on the Situation of Dramatic Art in Russia at the Present Time” (1881) wrote that “dramatic poetry is closer to the people than other branches of literature. All other works are written for educated people, but dramas and comedies are written for the whole people; dramatic writers must always remember this, they must be clear and strong. This proximity 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 petty. Ostrovsky speaks in his "Note" about how the theatrical audience in Russia expanded after 1861. Ostrovsky writes to a new spectator, not experienced in art, Ostrovsky writes: “Fine literature is still boring for him and incomprehensible, music too, only the theater gives him complete pleasure, there he experiences like a child everything that happens on the stage, sympathizes with good and recognizes evil, clearly presented." For a “fresh” audience, Ostrovsky wrote, “strong drama, large-scale comedy, defiant, frank, loud laughter, hot, sincere feelings are required.”

It is the theater, according to Ostrovsky, which has its roots in the folk show, has the ability to directly and strongly influence the souls of people. Two and a half decades later, Alexander Blok, speaking about poetry, will write that its essence is in the main, “walking” truths, in the ability to convey them to the heart of the reader, which the theater has:

Move on, mourning nags!
Actors, master the craft,
To from the walking truth
Everyone felt sick and light!

("Balagan", 1906)

The great importance that Ostrovsky attached to the theater, his thoughts about theatrical art, about the position of the theater in Russia, about the fate of the actors - all this was reflected in his plays. Contemporaries perceived Ostrovsky as a successor to the dramatic art of Gogol. 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. The originality of Ostrovsky consisted not only in the fact that he portrayed not only the oppressors, but also their victims, not only in the fact that, as I. Annensky wrote, Gogol was mainly a poet of “visual”, and Ostrovsky “hearing” impressions.

The originality, novelty of Ostrovsky were also manifested in the choice of life material, in the subject of the image - he mastered new layers of reality. He was the discoverer, Columbus, not only of Zamoskvorechye, - whom only we do not see, whose voices we do not hear in the works of Ostrovsky! Innokenty Annensky wrote: “... This is a virtuoso of sound images: merchants, wanderers, factory workers and teachers of the Latin language, Tatars, gypsies, actors and sex workers, bars, clerks and petty bureaucrats-Ostrovsky gave a huge gallery of typical speeches ...” Actors, theatrical environment - too the new life material that Ostrovsky mastered - everything connected with the theater seemed to him very important.

In the life of Ostrovsky himself, the theater played a huge role. He took part in the production of his plays, worked with actors, was friends with many of them, corresponded. He put a lot of effort into defending the rights of actors, seeking to create a theater school in Russia, his own repertoire. Artist of the Maly Theater N.V. Rykalova recalled: Ostrovsky, “having become better acquainted with the troupe, became our own man. The group loved him very much. Alexander Nikolaevich was unusually affectionate and courteous to everyone. Under the serf regime that prevailed at that time, when the bosses said “you” to the artist, when most of the troupe was from serfs, Ostrovsky's treatment seemed to everyone some kind of revelation. Usually Alexander Nikolayevich staged his plays himself ... Ostrovsky gathered a troupe and read a play to her. He was remarkably good at reading. All the characters came out of him as if they were alive ... Ostrovsky knew well the inner, hidden from the eyes of the audience, backstage life of the theater. Starting with the Forest "(1871), Ostrovsky develops the theme of the theater, creates images of actors, depicts their fate - this play is followed by "Comedian of the 17th century" (1873), "Talents and Admirers" (1881), "Guilty Without Guilt" (1883 ).

The position of the actors in the theatre, their success depended on whether they were liked or not by the wealthy spectators who set the tone in the city. After all, the provincial troupes lived mainly on donations from local patrons, who felt like masters in the theater and could dictate their terms. Many actresses lived off expensive gifts from wealthy fans. The actress, who cherished her honor, had a hard time. In "Talents and Admirers" Ostrovsky depicts such life situation. Domna Panteleevna, mother of Sasha Negina complains: “My Sasha is not happy! He keeps himself very carefully, well, there is no such disposition 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 resentment, in the image of Ostrovsky, many people who have devoted their lives to the stage, the 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 spiritual generosity are inherent not only among the tragedians. Ostrovsky shows that true talent, a disinterested love for art and the theater elevate people. These are Narokov, Negina, Kruchinina.

In early romantic stories Maxim Gorky expressed his attitude to life and people, his view of the era. The heroes of many of these stories are the so-called tramps. The writer portrays them as brave, strong-hearted people. The main thing for them is freedom, which the tramps, like all of us, understand in their own way. They passionately dream of some special life, far from the ordinary. But they can’t find her, so they go wandering, drink too much, commit suicide. One of these people is depicted in the story "Chelkash". Chelkash - “an old poisoned wolf, well known to the Havanese people, an inveterate 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 gives himself so completely to the feeling of love, the intoxication with the beauty of the woman he loves, that in itself brings happiness, in which even sorrowful experiences are great bliss. From the depths of world existence, love grows, which has become the subject of Fet's inspiration. The innermost sphere of the poet's soul is love. In his poems, he put various shades of love feeling: not only bright love, admiring 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" - such was the general judgment about the new writer and his books. The growing discontent in society and the expectation of decisive changes caused an increase in romantic tendencies in literature. These tendencies were especially clearly reflected in the work of the young Gorky, in such stories as "Chelkash", "Old Woman Izergil", "Makar Chudra", in revolutionary songs. The heroes of these stories are people "with the sun in their blood", strong, proud, beautiful. These heroes are Gorky'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. Quiet, slightly sleepy streets of Odense were suddenly filled with the sounds of music. A procession of artisans, carrying torches and banners, marched past the brightly lit old town hall, saluting a tall, blue-eyed man who stood by the window. In honor of whom did the inhabitants of Odense light their fires in September 1869? It was Hans Christian Andersen, elected shortly before that as an honorary citizen of his native city. Honoring Andersen, his countrymen sang the heroic deed of a man and a writer,