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Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky is a great playwright of the 19th century and one of the founders of the modern Russian theater. His plays are known all over the world and are regularly staged, but what interesting facts from the life of Ostrovsky are known to the general public?

The house where the writer was born.

The biography and personality of Ostrovsky seems somewhat ordinary. He did not fight, did not fight a duel, was not in exile, did not sit in prison, did not play, did not visit the court. Ostrovsky spent his entire life in Moscow, changing his apartment only once: after the death of his first wife, he moved from Yauza to Volkhonka.

A man with connections, or "Our people - we'll settle"

The younger brother of the playwright Mikhail Nikolayevich was an official and achieved extraordinary success in the service: at the end of his life, as the Minister of State Property, he rose to the highest rank of the Russian Empire - he became a full state councilor. In total, Ostrovsky had fourteen brothers and sisters, six of whom died in childhood. Alexander Nikolaevich was the oldest.

"How a London dandy is dressed"

Ostrovsky with colleagues from the publishing house of the Sovremennik magazine

Ostrovsky loved to dress well all his life and spun in front of the mirror for a long time. In his youth, living among the townspeople of Zamoskvorechye, he was sometimes afraid to go out into the street in his extravagant clothes. Neighbors not experienced in secular fashion could misunderstand the young man's bohemian habits.

Dvoechnik Ostrovsky

After graduating from the gymnasium, Ostrovsky, following the wishes of his father, entered the Faculty of Law. But in the third year, the playwright dropped out, failing the exam in Roman law. According to one version, the failure was associated with a dishonest teacher who wanted to take a bribe from a wealthy student. But most likely Ostrovsky, who had fallen ill with the theater by that time and was already in his second year, was simply poorly prepared.

Don't take a dowry, take a sweetheart

Agafya Ivanovna

The first wife of Ostrovsky Agafya Ivanovna (her last name remained unknown) was a poor commoner. Upon learning of this connection, Alexander Nikolayevich's father threatened to kick him out of the house if he married Ghana. The son did not dare to disobey his father, but he lived with this woman in a civil marriage for almost twenty years and was very upset by her death from tuberculosis. All the children born of this union also died early. Six children were given to the playwright by his second wife, actress Maria Bakhmetyeva.

Truth in wine

Working at the beginning of his creative activity in the magazine "Moskvityanin", Ostrovsky led a truly wild life. Night vigils with friends, booze and women (without whom, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, the playwright could not live) greatly undermined his health. At a later age, Ostrovsky was distinguished by moderation in passions.

Language will bring to Kyiv

Alexander Nikolaevich was a polyglot and he himself was engaged in the translation of his plays. He spoke seven languages: in addition to the required educated person XIX century French, Latin and ancient Greek Ostrovsky spoke Spanish, Italian, English and German. His translations of masterpieces of world literature by C. Goldoni, N. Machiavelli, M. Cervantes and W. Shakespeare have been preserved.

The history of one plagiarism

Ostrovsky wrote his first play in collaboration with the former actor Dmitry Gorev, who by that time had already been published in magazines. Having met Alexander Nikolaevich three or four times, Gorev refused to work with him, citing employment. Subsequently, these few evenings turned into big problems. When Ostrovsky's first plays were published and became widely known, Gorev began to spread rumors that these texts allegedly belonged to him. Fortunately, after a series of unpleasant articles, the dirty story ended: the slander was exposed.

You can't even pull a fish out of the pond without difficulty.

Ostrovsky was a passionate fisherman. When traveling, he always took the necessary equipment, and friends who knew about his hobby, first of all, led him to fishing places. Letters have been preserved in which Alexander Nikolaevich gives professional advice from a fisherman to his brother and friends. Perhaps his frequent trips to the Volga were not at all connected with the search for ethnographic material for plays ...

"I'm so good that my heart stops"

Ostrovsky was famous for his diabolical pride and boastfulness. He did not tolerate if people talked about him or his plays without superlatives, he could even quarrel with friends on this basis. It is known that he was offended by Nekrasov, who underestimated his "Snow Maiden" (literally underestimated by paying a small fee). He called Ostrovsky and arrogant.

“I can also embroider, and on a typewriter too ...”

Another interesting fact from the life of Ostrovsky is his love for. Spending a lot of time in his childhood in the company of his sister Natasha, who was a year younger, and her friends, he, along with the girls, learned to sew and cut. The playwright used this skill later: for example, he cut trousers for his little son.

Women's nature

The play "Thunderstorm"

Despite his impressive appearance, stamina and strong will, Ostrovsky possessed not only the ability for needlework, but also another wonderful feminine quality - increased sensitivity. Best of all, he was able to read female roles - not only comic, but also tragic. And the playwright's handwriting is recognized as feminine even by modern researchers.

From what rubbish do poems grow

Christmas comedy by Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky

One of Katerina's monologues in The Thunderstorm was inspired by Ostrovsky's conversation with the actress Lyubov Pavlova, in whose carriage he rode from the funeral of Nikolai Gogol. Trying to distract the playwright from gloomy thoughts, the woman on the way told him about her childhood and the ringing of the bells of the neighboring church that she remembered.

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky

Ostrovsky Alexander Nikolaevich (1823, Moscow - 1886, Shchelykovo estate, Kostroma province.) - playwright. Genus. in the family of a judge. Having received a serious home education, he graduated from the gymnasium, and in 1840 he entered the law faculty of Moscow. university, where he left without completing the course, in 1843. He entered the service in judicial institutions, which allowed O. to collect vivid material for his plays. Despite the endless difficulties with censorship, Ostrovsky wrote about 50 plays (the most famous are "Profitable Place", "Wolves and Sheep", "Thunderstorm", "Forest", "Dowry"), creating a grandiose artistic canvas depicting the life of various classes of Russia in the second floor. 19th century He was one of the organizers of the Artistic Circle, the Society -rus. dramatic writers and opera composers, did a lot to improve the situation of theater in Russia. In 1866, shortly before his death, Ostrovsky headed the repertory part of the sinks. theaters. The significance of Ostrovsky's activities was recognized even by his contemporaries. I.A. Goncharov wrote to him: "You alone completed the building, the foundation of which was laid by the cornerstones of Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Gogol. But only after you, we Russians can proudly say:" We have our own Russian, national theater. "He, in fairness , should be called; "Ostrovsky's Theatre".

Used materials of the book: Shikman A.P. Figures of national history. Biographical guide. Moscow, 1997.

Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky (1823-1886) - an exceptional figure in the background literature XIX century. In the West, before the appearance of Ibsen, there was not a single playwright who could be put on a par with him. In the life of the merchants, dark and ignorant, entangled in prejudices, prone to tyranny, absurd and amusing whims, he found original material for his stage works. Pictures of the life of the merchants gave Ostrovsky the opportunity to show an important side of Russian life in general, the "dark kingdom" of old Russia.

Ostrovsky is a folk playwright in the true and profound sense of the word. His nationality is manifested in the direct connection of his art with folklore - folk songs, proverbs and sayings, which even make up the titles of his plays, and in a truthful depiction of folk life imbued with a democratic trend, and in the extraordinary convexity, relief of the images he created, clothed in an accessible and democratic form and addressed to the public spectator.

Quoted from: World History. Volume VI. M., 1959, p. 670.

OSTROVSKY Alexander Nikolaevich (1823 - 1886), playwright. Born on March 31 (April 12 NS) in Moscow in the family of an official who deserved the nobility. Childhood years were spent in Zamoskvorechye, the merchant and petty-bourgeois district of Moscow. He received a good education at home, studying foreign languages ​​from childhood. Subsequently, he knew Greek, French, German, and later - English, Italian, Spanish.

At the age of 12 he was sent to the 1st Moscow gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1840 and entered the law faculty of Moscow University (1840 - 43). He listened to the lectures of such advanced professors as T. Granovsky, M. Pogodin. The desire for literary creativity coincides with a passionate passion for the theater, on the stages of which the great actors M. Shchepkin and P. Mochalov performed at that time.

Ostrovsky leaves the university - the legal sciences ceased to interest him, and he decides to seriously engage in literature. But, at the insistence of his father, he entered the service of the Moscow conscientious court. Work in court gave the future playwright rich material for his plays.

In 1849, the comedy "Own People - Let's Settle!" was written, which brought recognition to the author, although it appeared on the stage only 11 years later (it was banned by Nicholas 1, and Ostrovsky was placed under police supervision). Inspired by success and recognition, Ostrovsky wrote one, and sometimes several plays every year, creating a whole "Ostrovsky theatre", including 47 plays of various genres.

In 1850 he became an employee of the magazine "Moskvityanin", enters the circle of writers, actors, musicians, and artists. These years gave the playwright a lot in a creative sense. At this time, "Morning of a Young Man", "An Unexpected Case" (1850) were written.

In 1851, Ostrovsky left the service in order to devote all his strength and time to literary creativity. Continuing Gogol's accusatory traditions, he wrote the comedies "The Poor Bride" (1851), "The Characters Didn't Agree" (1857).

But in 1853, refusing a "hard" view of Russian life, he wrote to Pogodin: "It is better for a Russian person to rejoice at seeing himself on stage than to yearn. Correctors will be found even without us." Comedies followed: "Do not sit in your sleigh" (1852), "Poverty is not a vice" (1853), "Do not live as you want" (1854). N. Chernyshevsky reproached the playwright for the ideological and artistic falsity of his new position.

Ostrovsky's further work was supported by participation in an expedition organized by the Naval Ministry to study the life and crafts of the population associated with rivers and shipping (1856). He made a trip along the Volga, from its sources to Nizhny Novgorod, during which he kept detailed records, studied the life of the local population.

In 1855-60, in the pre-reform period, he draws closer to the revolutionary democrats, comes to a kind of "synthesis", returning to the denunciation of the "rulers" and opposing his "little people" to them. Plays appear: "In a strange feast hangover" (1855), "Profitable place" (1856), "Pupil" (1858), "Thunderstorm" (1859). Dobrolyubov enthusiastically appreciated the drama "Thunderstorm", dedicating to her the article "Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom" (1860).

In the 1860s, Ostrovsky turned to historical drama, considering such plays necessary in the theater repertoire: the chronicles Tushino (1867), Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky, and the psychological drama Vasilisa Melentyeva (1868).

In the 1870s, he paints the life of the post-reform nobility: "Each wise man is quite simple", "Mad Money" (1870), "Forest" (1871), "Wolves and Sheep" (1875). A special place is occupied by the play "The Snow Maiden" (1873), which expressed the lyrical beginning of Ostrovsky's dramaturgy.

AT last period creativity, a whole series of plays was written dedicated to the fate of a woman in the conditions of entrepreneurial Russia in 1870 - 80: "The Last Victim", "Dowry", "Heart is not a stone", "Talents and admirers", "Guilty without guilt", etc.

Used materials of the book: Russian writers and poets. Brief biographical dictionary. Moscow, 2000.

Vasily Perov. Portrait of A. N. Ostrovsky. 1871

Ostrovsky Alexander Nikolaevich (31.03. 1823-2.06.1886), playwright, theatrical figure. Born in Moscow in Zamoskvorechye - a merchant and petty-bourgeois bureaucratic district of Moscow. The father is an official, the son of a priest, who graduated from the theological academy, entered the civil service and later received the nobility. Mother - from the poor clergy, was distinguished, along with beauty, by high spiritual qualities, died early (1831); Ostrovsky's stepmother, from the old noble family Russified Swedes, transformed the patriarchal way of life of the family beyond Moscow into a noble way, took care of the good home education of her children and stepchildren, for which the family had the necessary prosperity. Father, in addition to public service, was engaged in private practice, and since 1841, having retired, he became a successful sworn solicitor of the Moscow Commercial Court. In 1840, Ostrovsky graduated from the 1st Moscow Gymnasium, which at that time was an exemplary secondary educational institution with a humanitarian focus. In 1840-43 he studied at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, where M. P. Pogodin, T. N. Granovsky, P. G. Redkin taught at that time. Even in the gymnasium, Ostrovsky became interested in literary work, in his student years he became a passionate theatergoer. The great actors P. S. Mochalov and M. S. Shchepkin, who had a great influence on young people, shone on the Moscow stage during these years. As soon as studies in special legal disciplines began to interfere with Ostrovsky's creative aspirations, he left the university and, at the insistence of his father, in 1843 entered the Moscow Conscience Court as a clerk, where property disputes, juvenile crimes, etc. were dealt with; in 1845 he was transferred to the Moscow Commercial Court, from where he left in 1851 to become a professional writer. Work in the courts significantly enriched Ostrovsky's life experience, gave him knowledge of the language, life and psychology of the petty-bourgeois-merchant "third estate" Moscow and bureaucracy. At this time, Ostrovsky tries himself in different areas of literature, continues to compose poetry, writes essays and plays. Ostrovsky considered the beginning of his professional literary activity the play "Family Picture", which on February 14. 1847 was successfully read in the house of the university professor and writer S. P. Shevyrev. By this time, "Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky resident" belong (for them, back in 1843, was written short story"The Tale of How the Quarter Warden Started to Dance, or From the Great to the Ridiculous, Only One Step"). The next play "Own people - let's settle!" (originally called "Bankrupt") was written in 1849, in 1850 it was published in the magazine "Moskvityanin" (No. 6), but was not allowed on stage. For this play, which made the name of Ostrovsky known to all reading Russia, he was placed under the covert supervision of the police.

From n. In the 1950s, Ostrovsky became an active collaborator in The Moskvityanin, published by M. P. Pogodin, and soon, together with A. A. Grigoriev, E. N. Edelson, B. N. Almazov, and others, formed the so-called. "young editors", who tried to revive the magazine, promoting realistic art, interest in folk life and folklore. The circle of young employees of the Moskvityanin included not only writers, but also actors (P. M. Sadovsky, I. F. Gorbunov), musicians (A. I. Dubuk), artists and sculptors (P. M. Boklevsky, N. A. . Ramazanov); Muscovites had friends among the "common people" - performers and lovers of folk songs. Ostrovsky and his Moskvityanin comrades were not only a group of like-minded people, but also a friendly circle. These years gave Ostrovsky a lot in a creative sense, and above all, a deep knowledge of "living", non-academic folklore, speech and life of the urban common people.

All R. In the 1840s, Ostrovsky entered into a civil marriage with the petty-bourgeois girl A. Ivanova, who remained with him until her death in 1867. Being poorly educated, she possessed intelligence and tact, excellent knowledge of the common people's life and sang wonderfully, her role in the creative life of the playwright was undoubtedly significant. In 1869, Ostrovsky married the actress of the Maly Theater M. V. Vasilyeva (from whom he already had children by that time), prone to noble, “secular” forms of life, which complicated his life. For many years, Ostrovsky lived on the verge of poverty. Being recognized as the head of Russian playwrights, even in his declining years he was constantly in need, earning a living through tireless literary work. Despite this, he was distinguished by hospitality and constant readiness to help any person in need.

Ostrovsky's whole life is connected with Moscow, which he considered the heart of Russia. Of the relatively few travels of Ostrovsky (1860 - a trip with A.E. Martynov touring to Voronezh, Kharkov, Odessa, Sevastopol, during which the great actor died; 1862 travel abroad in Germany, Austria, Italy with a visit to Paris and London; a trip with I F. Gorbunov along the Volga in 1865 and with his brother, M. N. Ostrovsky, in Transcaucasia in 1883), the expedition organized by the Maritime Ministry, which sent writers to study the life and crafts of the population associated with rivers and shipping, had the greatest influence on his work. Ostrovsky made a trip along the Volga, from its sources to Nizhny Novgorod (1856), during which he kept detailed notes and compiled a dictionary of shipping, shipbuilding and fishing terms of the Upper Volga region. Life in his beloved Kostroma estate Shchelykovo, which the writer’s father bought in 1847, was also of great importance to him. enthusiastic entry in the diary). After the death of his father, Ostrovsky and his brother M. N. Ostrovsky bought the estate from his stepmother (1867). The history of the creation of many plays is connected with Shchelykov.

In general, Ostrovsky's passionate focus on creativity and theatrical affairs, making his life poor external events, inextricably intertwined it with the fate of the Russian theater. The writer died at his desk in Shchelykovo while working on a translation of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra.

In the creative path of Ostrovsky, the following periods can be distinguished: early, 1847-51 - a test of strength, the search for one's own path, culminating in a triumphant entry into great literature with the comedy "Our people - we will be counted!". This initial period passes under the influence of the "natural school". The next, Muscovite period, 1852-54 - active participation in the circle of young employees of the "Moskvityanin", who sought to make the journal an organ of a current of social thought akin to Slavophilism (the plays "Do not get into your sleigh", "Poverty is not a vice", "Do not live like this as you like"). Ostrovsky's worldview is finally determined in the pre-reform period, 1855-60; there is his rapprochement with the populists ("Hangover in someone else's feast", "Profitable place", "Pupil", "Thunderstorm"). And the last, post-reform period - 1861-86.

The play "Own people - let's settle!" has a rather complex compositional structure, combining a moralistic essay with a tense intrigue, and at the same time, the unhurried development of events characteristic of Ostrovsky. The extensive slow-motion exposition is explained by the fact that Ostrovsky's dramatic action is not limited to intrigue. It also includes moralistic episodes that have potential conflict (Lipochka's disputes with her mother, visits from the matchmaker, scenes with Tishka). The conversations of the characters are also peculiarly dynamic, not leading to any immediate results, but having their own “micro-action”, which can be called a speech movement. Speech, the very way of reasoning, is so important and interesting that the viewer follows all the turns of the seemingly empty chatter. For Ostrovsky, the very speech of the characters is almost an independent object of artistic representation.

Ostrovsky's comedy, depicting as if the exotic life of a closed merchant world, in fact, in its own way, reflected the all-Russian processes and changes. Here, too, there is a conflict between "fathers" and "children." Here they talk about enlightenment and emancipation, without, of course, knowing these words; but in a world whose very foundation is deceit and violence, all these high concepts and the liberating spirit of life are distorted, as in a distorting mirror. The antagonism of the rich and the poor, the dependent, the "younger" and the "older" is developed and demonstrated in the sphere of the struggle not for equality or freedom of personal feelings, but in selfish interests, the desire to get rich and "to live of one's own free will." High values ​​are replaced by their parodic counterparts. Education is nothing more than a desire to follow fashion, contempt for customs and preference for "noble" gentlemen over "bearded" suitors.

In Ostrovsky's comedy there is a war of all against all, and in the very antagonism the playwright reveals the deep unity of the characters: what is obtained by deceit is retained only by violence, the rudeness of feelings is a natural product of the rudeness of morals and coercion. The sharpness of social criticism does not interfere with objectivity in the depiction of characters, which is especially noticeable in the image of Bolshov. His crude tyranny is combined with directness and innocence, with sincere suffering in the final scenes. Introducing into the play, as it were, 3 stages of a merchant's biography (the mention of Bolshov's past, the image of Tishka with his naive hoarding, the "devoted" Podkhalyuzin robbing the owner), Ostrovsky achieves epic depth, showing the origins of character and the "crisis". History of Zamoskvoretsky merchant's house appears not as a "joke", the result of personal vices, but as a manifestation of life patterns.

After Ostrovsky created in the comedy “Our people - we will settle!” such a bleak picture of the inner life of the merchant's house, he had a need to find positive principles that could resist the immoralism and cruelty of contemporary society. The direction of the search was determined by the participation of the playwright in the "young edition" of "Moskvityanin". At the very end of the reign of imp. Nicholas I Ostrovsky creates a kind of patriarchal utopia in the plays of the Muscovite period.

Muscovites were characterized by a focus on the idea of ​​national identity, which they developed mainly in the field of art theory, especially manifested in their interest in folk songs, as well as in pre-Petrine forms of Russian life, which were still preserved among the peasantry and patriarchal merchants. The patriarchal family was presented to Muscovites as a model of an ideal social structure, where relations between people would be harmonious, and the hierarchy would be based not on coercion and violence, but on recognition of the authority of seniority and worldly experience. Muscovites did not have a consistently formulated theory or, moreover, a program. However, in literary criticism, they invariably defended patriarchal forms and opposed them to the norms of the "Europeanized" noble society, not only as primordially national, but also as more democratic.

Ostrovsky, even during this period, sees the social conflict of the life he depicts, shows that the idyll of a patriarchal family is fraught with drama. True, in the first Muscovite play, Don't Get into Your Sleigh, the drama of intra-family relations is emphatically devoid of social overtones. Social motives here are connected only with the image of the noble life-burner Vikhorev. But the next, best play of this period, "Poverty is not a vice," brings social conflict in the Tortsov family to a high level of tension. The power of the "senior" over the "junior" here has a distinctly monetary character. In this play, for the first time, Ostrovsky's comedic and dramatic beginnings are very closely intertwined, which in the future will be a hallmark of his work. The connection with Muscovite ideas here is manifested not in smoothing out the contradictions of life, but in the understanding of this inconsistency as a “temptation” of modern civilization, as a result of the invasion of outsiders, internally alien to the patriarchal world, personified in the figure of the manufacturer Korshunov. For Ostrovsky, the petty tyrant Gordey, confused by Korshunov, is by no means a true bearer of patriarchal morality, but a person who has betrayed her, but is able to return to her under the influence of the shock experienced in the finale. Poetic image of the world folk culture and morality, created by Ostrovsky (scenes of Christmas time and especially folk songs, serving as a lyrical commentary on the fate of young heroes), with his charm, purity, resists tyranny, but he needs, however, support, he is fragile and defenseless against the onslaught of "modern". It is no coincidence that in the plays of the Muscovite period, the only hero who actively influences the course of events was Lyubim Tortsov, a man who “broke out” of the patriarchal life, gained bitter life experience outside of it and therefore managed to look at the events in his family from the outside, soberly evaluate them. and direct them to the general welfare. Ostrovsky's greatest achievement lies precisely in the creation of the image of Lyubim Tortsov, which is both poetic and very vital.

Exploring the archaic forms of life in the family relations of the merchants in the Muscovite period, Ostrovsky creates an artistic utopia, a world where, relying on folk (peasant in their origins) ideas about morality, it turns out to be possible to overcome discord and fierce individualism, which is increasingly spreading in modern society, to achieve lost, destroyed by history, the unity of people. But the change in the whole atmosphere of Russian life on the eve of the abolition of serfdom leads Ostrovsky to an understanding of the utopian nature and unrealizability of this ideal. New stage his path begins with the play Hangover at a Strange Feast (1855-56), where the brightest image of the merchant-tyrant Tit Titych Bruskov is created, which has become a household name. Ostrovsky covers the life of society more widely, referring to the themes traditional for Russian literature and developing them in a completely original way. Touching on the widely discussed topic of bureaucracy in "Profitable Place" (1856), Ostrovsky not only denounces extortion and arbitrariness, but reveals the historical and social roots of "podyacheskoy philosophy" (the image of Yusov), the illusory hopes for a new generation of educated officials: life itself pushes them to compromise (Zhadov). In The Pupil (1858), Ostrovsky depicts the "selfish" life of a landowner's estate without the slightest lyricism, so common among noble writers when referring to local life.

But higher artistic achievement Ostrovsky in the pre-reform years was The Thunderstorm (1859), in which he discovered the heroic character of the people. The play shows how a violation of the idyllic harmony of patriarchal family life can lead to tragedy. main character Katerina lives in an era when the very spirit is destroyed - the harmony between the individual and the moral ideas of the environment. In the soul of the heroine, an attitude to the world is born, a new feeling, still unclear to her herself, - an awakening sense of personality, which, in accordance with her position and life experience, takes the form of individual, personal love. Passion is born and grows in Katerina, but this passion is highly inspired, far from a thoughtless desire for hidden joys. The awakened feeling of love is perceived by Katerina as a terrible, indelible sin, because love for a stranger for her, a married woman, is a violation of her moral duty. The moral precepts of the patriarchal world for Katerina are full of primordial meaning and significance. Having already realized her love for Boris, she tries with all her might to resist it, but does not find support in this struggle: everything around her is already collapsing, and everything she tries to rely on turns out to be an empty shell, devoid of genuine moral content. For Katerina, the form and ritual in themselves do not matter - the human essence of the relationship is important to her. Katerina does not doubt the moral value of her moral ideas, she only sees that no one in the world cares about the true essence of these values, and in her struggle she is alone. The world of patriarchal relations is dying, and the soul of this world is dying in pain and suffering. Under the pen of Ostrovsky, the planned social drama from the life of the merchants turned into a tragedy. He showed the folk character at a sharp historical turning point - hence the scale of the "family history", the powerful symbolism of "Thunderstorm".

Although modern social dramaturgy is the main part of Ostrovsky's heritage, in the 60s he turned to historical drama, sharing the general interest of Russian culture of this period in the past. In connection with the educational understanding of the tasks of the theater, Ostrovsky considered plays on the themes of national history necessary in the repertoire, believing that historical dramas and chronicles "develop self-knowledge and educate a conscious love for the fatherland." For Ostrovsky, history is a sphere of high in national existence (this determined the appeal to the poetic form). Ostrovsky's historical plays are heterogeneous in genre. Among them are chronicles (“Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk”, 1862; “Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky”, 1867; “Tushino”, 1867), historical comedies (“Voevoda”, 1865; “Comedian of the 17th century”, 1873 ), the psychological drama "Vasilisa Melentyeva" (co-authored with S. A. Gedeonov, 1868). The preference for the chronicle over the traditional genre of historical tragedy, as well as the appeal to the Time of Troubles, was determined by the folk character of Ostrovsky's theater, his interest in the historical deed of the Russian people.

In the post-reform period in Russia, the isolation of class and cultural groups of society is collapsing; The "Europeanized" way of life, which was previously the privilege of the nobility, is becoming the norm. Social diversity also characterizes the picture of life created by Ostrovsky in the post-reform period. The thematic and temporal range of his drama is extremely wide: from historical events and private life of the 17th century. to the hottest topic of the day; from the inhabitants of the backwoods, the poor middle-class outskirts to the modern "civilized" entrepreneurs, bigwigs; from the living rooms of the nobility, disturbed by the reforms, to the forest road, where the actors of Schastlivtsev and Neschastlivtsev meet (“The Forest”).

The early Ostrovsky does not have the hero-intellectual, the noble “superfluous person”, characteristic of most Russian classic writers. In the late 1960s, he turned to the type of noble hero-intellectual. The comedy Enough Simplicity for Every Wise Man (1868) is the beginning of a kind of anti-noble cycle. Although there is social criticism in all Ostrovsky's plays, he actually has few satirical comedies: “Each sage is quite simple”, “Mad Money” (1870), “Forest” (1871), “Wolves and Sheep” (1875). Here, not individual characters or storylines, but the whole life presented, not so much people, personalities, but the way of life as a whole, the course of things. The plays are not connected by plot, but this is precisely the cycle that, on the whole, gives a broad canvas of the life of the post-reform nobility. According to the principles of poetics, these plays differ significantly from the main genre of pre-reform creativity - the type of folk comedy created by Ostrovsky.

Ostrovsky in the comedy “Enough Stupidity for Every Wise Man” with satirical sharpness and objectivity characteristic of his manner captured a special type of evolution of the “superfluous person”. The path of Glumov is the path of betrayal in relation to one's own personality, moral split, leading to cynicism and immorality. The lofty hero in Ostrovsky's post-reform dramaturgy is not a noble nobleman, but a beggarly actor, Neschastlivtsev. And "the path to the heroes" this declassed nobleman passes before the eyes of the audience, first playing the role of a gentleman who returned to rest in his native land, and in the finale he abruptly and decisively breaks with manor peace, pronouncing judgment on its inhabitants from the position of a servant of high, humane art.

The broad picture of the complex social processes taking place in Russia after a decade of reforms makes Les akin to the great Russian novels of the 1970s. Like L. N. Tolstoy, F. M. Dostoevsky, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (it was during this period that he created his “estate family novel” “Lord Golovlevs”), Ostrovsky sensitively caught that in Russia “everything turned upside down and just fits in” (as it is said in “Anna Karenina”). And this new reality is reflected in the mirror of the family. Through the family conflict in Ostrovsky's comedy, huge shifts taking place in Russian life shine through.

The noble estate, its mistress, respectable guests-neighbors are described by Ostrovsky with all the power of satirical denunciation. Badaev and Milonov, with their talk about "the present times," are similar to Shchedrin's characters. Not being participants in the intrigue, however, they are needed not only to characterize the environment, but participate in the action as necessary spectators of the performance played out by the main antagonists of the play - Gurmyzhskaya and Neschastlivtsev. Each of them puts on his own performance. Neschastlivtsev's path in the play is a breakthrough from a far-fetched melodrama to a true height of life, the defeat of the hero in "comedy" and a moral victory in real life. At the same time, and leaving the melodramatic role, Neschastlivtsev turns out to be an actor. His last monologue imperceptibly passes into the monologue of Karl Mohr from F. Schiller's "Robbers", as if Schiller is judging the inhabitants of this "forest". The melodrama is discarded, great, real art comes to the aid of the actor. Gurmyzhskaya, on the other hand, abandoned the expensive role of the head of a patriarchal noble family, patronizing her less fortunate relatives. From the estate of Penka, the ward Aksyusha, who received a dowry from a poor actor, leaves for the merchant's house. On country roads on foot, with a knapsack behind him, the last Gurmyzhsky, the wandering actor Neschastlivtsev, leaves. The family disappears, breaks up; a “random family” arises (Dostoevsky’s expression) - a married couple consisting of a landowner well over fifty and a half-educated high school student.

In his work on satirical comedies from modern life, a new stylistic manner of Ostrovsky developed, which, however, did not displace the former one, but interacted with it in a complex way. His arrival in literature was marked by the creation of a nationally distinctive theatrical style, based in poetics on the folklore tradition (which was determined by the nature of the “pre-personal” environment portrayed by the early Ostrovsky). The new style is connected with the general literary tradition of the 19th century, with the discoveries of narrative prose, with the study of a personal contemporary hero. The new task prepared the way for the development of psychologism in Ostrovsky's art.

In the legacy of Ostrovsky and in Russian drama as a whole, a very special place is occupied by the play The Snow Maiden (1873). Conceived as an extravaganza, a merry performance for festive performances, written on the plot of folk tales and widely using other forms of folklore, primarily calendar poetry, the play outgrew the idea in the process of creation. In terms of genre, it is comparable to the European philosophical and symbolic drama, for example. with Ibsen's Peer Gynt. In The Snow Maiden, the lyrical beginning of Ostrovsky's dramaturgy was expressed with great force. Sometimes "The Snow Maiden" without sufficient reason is called a utopia. Meanwhile, utopia contains an idea of ​​an ideally just, from the point of view of its creators, structure of society, it must be absolutely optimistic, the genre itself, as it were, is called upon to overcome the tragic contradictions of life, resolving them in fantastic harmony. However, the life depicted in The Snow Maiden, beautiful and poetic, is far from idyllic. Berendeys are extremely close to nature, they do not know evil and deceit, just as nature does not know it. But everything that, by its own will or by the force of circumstances, falls out of this cycle of natural life must inevitably perish here. And this tragic doom of everything that goes beyond the limits of "organic" life is embodied by the fate of the Snow Maiden; it is no coincidence that she dies precisely when she accepted the law of life of the Berendeys and is ready to translate her awakened love into everyday forms. This is inaccessible to either her or Mizgir, whose passion, unfamiliar to the Berendeys, pushes him out of the circle of peaceful life. The unequivocally optimistic interpretation of the finale creates a contradiction with the direct sympathy of the audience for the dead heroes, so it is incorrect. "The Snow Maiden" does not fit into the genre of a fairy tale, it approaches a mystery act. A mythological plot cannot have an unpredictable ending. The arrival of summer is inevitable, and the Snow Maiden cannot but melt. All this does not devalue, however, her choices and sacrifices. The actors are not at all passive and submissive - the action does not cancel the usual action. The mystical action is each time a new incarnation of the essential foundations of life. Ostrovsky's free will of the Snow Maiden and Mizgir is included within this life cycle. The tragedy of the Snow Maiden and Mizgir not only does not shake the world, but even contributes to the normal course of life, and even saves the Berendey kingdom from the “cold”. Ostrovsky's world may be tragic, but not catastrophic. Hence the unusual, unexpected combination of tragedy and optimism in the finale.

The Snow Maiden created the most generalized image of Ostrovsky's world, reproducing in a folklore-symbolic form the deeply lyrical author's idea of ​​the essence national life overcoming, but not canceling the tragedy of individual-personal being.

In the artistic system of Ostrovsky, drama was formed in the depths of comedy. The writer develops a type of comedy in which, along with negative characters, their victims are certainly present, causing our sympathy and compassion. This predetermined the dramatic potential of his comedic world. The drama of individual situations, sometimes destinies, grows more and more over time and, as it were, shakes, destroys the comedic structure, without, however, depriving the play of the features of "large comedy". "Jokers" (1864), "Abyss" (1866), "There was not a penny, but suddenly Altyn" (1872) are clear evidence of this process. Here, the qualities necessary for the emergence of drama in the narrow sense of the term are gradually accumulated. First of all, it is personal consciousness. As long as the hero does not feel himself spiritually opposed to the environment and generally does not separate himself from it, he, even if he evokes complete sympathy, cannot yet become the hero of a drama. In The Jokers, the old lawyer Obroshenov ardently defends his right to be a "jester", since this gives him the opportunity to feed his family. The "strong drama" of his monologue arises as a result of the spiritual work of the viewer, but remains outside the sphere of consciousness of the hero himself. From the point of view of the formation of the genre of drama, "Abyss" is very important.

The formation of the personal moral dignity of poor workers, the urban masses, the awareness in this environment of the extra-class value of an individual person attracts Ostrovsky's keen interest. The upsurge in the feeling of personality caused by the reform, which captured quite a wide section of the Russian population, provides material for creating a drama. In the artistic world of Ostrovsky, this conflict, which is dramatic in nature, often, however, continues to be embodied in a comedic structure. One of the most expressive examples of the struggle between the dramatic and the comedy proper is "Truth is good, but happiness is better" (1876).

The formation of the drama was associated with the search for a hero who, firstly, was able to enter into a dramatic struggle and, secondly, arouse the sympathy of the viewer, having a worthy goal. The interest of such a drama should be focused on the action itself, on the vicissitudes of this struggle. In the conditions of Russian post-reform reality, Ostrovsky, however, did not find a hero who could simultaneously turn out to be a man of action, capable of entering into a serious life struggle, and arouse the sympathy of the audience with his moral qualities. All the heroes in Ostrovsky's dramas are either callous successful businessmen, vulgar, cynical life-savers, or beautiful-hearted idealists, whose impotence in front of the "business man" is predetermined. They could not become the center of dramatic action - it becomes a woman, which is explained by her very position in modern Ostrovsky society.

Ostrovsky's drama is family-domestic. He knows how to show the structure of modern life, its social face, remaining within these plot frames, since he, as an artist, is interested in reframing all the problems of modernity in the moral sphere. The advancement of a woman to the center naturally shifts the emphasis from action in the proper sense to the feelings of the characters, which creates the conditions for the development of precisely the psychological drama. The most perfect of them is rightfully considered "Dowry" (1879).

In this play, there is no absolute confrontation between the heroine and the environment: unlike the heroine of The Thunderstorm, Larisa is devoid of integrity. The spontaneous desire for moral purity, truthfulness - everything that comes from her richly gifted nature raises the heroine high above those around her. But Larisa's worldly drama itself is the result of the fact that bourgeois ideas about life have power over her. After all, Paratova did not fall in love unaccountably, but, in her own words, because "Sergei Sergeyich is ... the ideal of a man." Meanwhile, the motif of trade, which runs through the entire play and is concentrated in the main plot action - bargaining over Larisa - embraces all the male heroes, among whom Larisa must make her life choice. And Paratov is not only no exception here, but, as it turns out, the most cruel and dishonest participant in the bargain. The complexity of the characters (their inconsistency inner peace like Larisa; the discrepancy between the inner essence and the external pattern of the hero's behavior, as in Paratov) requires a genre solution chosen by Ostrovsky - a form of psychological drama. Paratov's reputation is a great gentleman, a broad nature, a reckless brave man. And Ostrovsky leaves all these colors and gestures to him. But, on the other hand, he subtly and, as it were, by the way, accumulates touches and remarks that reveal his true face. In the very first scene of Paratov’s appearance, the viewer hears his confession: “What “pity” is, I don’t know that. I, Moky Parmenych, have nothing cherished; I will find a profit, so I will sell everything, anything. And immediately after this, it turns out that Paratov is selling not only the “Swallow” to Vozhevatov, but also himself to the bride with gold mines. In the end, the scene in Karandyshev's house also compromises Paratov, because the decoration of the apartment of the ill-fated fiance Larisa and the attempt to arrange a luxurious dinner is a caricature of Paratov's style, lifestyle. And the whole difference is measured in the amounts that each of the heroes can spend on it.

The means of psychological characteristics in Ostrovsky are not self-recognition of the characters, not reasoning about their feelings and properties, but mainly their actions and everyday, and not analytical dialogue. As is typical for classical drama, the characters do not change in the course of dramatic action, but only gradually reveal themselves to the audience. Even about Larisa, the same can be said: she begins to see clearly, learns the truth about the people around her, makes a terrible decision to become a "very expensive thing." And only death frees her from everything that worldly experience has endowed her with. At this moment, she seems to return to the natural beauty of her nature. The powerful finale of the drama - the death of the heroine amid the festive noise, to the singing of gypsies - amazes with its artistic audacity. Larisa's state of mind is shown by Ostrovsky in the style of "strong drama" characteristic of his theater, and at the same time with impeccable psychological accuracy. She is softened and calmed, forgives everyone, because she is happy that she has finally caused an outbreak of human feelings - Karandyshev's reckless, suicidal act, which freed her from scary life kept women. Ostrovsky builds a rare artistic effect of this scene on a sharp clash of differently directed emotions: the more soft and forgiving the heroine is, the stricter the judgment of the viewer.

In the work of Ostrovsky, the psychological drama was a genre that was becoming, therefore, along with such significant plays as The Last Victim (1878), Talents and Admirers (1882), Guilty Without Guilt (1884), such a masterpiece as The Dowry , in this genre the writer also knew relative failures. However best work Ostrovsky laid the foundation for the further development of psychological drama. Having created a whole repertoire for the Russian theater (about 50 original plays), Ostrovsky also sought to replenish it with both world classics and plays by contemporary Russian and European playwrights. He translated 22 plays, among them "The Taming of the Shrew" by Shakespeare, "Coffee Room" by Goldoni, interludes by Cervantes and many others. Dr. Ostrovsky read many manuscripts of novice playwrights, helped them with advice, and in the 70s and 80s he wrote several plays in collaboration with N. Ya. ", 1880; "Shines, but does not warm", 1881) and P. M. Nevezhin ("Wonder", 1881; "Old in a new way", 1882).

Zhuravleva A.

Site materials used Big Encyclopedia Russian people - http://www.rusinst.ru

Ostrovsky, Alexander Nikolaevich - famous dramatic writer. Born March 31, 1823 in Moscow, where his father served in the civil chamber, and then engaged in private advocacy. Ostrovsky lost his mother in childhood and did not receive any systematic education. All his childhood and part of his youth were spent in the very center of Zamoskvorechye, which at that time, according to the conditions of his life, was a completely special world. This world populated his imagination with those ideas and types that he later reproduced in his comedies. Thanks to his father's large library, Ostrovsky got acquainted early with Russian literature and felt an inclination towards writing; but his father certainly wanted to make a lawyer out of him. After graduating from the gymnasium course, Ostrovsky entered the law faculty of Moscow University. He failed to complete the course due to some kind of collision with one of the professors. At the request of his father, he entered the service of a scribe, first in a conscientious, then in a commercial court. This determined the nature of his first literary experiments; in court, he continued to observe the peculiar Zamoskvoretsky types familiar to him from childhood, asking for literary processing. By 1846, he had already written many scenes from merchant life, and a comedy was conceived: "Insolvent debtor" (later - "Own people - let's settle"). A small excerpt from this comedy was published in No. 7 of the Moscow City Listk, 1847; under the passage are the letters: "A. O." and "D. G.", that is, A. Ostrovsky and Dmitry Gorev. The latter was a provincial actor (real name - Tarasenkov), the author of two or three plays already played on the stage, who accidentally met Ostrovsky and offered him his cooperation. It did not go beyond one scene, and subsequently served as a source of great trouble for Ostrovsky, as it gave his ill-wishers a reason to accuse him of appropriating someone else's literary work. In issues 60 and 61 of the same newspaper, without a signature, another, already completely independent work by Ostrovsky appeared - "Pictures of Moscow Life. A Picture of Family Happiness." These scenes were reprinted, in a corrected form and with the name of the author, under the title: "Family Picture", in Sovremennik, 1856, No. 4. Ostrovsky himself considered the "Family Picture" his first printed work and it was from it that he began his literary activity. He recognized February 14, 1847 as the most memorable and dearest day of his life. : on this day he visited S.P. Shevyrev and, in the presence of A.S. Khomyakov, professors, writers, employees of the Moscow City List, read this play, which appeared in print a month later. Shevyrev and Khomyakov, embracing the young writer, welcomed his dramatic talent. "From that day on," says Ostrovsky, "I began to consider myself a Russian writer, and without doubt or hesitation, I believed in my vocation." He tried his hand also in the narrative kind, in feuilleton stories from life outside Moscow. In the same "Moscow City Listk" (No. 119 - 121) one of these stories is printed: "Ivan Erofeich", with the general title: "Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident"; two other stories in the same series: "The Tale of How the Quarter Warden Started to Dance, or From the Great to the Funny, Only One Step", and "Two Biographies" remained unpublished, and the last one was not even finished. By the end of 1849, a comedy was already written under the title: "Bankrupt". Ostrovsky read it to his university friend A.F. Pisemsky; at the same time he met the famous artist P.M. Sadovsky, who saw a literary revelation in his comedy and began to read it in various Moscow circles, among other things - with Countess E.P. Rostopchina, where young writers who were just starting their literary career usually gathered (B.N. Almazov, N.V. Berg, L.A. Mei, T.I. Filippov, N.I. Shapovalov, E.N. . Edelson). All of them had been on close, friendly terms with Ostrovsky since his student days, and all of them accepted Pogodin's offer to work in the updated Moskvitianin, making up the so-called "young editors" of this magazine. Soon a prominent position in this circle was occupied by Apollon Grigoriev, who acted as a herald of originality in literature and became an ardent defender and praiser of Ostrovsky as a representative of this originality. Ostrovsky's comedy, under the changed title: "Our people - we will settle", after long troubles with censorship, reaching the highest authorities, was published in the 2nd March book of "Moskvityanin" 1850, but was not allowed to be presented; censorship did not even allow to talk about this play in the press. She appeared on the stage only in 1861, with the ending altered against the printed one. Following this first comedy by Ostrovsky, his other plays began to appear annually in The Moskvityanin and other magazines: in 1850 - "Morning of a Young Man", in 1851 - "An Unexpected Case", in 1852 - "The Poor Bride", in 1853 - "Do not get into your sleigh" (the first of Ostrovsky's plays that hit the stage of the Moscow Maly Theater on January 14, 1853), in 1854 - "Poverty is not a vice", in 1855 - "Do not live as you want", in 1856 - "A hangover in someone else's feast". In all these plays, Ostrovsky portrayed such aspects of Russian life that before him had hardly been touched upon by literature at all and were not at all reproduced on the stage. A deep knowledge of the life of the depicted environment, the vivid vitality and truth of the image, a peculiar, lively and colorful language, clearly reflecting the real Russian speech of the "Moscow prosvirens", which Pushkin advised Russian writers to learn - all this artistic realism with all simplicity and sincerity, up to which even Gogol did not raise, was met in our criticism by some with stormy enthusiasm, by others with bewilderment, denial and ridicule. While A. Grigoriev, proclaiming himself the "prophet of Ostrovsky", tirelessly repeated that in the works of the young playwright the "new word" of our literature found expression, namely, "nationality", critics of the progressive direction reproached Ostrovsky for gravitating towards pre-Petrine antiquity, to "Slavophilism" of the Pogostinian persuasion, they even saw in his comedies the idealization of tyranny, they called him "Gostinodvorsky Kotzebue". Chernyshevsky reacted sharply negatively to the play "Poverty is not a vice", seeing in it some kind of sentimental sweetness in the depiction of hopeless, allegedly "patriarchal" life; other critics were indignant at Ostrovsky for elevating some kind of chuyki and boots with bottles to the level of "heroes". Free from aesthetic and political bias, the theatrical public irrevocably decided the case in favor of Ostrovsky. The most talented Moscow actors and actresses - Sadovsky, S. Vasiliev, Stepanov, Nikulina-Kositskaya, Borozdina and others - until then were forced to perform, with a few exceptions, either in vulgar vaudeville, or in stilted melodramas converted from French, written, moreover however, in barbaric language, they immediately felt in Ostrovsky's plays the breath of a living, close and dear to them Russian life and gave all their strength to its truthful depiction on stage. And the theatrical audience saw in the performance of these artists a truly "new word" in stage art - simplicity and naturalness, they saw people living on the stage without any pretense. With his works, Ostrovsky created a school of real Russian dramatic art, simple and real, as alien to pretentiousness and affectation as all the great works of our literature are alien to it. This merit of his was first of all understood and appreciated in the theatrical environment, the most free from preconceived theories. When in 1856, according to the idea of ​​Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, a business trip of outstanding writers took place to study and describe various areas of Russia in industrial and domestic terms, Ostrovsky took upon himself the study of the Volga from the upper reaches to the Lower. A short account of this trip appeared in the "Naval Collection" in 1859, the full one remained in the author's papers and was subsequently (1890) processed by S.V. Maximov, but still remains unpublished. A few months spent in close proximity to the local population gave Ostrovsky many vivid impressions, expanded and deepened the knowledge of Russian life in its artistic expression - in a well-aimed word, song, fairy tale, historical legend, in the customs and customs of antiquity that were still preserved in the backwoods. All this was reflected in the later works of Ostrovsky and further strengthened their national significance. Not limited to the life of the Zamoskvoretsky merchant class, Ostrovsky introduces actors the world of large and small officials, and then the landowners. In 1857, "Profitable Place" and "Festive Sleep Before Dinner" were written (the first part of the "trilogy" about Balzaminov; two further parts - "Your own dogs are biting, don't pester someone else" and "What you go for, you will find" - appeared in 1861), in 1858 - "The characters did not agree" (originally written in the form of a story), in 1859 - "The Pupil". In the same year, two volumes of Ostrovsky's works appeared, in the edition of Count G.A. Kusheleva-Bezborodko. This edition was the reason for the brilliant assessment that Dobrolyubov gave to Ostrovsky and which secured his fame as a depicter of the "dark kingdom". Reading now, after the expiration of half a century, Dobrolyubov's articles, we cannot fail to see their journalistic character. Ostrovsky himself was by nature not a satirist at all, hardly even a humorist; with truly epic objectivity, caring only about the truth and vitality of the image, he "calmly matured at the right and the guilty, knowing neither pity nor anger" and not at all hiding his love for the simple "Russian girl", in whom, even among the ugly manifestations of everyday life, he always was able to find certain attractive features. Ostrovsky himself was such a "Russian", and everything Russian found a sympathetic echo in his heart. In his own words, he cared first of all about showing a Russian person on stage: “let him see himself and rejoice. There will be correctors without us. Dobrolyubov, however, did not think of imposing certain tendencies on Ostrovsky, but simply used his plays as a truthful depiction of Russian life, for his own, completely independent conclusions. In 1860 the "Thunderstorm" appeared in the press, causing a second remarkable article by Dobrolyubov ("A Ray of Light in a Dark Kingdom"). This play reflected the impressions of a trip to the Volga and, in particular, a visit by the author to Torzhok. An even more striking reflection of the Volga impressions was the dramatic chronicle printed in No. 1 of Sovremennik in 1862: Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk. In this play, Ostrovsky for the first time took up the processing of a historical theme prompted to him both by Nizhny Novgorod legends and by a careful study of our history of the 17th century. The sensitive artist managed to notice the living features of folk life in the dead monuments and perfectly master the language of the era under study, in which he later, for fun, wrote entire letters. "Minin", which received the approval of the sovereign, was, however, banned by dramatic censorship and could appear on stage only 4 years later. On the stage, the play was not successful due to its length and not always successful lyricism, but criticism could not fail to notice the high dignity of individual scenes and figures. In 1863 Ostrovsky published a drama from folk life : "Sin and trouble does not live on anyone" and then returned to the pictures of Zamoskvorechye in the comedies: "Hard Days" (1863) and "Jokers" (1864). At the same time, he was busy processing a large play in verse, from the life of the 17th century, begun during a trip to the Volga. She appeared in No. 1 of Sovremennik in 1865 under the title: Voyevoda, or Dream on the Volga. This excellent poetic fantasy, something like a dramatized epic, contains a number of vivid everyday pictures of the past, through the haze of which one feels in many places closeness to everyday life, and to this day has not yet completely receded into the past. The comedy In a Busy Place, published in Sovremennik No. 9 of 1865, was also inspired by Volga impressions. From the mid-1960s, Ostrovsky diligently took up the history of the Time of Troubles and entered into a lively correspondence with Kostomarov, who at that time was studying the same era. The result of this work were two dramatic chronicles published in 1867: "Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky" and "Tushino". In No. 1 of Vestnik Evropy in 1868, another historical drama appeared, from the time of Ivan the Terrible, Vasilisa Melentiev, written in collaboration with the theater director Gedeonov. Since that time, a series of Ostrovsky's plays began, written, in his words, in a "new manner". Their subject is the image of no longer merchant and petty-bourgeois, but noble life: "Each wise man has enough simplicity", 1868; "Mad Money", 1870; "Forest", 1871. Interspersed with them are everyday comedies of the "old style": "Hot Heart" (1869), "Not all the cat's Shrovetide" (1871), "There was not a penny, but suddenly Altyn" (1872). In 1873, two plays were written that occupy a special position among Ostrovsky's works: "Comedian of the 17th century" (on the 200th anniversary of the Russian theater) and a dramatic fairy tale in verse "The Snow Maiden", one of the most remarkable creations of Russian poetry. In his further works of the 70s and 80s, Ostrovsky refers to the life of various strata of society - both noble, and bureaucratic, and merchant, and in the latter he notes the changes in views and conditions caused by the requirements of the new Russian life. This period of Ostrovsky's activity includes: "Late Love" and "Labor Bread" (1874), "Wolves and Sheep" (1875), "Rich Brides" (1876), "Truth is good, but happiness is better" (1877), "The Last Victim" (1878), "Dowry" and "Kind Master" (1879), "The Heart is Not a Stone" (1880), "Slaves" (1881), "Talents and Admirers" (1882), "Handsome Man" (1883), "Guilty Without Guilt" (1884) and, finally, the last, weak in design and execution, play: "Not of this world" (1885). In addition, several plays were written by Ostrovsky in collaboration with other people: with N.Ya. Solovyov - "The Marriage of Belugin" (1878), "Wild Woman" (1880) and "Shines but does not warm" (1881); with P.M. Nevezhin - "Whim" (1881). Ostrovsky also owns a number of translations of foreign plays: Shakespeare's Pacification of the Wayward (1865), Italo Franchi's The Great Banker (1871), Teobaldo Ciconi's Lost Sheep (1872), Goldoni's Coffee House (1872), The Criminal's Family Giacometti (1872), a remake of The Slavery of Husbands from the French and, finally, a translation of 10 interludes by Cervantes, published separately in 1886. He wrote only 49 original plays. All these plays provide a gallery of the most diverse Russian types, remarkable in their vitality and truthfulness, with all the features of their habits, language and character. In regard to the dramatic technique proper and composition, Ostrovsky's plays are often weak: the artist, deeply truthful by nature, was himself aware of his impotence in inventing the plot, in arranging the plot and denouement; he even said that "the playwright should not invent what happened; his job is to write how it happened or could happen; that's all his work; when paying attention in this direction, living people will appear and speak themselves." Discussing his plays from this point of view, Ostrovsky confessed that the most difficult thing for him was "invention", because any lie was disgusting to him; but it is impossible for a dramatic writer to do without this conditional lie. That “new word” of Ostrovsky, for which Apollon Grigoriev so ardently advocated, in its essence lies not so much in “nationality”, but in truthfulness, in the artist’s direct attitude to the life around him with the aim of quite realistically reproducing it on stage. In this direction, Ostrovsky took a further step forward in comparison with Griboyedov and Gogol and for a long time established on our stage that "natural school" that, at the beginning of his activity, already dominated other departments of our literature. The talented playwright, supported by no less talented artists, aroused competition among his peers who followed the same path: Pisemsky, A. Potekhin and other writers, less noticeable, but at one time enjoying well-deserved success, were the playwrights of the same direction. With all his heart devoted to the theater and its interests, Ostrovsky devoted a lot of time and work to practical concerns about the development and improvement dramatic art and about the improvement of the financial situation of dramatic authors. He dreamed of the opportunity to transform the artistic taste of artists and the public and create a theater school, equally useful both for the aesthetic education of society and for the preparation of worthy stage figures. Amid all sorts of grief and disappointment, he remained true to this cherished dream until the end of his life, the realization of which was partly realized by the Artistic Circle he created in 1866 in Moscow, which later gave the Moscow stage many talented figures. At the same time, Ostrovsky took care of alleviating the financial situation of Russian playwrights: through his labors, the Society of Russian Drama Writers and Opera Composers was formed (1874), of which he remained the permanent chairman until his death. In general, by the beginning of the 80s, Ostrovsky firmly took the place of the leader and teacher of Russian drama and stage. Working hard in the commission established in 1881 under the directorate of the Imperial Theaters "to review the legal provisions in all parts of the theater management", he achieved many changes that significantly improved the position of the artists and made it possible to more appropriately stage theatrical education. In 1885, Ostrovsky was appointed head of the repertoire of the Moscow theaters and chief theater school. His health, already shaky by this time, did not correspond to the broad plans of activity that he set for himself. Reinforced work quickly exhausted the body; On June 2, 1886, Ostrovsky died in his Kostroma estate, Shchelykovo, without having had time to realize his transformational assumptions.

Ostrovsky's writings have been published many times; the latest and more complete edition - the partnership "Enlightenment" (St. Petersburg, 1896 - 97, in 10 volumes, edited by M.I. Pisarev and with biographical sketch I. Nosova). Separately published "Dramatic translations" (M., 1872), "Intermedia Cervantes" (St. Petersburg, 1886) and "Dramatic works of A. Ostrovsky and N. Solovyov" (St. Petersburg, 1881). For the biography of Ostrovsky, the most important work is the book of the French scientist J. Patouillet "O. et son theater de moeurs russes" (Paris, 1912), where all the literature about Ostrovsky is indicated. See the memoirs of S.V. Maksimov in "Russian Thought" in 1897 and Kropacheva in "Russian Review" in 1897; I. Ivanov "A.N. Ostrovsky, his life and literary activity" (St. Petersburg, 1900). The best critical articles about Ostrovsky were written by Apollon Grigoriev (in "The Moskvityanin" and "Time"), Edelson ("Library for Reading", 1864), Dobrolyubov ("Dark Kingdom" and "Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom") and Boborykin ("Word ", 1878). - Wed. also books by A.I. Nezelenov "Ostrovsky in his works" (St. Petersburg, 1888), and Or. F. Miller "Russian writers after Gogol" (St. Petersburg, 1887).

P. Morozov.

Reprinted from address: http://www.rulex.ru/

OSTROVSKY Alexander Nikolayevich (03/31/1823-06/2/1886), an outstanding Russian writer and playwright. The son of a judge.

After graduating from the 1st Moscow Gymnasium (1840), Ostrovsky entered the Faculty of Law Moscow University, but a year before graduation, due to a conflict with teachers, he was forced to leave his studies and decide on a “clerical servant” - first to the Moscow Constituent Court (1843), and two years later - to the Moscow Commercial Court.

From his youth, Ostrovsky had a passionate passion for the theater, was closely acquainted with the artists Maly Theatre: P. S. Mochalov, M. S. Shchepkin, P. M. Sadovsky. In 1851 he left the service and devoted himself entirely to literary and theatrical activities. Work in the Moscow courts, the study of merchant claims, which Ostrovsky's father often dealt with, provided the future playwright with rich vital material related to the life and customs of the Russian merchants, and allowed him to subsequently create works in which the artistic brightness of the characters is closely intertwined with their realism.

On January 9, 1847, a scene from Ostrovsky's comedy "The Careless Debtor" was published in the newspaper "Moskovsky Listok", later called "Own People - Let's Settle". In the same year, the comedy “The Picture of Family Happiness” was written. These works, created in the spirit of the “natural school” N. V. Gogol, brought the author first fame. Ostrovsky’s next dramatic experiments, which consolidated his first successes, were the plays of 1851-54: “The Poor Bride”, “Don’t Get into Your Sleigh”, “Poverty is Not a Vice”, “Don’t Live as You Want”, the heroes of which are people from poor environment - act as carriers of truth and humanity.

In 1856-59 he published pungent satirical plays: “In a strange feast hangover”, “Profitable place”, “Pupil” and the drama “Thunderstorm”, which caused a wide public outcry, for which in 1859 Ostrovsky was awarded the Uvarov Prize.

In the 1860s, Ostrovsky created social comedies and dramas - “Sin and trouble does not live on anyone”, “Jokers”, “In a busy place”, “Abyss”, as well as a number of plays on historical subjects: about the era Ivan the Terrible(“Vasilisa Melentievna”) and about Time of Troubles(“Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk”, “Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky”, “Tushino”). In the 1870s-80s, widely known plays appeared: “Wolves and Sheep”, “Forest”, “Handsome Man”, “Enough Simplicity for Every Wise Man” - from the life of a provincial nobility;“Talents and Admirers”, “Guilty Without Guilt” - about the life of actors; "Snegurochka" - the embodiment of fairy-tale folklore motifs; “Dowry” is a kind of pinnacle of Ostrovsky's work, which stands out among other works for its deep socio-psychological disclosure of images.

In total, Ostrovsky wrote 47 literary and dramatic works, as well as 7 more plays written in collaboration with other authors. Ostrovsky's plays occupied a leading place in the repertoire of the Moscow Maly Theatre, with whom the writer was closely associated: he repeatedly acted as director of his own plays, was the creative mentor of many wonderful actors of this theater. Based on the works of Ostrovsky, a number of operas were created, among which the most famous is “The Snow Maiden” N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov,"Voevoda" P. I. Tchaikovsky,"Enemy Force" A. N. Serova.

About the theatre. Notes, speeches, letters. L.; M., 1947;

On Literature and Theater / Comp., entry. Art. and comment. M. P. Lobanova.

Literature:

Lotman L.M. A.N. Ostrovsky and Russian dramaturgy of his time. M-L. 1961.

playwright, whose work became the most important stage in the development of the Russian national theater

Alexander Ostrovsky

short biography

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky April 12, 1823 in Moscow on Malaya Ordynka. His father, Nikolai Fedorovich, was the son of a priest, he himself graduated from the Kostroma Seminary, then the Moscow Theological Academy, but began to practice as a court lawyer, dealing with property and commercial matters; rose to the rank of collegiate assessor, and in 1839 received the nobility. Mother, Lyubov Ivanovna Savvina, the daughter of a sexton and a prosvir, died when Alexander was not yet nine years old. There were four children in the family (four more died in infancy). The younger brother is the statesman M. N. Ostrovsky. Thanks to the position of Nikolai Fedorovich, the family lived in prosperity, great attention was paid to the study of children who received home education. Five years after the death of Alexander's mother, his father married Baroness Emily Andreevna von Tessin, the daughter of a Swedish nobleman. The children were lucky with their stepmother: she surrounded them with care and continued to teach them.

Ostrovsky's childhood and part of his youth were spent in the center of Zamoskvorechye. Thanks to his father's large library, he got acquainted early with Russian literature and felt a penchant for writing, but his father wanted to make him a lawyer. In 1835, Ostrovsky entered the third grade of the 1st Moscow Provincial Gymnasium, after which in 1840 he became a student at the law faculty of Moscow University. He failed to complete the university course: without passing the exam in Roman law, Ostrovsky wrote a letter of resignation (he studied until 1843). At the request of his father, Ostrovsky entered the service of a clerk in the Constituent Court and served in the Moscow courts until 1850; his first salary was 4 rubles a month, after a while it increased to 16 rubles (transferred to the Commercial Court in 1845).

By 1846, Ostrovsky had already written many scenes from merchant life and conceived the comedy "Insolvent Debtor" (later - "Own people - let's settle!"). The first publication was a short play "The Picture family life” and the essay “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident” - they were published in one of the issues of the Moscow City List in 1847. Professor of Moscow University S.P. Shevyrev, after reading the play by Ostrovsky at his home on February 14, 1847, solemnly congratulated the audience on "the appearance of a new dramatic luminary in Russian literature."

A. N. Ostrovsky.

Literary fame for Ostrovsky was brought by the comedy “Our people - let's settle!”, Published in 1850 in the journal of the university professor M.P. Pogodin “Moskvityanin”. Under the text was: "A. O." (Alexander Ostrovsky) and "D. G.". Under the middle initials was Dmitry Gorev-Tarasenkov, a provincial actor who offered Ostrovsky cooperation. This collaboration did not go beyond one scene, and subsequently served as a source of great trouble for Ostrovsky, since it gave his detractors a reason to accuse him of plagiarism (1856). However, the play evoked favorable responses from H. V. Gogol, I. A. Goncharov. The influential Moscow merchants, offended by their estate, complained to the "bosses"; as a result, the comedy was banned from staging, and the author was dismissed from service and placed under police supervision on the personal order of Nicholas I. Supervision was removed after the accession of Alexander II, and the play was allowed to be staged only in 1861.

The first play by Ostrovsky, which was able to get on theater stage, was "Don't get into your sleigh", written in 1852 and staged for the first time in Moscow on the stage of the Maly Theater on January 14, 1853.

For more than thirty years, beginning in 1853, new plays by Ostrovsky appeared almost every season at the Maly Moscow and Alexandrinsky theaters in St. Petersburg. Since 1856, Ostrovsky became a permanent contributor to the Sovremennik magazine. In the same year, in accordance with the wishes of the Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, a business trip of outstanding writers took place to study and describe various areas of Russia in industrial and domestic terms. Ostrovsky took over the study of the Volga from the upper reaches to Nizhny Novgorod.

A. N. Ostrovsky, 1856

In 1859, with the assistance of Count G. A. Kushelev-Bezborodko, the first collected works of Ostrovsky were published in two volumes. Thanks to this edition, Ostrovsky received a brilliant assessment from N. A. Dobrolyubov, which secured him the fame of a depicter of the “dark kingdom”. In 1860, the Thunderstorm appeared in print, to which Dobrolyubov dedicated the article “Ray of Light in dark kingdom". From the second half of the 1860s, Ostrovsky took up the history of the Time of Troubles and entered into correspondence with Kostomarov. Five “historical chronicles in verse” became the fruit of the work: “Kuzma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk”, “Vasilisa Melentyeva”, “Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky”, etc.

In 1863, Ostrovsky was awarded the Uvarov Prize (for the play The Thunderstorm) and was elected a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In 1866 (according to other sources - in 1865), Ostrovsky founded the Artistic Circle, which later gave the Moscow stage many talented figures. Ostrovsky's house was visited by I. A. Goncharov, D. V. Grigorovich, I. S. Turgenev, A. F. Pisemsky, F. M. Dostoevsky, I. E. Turchaninov, P. M. Sadovsky, L. P. Kositskaya-Nikulina, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, L. N. Tolstoy, P. I. Tchaikovsky, M. N. Ermolova, G. N. Fedotova.

In 1874, the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers was formed, whose permanent chairman Ostrovsky remained until his death. Working in the commission "for the revision of legal provisions in all parts of the theater management", established in 1881 under the directorate of the Imperial Theaters, he achieved many changes that significantly improved the position of artists. In 1885, Ostrovsky was appointed head of the repertoire of Moscow theaters and head of the theater school.

Despite the fact that his plays made good collections and that in 1883 the emperor Alexander III granted him an annual pension of 3 thousand rubles, money problems did not leave Ostrovsky until the last days of his life. Health did not meet the plans that he set for himself. Hard work exhausted the body.

On June 2 (14), 1886, on Spirits Day, Ostrovsky died in his Kostroma estate Shchelykovo. His last work was the translation of "Antony and Cleopatra" by William Shakespeare - Alexander Nikolayevich's favorite playwright. The writer was buried next to his father at the church cemetery near the Temple in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Nikolo-Berezhki, Kostroma province. For the burial, Alexander III granted 3,000 rubles from the sums of the cabinet; the widow, inseparably with 2 children, was assigned a pension of 3,000 rubles, and for the upbringing of three sons and a daughter - 2,400 rubles a year. Subsequently, the widow of the writer M.V. Ostrovskaya, an actress of the Maly Theater, and the daughter of M.A. Shatelen were buried in the family necropolis.

After the death of the playwright, the Moscow Duma set up a reading room named after A. N. Ostrovsky in Moscow.

A family

• The younger brother is the statesman M. N. Ostrovsky.

Alexander Nikolaevich had a deep passion for the actress Lyubov Kositskaya, but both of them had a family. However, even after becoming a widow in 1862, Kositskaya continued to reject Ostrovsky's feelings, and soon she began a close relationship with the son of a wealthy merchant, who eventually squandered her entire fortune; She wrote to Ostrovsky: "... I do not want to take away your love from anyone."

The playwright lived in cohabitation with the commoner Agafya Ivanovna, but all their children died at an early age. Having no education, but being a smart woman, with a subtle, easily vulnerable soul, she understood the playwright and was the very first reader and critic of his works. Ostrovsky lived with Agafya Ivanovna for about twenty years, and in 1869, two years after her death, he married the actress Maria Vasilyevna Bakhmetyeva, who bore him four sons and two daughters.

Creation

"Columbus Zamoskvorechye"

The play Poverty is Not a Vice (1853) was first staged on January 15, 1869 at the Maly Theater for a benefit performance by Prov Mikhailovich Sadovsky.

Ostrovsky Theater

Russian theater in its modern sense begins with A. N. Ostrovsky: the playwright created theater school and a holistic concept of theatrical production.

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;

“A good play will please the public and be successful, but will not last long on the repertoire if poorly played: the public goes to the theater to see a good performance of good plays, and not the play itself; play can be read. Othello is no doubt a good play; but the public did not want to watch it when Charsky played the role of Othello. The interest of the performance is a complex matter: both the play and the performance are equally involved in it. When both are good, the performance is interesting; when one thing is bad, then the performance loses its interest.

- "Note on the draft "Rules on the Imperial Theater Prizes for Dramatic Works""

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 a detachment from his personality, which MS Shchepkin did not do. For example, he left the dress rehearsal of The Thunderstorm, being very dissatisfied with the author of the play.

Ostrovsky's ideas were brought to their logical end by K. S. Stanislavsky and M. A. Bulgakov.

Folk myths and national history in the dramaturgy of Ostrovsky

In 1881, the successful premiere of N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Snow Maiden, which the composer called his best work, took place on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater. A. N. Ostrovsky himself appreciated the work of Rimsky-Korsakov:

“The music for my The Snow Maiden is amazing, I could never imagine anything more suitable for it and so vividly expressing all the poetry of the Russian pagan cult and this first snow-cold, and then irresistibly passionate heroine of a fairy tale.”

The appearance of the poetic play by Ostrovsky "The Snow Maiden", created on the basis of the fabulous, song and song-ritual material of Russian poetry, was caused by an accidental circumstance. In 1873, the Maly Theater was closed for major repairs, and its troupe moved to the building Bolshoi Theater. The Commission for the Management of the Imperial Moscow Theaters decided to put on an extravaganza performance in which all three troupes would participate: drama, opera and ballet. With a proposal to write such a play in a very short time, they turned to A. N. Ostrovsky, who willingly agreed to this, deciding to use the plot from the folk tale "The Snow Maiden Girl". The music for the play, at the request of Ostrovsky, was commissioned by the young P. I. Tchaikovsky. Both the playwright and the composer worked on the play with great enthusiasm, very quickly, in close creative contact. On March 31, on his fiftieth birthday, Ostrovsky finished The Snow Maiden. The first performance took place on May 11, 1873 at the Bolshoi Theatre.

While working on The Snow Maiden, Ostrovsky carefully looked for the size of the poems, consulted with historians, archaeologists, experts in ancient life, turned to a large amount of historical and folklore material, including The Tale of Igor's Campaign. He himself highly appreciated this play of his, and wrote, "I<…>in this work I go out on a new road”; he spoke enthusiastically about Tchaikovsky's music: "Tchaikovsky's music for The Snow Maiden is charming." I. S. Turgenev was “captivated by the beauty and lightness of the language of the Snegurochka.” P. I. Tchaikovsky, working on The Snow Maiden, wrote: “I have been sitting at work without getting up for about a month; I am writing music for Ostrovsky's magic play "The Snow Maiden", dramatic work he considered the pearl of Ostrovsky's creations, and said about his music for him: “This is one of my favorite brainchildren. The spring was wonderful, my soul was good ... I liked Ostrovsky's play, and in three weeks, without any effort, I wrote the music.

Later, in 1880, N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov wrote an opera based on the same plot. M. M. Ippolitov-Ivanov writes in his memoirs: “With some special warmth, Alexander Nikolayevich spoke about Tchaikovsky’s music for The Snow Maiden, which, obviously, greatly prevented him from admiring Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden. Undoubtedly ... Tchaikovsky's sincere music ... was closer to Ostrovsky's soul, and he did not hide the fact that she was dearer to him, as a populist.

Here is how K.S. Stanislavsky spoke about The Snow Maiden: “The Snow Maiden is a fairy tale, a dream, a national legend, written, told in Ostrovsky's magnificent sonorous verses. One might think that this playwright, the so-called realist and everyday worker, never wrote anything but wonderful poems, and was not interested in anything other than pure poetry and romance.

Criticism

Ostrovsky's work became the subject of fierce debate among critics of both the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 19th century, Dobrolyubov (the articles "Dark Kingdom" and "Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom") and Apollon Grigoriev wrote about him from opposite positions. In the XX century - Mikhail Lobanov (in the book "Ostrovsky", published in the series "ZhZL"), M. A. Bulgakov and V. Ya. Lakshin.

Memory

• Central Library named after A. N. Ostrovsky (Rzhev, Tver region).
• Moscow Regional Drama Theater named after A. N. Ostrovsky.
• Kostroma State Drama Theater named after A. N. Ostrovsky.
• Ural Regional Drama Theater named after A. N. Ostrovsky.
• Irbit Drama Theater named after A. N. Ostrovsky (Irbit, Sverdlovsk region).
• Kineshma Drama Theater named after A. N. Ostrovsky (Ivanovo region).
• Tashkent State Theater and Art Institute named after A. N. Ostrovsky.
• Streets in a number of cities of the former USSR.
• On May 27, 1929, a monument to Ostrovsky was unveiled in front of the Maly Theater (sculptor N. A. Andreev, architect I. P. Mashkov) (the jury preferred it over the monument to Ostrovsky, submitted to the competition by A. S. Golubkina, who portrayed the great playwright at the moment captivating spectator creative impulse).
• In 1984, in Zamoskvorechye, in the house where the great playwright was born - a cultural monument of the early 1920s, a branch Theater Museum them. A. A. Bakhrushin - House-Museum of A. N. Ostrovsky.
• Now in Shchelykovo (Kostroma region) there is a memorial and natural museum-reserve of the playwright.
• Once every five years, since 1973, the All-Russian Theater Festival "Ostrovsky's Days in Kostroma" lights up the stage, which is supervised by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Union of Theater Workers of the Russian Federation (All-Russian Theater Society).
• A memorial plaque in Tver, on Sovetskaya (former Millionnaya) Street, house 7, informs that the playwright lived in this house, the Barsukov hotel, in the spring and summer of 1856, during his trip to the Upper Volga region.
• Every two years, since 1993, the Maly Theater hosts the Ostrovsky in the Ostrovsky House festival, to which theaters from all over Russia bring their performances based on the plays of the playwright to Moscow.
• Ostrovsky's plays never leave the stage. Many of his works have been filmed or served as the basis for the creation of film and television scripts.
• Among the film adaptations most popular in Russia is Konstantin Voinov's comedy Balzaminov's Marriage (1964, starring G. Vitsin).
• The film "Cruel Romance", filmed by Eldar Ryazanov based on the "Dowry" (1984), received considerable popularity.
• In 2005, director Evgeny Ginzburg received the main prize ( The Grand Prix " Garnet bracelet» ) eleventh Russian festival"Literature and Cinema" (Gatchina) " for the amazing interpretation of the great play by A. N. Ostrovsky "Guilty Without Guilt" in the film "Anna""(2005, screenplay by G. Danelia and Rustam Ibragimbekov; starring opera singer Lyubov Kazarnovskaya).

In philately

Postage stamps of the USSR

Portrait of A. N. Ostrovsky - postage stamp of the USSR. 1948

Portrait of A. N. Ostrovsky based on a painting by V. Perov (1871, Tretyakov Gallery) Postage stamp of the USSR. 1948

Postage stamp of the USSR, 1959.

Playwright A. N. Ostrovsky (1823-1886), actors M. N. Ermolova (1853-1928), P. S. Mochalov (1800-1848), M. S. Shchepkin (1788-1863) and P. M. Sadovsky (1818-1872). Postage stamp of the USSR 1949.

Plays

• "Family Picture" (1847)
• "Own people - let's count" (1849)
• "An Unexpected Case" (1850)
• "Young Man's Morning" (1850)
• "Poor Bride" (1851)
• "Do not get into your sleigh" (1852)
• "Poverty is no vice" (1853)
• "Do not live as you like" (1854)
• "Hangover at a stranger's feast" (1856) text. The play was first staged on the stage of the theater on January 9, 1856 at the Maly Theater for the benefit performance of Prov Mikhailovich Sadovsky, and then, on January 18, in St. Petersburg on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater for the benefit performance of Vladimirova.
• "Profitable Place" (1856) text The play was first staged on the stage of the theater on September 27, 1863 at the Alexandrinsky Theater for Levkeeva's benefit performance. It was first staged at the Maly Theater on October 14 of the same year for a benefit performance by E. N. Vasilyeva.
• "Festive Sleep Before Dinner" (1857)
• "Did not get along!" (1858)
• "Pupil" (1859)
• "Thunderstorm" (1859)
• "An old friend is better than two new ones" (1860)
• “Your own dogs squabble, don’t pester someone else’s” (1861)
• "The Marriage of Balzaminov" (1861)
• "Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk" (1861, 2nd edition 1866)
• "Hard Days" (1863)
• "Sin and trouble does not live on anyone" (1863)
• Voevoda (1864; 2nd edition 1885)
• "Joker" (1864)
• "In a Busy Place" (1865)
• "Abyss" (1866)
• "Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky" (1866)
• "Tushino" (1866)
• "Vasilisa Melentyeva" (co-authored with S. A. Gedeonov) (1867)
• "Sufficient Simplicity for Every Wise Man" (1868)
• "Hot Heart" (1869)
• "Mad Money" (1870)
• "Forest" (1870)
• "Not everything is Shrovetide for the cat" (1871)
• “There was not a penny, but suddenly an altyn” (1872) text On December 10, 1872, the first performance of the comedy took place at the Maly Theater for Musil's benefit performance.
• "Comedian of the 17th century" (1873)
• "Snow Maiden" (1873) text. In 1881, the premiere of the opera by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov took place on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater
• "Late Love" (1874) text On November 22, 1874, the first performance of the comedy took place at the Maly Theater for Musil's benefit performance.
• Labor Bread (1874) text On November 28, 1874, the first performance of the comedy took place at the Maly Theater for Musil's benefit performance.
• "Wolves and Sheep" (1875)
• "Rich Brides" (1876) text On November 30, 1876, the first performance of the comedy took place at the Maly Theater for Musil's benefit performance.
• “Truth is good, but happiness is better” (1877) text On November 18, 1877, the first performance of the comedy took place at the Maly Theater for Musil's benefit performance.
• "The Marriage of Belugin" (1877), together with Nikolai Solovyov
• The Last Victim (1878)
• "Dowry" (1878) text On November 10, 1878, the first performance of the drama took place at the Maly Theater for Musil's benefit performance.
• "Good gentleman" (1879)
• "Wild Woman" (1879), together with Nikolai Solovyov
• "Heart is not a stone" (1880)
• "Slaves" (1881)
• "Shines, but does not warm" (1881), together with Nikolai Solovyov text. Premiere November 14, 1881 in St. Petersburg, at the Alexandrinsky Theater, in the benefit of F. A. Burdin.
• "Guilty Without Guilt" (1881-1883)
• "Talents and Admirers" (1882)
• "Handsome Man" (1883)
• "Not of this world" (1885)

Screen versions of works

• 1911 - Vasilisa Melentyeva
• 1911 - In a lively place (film, 1911)
• 1916 - Guilty without guilt
• 1916 - In a busy place (film, 1916, Chardynin)
• 1916 - In a lively place (film, 1916, Sabinsky) (Another name On the high road )
• 1933 - Storm
• 1936 - Dowry
• 1945 - Guilty without guilt
• 1951 - Truth is good, but happiness is better (film-play)
• 1952 - Wolves and sheep (teleplay)
• 1952 - Enough simplicity for every wise man (teleplay)
• 1952 - Snow Maiden (cartoon)
• 1953 - Hot Heart (film-play)
• 1955 - In a lively place (film-play)
• 1955 - Talents and Admirers (film-play)
• 1958 - Depths (TV film, screen version of the performance of the Leningrad Academic Drama Theater named after M.

Biography and episodes of life Alexander Ostrovsky. When born and died Alexander Ostrovsky, memorable places and dates important events his life. Quotes from a writer and playwright, Photo and video.

The years of life of Alexander Ostrovsky:

born March 31, 1823, died June 2, 1886

Epitaph

“No, not the skeleton of an obelisk stone
And not the crypt and the cold of the grave,
As alive, as native, close,
Today we honor him."
From a poem by Viktor Volkov in memory of Ostrovsky

Biography

He was supposed to become a lawyer, but he always really dreamed only of the theater. During his life, Ostrovsky wrote about fifty plays, which are still filmed and staged on the stages of theaters in Russia and around the world. He left behind not just a literary legacy, but also created a whole school of acting.

Ostrovsky's biography began in Moscow, where he was born into an educated and wealthy family. As a young man, he received a good education, graduated from the theological seminary, then the theological academy, the Moscow gymnasium and the university. The profession of a lawyer received by Ostrovsky did not attract him at all - rather, he simply acted in accordance with the will of his father, whom he did not want to upset. After all, the future writer lost his mother as a child. But the curious and observant nature of Ostrovsky, even in the profession of a lawyer, helped him find positive aspects. While working in court, he collected rich material for his work and finally thought about his first comedy. He wrote his debut play in collaboration with actor Dmitry Gorev, and three years later he published his first major work, “Own people - let's settle!”. Although the comedy was a great success, it aroused indignation among the merchants, they even sent a complaint to the emperor, after which Ostrovsky was fired, arrested, but soon released. And yet the reputation of "unreliable" was already assigned to Ostrovsky, which often created problems for him.

In 1849, Ostrovsky became friends with the bourgeois Agafya - such a relationship could not be blessed by his father, and the writer lost his material support. He devoted himself entirely to drama, and soon his plays began to appear every season on the stages of the Maly Theater in Moscow and the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. Ostrovsky created an Artistic Circle in Moscow, from which a whole galaxy of talented theater actors emerged. When Ostrovsky took over as head of the repertoire, he was very happy with this position, as it allowed him to promote the best and most talented artists. By that time, he was already married a second time - his first wife, with whom they cohabited, died after twenty years of their rather happy and warm family life.

Until the last days of his life, Ostrovsky was full of plans and creative ideas, but his health was failing the playwright more and more. Ostrovsky's cause of death was angina pectoris. Ostrovsky's funeral took place in the village of Nikolo-Berezhki, not far from his family estate Shchelykovo, where the writer died. Ostrovsky's grave is located in the cemetery of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.

life line

March 31, 1823 Date of birth of Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky.
1840 Graduation from high school, admission to the law department of Moscow University.
1849 The beginning of cohabitation with Agafya Ivanovna (her last name is unknown).
1850 Joining the circle of writers of the magazine "Moskvityanin", publication of the play "Own people - let's settle!".
1860 Publication of the play "Thunderstorm".
1862 Travel across Europe.
1863 Corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy.
1865 Creation of the Artistic circle by Ostrovsky.
1867 Death of Agafia.
1869 Marriage with Maria Bakhmeteva.
1870 Creation of the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers.
1886 Head of the repertoire of Moscow theaters.
June 2, 1886 Date of Ostrovsky's death.
June 5, 1886 Ostrovsky's funeral.

Memorable places

1. Dolgorukov's mansion, the building of the former 1st Moscow gymnasium, which Ostrovsky graduated from.
2. Moscow University, graduated from Ostrovsky.
3. St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, of which Ostrovsky was elected a corresponding member.
4. Monument to Ostrovsky in front of the Maly Theater in Moscow.
5. Ostrovsky's house-museum in Zamoskovorechye, opened in Ostrovsky's house, where the writer was born.
6. Museum-reserve of Ostrovsky "Shchelykovo", Ostrovsky's estate, in which he died.
7. Cemetery of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Nikolo-Berezhki, where Ostrovsky is buried.

Episodes of life

Ostrovsky often drew his plots from real life. So, the playwright attended the funeral of Nikolai Gogol. After he walked for some time, the writer got into a sleigh with actress Lyubov Nikulina and began a sincere conversation with her. The actress opened up and began to share her childhood memories with Ostrovsky. Ostrovsky listened attentively to Nikulina, and then put her words into the mouth of Katerina, the heroine of his Thunderstorm. Nikulina also became the first performer of the role of Katerina. According to rumors, Ostrovsky and Nikulin were connected by love feelings, but since both had families, the relationship was not allowed to develop.

For many years, Ostrovsky lived with a simple girl, Agafya, without officially marrying her. Agafya became a close friend and comrade-in-arms for Ostrovsky. She was well acquainted with merchant life, sang Russian folk songs perfectly, understood the customs and mores of the Russian people, so she is credited with a large share in Ostrovsky's writings. The writer's friends also kept only fond memories of his first wife.

Despite the success of Ostrovsky's plays, the writer needed money until the end of his life, he worked very hard, because of which he often received accusations that he had "written out" or worked solely for the sake of money, which, of course, was not true. Ostrovsky achieved material prosperity only at the end of his life, when he began to receive a pension and took the position of head of the repertoires of Moscow theaters. But by this time his health was already severely depleted.

Covenant

“Know how to live even when life becomes unbearable. Make it useful."

Documentary plot "Ostrovsky - the most modern playwright"

condolences

“It is superfluous to talk about the merits of Ostrovsky in the history of Russian dramatic art. They have long been recognized by all. But he also has another merit for Russian history in general: in his dramas and comedies, he gave the scholar-researcher of our past everyday life precious and meaningful material to illuminate one of the aspects of a whole period of this particular life.
Anatoly Koni, lawyer, writer

“Everything in the world is subject to change - from human thoughts to the cut of a dress; only truth does not die, and whatever new trends, new moods, new forms in literature appear, they will not kill Ostrovsky’s creations, and “the people’s path will not grow to this picturesque source of truth.”
Mikhail Provich Sadovsky, actor

Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky was born on March 31 (April 12), 1823 in Moscow on Malaya Ordynka. His father, Nikolai Fedorovich, was the son of a priest; he himself graduated from the Kostroma Seminary, then the Moscow Theological Academy, but began to practice as a court lawyer, dealing with property and commercial matters; rose to the rank of titular councilor, and in 1839 received the nobility. Mother, Lyubov Ivanovna Savvina, the daughter of a sexton, passed away early, when Alexander was only eight years old. There were four children in the family. The family lived in abundance, paid great attention to the study of children who received home education. Five years after the death of his mother, his father married Baroness Emilia Andreevna von Tessin, the daughter of a Russified Swedish nobleman. The children were lucky with their stepmother: she surrounded them with care and continued to teach them.

He spent his childhood and part of his youth in the center of Zamoskvorechye. Thanks to his father's large library, Ostrovsky got acquainted early with Russian literature and felt an inclination towards writing, but his father wanted to make him a lawyer. After graduating from the gymnasium course at the 1st Moscow Gymnasium in 1840 (entered in 1835), Ostrovsky entered the law faculty of Moscow University, but he failed to complete the course because he quarreled with one of the teachers (he studied until 1843).

At the request of his father, Alexander entered the service of a court scribe. He served in Moscow courts until 1851; the first salary was 4 rubles a month, after a while it increased to 15 rubles. By 1846, many scenes from merchant life had already been written, and the comedy “The Insolvent Debtor” was conceived (according to other sources, the play was called “The Picture of Family Happiness”; later - “Own People - Let's Reckon”). The sketches for this comedy and the essay “Notes of a Resident from the Moskva Region” were published in one of the issues of the “Moscow City List” in 1847. Under the text were the letters: “A. O." and "D. G.", that is, A. Ostrovsky and Dmitry Gorev, a provincial actor who offered him cooperation. Cooperation did not go beyond one stage, and subsequently served as a source of great trouble for Ostrovsky, as it gave his ill-wishers a reason to accuse him of appropriating someone else's literary work.

Ostrovsky's literary fame was brought by the comedy "Our people - let's settle!" (original title - "Bankrupt"), published in 1850. The play evoked favorable responses from H.V. Gogol, I. A. Goncharov. The comedy was forbidden to be staged. Influential Moscow merchants, offended for their entire class, complained to the "bosses"; and the author was dismissed from service and placed under police supervision on the personal order of Nicholas I (supervision was removed only after the accession of Alexander II). The play was admitted to the stage only in 1861.

Beginning in 1853 and for more than 30 years, new plays by Ostrovsky appeared at the Maly Moscow Theater and the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg almost every season. Since 1856, Ostrovsky became a permanent contributor to the Sovremennik magazine. In 1856, when, according to the idea of ​​Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, a business trip of outstanding writers took place to study and describe various areas of Russia in industrial and domestic terms, Ostrovsky took over the study of the Volga from the upper reaches to Nizhny Novgorod. In 1859, in the edition of Count G. A. Kushelev-Bezborodko, two volumes of Ostrovsky's works were published. This edition was the reason for the brilliant assessment that Dobrolyubov gave to Ostrovsky and which secured his fame as a depicter of the "dark kingdom". In 1860, The Thunderstorm appeared in print, prompting an article by Dobrolyubov (A Ray of Light in a Dark Realm). From the second half of the 1860s, Ostrovsky took up the history of the Time of Troubles and entered into correspondence with Kostomarov.

In 1863 Ostrovsky was awarded the Uvarov Prize and elected a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In 1866 (according to other sources - in 1865) he created the Artistic Circle in Moscow, which later gave the Moscow stage many talented figures. Ostrovsky's house was visited by I. A. Goncharov, D. V. Grigorovich, I. S. Turgenev, A. F. Pisemsky, F. M. Dostoevsky, I. E. Turchaninov, P. M. Sadovsky, L. P. Kositskaya-Nikulina, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, L. N. Tolstoy, P. I. Tchaikovsky, M. N. Ermolova, G. N. Fedotova.

Since January 1866 he was the head of the repertoire of the Moscow imperial theaters. In 1874 (according to other sources - in 1870) the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers was formed, whose permanent chairman Ostrovsky remained until his death. Working in the commission "for the revision of legal provisions in all parts of the theater management", established in 1881 under the directorate of the Imperial Theaters, he achieved many changes that significantly improved the position of artists. In 1885, Ostrovsky was appointed head of the repertoire of Moscow theaters and head of the theater school.

Despite the fact that his plays made good collections and that in 1883 Emperor Alexander III granted him an annual pension of 3 thousand rubles, money problems did not leave Ostrovsky until the last days of his life. Health did not meet the plans that he set for himself. Reinforced work quickly exhausted the body; On June 14 (according to the old style - June 2), 1886, Ostrovsky died in his Kostroma estate Shchelykovo. The writer was buried in the same place, Alexander III granted 3,000 rubles from the sums of the cabinet for burial, the widow, inseparably with 2 children, was assigned a pension of 3,000 rubles, and 2,400 rubles a year for the upbringing of three sons and a daughter.

A. N. Ostrovsky died on June 2, 1886. He was buried in the church cemetery near the Temple in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Nikolo-Berezhki, Kostroma Region. His wife, actress of the Maly Theater M.V. Ostrovskaya and his daughter are buried next to him.

After the death of the writer, the Moscow Duma set up a reading room named after A. N. Ostrovsky in Moscow.

A family

• The younger brother is the statesman M. N. Ostrovsky.
• First wife: (surname unknown) Agafya Ivanovna, commoner, civil marriage, according to the law of that time, unmarried marriages in Russia were not officially legally recognized (only since the 20th century, actual marriages have been recognized as legal, regardless of their registration), but they were fully recognized as such in society.
• Second wife: Bakhmetyeva Maria Vasilievna.

Alexander Nikolaevich had a deep personal relationship with the actress L. Kositskaya, but both had families; however, even after becoming a widow in 1862, she continued to reject his feelings; and soon she began a relationship with the son of a wealthy merchant, who eventually squandered all her fortune; She wrote to Ostrovsky:

Ostrovsky lived with Agafya Ivanovna for about twenty years, until her death, and two years after her death, in 1869, he married the artist Maria Vasilyevna Bakhmetyeva, who bore him four sons and two daughters.

Creation

"Columbus Zamoskvorechye"

The play Poverty is Not a Vice (1853) was first staged on January 15, 1869 at the Maly Theater for a benefit performance by Prov Mikhailovich Sadovsky.

Ostrovsky Theater

It is with Ostrovsky that the Russian theater in its modern sense begins: the writer created a theater school and an integral concept of theatrical production.

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;

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 a detachment from his personality, which MS Shchepkin did not do. For example, he left the dress rehearsal of The Thunderstorm, being very dissatisfied with the author of the play.

Ostrovsky's ideas were brought to their logical end by Stanislavsky and M.A. Bulgakov.

Folk myths and national history in the dramaturgy of Ostrovsky

In 1881, the successful premiere of N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Snow Maiden, which the composer called his best work, took place on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater. A. N. Ostrovsky himself appreciated the work of Rimsky-Korsakov:

The appearance of the poetic play by Ostrovsky "The Snow Maiden", created on the basis of the fabulous, song and song-ritual material of Russian poetry, was caused by an accidental circumstance. In 1873, the Maly Theater was closed for major repairs, and its troupe moved to the building of the Bolshoi Theatre. The Commission for the Management of the Imperial Moscow Theaters decided to put on an extravaganza performance in which all three troupes would participate: drama, opera and ballet. With a proposal to write such a play in a very short time, they turned to A. N. Ostrovsky, who willingly agreed to this, deciding to use the plot from the folk tale "The Snow Maiden Girl". The music for the play, at the request of Ostrovsky, was commissioned by the young P. I. Tchaikovsky. Both the playwright and the composer worked on the play with great enthusiasm, very quickly, in close creative contact. On March 31, on the day of his fiftieth birthday, Ostrovsky finished The Snow Maiden. The first performance took place on May 11, 1873 at the Bolshoi Theatre.

While working on The Snow Maiden, Ostrovsky carefully looked for the size of the poems, consulted with historians, archaeologists, experts in ancient life, turned to a large amount of historical and folklore material, including The Tale of Igor's Campaign. He himself highly appreciated this play of his, and wrote, “I ... in this work I am entering a new road ...”, he spoke with enthusiasm about Tchaikovsky’s music: “Tchaikovsky’s music for The Snow Maiden is charming.” I. S. Turgenev was “ captivated by the beauty and lightness of the language of The Snow Maiden". P. I. Tchaikovsky, while working on The Snow Maiden, wrote: "I have been sitting at work for about a month without getting up; writing music for Ostrovsky's magic play The Snow Maiden", he considered the dramatic work itself a pearl Ostrovsky's creations, and about his music to him he said: "This is one of my favorite offspring. The spring was wonderful, my soul was good ... I liked Ostrovsky's play, and in three weeks, without any effort, I wrote the music. "

Later, in 1880, N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov wrote an opera based on the same plot. M. M. Ippolitov-Ivanov writes in his memoirs: “With some special warmth, Alexander Nikolayevich spoke about Tchaikovsky’s music for The Snow Maiden, which, obviously, greatly prevented him from admiring Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden. Undoubtedly ... Tchaikovsky's sincere music ... was closer to Ostrovsky's soul, and he did not hide the fact that she was dearer to him, as a populist.

Here is how K.S. Stanislavsky spoke about The Snow Maiden: “The Snow Maiden is a fairy tale, a dream, a national legend, written, told in Ostrovsky's magnificent sonorous verses. One might think that this playwright, the so-called realist and everyday worker, never wrote anything but wonderful poems, and was not interested in anything other than pure poetry and romance.

Criticism

Ostrovsky's work became the subject of fierce debate among critics of both the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 19th century, Dobrolyubov (the articles "Dark Kingdom" and "Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom") and Apollon Grigoriev wrote about him from opposite positions. In the XX century - Mikhail Lobanov (in the book "Ostrovsky", published in the series "ZhZL"), M.A. Bulgakov and Lakshin.

Memory

• On May 27, 1929, a monument to Ostrovsky was unveiled in front of the Maly Theater (sculptor N. A. Andreev, architect I. P. Mashkov).
• Now in Shchelykovo (Kostroma region) there is a memorial and natural museum-reserve of the playwright.
• Once every five years, since 1973, the All-Russian Theater Festival "Ostrovsky's Days in Kostroma" lights up the stage, which is supervised by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the All-Russian Theater Society.
• Ostrovsky's plays never leave the stage. Many of his works were filmed or served as the basis for the creation of film and television scripts.
• Among the film adaptations most popular in Russia is Konstantin Voinov's comedy Balzaminov's Marriage (1964, starring G. Vitsin).
• The film "Cruel Romance", filmed by Eldar Ryazanov based on "Dowry" (1984), won great popularity.
• In 2005, director Evgeny Ginzburg received the main prize (Grand Prix "Garnet Bracelet") of the eleventh Russian Festival "Literature and Cinema" (Gatchina) "for an incredible interpretation of the great play by A. N. Ostrovsky" Guilty Without Guilt "in the film" Anna (2005, screenplay by G. Danelia and Rustam Ibragimbekov; starring opera singer Lyubov Kazarnovskaya).

In philately

• Postage stamps of the USSR

Portrait of A. N. Ostrovsky - postage stamp of the USSR. 1948

Portrait of A. N. Ostrovsky based on a painting by V. Petrov (1871, State Tretyakov Gallery) Postage stamp of the USSR. 1948

Postage stamp of the USSR, 1959.

Playwright A. N. Ostrovsky (1823-1886), actors M. N. Ermolova (1853-1928), P. S. Mochalov (1800-1848), M. S. Shchepkin (1788-1863) and P. M. Sadovsky (1818-1872). Postage stamp of the USSR 1949.

Plays

• "Good gentleman" (1879)

Screen versions of works

1. 1911 - Vasilisa Melentyeva
2. 1911 - In a lively place (film, 1911)
3. 1916 - Guilty without guilt
4. 1916 - In a busy place (film, 1916, Chardynin)
5. 1916 - On a busy place (film, 1916, Sabinsky) (Another name On the high road)
6. 1934 - Storm
7. 1936 - Dowry
8. 1945 - Guilty without guilt
9. 1951 - Truth is good, but happiness is better (film-play)
10. 1952 - Wolves and sheep (teleplay)
11. 1952 - Enough simplicity for every wise man (teleplay)
12. 1952 - Snow Maiden (cartoon)
13. 1953 - Hot Heart (film-play)
14. 1955 - In a lively place (film-play).
15. 1964 - Balzaminov's marriage
16. 1968 - Snow Maiden
17. 1971 - Pretty simple for every wise man (film-play)
18. 1971 - Spring Tale (based on the play "The Snow Maiden")
19. 1973 - Talents and Admirers
20. 1975 - The last victim
21. 1978 - Handsome man
22. 1980 - Forest
23. 1981 - Mad Money
24. 1981 - Vacancy - a film directed by Margarita Mikaelyan (based on the play "Profitable Place")
25. 1983 - Late love
26. 1984 - Cruel Romance
27. 1985 - After the rain on Thursday (fairy tale film)
28. 1989 - Heart is not a stone
29. 1998 - In a lively place
30. 2001 - Savage
31. 2005 - Anna (based on the play Guilty Without Guilt)
32. 2006 - Snow Maiden (cartoon based on the play "Snow Maiden")
33. 2008 - Guilty without guilt
34. 2006 - Russian money (based on the play "Wolves and Sheep")
35. 2008 - Bribes are smooth (based on the play "Profitable Place")
36. 2009 - Bankrupt (based on the play "Our people - let's settle")