The creative story of the creation of a thunderstorm. Drama "Thunderstorm"

“The Thunderstorm” was not written by Ostrovsky... “The Thunderstorm” was written by Volga.
S. A. Yuriev

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky was one of the largest cultural figures of the 19th century. His work will forever remain in the history of literature, and his contribution to the development of Russian theater is difficult to overestimate. The writer made some changes to the production of plays: attention should no longer be focused on just one character; a fourth scene is introduced, separating the audience from the actors in order to emphasize the conventionality of what is happening; ordinary people and standard everyday situations are depicted. The last position most accurately reflected the essence of the realistic method that Ostrovsky adhered to. His literary creativity began in the mid-1840s. “Our people are numbered,” “Family pictures,” “Poverty is not a vice” and other plays were written. The drama “The Thunderstorm” has a history of creation that is not limited to just working on the text and writing conversations between the characters.

The history of the creation of the play “The Thunderstorm” by Ostrovsky begins in the summer of 1859, and ends a few months later, in early October. It is known that this was preceded by a trip along the Volga. Under the patronage of the Maritime Ministry, an ethnographic expedition was organized to study the customs and morals of the indigenous population of Russia. Ostrovsky also took part in it.

The prototypes of the city of Kalinov were many Volga towns, at the same time similar friends to each other, but having something unique: Tver, Torzhok, Ostashkovo and many others. Ostrovsky, as an experienced researcher, recorded all his observations about the life of the Russian province and the characters of the people in his diary. Based on these recordings, the characters of "The Thunderstorm" were later created.

For a long time there was a hypothesis that the plot of “The Thunderstorm” was completely borrowed from real life. In 1859, and it was at this time that the play was written, a resident of Kostroma left home early in the morning, and later her body was discovered in the Volga. The victim was the girl Alexandra Klykova. During the investigation, it became clear that the situation in the Klykov family was quite tense. The mother-in-law constantly mocked the girl, and the spineless husband could not influence the situation. The catalyst for this outcome was love relationship between Alexandra and the postal worker.

This assumption is deeply ingrained in people's minds. Surely in modern world tourist routes would already have been laid out in that place. In Kostroma, “The Thunderstorm” was published as a separate book; during the production, the actors tried to resemble the Klykovs, and local residents even showed the place from which Alexandra-Katerina allegedly threw herself. Kostroma local historian Vinogradov, to whom the famous literature researcher S. Yu. Lebedev refers, found many literal coincidences in the text of the play and in the “Kostroma case”. Both Alexandra and Katerina were married off early. Alexandra was barely 16 years old. Katerina was 19.

Both girls had to endure discontent and despotism from their mothers-in-law. Alexandra Klykova had to do all the menial housework. Neither the Klykov family nor the Kabanov family had children. The series of “coincidences” does not end there. The investigation knew that Alexandra had a relationship with another person, a postal worker. In the play "The Thunderstorm" Katerina falls in love with Boris. That is why for a long time it was believed that “The Thunderstorm” was nothing more than a real-life incident reflected in the play.

However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the myth created around this incident was dispelled due to a comparison of dates. So, the incident in Kostroma occurred in November, and a month earlier, on October 14, Ostrovsky took the play to print. Thus, the writer could not display on the pages what had not yet happened in reality. But this does not make the creative history of “The Thunderstorm” any less interesting. It can be assumed that Ostrovsky, being smart person, was able to predict how the girl’s fate would turn out under typical conditions of that time. It is quite possible that Alexandra, like Katerina, was tormented by the stuffiness that is mentioned in the play. The old orders are becoming obsolete and the absolute inertia and hopelessness of the current situation. However, one should not completely correlate Alexandra with Katerina. It is quite possible that in the case of Klykova, the reasons for the girl’s death were only everyday difficulties, and not a deep-seated personal conflict, like Katerina Kabanova’s.

Most real prototype Katerina can be called theater actress Lyubov Pavlovna Kositskaya, who later played this role. Ostrovsky, like Kositskaya, had his own family, it was this circumstance that prevented further development relationship between playwright and actress. Kositskaya was originally from the Volga region, but at the age of 16 she ran away from home in search of better life. Katerina’s dream, according to Ostrovsky’s biographers, was nothing more than the recorded dream of Lyubov Kositskaya. In addition, Lyubov Kositskaya was extremely sensitive to faith and churches. In one of the episodes, Katerina utters the following words:

“... Until death, I loved going to church! Exactly, it happened that I would enter heaven, and I didn’t see anyone, and I didn’t remember the time, and I didn’t hear when the service was over... And you know, on a sunny day such a light pillar comes from the dome, and smoke moves in this pillar, like clouds, and I see that it used to be as if angels were flying and singing in this pillar.”

The history of the creation of Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" is interesting in its own way: there are both legends and personal drama. The premiere of “The Thunderstorm” took place on November 16, 1859 on the stage of the Maly Theater.

Work test

1. The nationality of Ostrovsky’s creativity.
2. Fateful journey along the Volga.
3. The nationwide scale of the tragedy.
4. The meaning of “Thunderstorm” from Dobrolyubov’s point of view.

“Ostrovsky’s world is not our world, and to a certain extent we, people of another culture, visit it as strangers... The alien and incomprehensible life that happens there... may be curious for us, like everything unprecedented and unheard of; but in itself the human variety that Ostrovsky has chosen for himself is uninteresting. He gave some reflection of the known environment, certain quarters of the Russian city; but he did not rise above the level of specific life, and the merchant overshadowed the person for him,” Yu. I. Aikhenvald wrote about A. N. Ostrovsky at the beginning of the 20th century. Critic Yu. Lebedev deeply disagrees with Aikhenvald’s opinion. He writes: “His attitude towards Ostrovsky is more despotic than any Kabanikh. And in him, as sad as it is to realize this, is a typical example of that sophisticated aesthetic “height” that our culture of the early 20th century was gaining in order to, completely separating itself from national life, first spiritually and then physically crush it.” This position is much closer to me, since I believe that Ostrovsky’s world may be far from aesthetic heights, but the people of his world artistic heroes with all the truth of life is undeniable. Ostrovsky's plays undoubtedly have enormous national significance. He opened up a huge country for the reader - the world of merchants as the center folk life in movement, development.

During the period of mature creativity, the writer creates the play “The Thunderstorm”, which became a kind of analysis of the dark and bright sides merchant life. The creation of the play was preceded by a trip to the Upper Volga, thanks to which the playwright’s childhood memories of a trip to his father’s homeland in Kostroma came to life. Ostrovsky recorded his impressions from a trip to provincial Russia in his diary, and this diary witnessed how much the future playwright was struck by his acquaintance with the people and poetic folk art. He wrote: “From Pereyaslavl begins Merya, a land abundant with mountains and waters, and a people who are tall, and beautiful, and intelligent, and frank, and obliging, and a free mind, and a wide-open soul. These are my beloved fellow countrymen, with whom I seem to get along well... On the meadow side the views are amazing: what kind of villages, what kind of buildings, just as if you are driving not through Russia, but through some promised land.” These impressions could not simply dissolve in a series of life events, they matured in the playwright’s soul, and when the time came, “The Thunderstorm” was born. His friend S.V. Maksimov spoke about the influence of the trip along the Volga on the writer’s subsequent work: “The artist, strong in talent, was not able to miss a favorable opportunity... He continued to observe the characters and worldview of the indigenous Russian people, who came out to meet him in the hundreds. .. The Volga gave Ostrovsky abundant food, showed him new themes for dramas and comedies and inspired him to those that constitute the honor and pride of Russian literature. From the veche, once free, Novgorod suburbs there was a whiff of that transitional time, when the heavy hand of Moscow shackled the old will and sent ironclad governors on long raked paws... Outwardly beautiful Torzhok, jealously guarding its Novgorod antiquity to the strange customs of girlish freedom and strict seclusion married, inspired Ostrovsky to create the deeply poetic “Thunderstorm” with playful Varvara and artistically graceful Katerina.”

It was assumed that Ostrovsky took the plot of “The Thunderstorm” from the life of the Kostroma merchants. The play is based on the Klykov case, which was sensational in Kostroma in 1859. Until the beginning of the 20th century, any of its residents could show the place of Katerina’s suicide - a gazebo over the Volga at the end of the boulevard, as well as the house next to the Church of the Assumption where she lived. When “The Thunderstorm” was first staged on the stage of the Kostroma Theater, the actors made themselves up “to look like the Klykovs.”

Kostroma local historians carefully studied the “Klykovo Case” in the archive and came to the conclusion that, indeed, it was this story that Ostrovsky used when creating “The Thunderstorm.” The story of A.P. Klykova is as follows: she, raised by her grandmother in love and affection, was a cheerful and cheerful sixteen-year-old girl who was married into an unsociable merchant family. This family consisted of parents, a son and an unmarried daughter. The stern mother-in-law suppressed her family with her despotism, and not only forced her young daughter-in-law to do all the dirty work, but also “ate to eat.” Young Klykov did not protect his wife from his mother’s oppression. After some time, the young woman met another man, an employee of the Maryin post office. The situation in the family became even more unbearable: suspicions and scenes of jealousy seemed endless. As a result, on November 10, 1859, the body of the unfortunate woman was found in the Volga. The trial that began lasted a very long time and received wide publicity outside the Kostroma province. Therefore, no one doubted that Ostrovsky used the materials of this case in “The Thunderstorm”.

However, several decades later, researchers of Ostrovsky’s work absolutely established that the play “The Thunderstorm” was written before the tragic events in Kostroma took place. Even more surprising is the fact of such a coincidence. This testifies to how insightful Ostrovsky is, who was able to predict the growing conflict in merchant life between the old and new ways of life. Famous theatrical figure S. A. Yuryev accurately noted: “It was not Ostrovsky who wrote “The Thunderstorm”... Volga wrote “The Thunderstorm.”

The play takes place over the great Russian Volga River, from a place overlooking the vast expanse Russian Empire. It was not by chance that the author chose this particular location - in this way he emphasized the national scale of the tragedy that unfolded. Katerina’s fate is the fate of many Russian women of that time, given in marriage to an unloved man and suffering from the despotism of their mothers-in-law. But the old Domostroevsky world has already been shaken, the new generation can no longer put up with wild laws. This crisis state of the merchant world is the focus of attention of the author, who examines this problem using the example of one family.

In Russian criticism of the 60s, “The Thunderstorm” gave rise to heated controversy. For Dobrolyubov, the play became evidence of the revolutionary forces emerging in Russia, and the critic rightly noted the rebellious notes in Katerina’s character, which he associated with the atmosphere of crisis in Russian life: “In Katerina we see a protest against Kabanov’s concepts of morality, a protest brought to the end, proclaimed and under domestic torture and over the abyss into which the poor woman threw herself. She doesn’t want to put up with it, doesn’t want to take advantage of the miserable vegetation that is given to her in exchange for her living soul... What a joyful, fresh life a healthy person breathes upon us, finding within himself the determination to end this rotten life at any cost!”

“The Thunderstorm” is rightfully considered one of the masterpieces of Ostrovsky and all Russian drama, which the author himself assessed as a creative success; he rejoiced when the actors managed to realize his plan, and was deeply worried if he encountered misunderstandings, acting mediocrity or a careless attitude towards the play.

“The Thunderstorm” was conceived by Ostrovsky while traveling along the Volga from the source of the river to Nizhny Novgorod in a postal carriage together with the actor Prov Sadovsky. The playwright was fascinated by the beauty of the great Russian river and the cities and villages located along it. These were long-term ethnographic studies. In his correspondence from Tver, Ostrovsky wrote about the frescoes that amazed him, seen while examining the ruins of the city of Vertyazin. These images on the theme of the Lithuanian devastation will be echoed in “The Thunderstorm”. In charming Torzhok, Ostrovsky met with the customs of girlish freedom and strict seclusion, preserved from the times of Novgorod antiquity, strange in modern times. married women. These observations will be reflected in the characters of the unmarried Varvara and Katerina, doomed to family captivity.

Ostrovsky especially liked Kostroma for the rare beauty of its nature, a public garden with strolling merchant families, a gazebo at the end of the boulevard, which overlooked the Trans-Volga distances, delightful open spaces and picturesque groves.

The impressions received fueled Ostrovsky’s creativity for many years. They were also reflected in “The Thunderstorm,” which takes place in the fictional remote Volga town of Kalinov. Kostroma residents have long argued that it was Kostroma that was the prototype of the city of Kalinov.

When Ostrovsky submitted his play to the censor, a famous dialogue between the playwright and an official took place, who saw in Kabanikha a symbolized figure of Tsar Nicholas and therefore expressed doubt about the possibility of publishing the play. Nevertheless, it was published in the journal “Library for Reading” in 1860, for which censor’s permission was obtained with some difficulty.

However, even before its magazine publication, “The Thunderstorm” appeared on the Russian stage, for which it was primarily intended. The premiere took place on November 16, 1859 at the Maly Theater on the occasion of a benefit performance of the famous actor S. Vasiliev, who played Tikhon. Other roles were also performed by outstanding masters P. Sadovsky, N.V. Rykalova, L.P. Nikulina-Kositskaya and others. This production was directed by A.N. himself. Ostrovsky. The premiere and subsequent performances were a huge success and turned into a complete triumph. The same stage success awaited the actors Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. Here the play was also staged by the playwright himself.

A year after the brilliant premiere of “The Thunderstorm,” the play by A.N. Ostrovsky was awarded the highest academic award - the Great Uvarov Prize, which was awarded at the request of the writer I.A. Goncharov and professors P.A. Pletnev and A.D. Galakhova. This prize became the first evidence of the significance of the contribution that Ostrovsky made both to Russian literature and to the domestic performing arts.

Literature

Rogover E.S. Russian literature of the second half of the 19th century M., 2006

I. S. Turgenev described Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm” as “the most amazing, magnificent work of the mighty Russian... talent.” Indeed, both the artistic merits of “The Thunderstorm” and its ideological content give the right to consider this drama Ostrovsky’s most remarkable work. “The Thunderstorm” was written in 1859, in the same year it was staged in theaters in Moscow and St. Petersburg; it appeared in print in 1860. The appearance of the play on stage and in print coincided with the most difficult period in the history of the 60s. This was the period when Russian society lived with tense anticipation of reforms, when numerous unrest among the peasant masses began to result in formidable riots, when Chernyshevsky called the people “to the axe.” In the country, according to V.I. Belinsky’s definition, a revolutionary situation has clearly emerged.

The revival and rise of social thought on this turning point Russian life found its expression in the abundance of accusatory literature. Naturally, the social struggle had to be reflected in fiction.

Three themes attracted particular attention of Russian writers in the 50-60s: serfdom, appearance in the arena public life new strength– various intelligentsia and the position of women in the country.

But among the topics put forward by life, there was one more that required urgent coverage. This is the tyranny of tyranny, money and ancient authority in merchant life, a tyranny under the yoke of which not only members of merchant families, especially women, suffocated, but also the working poor, who depended on the whims of tyrants. The task of exposing economic and spiritual tyranny " dark kingdom”And Ostrovsky set himself in front of him in the drama “The Thunderstorm”.

Ostrovsky also acted as an exposer of the “dark kingdom” in plays written before “The Thunderstorm” (“Our own people – we will be numbered”, etc.). However, now, under the influence of the new social situation, he poses the theme of exposure wider and deeper. He now not only denounces the “dark kingdom”, but also shows how in its depths a protest arises against age-old traditions and how the Old Testament way of life begins to collapse under the pressure of the demands of life. The protest against the outdated foundations of life finds expression in the play first of all and most strongly in Katerina’s suicide. “It’s better not to live than to live like this!” - that’s what Katerina’s suicide meant. Before the appearance of the drama “The Thunderstorm,” Russian literature did not yet know a verdict on social life expressed in such a tragic form.

“The Thunderstorm” was not written by Ostrovsky... “The Thunderstorm” was written by Volga.

S. A. Yuriev

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky was one of the largest cultural figures of the 19th century. His work will forever remain in the history of literature, and his contribution to the development of Russian theater is difficult to overestimate. The writer made some changes to the production of plays: attention should no longer be focused on just one character; a fourth scene is introduced, separating the audience from the actors in order to emphasize the conventionality of what is happening; ordinary people and standard everyday situations are depicted. The last position most accurately reflected the essence of the realistic method that Ostrovsky adhered to. His literary work began in the mid-1840s. “Our people are numbered,” “Family pictures,” “Poverty is not a vice” and other plays were written. The drama “The Thunderstorm” has a history of creation that is not limited to just working on the text and writing conversations between the characters.

The history of the creation of the play “The Thunderstorm” by Ostrovsky begins in the summer of 1859, and ends a few months later, in early October.
It is known that this was preceded by a trip along the Volga. Under the patronage of the Maritime Ministry, an ethnographic expedition was organized to study the customs and morals of the indigenous population of Russia. Ostrovsky also took part in it.

The prototypes of the city of Kalinov were many Volga towns, at the same time similar to each other, but with something unique: Tver, Torzhok, Ostashkovo and many others. Ostrovsky, as an experienced researcher, recorded all his observations about the life of the Russian province and the characters of the people in his diary. Based on these recordings, the characters of "The Thunderstorm" were later created.

For a long time there was a hypothesis that the plot of “The Thunderstorm” was completely borrowed from real life. In 1859, precisely at this time the play was written, a resident of Kostroma left home early in the morning, and later her body was discovered in the Volga. The victim was the girl Alexandra Klykova. During the investigation, it became clear that the situation in the Klykov family was quite tense. The mother-in-law constantly mocked the girl, and the spineless husband could not influence the situation. The catalyst for this outcome of events was the love relationship between Alexandra and the postal employee.

This assumption is deeply ingrained in people's minds. Surely in the modern world, tourist routes would already be laid in that place. In Kostroma, “The Thunderstorm” was published as a separate book; during the production, the actors tried to resemble the Klykovs, and local residents even showed the place from which Alexandra-Katerina allegedly threw herself. Kostroma local historian Vinogradov, to whom the famous literature researcher S. Yu. Lebedev refers, found many literal coincidences in the text of the play and in the “Kostroma case”. Both Alexandra and Katerina were married off early. Alexandra was barely 16 years old.
Katerina was 19. Both girls had to endure discontent and despotism from their mothers-in-law. Alexandra Klykova had to do all the menial housework. Neither the Klykov family nor the Kabanov family had children. The series of “coincidences” does not end there. The investigation knew that Alexandra had a relationship with another person, a postal worker. In the play "The Thunderstorm" Katerina falls in love with Boris. That is why for a long time it was believed that “The Thunderstorm” was nothing more than a real-life incident reflected in the play.

However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the myth created around this incident was dispelled due to a comparison of dates. So, the incident in Kostroma occurred in November, and a month earlier, on October 14, Ostrovsky took the play to print. Thus, the writer could not display on the pages what had not yet happened in reality. But this does not make the creative history of “The Thunderstorm” any less interesting. It can be assumed that Ostrovsky, being an intelligent person, was able to predict how the girl’s fate would turn out in the typical conditions of that time. It is quite possible that Alexandra, like Katerina, was tormented by the stuffiness that is mentioned in the play. The old orders are becoming obsolete and the absolute inertia and hopelessness of the current situation. However, one should not completely correlate Alexandra with Katerina. It is quite possible that in the case of Klykova, the reasons for the girl’s death were only everyday difficulties, and not a deep-seated personal conflict, like Katerina Kabanova’s.

The most realistic prototype of Katerina can be called theater actress Lyubov Pavlovna Kositskaya, who later played this role. Ostrovsky, like Kositskaya, had his own family; it was this circumstance that prevented the further development of the relationship between the playwright and the actress. Kositskaya was originally from the Volga region, but at the age of 16 she ran away from home in search of a better life. Katerina’s dream, according to Ostrovsky’s biographers, was nothing more than the recorded dream of Lyubov Kositskaya. In addition, Lyubov Kositskaya was extremely sensitive to faith and churches. In one of the episodes, Katerina utters the following words:

“... Until death, I loved going to church! Exactly, it happened that I would enter heaven, and I didn’t see anyone, and I didn’t remember the time, and I didn’t hear when the service was over... And you know, on a sunny day such a light pillar comes from the dome, and smoke moves in this pillar, like clouds, and I see that it used to be as if angels were flying and singing in this pillar.”

“The Thunderstorm” is the history of the creation of Ostrovsky’s play - briefly about the time the drama was written |