"Thunderstorm" in Russian Criticism of the 60s.

"The Thunderstorm", like Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons", was a pretext for a stormy polemic that unfolded between two revolutionary-democratic magazines: "Sovremennik" and "Russian Word". The critics were most concerned with the question of a far from literary order: it was about revolutionary situation in Russia and its possible prospects. For Dobrolyubov, the "storm" was a confirmation of the revolutionary forces ripening in the depths of Russia, a justification of his hopes for the coming revolution "from below." The critic shrewdly noticed strong, rebellious motives in Katerina's character and connected them with the atmosphere of the crisis in which Russian life had entered: “In Katerina we see a protest against Kabanov's notions of morality, a protest carried to the end, proclaimed both under domestic torture and over the abyss, into which the poor woman rushed in. She does not want to put up, does not want to use the miserable vegetation that is given to her in exchange for her living soul ... What a joyful, fresh life a healthy person blows upon us, who finds the determination to end this rotten life no matter what!"

DI Pisarev assessed the "Thunderstorm" from a different standpoint in the article "Motives of the Russian Drama", published in the March issue of "Russian Word" for 1864. His article was polemically directed against Dobrolyubov. Pisarev called Katerina a "crazy dreamer" and "visionary": "Katerina's whole life, - in his opinion, - consists of constant internal contradictions; she rushes from one extreme to another every minute; today she regrets what she did yesterday, and between Thus she herself does not know what she will do tomorrow; at every step she confuses her own, her own life and the lives of other people; finally, confusing everything that was at her fingertips, she cuts the tight knots with the most stupid means, suicide. "

Pisarev is completely deaf to moral experiences, he considers them a consequence of the same folly of Ostrovsky's heroine: “Katerina begins to be tormented by remorse and reaches half-madness in this direction; to little tricks and precautions, one could see each other and enjoy life sometimes. But Katerina walks like a lost one, and Varvara is very thoroughly afraid that she will hit her husband's legs, and she will tell him everything in order. And so it comes out .. Thunder struck - Katerina lost the last remnant of her mind ... "

It is difficult to agree with the level of moral concepts from the "height" of which the "thinking realist" Pisarev judges Katerina. It is justified to some extent only by the fact that the entire article is a daring challenge to Dobrolyubov's understanding of the essence of "The Groza". Behind this challenge are problems that have no direct relation to the "Groza". This is again about the revolutionary potential of the people. Pisarev wrote his article in the era of the decline of the social movement and the disillusionment of revolutionary democracy with the results of the popular awakening. Since spontaneous peasant riots did not lead to revolution, Pisarev assesses Katerina's "spontaneous" protest as stupid nonsense. He proclaims Yevgeny Bazarov, who deifies natural science, as a "ray of light". Disappointed in the revolutionary possibilities of the peasantry, Pisarev believes in natural sciences as a revolutionary force capable of enlightening the people. Apollon Grigoriev felt "The Thunderstorm" most deeply. He saw in her "the poetry of folk life, boldly, widely and freely" captured by Ostrovsky. He noted "this hitherto unprecedented night of a meeting in a ravine, all breathing with the proximity of the Volga, all fragrant with the smell of herbs of its wide meadows, all sounding free songs," funny ", secret speeches, all full of charm of passion and cheerful and riotous and no less charm of deep passion and tragically fatal. It was created as if not an artist, but a whole people created here! "

M. I. Pisarev

"Thunderstorm". Drama by A. N. Ostrovsky

The drama of A. N. Ostrovsky "The Thunderstorm" in Russian criticism Sat. articles / Comp., ed. entry articles and comments Sukhikh I.N. - L .: Publishing house Leningrad. University, 1990 - 336 p. On Ostrovsky's "Thunderstorm" there was a storm, it seems, a land storm, preceded by a dusty hurricane. 1 We didn't see the storm ourselves, but the hurricane crumbled into dust in the open and disappeared without a trace. Another sophisticated Moscow newspaper has risen to the "Groza", which you cannot understand by old age: it cheats, and blushes, and this newspaper gossips like an old maid. (Youth and beauty and self-originality are not to her heart - and now she took up arms against the "Thunderstorm" with all the tricks of a stunted mind. which, nevertheless, stands out brightly and far from the series of our dozen dramas. our field, however everyone likes it. In our opinion, we must directly and boldly approach the work of art, and calmly, without philosophizing slyly, believe it with our taste. We should not care about the pale gloves of our neighbor. taste brought up on the best, at least not all of the high society examples - this is what criticism also needs: without this, he will certainly let it out and hint at his a hell of a thought ... The new work of Mr. Ostrovsky is full of life, freshness of colors and the greatest truth. Only by studying directly the medium from which its content was taken, it was possible to write it. In terms of its content, the drama belongs to the merchant life of a remote town, but even in this life, crushed by senseless rituals, petty arrogance, sometimes a spark of human feeling breaks through. To catch this spark of moral freedom and notice its struggle with the heavy oppression of customs, with the fanaticism of concepts, with the wayward whim of arbitrariness, to respond with a poetic feeling to this spark of God, bursting into light and space, means to find content for the drama. In whatever way of life this struggle takes place, no matter how it ends, but if it already exists, then there is also the possibility of drama. The rest is in the talent of the writer himself. The essence of Mr. Ostrovsky's drama obviously lies in the struggle between the freedom of moral feeling and the autocracy of family life. On the one hand, slavish obedience to the elder in the house according to the ancient custom, frozen motionless, without exception, in its inexorable severity; on the other hand, family despotism according to the same law is expressed in the Kabanovs: Tikhon and his mother. Hunted, intimidated, downtrodden, eternally guided by someone else's mind, someone else's will, the eternal slave of the family, Tikhon could neither develop his mind, nor give scope to his free will. That is why it lacks either one or the other. Nothing is so damaging to the mind as eternal walking on the aid, as guardianship, which tells you to do this and that without any thought. If Tikhon is stupid, it is because others thought for him; if he, having escaped free, greedily catches every minute of vulgar everyday pleasures, like drunkenness, and rushes headlong into insane revelry, it is because he has never lived in freedom; if he acts on the sly, it is because he was the eternal slave of a jealous family, inviolable rule. He only honors his mother; he could love his wife, but his mother constantly stifles in him all the free outbursts of love, demanding that the wife, in the old way, be afraid and revere her husband. All feelings of conjugal love should be manifested only in a known form, sanctified by ancient custom. Whether they exist or not, they should be in this form where custom requires, and should not be where custom does not. Any freedom of moral movement is suppressed: ritual, custom, antiquity have formed into an immovable form and fettered the whole person from his very birth to the grave, life development stalls under this pound yoke. Whoever has read The Thunderstorm will agree with us on the main lines by which we have defined family victims like Tikhon; even more, we hope, will agree the one who saw the "Thunderstorm" on the stage, where Tikhon's face comes to life in the wonderful play of Messrs. Vasiliev and Martynov. 2 Each of these two top-notch artists took on the role in their own way and gave it the flavor that the artist's means would dictate. This, however, did not prevent them from living in the role, moving into it in such a way that their own personality completely disappeared in it. There are many Tikhonov in the world; each of them has its own distinction, but they all look like Tikhon, brought to the stage in "The Thunderstorm". So did the years. Vasiliev and Martynov each gave Tikhon a special distinction, but uniformly reproduced the face conceived by the author. There is no doubt that the author conceived this face only in one form; nevertheless, the gift of creativity, which goes to the actor's lot, cannot rest on the mere transmission of words and main character traits, which we notice in mediocre actors. The mediocre actor grasps little in the role sometimes very rightly, but, without entering the role completely, so as to live in it as a whole, from head to toe with a living face, sins, does not fall into the tone of the details, which, taken together, make up a complete human appearance. That is why the desire only to convey, and not to revive, the face depicted in the drama brings mediocre actors to reading from a memorized, monotonous voice, to this dryness, deathly play, in which one can easily say that one played the role better, the other worse. But an actor gifted with creativity, guessing the thoughts of the author with his artistic instinct, creates the role in such a way that it comes to life as a really living person; and if two such actors take on the same role, then common, generic or ideal features remain the same for them, or everything that makes up a person's personality as a living and actually existing unit, this flesh, so to speak, is captured by the common, typical features, is already created by the means that the actor himself possesses. And since there are no two actors that are completely similar in nature, although equally talented, they do not have completely similar creations. Just as an ideal or a type is realized in society in different persons, with different shades, so the role can, in the performance of one or another actor, get different shades, different flesh, different sides, depending on how the actor imagines this type in real life ... In a word, the transformation of the author's thought into living reality depends on the creativity of the actor; the author shows how a face should be, the actor depicts this face as it really is, with his appearance, voice, techniques, posture, with his soulful characteristics. And this creativity of the actor, this difference in acting in the same role is not in the least hindered by the fact that the actor is obliged to literally convey the words of the original. Let us imagine such a happy combination of names, what are the names of Messrs. Ostrovsky, Martynov and Vasiliev; let us remember that in the drama each person is defined only by himself. Having conceived the face of Tikhon, Mr. Ostrovsky, of course, gave him the best definition in himself, so that the actor, who guessed the author's thought, only has to coincide with the author in the very expressions. You can, of course, improvise a speech on stage, when the author sets out only the content of the play and determines what character should be expressed in this or that person, and the actor himself is already conducting the conversation. Such improvised performances once existed throughout Europe, when the stage art was just emerging, now it remains only in ballets, where the actor replaces verbal expressions with facial expressions. We mentioned this only to clarify our point. In a good drama for a good actor, a ready-made speech serves not as a difficulty, but, on the contrary, as a relief; for he otherwise cannot imagine the face conceived by the author, if only he understood it, as with the very same speech. Mediocre plays, mediocre performers are another matter. A good actor, playing in a mediocre play and guessing the author's thoughts, often stumbles over expressions that are not used by the author in tone with the general character of the face, stumbles over all those irregularities, inconsistencies that do not fit into his concepts with general facial features. Then a good actor covers up the author's mistakes with his creativity, and a bad play, in a good environment, seems good. On the contrary, a mediocre actor who does not have enough creativity and artistic flair in himself to move into the role with his whole being, referring to his role only from the outside, only as a performer, and not as a person who has come to life in that role, especially if he does not know his role well or gets lost in memorized and monotonous methods of playing and pronunciation - such an actor, not fully understanding the author and not being able to control himself until complete transformation, will certainly get out of the general tone, will not be able to convey the speech and appearance of a person in constant accordance with the author's thought, and his role will be either pale or untrue to itself. Here is the secret of the setting. Good writers are happy when their plays find a good setting. The actor transfers the face from the verbal world to the living world, gives him appearance, flesh, voice, movement, expression, why inner world of this face, expressed by the author only in words, becomes even more prominent, even brighter: the face, living in the word and only imaginary, becomes really alive on stage, palpable for the eyes and hearing. This is where two good actors in the same role can disagree: they speak with the same expressions; but the very sound and play of the voice, the entire appearance of the face, captured by its character, all this transparent appearance, in which the spiritual nature of the face shines through - in a word, the entire stage performance is set off by the distinctive features of the performer. We notice the difference in the same role and guess from what point of view this or that actor looked at his role, how it came to him according to his means, according to his mentality, according to his moral mood. Thus, it seems to us, Mr. Vasiliev created a miserable creature in Tikhon, for whom the struggle against the family life that was stagnant in the immobile antiquity no longer exists. For him, it is already over - and this sacrifice, fallen in the struggle, finally took shape in the image of a being without reason, without will, with one small cunning, with only low motives. Weak and rare breakthroughs of love are nothing more than the unconscious movements of the soul; his mother's last reproach over his wife's corpse is nothing more than a useless complaint, a pitiful, powerless admission of his own weakness. Tikhon, in Mr. Vasiliev's play, himself does not understand what he is and what he could be; in himself there is no protest against his position, and therefore he is pitiful, but cannot arouse sympathy. G. Martynov took Tikhon a little earlier. In his play, we see Tikhon as a creature that is still struggling with the destructive family principle. True, it falls at every step, obeys the constantly prevailing rite family life replacing free family relationships; his last cry is a cry of despair, his reproaches are hopeless; but nevertheless we feel in him not a motionless and already frozen nature, but something that speaks, something human, moving and independent. These glimpses of an inner voice when parting with his wife, then when recognizing her wrongdoing and finally in reproaches addressed to the mother, reveal a victim that only falls in the struggle, but not completely fallen and numb: and we sympathize with this victim, how much she still has freedom human. In short, Mr. Vasiliev looked at Tikhon as already at the result of the constant, imperceptible struggle of the free human principle with an obsolete, senseless rite - a struggle that was insensitive for Tikhon and unconsciously for Kabanikha, and therefore was present everywhere and was not found anywhere until did not make Tikhon the way he appeared on the stage. But Mr. Martynov looked at Tikhon as a creature only preparing to become the result of the oppressive struggle, and therefore this struggle comes out more vividly, and the outbursts of human feeling will hear louder and deeper from the chest of a dying man. G. Vasiliev is right because, in fact, such a struggle between mother and son must have been waged from the very birth of Tikhon, unconsciously for both, and gradually end with a complete fall of the victim; Mr. Martynov is right because the struggle, presented more prominent and clearer than usual, acquires more drama and doubles the amusement, even arouses sympathy, joining Katerina's struggle with the same destructive ritual life of a stalled family. The essential basis of the drama is the struggle between Katerina (Kositskaya), Tikhon's wife, and his mother, Martha Ignatievna (Rykalova). Before marriage, Katerina was an enthusiastic girl: she lived, she did not grieve about anything, like a bird in the wild. Mother doted on her, she dressed up like a doll, did not force her to work. She used to get up early, go to the spring, bring water and water everything; then he goes to mass, and the pilgrims and pilgrims are all with her; he comes home, sits down to work, and the pilgrims and pilgrims read or tell, or sing poems. In church she was just like in paradise, and did not see or remember anyone, and did not hear how the service went on, but enjoyed visions. Either he gets up at night and prays somewhere in the corner, or early in the morning in the garden he prays and cries - and she herself does not know what. And dreams she dreamed of golden, and dreamed of her, as if flying a bird. Married, she remained just the same enthusiastic. But love mingled with innocent dreams. She fell in love with Boris Grigorievich, the nephew of the neighboring merchant Dikiy. The husband could not instill in her love for himself. And so from the former careless girlish freedom she passed into the strict life of a married woman. From the mother she got into the hands of the mother-in-law - the personified family rite. The mother-in-law does not understand freedom of feeling and does not care whether the wife loves her son or not, because she herself does not love anyone. Love is only in her head, not in her heart. She seems to be jealous of her daughter-in-law; she is relentless, merciless, cold; she oppresses and strangles her daughter-in-law without pity: she is a real mother-in-law, as Russian songs portray her. She constantly repeats to her son the same thing: “Today children do not honor their parents; parents are strict with love, and they scold because of love - everyone thinks to teach good. I want will: well, well, you will wait, live free, when I’m gone. Do you care about me? You have a young wife, will you exchange your wife for a mother? I won’t believe this in my life. I can see that I What kind of a husband are you? Look at yourself. Will your wife be afraid of you? You won’t be afraid of you, and even less of me. What kind of order will be in the house after that? After all, you live tea with her in law? Ali, in your opinion , the law does not mean anything ... "And for the sake of this law, the old mother-in-law fetters the young daughter-in-law into slavery and, as they say, eats her way. She does not like that Katerina does not want to perform rituals in which there is only pretense; for example, that she does not howl on the doorstep when her husband leaves. “You boasted,” she says to her daughter-in-law, “that you love your husband very much; now I see your love. Another good wife, having seen her husband off, howls for an hour and a half, lies on the porch; and you, apparently, have nothing. .. the trick is not great. If she loved, I would have learned it. If you don’t know how to do it, you at least made this example; it’s nevertheless more decent; otherwise, apparently, only in words. ” And here's how she lets her son go on the road: Why are you standing, don't you know the order? Order your wife how to live without you ... so that I can hear what you are ordering her! and then you will come and ask if you did everything like that? .. Tell your mother-in-law not to be rude; so that the mother-in-law would honor her as her own mother; so that she does not sit with folded hands like a lady; so as not to stare at the windows; so that I don't look at young guys without you. .. It's getting better, as ordered. " Subjugating the mind and will of her son, she ensures herself the obedience of her daughter-in-law. Thus forcing the moral freedom of a person, sinning against everything that is the best, noblest, holy in a person, killing a person morally, making him a doll dressed up in some external forms of ritual, Kabanova, meanwhile, keeps a pilgrim and a praying mantis, prays for a long time in front of icons , strictly observes fasts, sighs in a pious conversation with Feklusheya about the vanities of this world and about the corruption of morals and allows an unmarried daughter to be depraved. Isn't this also ritual piety - the piety of the head, and not of the heart? Is there even a drop of love in all this, a drop of virtue? Woe if a person calms down by observing only one form and does not believe himself with the voice of conscience; it is even more bitter if the conscience itself is covered by the form and does not listen to itself! Here is a new pharisaism! A person is content with himself, calm, thinking that he lives piously, and does not see, does not want to see that everything he does is evil, hypocrisy, sin, deception, violence ... Ms. Rykalova, with her clever game, she understood and expressed well this obstinate, calm, stern, insensitive woman in whom everything free-human, rational-moral has died out; in which the custom of antiquity, the immovable rite, dominate unconditionally; which is everything that pushes away from itself internally, restrains with itself external right of autocracy. And here are the consequences of this violent autocracy: the daughter does not love and does not respect her mother, walks at night and runs out of the house, unable to endure her mother's admonitions - of course, for Katerina. The son quietly seeks will, becomes a bum. Daughter-in-law ... but we will talk in more detail about the daughter-in-law, as the main face of the drama. Some metropolitan critics did not like the comparison of Katerina with a bird. If the scene had an unfavorable effect on them, that is another matter; but, rebelling exclusively against this comparison, they reveal a complete ignorance of the Russian people and Russian songs. The comparison with a bird is the most common in folk poetry: it expresses freedom, enthusiasm. If they do not listen to folk songs and stories, then we refer them at least to Pushkin's "Gypsies". 3 In this comparison, the author of "The Thunderstorm" revealed a deep knowledge of the people, and this comparison in Katerina's speeches goes as well as possible to the memory of the ecstatic state of her girlish youth; Katerina was an enthusiastic girl, and that she was so is the will of the author. With that way of life, in the absence of positivity, both in moral and religious mood, she should have become enthusiastic, if by this state we understand the unconscious striving of the soul somewhere that does not have solid ground under it and takes on increased dimensions. A girl, caressed and pampered in her family, who has not yet endured everyday disappointment and grief, is not sober by positive reality, is prone to hobbies, to the play of the young imagination, to the impulses of a passionate soul seeking satisfaction. And suddenly this young, innocent creature falls into the clutches of an obstinate, cold, strict, annoying mother-in-law, must in vain love her husband, in whom he sees only one miserable insignificance, must feel all the bitterness married life ... The transition to the harsh positivity and prose of a new family life and new responsibilities, in such an unhappy environment as it was in Kabanova's house, could not be accomplished without internal, at least involuntary, opposition from Katerina, supported by a habit of enthusiasm and enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is a strong support for moral freedom, and Katerina could not bring herself to fall in love with Tikhon and stop loving Boris. Meanwhile, everything that surrounds her forbids her not only to love a stranger, but even in her relationship to her husband, to be free from the ceremony. The struggle is inevitable - the struggle is not only with the surrounding order, personified in the mother-in-law, but also with herself, because Katerina is married, she very well understands the inappropriateness of her love for Boris. She has a sister-in-law Varvara, sister Tikhon (Borozdina 1st), a girl who fully uses the native custom, which the old woman Kabanova expressed in a few words to her daughter: "Come on, walk until your time comes." This means, while you are not married - walk for yourself as much as you want and as you know, and if you get married - you will sit up locked up. And exactly, this Varvara, with the masterful, impeccably perfect play of Mrs. Borozdina, is an experienced, lively, dexterous girl, with rude and harsh methods of her life, with an imprint of materiality due to the irresistible, full influence of the same life. She knows that she will be locked up under the formidable power of her husband and therefore for the lost future and wants to reward herself with the present and walk up to her fill. Varvara is a very positive and unashamed girl, and this positiveness gives her sharpness, dexterity: do what you want, as long as it is sewn and covered - this is her rule. And as a pupil of the same lifeless, ceremonial way of life, knowing no better, she understands pleasure only sensually! Having arranged, after Tikhon left, a date for herself and Katerina, she gives the key to the gate to Katerina. With the active influence of Barbara, Katerina's love, from a dreamy one, turns into a positive one. A hostile family, enthusiasm that turned into passion, and the services and persuasions of Barbara push Katerina to love; but on the other hand, family law, rumor and inner voice stop her. This inner voice is joined by the words of an ominous old lady-lady: "What are the beauties? What are you doing here? Are you waiting for the goodies? Chevaliers? Is it fun for you? Is it fun? Your beauty pleases you? Here is beauty somewhere leading ... here, here, in the whirlpool itself. Why are you laughing? Do not rejoice! Everything in the fire will burn inextinguishable. Everything in the resin will boil unquenchable! ". Katerina must fight both with herself and with the family, personified in her mother-in-law. Ms. Kositskaya, as an experienced and intelligent artist, successfully expresses one side of the struggle - with herself. Recall the scene with A barbarian and a monologue with a key in her hands. Here she has a lot of drama and a lot of naturalness in the oscillation between “no” and “yes." She skillfully wages all this internal struggle between the movement of passion and the thought of crime. , is performed less successfully by her. She reveals irritability, anger and maturity, discontent, so as if you are not afraid for her. Meanwhile, in our opinion, Katerina should have more innocence, femininity, inexperience, resignation to fate, and not consciousness, not complaints, but unconsciously, by itself, by her position should arouse sympathy and pity for herself, as for a young, innocent victim, involuntarily drawn by her unhappy fate to a fatal outcome. these dreams, and these forebodings, this moral weakness, the desire to die or to run away, and these words: “Why do not people fly like birds? You know, sometimes it seems to me that I am a bird. When you stand on a mountain, you are drawn to fly. So I would have scattered, raised my hands and flew. Nothing to try now? " These words seem strange to some; but this is precisely because the game does not fall into the general tone here. However, not all aspects of the role can sometimes be in the means of the artist. For this struggle, you just need to rejuvenate in years and in soul. It is in vain that the critic of the Moscow newspaper also points to religiosity. The fact of the matter is that he does not know the way of life of entire localities. Katherine's beliefs were dreamy; her convictions, in the absence of a solid education, could not have support in willpower. In such cases, in many localities, it is not inner convictions that govern morals, but glance, custom. An example is Barbara. False beliefs also convey a false view of behavior: what a girl can do is not married. Lack of religious education gave scope to hobby; there was neither firmness of spirit, nor the possibility of higher peace among the oppressive misfortunes and outbursts of passion. In the scene of the 3rd act between Katerina and Boris, the entire course and the result of the unequal struggle between passion and reason are visible."Come away from me, go away, you accursed man! Do you know: after all, I cannot forgive this sin, never forgive me! After all, it will lie like a stone on my soul, like a stone." This is what Katerina says first to Boris when she goes out on a date with him; but then we hear: "I have no will. If I had my own will, I would not go to you. Now your will is over me, can't you see?" And she throws herself to Boris on the neck. The line, in our opinion, is absolutely correct. Let us remember how Katerina, when parting with her husband, as if not vouching for herself, asked him not to leave her, or take her with him, or finally tied her with a terrible oath. It clearly expressed inability to control oneself, fear for oneself. A thunderstorm begins. It's funny how some in "The Thunderstorm" see only one heavenly thunderstorm. No, the heavenly thunderstorm here is only in harmony with the moral thunderstorm, even more terrible. And the mother-in-law is a thunderstorm, and the struggle is a thunderstorm, and the consciousness of crime is a thunderstorm. And all this has an alarming effect on Katerina, already dreamy and addicted to it. The heavenly storm joins this. Katerina hears the belief that a thunderstorm does not pass in vain; she already fancies that the storm will kill her, because she has sin in her soul. Real sin appears again in the form of an old lady with a stick, a sin not repentant, but stopped by passion and pouring out envious, poisonous rage on everything that bears the sign of youth and beauty. "Why are you hiding! There is nothing to hide! Apparently, you are afraid: you do not want to die! You want to live! How not to want to! Into the pool with beauty! Yes, hurry, hurry!" When the Last Judgment written on the wall rushes into Katerina's eyes, she can no longer bear an internal thunderstorm - a thunderstorm of conscience, accompanied by a heavenly thunderstorm and terrible beliefs and ominous words of the old woman: she publicly admits that she walked with Boris for ten nights. With that anxious mood of spirit in which her former enthusiastic, dreamy upbringing in the circle of wanderers responded; when she waited from minute to minute: that thunder would break out and kill the sinner, it is clear that she did not see, did not hear the people around her, and if she confessed, she confessed, being as if in a frenzied state. The criticism of the Moscow newspaper does not like that religious feeling did not save it from falling; he would like to see more conscientiousness in Katerina's behavior; but no critic has the right to prescribe to the composer the choice of the dramatic encounter or the plot of the play. There is a lot of drama when a person falls victim to the struggle, defending principles (in essence precious and sacred, such as moral freedom), which contradict the demands of duty and community and become, as it were, illegal. Katerina was placed between freedom of feeling, which in itself does not contain anything bad, and the duty of a wife. She yielded first, saving herself as a morally free being, but betrayed her duty, and for this violation of the rights of community she subjected herself to severe and merciless punishment, which had to come out of herself. She is unbearable on earth, and the same enthusiastic imagination draws her a welcoming grave and love over the grave."It's better in the grave ... There is a grave under the tree ... How good! .. The sun warms her up, wets her with rain ... In the spring, grass will grow on it ... Birds will fly ... Flowers will bloom ... I should die now. .. It's all the same that death will come, that it itself ... but you can't live! Sin! They won't pray! He who loves, he will pray! .. " And Katerina rushes into the Volga with faith in boundless, free love. We are reconciled with her in the name of this same Christian love. The crime was voluntary - and the punishment must be voluntary: otherwise the sense of justice will not be satisfied, and the play will lose its artistry. Only inveterate villains are violently punished; but the unfortunate victim of the clash of two powerful and hostile forces, such as moral freedom and duty, although it falls, but at the same time is aware of its fall and itself seeks punishment for itself for reconciliation with conscience and with people. Only Kabanikha, a strict and lifeless guardian of the ceremony, petrified in obsolete rules, could say: "Enough! It's a sin to cry about her!" We do not think that anyone would want to join Kabanikha and begin to assert that the drama does not satisfy morality. Yes, this can only be said by a short-sighted person who sees nothing more than the external setting of the event. On the contrary, every work of art is moral, because an intelligent person makes him think about the ways of human life, makes him seek reconciliation of moral freedom with duty in the new rules of communal life, so that the evil, false and ugly does not interfere with the good, just and beautiful being what it really is. What can be higher, nobler, purer for a person than his humanity? And meanwhile the violent, ugly, immobile, senseless rite of the family brings love to crime, mind to madness, will to lack of will, purity to debauchery, virtue and piety to vulgarity and hypocrisy, and all because he is alien to love and reconciliation, alien to the free impulses of the soul for good, alien to reasonable justice and sincerity of feeling; and yet the rite of family life, which kills everything human in a person, exists in numerous cities and towns. No, the reader or viewer, directed by the play to these thoughts, if only he takes the trouble to ponder the play, will agree with us that it produces a kind, not outrageous, but conciliatory action, and will say together with Kuligin: "Here is your Katerina. Do with her what you want! Her body is here, take it; but now your soul is not yours: it is now before a judge who is more merciful than you!" We can only say about the other persons of the drama, little or no involvement in the family thunderstorm. They constitute the necessary setting for an event, as we usually observe in real life. They give completeness and liveliness to the picture. Moreover, between them there is almost a new drama, the same thunderstorm, but not within the family, but outside it, in the public urban life. One has only to listen to what Kuligin tells about this life. The hero of this external drama is the merchant Dikoy (Sadovsky). But all these faces are so aptly, so convex, albeit with few features, that there is no need to define them. As for the performance, it is difficult to find another, more successful setting. Yy. Sadovsky (Wild), Dmitrevsky (Kuligin), V. Lensky (Kudryash), Nikiforov (One of the people) and Mrs. Akimova (Feklusha) live on stage as true faces of living reality with sharp distinctive features. Their roles are small and secondary: nevertheless, they stand out brightly and semi-colorfully, in harmony with the general tone of the entire play. The role of Boris is more general and therefore somewhat paler and more difficult than the others. Initially, it was performed by Mr. Chernyshev, who was blurred in a monotonous, cloying, sanguine sensitivity and decidedly out of tune; Mr. Cherkasov has noticeably corrected the shortcoming of his predecessor, but nevertheless, in our opinion, one must be very careful with Boris's love. The author himself somehow vaguely treated her: there are scenes where Boris, apparently, sincerely and strongly loves Katerina, and there are cases where he loves her only as if for his own amusement. In general, he loves more in words than in deeds; he does not care about Katerina's fate. This is some kind of ideal and, moreover, faint-hearted love, completely opposite to Kudryash's love for Barbara. The latter, although coarser than Boris, runs along with Varvara, saving her from an evil mother; and Boris leaves alone, not worrying much about what will become of Katerina. That is why, we said, one must be very careful with this role and conduct it with restraint, without going into excessive sensitivity and one-sidedness. "The Thunderstorm" is a painting from nature, smartly painted with fresh, thick, semi-precious colors. That is why she breathes the greatest truth. Truth is the best basis of conviction for any public figure, no matter who he is: a businessman, a scientist or an artist. With love we dwell on the faint glimpses of God's spark, revealing the presence of the true and all-embracing principle of humanity, we respectfully look at those noble movements that constitute the essence of moral nature, and with sad regret we see how their obsolete, old habits and beliefs are crushed and destroyed. and meaningless rites. That is our old man. When this antiquity was not antiquity, then there was the meaning of its time in it, there was a need justified by the look of that time, the life of that time; and the life of the people is not the same as the life of one person; in it there is always the basis of humanity, inherent in the people everywhere and always. But time flies, boundless, eternal humanity, or the same as the spirit of man, the living principle of life, grows ever wider and wider in the real life of the people; the work of humanity is to strengthen good and truth, and with them to decorate and ennoble real life in its moral and material course. Everything that hinders her activity, everything that prevents a person from improving and realizing the noble aspirations of the soul and spirit in themselves - all this is old. The spirit is eternally young and eternally good; but the form in which it manifests itself in real life, as a form or everyday life, that is, as a custom, statute, institution, etc., must be mobile, changing in order to give scope to the spirit. If the form remains motionless, it grows old and puts the best human aspirations into conflict with itself, making them imaginary, or simply ruining them. Society is offended, but offended because it is closed in a certain, immovable form, and this insult is only temporary, conditioned only by a temporary dominant view. That is why the duty of every progressive person is to find a way of reconciliation between what society establishes as a duty, as a right, and what asks for free activity, like any good and noble, in essence, moral movement. This is the highest truth, which should be in a work of art. To deny the spark of God in a living people and seek for them a life-giving spirit outside of it from others or to stand for antiquity - both are contrary to the truth.

The critical story of The Thunderstorm begins even before its appearance. To argue about the "ray of light in the dark kingdom", it was necessary to open the "Dark kingdom". An article under this title appeared in the July and September issues of Sovremennik for 1859. It was signed by the usual pseudonym of N. A. Dobrolyubov - N. - bov.

The motive for this work was extremely significant. In 1859 Ostrovsky summed up an intermediate result of his literary activity: his two-volume collected works appeared. “We consider it best to apply real criticism to Ostrovsky's works, which consists in reviewing what his works give us,” Dobrolyubov formulates his main theoretical principle. - Real criticism treats the artist's work in the same way as it does to the phenomena of real life: it studies them, trying to determine their own norm, to collect their essential, specific traits, but not at all fussing about why it is oats - not rye, and coal - not a diamond ... ".

What kind of norm did Dobrolyubov see in Ostrovsky's world? “Public activities are little touched upon in Ostrovsky’s comedies, but Ostrovsky’s extremely full and vividly exhibited two kinds of relations to which a person can still apply his soul in our country - family relations and property relations. It is not surprising, therefore, that the plots and the very titles of his plays revolve around the family, the groom, the bride, wealth and poverty.

"The Dark Kingdom" is a world of senseless tyranny and suffering of "our younger brothers", "a world of hidden, quietly sighing sorrow", a world where "outward submission and dull, concentrated grief, reaching the level of complete idiotism and deplorable depersonalization" are combined with "slavish by cunning, the most vile deception, the most shameless treachery. " Dobrolyubov examines in detail the “anatomy” of this world, its attitude to education and love, his moral convictions like “than stealing to others, it’s better for me to steal”, “Father's will”, “so that she is not above me, but I swagger over her as much as your heart desires ", etc.

- "But there is no way out of this darkness?" - the question is asked at the end of the article on behalf of an imaginary reader. “Sadly, it’s true; but what to do? We must confess: we did not find a way out of the "dark kingdom" in the works of Ostrovsky, - the critic answers. - Whether to blame the artist for this? Isn't it better to look around you and turn your demands to life itself, which is so languidly and monotonously weaving around us ... But we must look for a way out in life itself: literature only reproduces life and never gives what is not in reality ”. Dobrolyubov's ideas had a great resonance. Dobrolyubov's "Dark Kingdom" was read with enthusiasm, with which perhaps not a single journal article was read, the great role of Dobrolyubov's article in establishing Ostrovsky's reputation was recognized by his contemporaries. "If you collect everything that was written about me before Dobrolyubov's articles appeared, then at least drop your pen." A rare, very rare case in the history of literature of absolute mutual understanding between a writer and a critic. Soon each of them will make a response "remark" in the dialogue. Ostrovsky - with a new drama, Dobrolyubov - with an article about it, a kind of continuation of "The Dark Kingdom". In July 1859, just at the time when the publishing of The Dark Kingdom began in Sovremennik, Ostrovsky began The Thunderstorm.

Organic criticism. AA Grigoriev's article "After Ostrovsky's" The Thunderstorm "continued the critic's reflections on one of the most beloved and important writers in Russian literature. Grigoriev considered himself, and in many respects justifiably, one of the "discoverers" of Ostrovsky. “Ostrovsky alone, in the present literary epoch, has his own strong, new and at the same time ideal world outlook. "Ostrovsky's new word was neither more nor less like a nationality, in the sense of the word: nationality, national."

In accordance with his concept, Grigoriev highlights in The Thunderstorm the “poetry of the life of the people,” which is most clearly embodied at the end of the third act (the meeting between Boris and Katerina). “You haven’t been to the performance yet,” he turns to Turgenev, “but you know this magnificent moment in its poetry - this hitherto unprecedented night of meeting in a ravine, all breathing with the proximity of the Volga, all fragrant with the smell of grasses, its wide meadows, all sounding free songs, "funny", secret speeches, all full of charm of passion, cheerful and riotous and no less charm of passion, deep and tragically fatal. After all, it was created as if it was not an artist, but a whole people who created here! "

A similar circle of thoughts, with the same, as in Grigoriev's, high appreciation of the poetic merits of "The Storm" is developed in a large article by M. M. Dostoevsky (brother of F. M. Dostoevsky). The author, however, without naming Grigoriev by name, refers to him at the very beginning.

M. Dostoevsky examines Ostrovsky's previous work in the light of the disputes between "Westernizers" and "Slavophiles" and tries to find a different, third position: "In our opinion, Mr. Ostrovsky in his works is not a Slavophile or a Westerner, but simply an artist, a deep connoisseur of Russian life. and the Russian heart ". In an obvious polemic with Dobrolyubov's "The Dark Kingdom" ("This thought, or if you like it better, the idea of ​​domestic despotism and a dozen other no less humane ideas, perhaps, are hidden in Mr. Ostrovsky's play. But, probably, not he asked them, starting his drama ") M. Dostoevsky sees the central conflict of" The Thunderstorm "not in the collision of Katerina with the inhabitants and customs of the city of Kalinov, but in the internal contradictions of her nature and character:“ Katerina alone is dying, but she would have died without despotism. This is a victim of their own purity and their beliefs. " Later in the article, this idea acquires a generalized philosophical character: “The chosen natures have their own fate. Only he is not outside of them: they carry him in their own hearts. "

Is Ostrovsky's world a "dark kingdom" or a kingdom of "poetry of folk life"? "A word for solving his activity": tyranny or nationality?

A year later, N.A. Dobrolyubov.

"The most the best way critics, we consider the presentation of the case itself so that the reader himself, on the basis of the facts presented, could draw his own conclusion ... And we have always been of the opinion that only factual, real criticism can have any meaning for the reader. If there is something in the work, then show us what is in it; it is much better than indulging in thoughts about what is not in it and what should be in it. "

Abstracts from N. A. Dobrolyubov's article "A ray of light in the dark kingdom"

“We want to say that in the foreground is always the general situation of life. He does not punish either the villain or the victim. You see that their position dominates them, and you only blame them for not showing enough energy to get out of this position. And that is why we in no way dare to consider as unnecessary and superfluous those persons of Ostrovsky's plays who do not participate directly in the intrigue. From our point of view, these faces are just as necessary for the play as the main ones: they show us the environment in which the action takes place, they draw the position that determines the meaning of the activities of the main characters in the play. "

The Thunderstorm is undoubtedly Ostrovsky's most decisive work; the mutual relations of tyranny and speechlessness are brought to the most tragic consequences in it; and for all that, most of those who have read and seen this play agree that it gives a less grievous and sad impression than other plays by Ostrovsky ... There is something refreshing and encouraging about The Thunderstorm. This "something" is, in our opinion, the background of the play, indicated by us and revealing the precariousness and imminent end of tyranny. Then the very character of Katerina, drawn against this background, also blows on us. new life, which is revealed to us in its very death. The fact is that the character of Katerina, as it is performed in The Thunderstorm, is a step forward not only in the dramatic activities of Ostrovsky, but in all of our literature ... Russian life has finally reached the point that virtuous and respectable, but weak and impersonal creatures do not satisfy public consciousness and are recognized as worthless. An urgent need was felt for people, albeit less beautiful, but more active and energetic. "

"Take a good look: you see that Katerina was brought up in concepts that are the same as the concepts of the environment in which she lives and cannot renounce them, without having any theoretical education." This protest is all the more valuable: “It presents a terrible challenge to the tyrannical force, he tells it that it is no longer possible to go further, it is impossible to continue living with violent deadening principles. In Katerina we see a protest against Kabanov's notions of morality, a protest carried through to the end, proclaimed both under domestic torture and over the abyss into which the poor woman threw herself ... this rotten life by all means! "

Dobrolyubov analyzes the replicas of Feklusha, Glasha, Dikiy, Kudryash, Kuligin, etc. The author analyzes the inner state of the heroes of the "dark kingdom". “In addition to them, without asking them, another life has grown, with different principles, and although it is not yet clearly visible, it is already sending bad visions to the dark arbitrariness of tyrants. And Kabanova is very seriously upset by the future of the old order, with which she has outlived a century. She foresees their end, tries to maintain their significance, but already feels that there is no previous respect for them and that they will be abandoned at the first opportunity. "

“We are glad to see Katerina's deliverance - even through death, if it is impossible otherwise. Living in a "dark kingdom" is worse than death. Tikhon, throwing himself at his wife's corpse, pulled out of the water, shouts in self-forgetfulness: “It's good for you, Katya! And why am I left to live in the world and suffer! “With this exclamation the play ends, and it seems to us that nothing could be thought of stronger and more truthful than such an ending. Tikhon's words make the viewer think not about a love affair, but about this whole life, where the living envy the dead. "

The meaning of Dobrolyubov's article is not simply a thorough and deep analysis of the conflict and the heroes of Ostrovsky's drama. As we have seen, other critics approached a similar understanding even earlier. Dobrolyubov, through the "Storm", is trying to see and understand the essential tendencies of Russian life (the article is being written several months before the peasant reform).

"A ray of light ...", like "The Dark Kingdom", also ends with a question highlighted by Dobrolyubov in persistent italics: "... is it really the Russian living nature expressed in Katerina, is it really the Russian environment - in everything that surrounds it, is it really the need for the emerging movement of Russian life affected in the sense of the play, how is it understood by us? " The best of critical works have enormous aftereffects. In them, the text is read with such depth and time is expressed with such force that, like the works of art themselves, they become monuments of the era, already inseparable from it. Dobrolyubov's "dilogy" (two works connected with each other) about Ostrovsk is one of the highest achievements of the Russian critics XIX v. It really sets the trend in the interpretation of the "Thunderstorm", which still exists today.

But next to the Dobrolyubovskaya line, another, "Grigorievskaya" line took shape. In one case, The Thunderstorm was read as a harsh social drama, in the other - as a lofty poetic tragedy.

More than four years have passed. "The Thunderstorm" was staged less and less. In 1864 it was held three times at the Maly Theater and six at the Alexandrinsky Theater, in 1865 three more times in Moscow and never once in St. Petersburg. And suddenly DI Pisarev. "Motives of the Russian Drama"

There are also two polemical objects in Motives of the Russian Drama: Katerina and Dobrolyubov. Pisarev constructs his analysis of The Storm as a consistent refutation of Dobrolyubov's view. Pisarev fully agrees with the first part of Dobrolyubov's dilogy about Ostrovsky: “Based on the dramatic works of Ostrovsky, Dobrolyubov showed us in the Russian family that“ dark kingdom ”in which mental abilities wither and the fresh forces of our young generations are depleted ... As long as the phenomena of the“ dark kingdom will exist ” "And while patriotic daydreaming will turn a blind eye to them, until then we will constantly have to remind the reading society of Dobrolyubov's true and lively ideas about our family life." But he resolutely refuses to consider the heroine of The Storm as a “ray of light”: “This article was a mistake on the part of Dobrolyubov; he was carried away by sympathy for Katerina's character and took her personality for a bright phenomenon. "

Like Dobrolyubov, Pisarev proceeds from the principles “ real criticism", Without questioning either the aesthetic consistency of the drama, or the typical character of the heroine:" Reading The Thunderstorm or watching it on stage, you will never doubt that Katerina should have acted in reality exactly as she does in the drama ". But the assessment of her actions, her relationship with the world is fundamentally different from Dobrolyubov's. “The whole life of Katerina,” according to Pisarev, “consists of constant internal contradictions; she rushes from one extreme to another every minute; today she regrets what she did yesterday, and yet she herself does not know what she will do tomorrow; at every step she confuses her own life and the lives of other people; finally, confusing everything that was at her fingertips, she cuts through the tightened knots with the most stupid means, suicide, and even such a suicide, which is completely unexpected for her. "

Pisarev speaks of "a lot of nonsense" committed by "the Russian Ophelia and quite clearly opposes to her" the lonely personality of the Russian progressist "," a whole type who has already found expression in literature and who is called either Bazarov or Lopukhov. " (The heroes of the works of I.S.Turgenev and N.G. Chernyshevsky, commoners, inclined to revolutionary ideas, supporters of the overthrow of the existing system).

Dobrolyubov, on the eve of the peasant reform, optimistically pinned his hopes on the strong character of Katerina. Four years later, Pisarev, already on this side of the historical border, sees: the revolution has failed; hopes that the people will decide their own destiny were not justified. We need a different way, we need to look for a way out of the historical impasse. “Our social or national life does not need at all strong characters, which she has enough for her eyes, but only and exclusively in consciousness alone ... We need exclusively people of knowledge, that is, knowledge must be assimilated by those iron characters with which our national Dobrolyubov's life, evaluating Katerina from only one side, concentrated all his attention as a critic only on the spontaneously rebellious side of her nature; Pisarev was struck exclusively by the darkness of Katerina, the antediluvianness of her social consciousness, her peculiar social "oblomovism", political bad manners. "

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• The dramatic events of the play by A.N. Ostrovsky's "Thunderstorm" is set in the city of Kalinov. This town is located on the picturesque bank of the Volga, from the high steep of which the immense Russian expanses and boundless distances open to the eyes. “The view is extraordinary! Beauty! The soul rejoices, "- admires the local self-taught mechanic Kuligin. Pictures of endless distances, echoed in a lyric song. Among the flat valley ", which he sings, are of great importance for conveying the feeling of the immense possibilities of the Russian [...]
• Katerina Varvara Personality Sincere, sociable, kind, honest, pious, but superstitious. Delicate, soft, at the same time, determined. Rough, cheerful, but taciturn: "... I don't like to talk a lot." Determined, can fight back. Temperament Passionate, freedom-loving, bold, impetuous and unpredictable. She says about herself, "I was born so hot!" Free-loving, intelligent, calculating, courageous and rebellious, she is not afraid of either parental or heavenly punishment. Upbringing, […]
• "The Thunderstorm" was published in 1859 (on the eve of the revolutionary situation in Russia, in the "pre-storm" era). Its historicism lies in the conflict itself, the irreconcilable contradictions reflected in the play. She meets the spirit of the times. "Thunderstorm" is the idyll of the "dark kingdom". Petty tyranny and speechlessness are brought to the limit in her. A real heroine from the folk environment appears in the play and it is the description of her character that is given the main attention, and the world of the city of Kalinov and the conflict itself are described in a more generalized way. "Their life […]
• A. N. Ostrovsky's The Thunderstorm made a strong and deep impression on his contemporaries. Many critics were inspired by this work. However, even in our time it has not ceased to be interesting and topical. Raised into the category of classical drama, it still awakens interest. The arbitrariness of the "older" generation lasts for many years, but some event must take place that could break the patriarchal tyranny. Such an event turns out to be the protest and death of Katerina, which awakened others [...]
• The play by Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky "The Thunderstorm" is historical for us, as it shows the life of the bourgeoisie. The Thunderstorm was written in 1859. It is the only work of the cycle "Nights on the Volga" conceived but not realized by the writer. The main theme of the work is a description of the conflict that arose between two generations. The Kabanikha family is typical. The merchants cling to their old morals, not wanting to understand the younger generation. And since the young do not want to follow traditions, they are suppressed. I'm sure, […]
• Whole, honest, sincere, she is not capable of lies and falsehood, therefore, in a cruel world where wild and wild boars reign, her life is so tragic. Katerina's protest against the despotism of Kabanikha is the struggle of the light, pure, human against the darkness, lies and cruelty of the “dark kingdom”. No wonder Ostrovsky, who paid great attention to the selection of names and surnames actors, gave such a name to the heroine of "Storms": translated from Greek "Catherine" means "eternally pure." Katerina is a poetic nature. V […]
• Let's start with Katerina. In the play "The Thunderstorm" this lady is the main character. What are the problems of this work? Problems are the main question that the author asks in his creation. So the question here is who will win? The dark kingdom, which is represented by the bureaucrats of the county town, or the light beginning, which is represented by our heroine. Katerina is pure in soul, she has a gentle, sensitive, loving heart. The heroine herself is deeply hostile against this dark swamp, but she does not fully realize it. Katerina was born [...]
• In The Thunderstorm, Ostrovsky, operating with an insignificant number of characters, was able to reveal several problems at once. First, it is, of course, a social conflict, a clash of "fathers" and "children", their points of view (and if we resort to generalization, then two historical eras). The older generation, actively expressing their opinion, belong to Kabanova and Dikoy, to the younger - Katerina, Tikhon, Varvara, Kudryash and Boris. Kabanova is sure that order in the house, control over everything that happens in it is the guarantee of a correct life. Correct [...]
• A conflict is a clash of two or more parties that do not coincide in views, attitudes. There are several conflicts in Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm", but how to decide which one is the main one? In the era of sociologism in literary criticism, it was believed that social conflict is the most important in the play. Of course, if you see in the image of Katerina a reflection of the spontaneous protest of the masses against the shackling conditions of the “dark kingdom” and perceive the death of Katerina as a result of her collision with her mother-in-law, you should [...]
• Katerina is the main character in Ostrovsky's drama The Thunderstorm, Tikhon's wife, Kabanikha's daughter-in-law. The main idea of ​​the work is the conflict of this girl with the "dark kingdom", the kingdom of tyrants, despots and ignoramuses. You can find out why this conflict arose and why the end of the drama is so tragic by understanding Katerina's ideas about life. The author showed the origins of the character of the heroine. From the words of Katerina, we learn about her childhood and adolescence. Here is drawn an ideal version of patriarchal relations and the patriarchal world in general: “I lived, not about [...]
• In general, the history of the creation and the idea of ​​the play "The Thunderstorm" are very interesting. For some time, there was an assumption that this work was based on real events that took place in the Russian city of Kostroma in 1859. “In the early morning of November 10, 1859, the Kostroma bourgeoisie Alexandra Pavlovna Klykova disappeared from the house and either threw herself into the Volga, or was strangled and thrown there. The investigation revealed a dull drama played out in an unsociable family living with narrowly commercial interests: [...]
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• Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky was endowed with a great talent as a playwright. He is deservedly considered the founder of the Russian national theater. His plays, varied in themes, glorified Russian literature. Ostrovsky's work was democratic in nature. He created plays in which hatred of the autocratic-serf regime was manifested. The writer called for the protection of the oppressed and humiliated citizens of Russia, he longed for social change. The great merit of Ostrovsky is that he discovered the enlightened [...]
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• The drama takes place in the Volga town of Bryakhimov. And in it, as elsewhere, cruel rules reign. The society here is the same as in other cities. The main character of the play, Larisa Ogudalova, is a dowry. The Ogudalov family is not rich, but thanks to the perseverance of Kharita Ignatievna, it leads an acquaintance with the mighty of the world this. Mother inspires Larissa that she, although she does not have a dowry, should marry a rich groom. And Larisa for the time being accepts these rules of the game, naively hoping that love and wealth [...]
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In 1859 Ostrovsky created the drama The Thunderstorm, one of the masterpieces of Russian drama. In the article "The Dark Kingdom", written before the appearance of "The Thunderstorm", N. A. Dobrolyubov wrote about the heroines and heroes of Ostrovsky: , a powerless murmur, timidly dying at its very inception. There is no light, no warmth, no space; The dark and cramped prison blows rotten and damp. Not a single sound from the free air, not a single ray of daylight penetrates her. " Dobrolyubov called the second article devoted to "The Thunderstorm" "A ray of light in a dark kingdom", and in this article noted that the writer introduces a new motive into the depiction of tyranny - the motive of his self-doubt, instability and, ultimately, moral doom. Dikoy and Kabanikha are especially disgusting in their callousness, especially petty and picky because they foresee Hard times- disobedience, disobedience, disobedience.

At first glance, there seems to be no basis for such assumptions. The inert, routine life of the tiny provincial town of Kalinov is what it has always been. “Bla-alepie, dear! Bla-alepie! Wonderful beauty! .. You live in the promised land! " - says the wanderer Feklusha. But these words sound a complete dissonance to the frank judgments of Kuligin: "Cruel manners, sir, in our city, cruel! ...". In the Kalinov microcosm, Kuligin and Feklusha have completely opposite functions. Feklusha, acting as a kind of "international observer" and supplying Kalinovites with information about the outside world, tries to convince them that "it is impossible to live differently than they are." Therefore, in Feklusha's messages there is nothing about European countries where people live better than in Russia; she speaks of the lands where "Turkish waves", "Persian waves" rule, and also about the lands, "where all the people are with dogs' heads." And the level of Kalinovites is quite consistent with the level of Feklusha.

The tyrants do not need much effort to control the Kalinovsky public opinion... They rely on the power of authority, tradition, and most importantly, the power of money. It is this power that makes Diky's nephew, educated and delicate Boris Grigorievich, a slave to his uncle, and Tikhon to automatism obedient to his mother's will.

But the sphere of authority of brute, petty force is getting narrower. Dikoy, for example, perceives the figure of the quiet and modest but independent Kalinov intellectual, watchmaker and mechanic Kuligin with extreme irritation and rudeness. The reason for this rudeness is obvious. Dikoy, of course, can curse, offend, silence Kuligin. But no Dikoy will make Kuligin believe that "a thunderstorm is sent to us as punishment, so that we feel," and in general cannot be an authority for him. Already this Kuligin poses a threat to the owners of Kalinov.

The same problems arise with tyrants in the home. Tikhon, of his own free will, does not bow at his mother's feet, he needs to be reminded of this, and does not require an earthly bow from Katerina. Katerina, seeing her husband off, does not howl or roll around the porch in order to demonstrate marital feelings “for people” (according to the principle “love - do not love, but look more often”). Everything is not as it was before, as it should be. And Feklusha's prediction that "the last times" are coming, Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova takes seriously. “And it will be worse than that, dear,” she says to Feklushe. But all these are premonitions, latent tendencies in the dark kingdom. The tyrants, although expecting unfavorable changes, do not see an open protest and their power is still very strong.

This protest is known to be associated with the personality of Katerina. The fate of a young merchant's wife, who passionately fell in love, violated marital fidelity and paid with her life for her sin, was perceived as a challenge to the mores, traditions and customs of a petty environment, to the entire way of life of the dark philistine world. Katerina's drama - right up to its tragic finale - meant her awareness of her human rights and human dignity. According to A. Blok, everything in "The Storm" is fanned by the breath of burning passion. But this personal drama has deep social implications.

In terms of her outlook and upbringing, Katerina does not stand out in her environment in any way; in the protest itself, she proceeds not at all from theoretically conscious beliefs and remains a simple, naive, superstitious woman. The strength of her character lies in kindness, moral integrity and inability to moral compromise. Katerina does not know how to lie and hypocrite, and that is why it is so difficult for her to live in the world. The peculiarity, the originality of her worldview was an intuitive striving for the ideal - a joyful, harmonious, free world, which she would like to find a place in life. While she was in her mother's house, nothing prevented her from living with dreams of a world where everyone is fine, both for her and for others, but under the heavy hand of her mother-in-law these dreams quickly fade away, and there is no freedom for the manifestations of her soul. Golden dreams disappear - reality remains.

In these conditions, the only salvation for Katerina is love for her husband, and she would like to love him. But Tikhon, in himself a man is not evil, too spineless, too dependent on his mother to understand the desires of his wife. For him, life exists in two unequal phases: a year - under the fifth mother, and two weeks (and luckily, it’s more) - drunken binge on the side. When Katerina begs Tikhon to take her with him, the answer is "no!"

Thus, Katerina's passionate attachment to Boris, the unlawful sinful love of a married woman, to whom her husband is indifferent, is a consequence of her natural need for love, the offended feelings of a woman, wife, desire for freedom. The vile atmosphere of domestic hypocrisy and petty tyranny gives rise to a protest in her soul, and already adultery itself, the fall of Katerina is an expression of this protest.

Katerina's adultery would hardly have had such dramatic consequences if Katerina were like Barbara, Tikhon's sister, who remarks: “do what you want, as long as it is sewn and covered”. But Katerina is unable to deceive and pretend. “I don’t know how to deceive; I can’t hide anything, ”says Katerina. “Well, you can't do without it, remember where you live,” Varvara objected to her. When Katerina, after a thunderstorm and reminders of a mad lady about "fiery hell," repent of her sin, that she had walked with Boris Grigorievich for ten nights, Tikhon perceives her confession as a nuisance, but regrets more than condemns his wife. Kuligin advises him: “Somehow, sir, do it well! That would have forgiven her, but never remembered. Themselves, tea, is also not without sin! " “What can I say!” - admits Tikhon. But Tikhon's forgiveness is not an option for Katerina: "... his caress is worse than his beatings." Suicide was the only way out for Katerina, who did not want to return to her former life.

The dramatic form through which the richest content of "The Thunderstorm" shines through is deeply unique. Ostrovsky was the first Russian writer who skillfully used the elements of nature, landscape, for a dramatic kind. The image of a thunderstorm passes through the entire work as a symbol of a powerful elemental force, and this image merges with the thunderstorm that occurs in Katerina's soul. The whole drama is imbued with a feeling of "eerie pre-storm stuffiness", a presentiment of a thunderstorm. Pictures of the Volga nature in different ways set off the action during the night meeting of Katerina with Boris, and at the time of her tragic death. The dramaturgy of the landscape organically enters into the action of The Storms.

The courage and sharpness in posing the most important issues of social life and morality in "The Thunderstorm" caused a real storm in the press, literary and theatrical environment. Not only obscurantists and reactionaries reacted negatively to Ostrovsky's play. The negative reaction of M.S.Schepkin is known. The writer N.F. Pavlov called Katerina "shameless", "Thunderstorm" - propaganda of debauchery, "a dirty booth subject to the police of public health", the imagination of its author "depraved" - Ostrovsky through Pavlov's mouth was proclaimed, as he puts it, "eternal anathema for his wicked child. " Passions flared up when The Thunderstorm was presented for the Uvarov Prize as the best dramatic work of the year. The issue was resolved positively thanks to the opinion of the official reviewer I. A. Goncharov, who gave an exceptionally flattering assessment of the play, calling it “ classic piece"Of Russian literature, in which" the picture of national life and customs has settled down with unparalleled artistic completeness and fidelity. "

Among the critical responses to the "Thunderstorm" stands out the article by N. A. Dobrolyubov "A ray of light in the dark kingdom" - one of best works Russian literary criticism. True, somewhat later, another authoritative critic D.I. Pisarev made an attempt to re-evaluate Dobrolyubov's concept. According to Pisarev, Dobrolyubov was carried away by the aesthetic side of the matter, "passion, tenderness and sincerity" of Katerina and attributed too much to her, presenting her as an expression of protest. Katerina as interpreted by Pisarev is eccentric and not too clever woman, capable of experiencing emotional upheavals due to every trifle, and the critic considers her suicide not as a manifestation of protest, but as a result of the interaction of such properties as increased sensitivity, aesthetic feeling and lack of intelligence; Katerina is not a bright ray, but at best a victim. The "dark kingdom" cannot generate from itself a force that is disastrous for it ("Russian life, in its deepest depths, does not contain absolutely any inclinations of independent renewal"), it knows only two educational elements - parental stick and parental affection. The parenting stick brings up limited and selfish dwarfs - practical people, parental caress - sufferers and victims, among whom is Ostrovsky's heroine. A real renewal should be expected from among those who are not crippled by the "elements of our people's life", from among the intelligentsia, the Lopukhovs and Bazarovs, who are "not a couple of Katerina."

Pisarev's talented article, which is of undoubted interest for characterizing the social movement of the era, could not, however, shake the success of The Groza. Ostrovsky's "Thunderstorm" triumphantly marched across Russia not only in the 60s: according to theatrical statistics, it took place on the metropolitan and provincial stage from 1875 to 1907 3592 times. After "The Thunderstorm" Ostrovsky received recognition as the largest drama writer in Russia.

Source (abridged): Russian literary classic XIX century: Textbook / Ed. A.A. Slinko and V.A. Svitelsky. - Voronezh: Native speech, 2003

I. Nikolay Alexandrovich Dobrolyubov(1836-1861) - critic, publicist, poet, prose writer. Revolutionary democrat. Born into the family of a priest. Studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of the Main Pedagogical Institute of St. Petersburg. During his studies, his materialistic views were formed. "I am a desperate socialist ..." - Dobrolyubov said about himself. Permanent contributor to the Sovremennik magazine. According to the recollections of people who knew him closely, Dobrolyubov did not tolerate compromises, "did not know how to live", as the majority lives.

Dobrolyubov entered the history of Russian literature, first of all, as a critic, a follower of Belinsky's ideas. Dobrolyubov's literary criticism is brightly publicistic.

Dobrolyubov has extensive parallels between literature and life, his address to the reader - both direct and hidden, "Aesopian". The writer counted on the propaganda effect of some of his articles.

At the same time, Dobrolyubov was a sensitive connoisseur of beauty, a person capable of deeply penetrating into the essence of a work of art.

Develops the principles of "real criticism", the essence of which is that the work should be treated as phenomena of reality, revealing its humanistic potential. The dignity of a literary work is directly related to its nationality.

Dobrolyubov's most famous literary-critical articles: "The Dark Kingdom" (1859), "When Will the Present Day Come?" (1859), "What is Oblomovism?" (1859), "A ray of light in the dark kingdom" (1860).

II. Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev (1840-1868) – literary critic, publicist. Born into a poor noble family. Studied at the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University. It is at the university that the "poisonous grain of skepticism" grows in a young man. Since 1861 he has been working for the Russian Word magazine. Pisarev's articles quickly attracted the attention of readers with their sharpness of thought, fearlessness author's position, brought him the fame of a daring and ardent polemicist, who does not recognize anyone's authority.

After 1861, Pisarev pinned his hopes on useful scientific and practical activities, on awakening interest in exact, natural science knowledge. From an extremely pragmatic position, he approaches the analysis of some works of art. Pisarev insists that by all means it is necessary to increase the number of thinking people.

He died tragically in June 1868.

The most famous critical works of Pisarev: "Bazarov" (1862), "Motives of the Russian Drama" (1864), "Realists" (1864), "The Thinking Proletariat" (1865).

III. Critics' image of Katherine

ON THE. Dobrolyubov	DI. Pisarev
1. Katerina's character is a step forward ... in all our literature	1. Dobrolyubov took the personality of Katerina for a bright phenomenon
2. Decisive, tse flax Russian character	2. Not a single bright phenomenon can arise in the "dark kingdom" ...
3. This character is predominantly creative, loving, ideal.	3. What is this austere virtue that surrenders at the first opportunity? What kind of suicide caused by such little trouble?
4. With Katerina, everything is done according to the attraction of nature	4.Dobrolyubov found ... the attractive sides of Katerina, put them together, made an ideal image, and as a result saw a ray of light in the dark kingdom
5. In Katerina we see a protest against Kabanov's concepts of morality, a protest carried to the end ...	5. Education and life could not give Katerina either a strong character or a developed mind ...
6 Such liberation is bitter; but what to do when there is no other way out. That is the strength of her character.	6. Katerina cuts through the lingering knots with the most stupid means - suicide.
7 We are glad to see the deliverance of Katerina.	7. He who does not know how to do anything to alleviate his own and others' sufferings cannot be called a bright phenomenon.

Pisarev openly and openly argues with Dobrolyubov. In his article, he states: “Dobrolyubov was mistaken in his assessment female character". Pisarev remains deaf to the spiritual tragedy of Katerina, he approaches this image from a frankly pragmatic position. He does not see what he saw Dobrolyubov - Katerina's piercing conscientiousness and uncompromising attitude. Pisarev, based on his own understanding of specific problems new time, which came after the collapse of the revolutionary situation, believes that main feature a truly bright phenomenon is a strong and developed mind. And since Katerina has no mind, she is not a ray of light, but just an "attractive illusion."

V. The rejection of the interpretation of the image of Katerina Pisarev was expressed in his article by Maxim Antonovich, an employee of the Sovremennik magazine. Maxim Alekseevich Antonovich(1835-1918) - radical Russian literary critic, philosopher, publicist. Born into the family of a sexton. Studied at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. Was an employee of Sovremennik. He defended his views on the art of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. He advocated for democratic, raznochin literature. However, he vulgarized the provisions of materialist aesthetics. Polemized with the journal D.I. Pisarev "Russian Word".

The most famous works M. Antonovich: "Asmodeus of Our Time" (1862), "Misses" (1864).

M. Antonovich was the initiator of the controversy between Sovremennik and Russian Word. These leading democratic journals differed in their understanding of the very paths of progressive change. Pisarev's stake on scientific progress led to a certain revision of the views of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. This is clearly manifested in Pisarev's interpretation of the image of Katerina. Antonovich in his article "Misses" sharply criticized this attempt to revise Dobrolyubov, incriminating Pisarev for distorting the meaning of Dobrolyubov's article.

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