And Ostrovsky's biography. Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky - biography, information, personal life

Ostrovsky Alexander Nikolaevich, Russian writer, unrivaled master of theatrical drama, was born on March 31, 1823 in Moscow. short but meaningful. The playwright is the founder of the Russian national repertoire. He divided his work into two components: psychological dramas and sharply satirical comedies. Ostrovsky's characters represented the entire multi-layered society of Russia in the 19th century, starting from rich merchants, for whom the thirst for profit was the main and only passion in life, and ending with little people: servants, kept women, beggar wanderers.

First comedy

At the age of forty, Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, whose short biography contains only a few pages, was elected corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg. This high title did not affect the playwright’s work in any way; he did not touch science. The writer devoted his entire life to Russian. Since 1847, Ostrovsky wrote plays and comedies, which enjoyed constant success with the capital's public. The first comedy "Family Picture" was read to a narrow circle of like-minded people and was unconditionally approved by them. Thus, Ostrovsky’s biography, brief in essence, marks the beginning of the writer’s work.

Milestones of creativity

In 1849, the comedy "Our People - Let's Count" was staged on the theater stage about the bankruptcy of a successful merchant, with numerous conflicts, betrayal of family members, greed, manifestations of base human instincts and many other unpleasant events. Then the plays were written: “Poverty is not a vice” and “Don’t sit in your own sleigh,” in which the playwright tried to present Russian society as not alien to nobility, with poetic aspirations.

Journalism

In addition to dramaturgy, A. N. Ostrovsky (a brief biography does not reflect all the changes in his life) gravitated towards journalism, and in 1850 he became an employee of Moskvityanin, a famous magazine, the bulk of whose readers consisted of ordinary people, farmers, small employees and housewives. Alexander Nikolaevich intended to reveal the life of the patriarchal merchant class on the pages of the magazine, but the editorial board of the publication did not welcome the writer’s critical approach, and disputes and conflicts began. In the end, Ostrovsky left Moskvityanin.

"The Thunderstorm" is a masterpiece of drama

The next publication in which the writer decided to try his luck was the St. Petersburg magazine Sovremennik, which was headed by N. A. Nekrasov, who sincerely considered Ostrovsky the most outstanding playwright of our time. And in 1859, the first collection of works by Alexander Nikolaevich was published. Ostrovsky's biography is brief, but it still outlines the main milestones of his creativity. At the same time, “The Thunderstorm” was written - the author’s first significant work in the genre of tragedy, unprecedented in the power of its narrative, revealing the conflict between two women: Katerina and her mother-in-law Marfa Ignatievna. The stunning drama of "The Thunderstorm", Katerina's slow progress towards suicide, her attempts to make a choice between love and the traditional way of life make the theater viewer deeply empathize and sympathize with the unfortunate woman.

Ostrovsky's biography is short, but it contains several more pages from the life of the famous playwright, which we will talk about in another article.

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky born March 31 (April 12), 1823 in Moscow in the family of an official-lawyer. The mother comes from the lower clergy. He spent his childhood and early youth in Zamoskvorechye - a special corner of Moscow with its established merchant-philistine life.

He received his education at the 1st Moscow Gymnasium ( 1835-1840.) and at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University ( 1840-1843.; did not graduate). Service in Moscow courts ( 1843-1851.) gave a lot to Ostrovsky as a writer. Ostrovsky’s first literary experiments in prose were marked by the influence of the natural school (“Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident”, 1847.). In the same year, his first dramatic work, “The Picture of Family Happiness” (in later publications – “The Family Picture”) was published in the Moscow City List. Ostrovsky gained literary fame from his published in 1850 comedy "Our people - let's be numbered!" (original title – “Bankrupt”). Even before publication it became popular. The comedy was banned from being presented on stage (it was first staged in 1861), and the author, by personal order of Nicholas I, was placed under police supervision.

In his literary debuts, Ostrovsky adhered to a direction that he himself defined as accusatory, “moral and social.” The life of the merchants, with its crude primitiveness and the dominance of deception, was presented satirically by them. In the comedy "Poor Bride" ( 1851 ) the playwright tried to create a socio-psychological play from the life of bureaucrats. Ostrovsky's early plays were published, as a rule, in the conservative magazine Moskvityanin, in which Ostrovsky was especially active in collaborating both as an editor and as a critic. in 1850-1851.; for some time he was part of the so-called. the “young editorial staff” of the magazine, with its members he was connected by close personal friendship. Starting with the comedy “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh,” staged 1853. The Moscow Drama Troupe on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre, Ostrovsky's plays quickly conquered the repertoire: for more than three decades, almost every season in the Moscow Maly and St. Petersburg Alexandrinsky theaters was marked by the production of his new play.

Since 1856 Ostrovsky, a regular contributor to the Sovremennik magazine, becomes close to the figures of democratic Russian journalism. During the years of social upsurge before the peasant reform 1861 Social criticism in his work intensifies again, and the drama of conflicts becomes more acute.

1855 . – comedy “There’s a hangover at someone else’s feast.”
1856. - comedy "Profitable Place".
1858 . - play "The Kindergarten".
1859. – drama “The Thunderstorm”.
1863. - “Hard days.”
1864. - “Jokers.”
1865 . - “Abyss.”

In the 60s Ostrovsky also addresses the problems of Russian history and the patriotic theme. Created a cycle of historical plays:

1861 . - “Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk.”
1864 . - “Voevoda.”
1866. – “Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky”, “Tushino”.

Ostrovsky is experiencing a period of creative growth since the late 60s, when themes and images of the new post-reform Russia appear in his drama. Almost all of Ostrovsky's dramatic works 70s and early 80s. published in the journal Otechestvennye zapiski. In the brilliant cycle of satirical comedies “Simplicity is enough for every wise man” ( 1868 ), "Warm heart" ( 1868 ), "Mad Money" ( 1869 ), "Forest" ( 1870 ), "Wolves and Sheep" ( 1875 ) post-reform illusions are debunked, types of new businessmen, acquirers, and “Europeanized” merchants are created. The techniques of Ostrovsky’s psychological satire at this time are sometimes akin to the satire of M. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Ostrovsky’s ideas about happiness, the meaning of life, and human duty are embodied in the play “Labor Bread” ( 1874 ) and – in the form of a poetic utopia – in the fairy tale “Snow Maiden” ( 1873 ).

In the last years of his work, Ostrovsky created significant socio-psychological dramas and comedies about the tragic destinies of richly gifted, sensitive women in a world of cynicism and self-interest:

1878. – “Dowry”, “The Last Victim”.
1882. - “Talents and fans.”

47 original plays by Ostrovsky(together with plays written in collaboration with young playwrights N.Ya. Solovyov, P.M. Nevezhin, and numerous translations and adaptations of plays by foreign authors) created an extensive repertoire for the Russian stage.

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky died June 2 (14), 1886 in Shchelykovo, now Ostrovsky district, Kostroma region.

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Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky. Born March 31 (April 12), 1823 - died June 2 (14), 1886. Russian playwright, whose work became the most important stage in the development of the Russian national theater. Corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky was born on March 31 (April 12), 1823 in Moscow on Malaya Ordynka.

His father, Nikolai Fedorovich, was the son of a priest, he himself graduated from the Kostroma Seminary, then the Moscow Theological Academy, but began to practice as a lawyer, dealing with property and commercial matters. He rose to the rank of collegiate assessor, and in 1839 received the nobility.

His mother, Lyubov Ivanovna Savvina, the daughter of a sexton and a breadmaker, died when Alexander was not yet nine years old. The family had four children (four more died in infancy).

Thanks to Nikolai Fedorovich’s position, the family lived in prosperity, and great attention was paid to the education of children who received home education. Five years after the death of his mother, his father married Baroness Emilia Andreevna von Tessin, the daughter of a Swedish nobleman. The children were lucky with their stepmother: she surrounded them with care and continued to educate them.

Ostrovsky spent his childhood and part of his youth in the center of Zamoskvorechye. Thanks to his father's large library, he became acquainted with Russian literature early and felt an inclination towards writing, but his father wanted to make him a lawyer.

In 1835, Ostrovsky entered the third grade of the 1st Moscow Provincial Gymnasium, after which in 1840 he became a student at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University. He failed to complete the university course: without passing the exam in Roman law, Ostrovsky wrote a letter of resignation (he studied until 1843). At the request of his father, Ostrovsky entered the service as a clerk in the Conscientious Court and served in the Moscow courts until 1850; his first salary was 4 rubles a month, after some time it increased to 16 rubles (transferred to the Commercial Court in 1845).

By 1846, Ostrovsky had already written many scenes from the life of a merchant and conceived the comedy “The Insolvent Debtor” (later - “Our People - We Will Be Numbered!”). The first publication was a small play “Picture of Family Life” and an essay “Notes of a Zamoskvoretsky Resident” - they were published in one of the issues of “Moscow City List” in 1847. Professor of Moscow University S.P. Shevyrev, after Ostrovsky read the play at his home on February 14, 1847, solemnly congratulated those gathered on the “appearance of a new dramatic luminary in Russian literature.”

The comedy brought Ostrovsky literary fame “Our people - we will be numbered!”(original title - “The Insolvent Debtor”), published in 1850 in the journal of university professor M.P. Pogodin “Moskvityanin”. Under the text it read: “A. ABOUT." and "D. G.”, that is, Dmitry Gorev-Tarasenkov, a provincial actor who offered Ostrovsky cooperation. This collaboration did not go beyond one scene, and subsequently served as a source of great trouble for Ostrovsky, since it gave his ill-wishers a reason to accuse him of plagiarism (1856). However, the play evoked approving responses from N. V. Gogol and I. A. Goncharov.

The influential Moscow merchants, offended for their class, complained to the “boss”; as a result, the comedy was banned from production, and the author was dismissed from service and placed under police supervision by personal order of Nicholas I. Supervision was lifted after the accession of Alexander II, and the play was allowed to be staged only in 1861.

Ostrovsky’s first play, which was able to get onto the theater stage, was “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh.”(written in 1852 and staged for the first time in Moscow on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater on January 14, 1853).

Since 1853, for more than 30 years, new plays by Ostrovsky appeared almost every season at the Moscow Maly and St. Petersburg Alexandrinsky theaters. Since 1856, Ostrovsky has become a permanent contributor to the Sovremennik magazine. In the same year, in accordance with the wishes of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, a business trip of outstanding writers took place to study and describe various areas of Russia in industrial and domestic relations. Ostrovsky took upon himself the study of the Volga from the upper reaches to Nizhny Novgorod.

In 1859, with the assistance of Count G. A. Kushelev-Bezborodko, the first collected works of Ostrovsky were published in two volumes. Thanks to this publication, Ostrovsky received a brilliant assessment from N. A. Dobrolyubov, which secured his fame as an artist of the “dark kingdom.” In 1860, “The Thunderstorm” appeared in print, to which he dedicated the article “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom.”

From the second half of the 1860s, Ostrovsky took up the history of the Time of Troubles and entered into correspondence with Kostomarov. The fruit of the work was five “historical chronicles in verse”: “Kuzma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk”, “Vasilisa Melentyeva”, “Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky”, etc.

In 1863, Ostrovsky was awarded the Uvarov Prize (for the play “The Thunderstorm”) and was elected a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In 1866 (according to other sources - in 1865) Ostrovsky founded the Artistic Circle, which subsequently gave many talented figures to the Moscow stage.

I. A. Goncharov, D. V. Grigorovich, I. S. Turgenev, A. F. Pisemsky, F. M. Dostoevsky, I. E. Turchaninov, P. M. Sadovsky, L. P. visited Ostrovsky’s house. Kositskaya-Nikulina, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, L. N. Tolstoy, P. I. Tchaikovsky, M. N. Ermolova, G. N. Fedotova.

In 1874, the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers and Opera Composers was formed, of which Ostrovsky remained the permanent chairman until his death. Working on the commission “to revise regulations on all parts of theatrical management,” established in 1881 under the directorate of the Imperial Theaters, he achieved many changes that significantly improved the situation of artists.

In 1885, Ostrovsky was appointed head of the repertory department of Moscow theaters and head of the theater school.

Despite the fact that his plays did well at the box office and that in 1883 Emperor Alexander III granted him an annual pension of 3 thousand rubles, financial problems did not leave Ostrovsky until the last days of his life. His health did not meet the plans he had set for himself. The intense work exhausted the body.

On June 2 (14), 1886, on Spiritual Day, Ostrovsky died in his Kostroma estate Shchelykovo. His last work was the translation of “Antony and Cleopatra” by W. Shakespeare, Alexander Nikolaevich’s favorite playwright. The writer was buried next to his father in the church cemetery near the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the village of Nikolo-Berezhki, Kostroma province. Alexander III donated 3,000 rubles from the cabinet funds for the funeral; the widow, together with her two children, was given a pension of 3,000 rubles, and 2,400 rubles a year for raising three sons and a daughter. Subsequently, the widow of the writer M. V. Ostrovskaya, actress of the Maly Theater, and the daughter of M. A. Chatelain were in the family necropolis.

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

Family and personal life of Alexander Ostrovsky:

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

Alexander Nikolaevich had a deep passion for actress L. Kositskaya, but both of them had a family.

However, even after becoming a widow in 1862, Kositskaya continued to reject Ostrovsky’s feelings, and soon she began a close relationship with the son of a wealthy merchant, who eventually squandered her entire fortune. She wrote to Ostrovsky: “I don’t want to take your love away from anyone.”

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

Plays by Alexander Ostrovsky:

"Family Picture" (1847)
“Our people - we will be numbered” (1849)
"An Unexpected Case" (1850)
"The Morning of a Young Man" (1850)
"Poor Bride" (1851)
“Don’t get into your own sleigh” (1852)
"Poverty is no vice" (1853)
“Don’t live as you want” (1854)
“There is a hangover at someone else’s feast” (1856)
"Profitable Place" (1856)
"A Festive Sleep Before Dinner" (1857)
“They didn’t get along” (1858)
"Nurse" (1859)
"Thunderstorm" (1859)
"An old friend is better than two new ones" (1860)
“Your own dogs squabble, don’t bother someone else’s” (1861)
"The Marriage of Balzaminov" (1861)
“Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk” (1861, 2nd edition 1866)
"Hard Days" (1863)
“Sin and misfortune do not live on anyone” (1863)
"Voevoda" (1864; 2nd edition 1885)
"The Joker" (1864)
"On a Lively Place" (1865)
"The Deep" (1866)
"Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky" (1866)
"Tushino" (1866)
“Vasilisa Melentyeva” (co-authored with S. A. Gedeonov) (1867)
“Simplicity is enough for every wise man” (1868)
"Warm Heart" (1869)
"Mad Money" (1870)
"Forest" (1870)
“It’s not all Maslenitsa for the cat” (1871)
“There wasn’t a penny, but suddenly it was Altyn” (1872)
"Comedian of the 17th Century" (1873)
"The Snow Maiden" (1873)
"Late Love" (1874)
"Labor Bread" (1874)
"Wolves and Sheep" (1875)
"Rich Brides" (1876)
“Truth is good, but happiness is better” (1877)
"The Marriage of Belugin" (1877)
"The Last Victim" (1878)
"Dowry" (1878)
"Good Master" (1879)
“Savage” (1879), together with Nikolai Solovyov
"The Heart Is Not a Stone" (1880)
"Slave Girls" (1881)
“It shines, but does not warm” (1881), together with Nikolai Solovyov
“Guilty Without Guilt” (1881-1883)
"Talents and Admirers" (1882)
"Handsome Man" (1883)
"Not of this world" (1885)

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky is a great Russian playwright, author of 47 original plays. In addition, he translated more than 20 literary works: from Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, and English.

Alexander Nikolaevich was born in Moscow into the family of a commoner official who lived in Zamoskvorechye, on Malaya Ordynka. This was an area where merchants had long settled. Merchant mansions with their blind fences, pictures of everyday life and the peculiar customs of the merchant world sank into the soul of the future playwright from early childhood.

After graduating from high school, Ostrovsky, on the advice of his father, entered the law faculty of Moscow University in 1840. But legal sciences were not his calling. In 1843, he left the university without completing the course of study, and decided to devote himself entirely to literary activity.

Not a single playwright showed pre-revolutionary life with such completeness as A. N. Ostrovsky. Representatives of the most diverse classes, people of different professions, origins, and upbringing pass before us in artistically truthful images of his comedies, dramas, scenes from life, and historical chronicles. The life, customs, characters of the townspeople, nobles, officials and mainly merchants - from “very important gentlemen”, rich bar and businessmen to the most insignificant and poor - are reflected with amazing breadth by A. N. Ostrovsky.

The plays were written not by an indifferent writer of everyday life, but by an angry denouncer of the world of the “dark kingdom”, where for the sake of profit a person is capable of anything, where the elders rule over the younger, the rich rule over the poor, where state power, the church and society in every possible way support the cruel customs that have developed over centuries.

Ostrovsky's works contributed to the development of public self-awareness. Their revolutionary influence was perfectly defined by Dobrolyubov; he wrote: “By painting us a vivid picture of false relationships with all their consequences, through this he serves as an echo of aspirations that require a better structure.” It was not without reason that the defenders of the existing system did everything in their power to prevent Ostrovsky’s plays from being performed on stage. His first one-act “Picture of Family Happiness” (1847) was immediately banned by theater censorship, and this play appeared only 8 years later. The first big four-act comedy “Our People - Let's Number” (1850) was not allowed on stage by Nicholas I himself, imposing a resolution: “It was printed in vain, it is forbidden to play in any case.” And the play, heavily altered at the request of the censor, was staged only in 1861. The Tsar demanded information about Ostrovsky’s lifestyle and thoughts and, having received the report, ordered: “Keep under supervision.” The secret office of the Moscow Governor-General opened the “Case of the writer Ostrovsky”, and secret gendarmerie surveillance was established over him. The obvious “unreliability” of the playwright, who was then serving in the Moscow Commercial Court, worried his superiors so much that Ostrovsky was forced to resign.

The comedy “Our People – Let’s Be Numbered”, which was not allowed on stage, created wide fame for the author. It is not difficult to explain the reasons for such a great success of the play. The faces of the tyrant owner Bolshov, his unrequited, stupidly submissive wife, his daughter Lipochka, distorted by an absurd education, and the rogue clerk Podkhalyuzin appear before us as if alive. “The Dark Kingdom” is how the great Russian critic N.A. Dobrolyubov described this musty, crude life based on despotism, ignorance, deception and arbitrariness. Together with the actors of the Moscow Maly Theater Prov Sadovsky and the great Mikhail Shchepkin, Ostrovsky read comedy in a variety of circles.

The enormous success of the play, which, in the words of N. A. Dobrolyubov, belonged “to Ostrovsky’s brightest and most consistent works” and captivated with “the truth of the image and the correct sense of reality,” made the guardians of the existing system wary. Almost every new play by Ostrovsky was banned by censorship or not approved for performance by the theater authorities.

Even such a wonderful drama as The Thunderstorm (1859) was met with hostility by the reactionary nobility and the press. But representatives of the democratic camp saw in “The Thunderstorm” a sharp protest against the feudal-serf system and fully appreciated it. The artistic integrity of the images, the depth of ideological content and the accusatory power of “The Thunderstorm” make it possible to recognize it as one of the most perfect works of Russian drama.

Ostrovsky is of great importance not only as a playwright, but also as the creator of Russian theater. “You brought a whole library of works of art as a gift to literature,” I. A. Goncharov wrote to Ostrovsky, “you created your own special world for the stage. You alone completed the building, the foundation of which was laid by the cornerstones of Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Gogol. But only after you, we Russians can proudly say: we have our own Russian national theater.” Ostrovsky's work constituted an entire era in the history of our theater. The name of Ostrovsky is especially strongly connected with the history of the Moscow Maly Theater. Almost all of Ostrovsky's plays during his lifetime were staged in this theater. They brought up several generations of artists who grew into wonderful masters of the Russian stage. Ostrovsky's plays played such a role in the history of the Maly Theater that it proudly calls itself the Ostrovsky House.

To play new roles, a whole galaxy of new actors had to appear and appeared, just as well as Ostrovsky, who knew Russian life. The national Russian school of realistic acting was established and developed on Ostrovsky's plays. Starting with Prov Sadovsky in Moscow and Alexander Martynov in St. Petersburg, several generations of metropolitan and provincial actors, right up to the present day, grew up playing roles in Ostrovsky’s plays. “Loyalty to reality, to the truth of life” – this is how Dobrolyubov spoke about Ostrovsky’s works – has become one of the essential features of our national performing arts.

Dobrolyubov pointed out another feature of Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy - “the accuracy and fidelity of the folk language.” No wonder Gorky called Ostrovsky “the sorcerer of language.” Each character of Ostrovsky speaks in a language typical of his class, profession, and upbringing. And the actor, creating this or that image, had to be able to use the necessary intonation, pronunciation and other speech means. Ostrovsky taught the actor to listen and hear how people speak in life.

The works of the great Russian playwright recreate not only his contemporary life. They also depict the years of Polish intervention at the beginning of the 17th century. (“Kozma Minin”, “Dmitry the Pretender and Vasily Shuisky”), and the legendary times of ancient Rus' (the spring fairy tale “The Snow Maiden”).

In the pre-revolutionary years, bourgeois spectators gradually began to lose interest in Ostrovsky's theater, considering it obsolete. On the Soviet stage, Ostrovsky's dramaturgy was revived with renewed vigor. His plays are also performed on foreign stages.

L. N. Tolstoy wrote to the playwright in 1886: “I know from experience how your works are read, listened to and remembered by the people, and therefore I would like to help you now quickly become in reality what you are, undoubtedly - a national writer - in the broadest sense."

After the Great October Socialist Revolution, the work of A. N. Ostrovsky became national.

Date of birth: April 12, 1823
Date of Death: June 14, 1886
Place of birth: Moscow

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky- famous Russian playwright, Ostrovsky A.N.- public figure, born April 12, 1823. His father was an ordinary judicial employee in Moscow and lived in Zamoskvorechye. He was an enlightened man, graduated from the Moscow theological seminary and the Kostroma seminary, but his career as a priest did not take off and he worked as a lawyer, responsible for commercial and property matters.

Alexander's mother came from a poor family and died when he was only 7 years old. In addition to Alexander, the family had three more children. After the death of his mother, his father remarried Baroness Emilia Andreevna von Tessin, who took charge of the upbringing and education of the children.

In 1835, Alexander entered the Moscow Gymnasium, and in 1840 he entered the department of jurisprudence at the University of Moscow. He immediately showed great interest not only in Russian literature, but also in the theater.

He was a regular at the Petrovsky and Maly theaters. His education was interrupted by a quarrel with a teacher, after which Alexander left the university of his own free will. He got a job as a scribe in a Moscow court. His activities concerned property litigation between children and parents.

In 1845 he moved to the commercial court, where he continued to work in the chancery. For a long time he collected information for his subsequent literary activities. Around the same time, he wrote the comedy "Our People - Let's Be Numbered!", which was staged and immediately became a success.

This success became the impetus for Ostrovsky to devote himself to drama and literature. His first publication was several scenes from the comedy "Waiting for the Groom" ("The Insolvent Debtor"), which appeared on the pages of "Moscow City List" in 1847. These scenes became the basis for the comedy "Our People - Let's Be Numbered!" Many researchers believe that his first dramatic works were written in the period from 43 to 47 of the nineteenth century, but the drafts were not preserved, and they were not published.

Comedy "Our people - we'll be numbered!" It was an undoubted success. Society and independent critics treated her with great warmth, but at the same time, her oppositional nature and outright satire became the reason for persecution by the authorities. This play was banned from being staged in all theaters, and the playwright himself was under the supervision of censors and the police for five whole years. This play was republished in 1859, but after significant changes, including a completely different ending.

Ostrovsky in 1850 joined the circle of writers of the Moskvityanin magazine and received the unspoken title of “singer of a civilization untouched by falsehood.” In the same year, Moskvitian published the first edition of the comedy “Our People - Let’s Be Numbered!” It is noteworthy that the draft of this work bore the name "Bankrupt". Since 1853, his plays have been staged on a variety of theatrical stages.

In 1856, the Sovremennik magazine included him among its regular authors. Together with his colleagues from the magazine, in the same year he went on an ethnographic expedition organized by the Ministry of the Navy. The main task of this expedition was to describe the peoples of Russia who lived on the shores of the seas and rivers of the European part of Russia.

Ostrovsky himself studied the life of the upper reaches of the Volga. At this time, he wrote an extensive research article, “Journey along the Volga from its origins to Nizhny Novgorod,” which reflected the main ethnic features of the inhabitants of these places, their way of life and work. The playwright collected a huge amount of information, which later became an important part of his literary work. In 1860, the master’s most famous play, “The Thunderstorm,” was released, about the heroine of which Dobrolyubov wrote “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom.” This play was completed back in October 1859, but went through censor supervision for a long time. The action of this play takes place on the banks of the Volga.

Ostrovsky was married twice. His first wife was Agafya Ivanovna, a commoner; history has not preserved her surname. Ostrovsky lived with her in a civil marriage for twenty years. Unfortunately, the children from the first marriage died when they were children. He married a second time to Maria Vasilievna Bakhmetyeva two years after the death of his first wife. The second marriage was official; he married Bakhmetyeva. He had six children from his second marriage - four sons and two daughters.

On June 14, 1886, Ostrovsky died and was buried in the village of Nikolo-Berezhki. Despite early persecution by the authorities, his influence on the development of Russian theater can hardly be overestimated. His dramatic talent was appreciated during his lifetime. In 1863, he received the Uvarov Prize and also became a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences.

In 1865, under the leadership of Ostrovsky, an artistic circle was created, which produced many talented theater actors. In 1870, he created the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers, which he himself chaired until his death.

Important milestones in the life of Alexander Ostrovsky:

Born April 12, 1823
- Began studying at the Moscow gymnasium in 1835
- Publication of scenes from the comedy "The Insolvent Debtor" in 1847
- Started working with the magazine "Moskvityanin" and published the comedy "Our People - Let's Be Numbered!" in 1850
- Began collaborating with the Sovremennik magazine and went on an ethnographic expedition in 1856
- Publication of the play "The Thunderstorm" in 1860
- European travel in 1862
- Receiving the Uvarov Prize and membership in the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1863
- Creation of the Artistic Circle in 1865
- Founding of the Society of Russian Dramatic Writers in 1874
- Work on the commission to revise the laws on imperial theaters in 1881-1884

Interesting facts from the biography of Alexander Ostrovsky:

The theater school, founded by Ostrovsky, further developed under the leadership of Bulgakov and Stanislavsky
- His conceptual view of theatrical production was to build theater on various conventions, use the richness of the Russian language, correct use of native speech on stage and a deep analysis of the psychology of the characters
- Ostrovsky was deeply convinced that the acting is the most important part of the theater, because the play can be read
- Some actors and theater managers were against Ostrovsky’s innovations; Ostrovsky’s contemporary actor M.S. Shchepkin left the dress rehearsal of the thunderstorm, which took place under the direction of the playwright.