Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Alexander Ostrovsky
Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky (Russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Остро́вский; 12 April [O.S. 31 March] 1823 – 14 June [O.S. 2 June] 1886) was a Russian playwright, generally considered the greatest representative of the Russian realistic period. The author of 47 original plays, Ostrovsky "almost single-handedly created a Russian national repertoire." His dramas are among the most widely read and frequently performed stage pieces in Russia.
Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky was born on 12 April 1823, in the Zamoskvorechye region of Moscow, to Nikolai Fyodorovich Ostrovsky, a lawyer who had received a seminary education. Nikolai's ancestors came from the village Ostrov in the Nerekhta region of the Kostroma Governorate (north-east of Moscow), hence their surname. Later Nikolai Ostrovsky became a high-ranking state official and as such in 1839 received a title of nobility with corresponding privileges. His first wife ( Alexander's mother), Lyubov Ivanovna Savvina, came from a clergyman's family. For some time the family lived in a rented flat in the Zamoskvorechye. Then Nikolai Fyodorovich bought a plot of land in Monetchiki and built a house on it. In the early 1826 the family moved there.
Alexander had three siblings, sister Natalya, and brothers Mikhail and Sergey. The former was his major companion in their childhood years, and from her and her girl-friends the boy learned such unmanly things as sewing and knitting. Nanny Avdotya Kutuzova played an important role in his upbringing too. Ostrovsky insisted that the fairy-tales she told him inspired one of his most popular plays, The Snow Maiden.
In 1831 Ostrovsky's mother died. In 1834 Nikolay Fyodorovich sold the Monetchiki house and bought two new ones, on Zhitnaya street. Two years later he married Baroness Emilia Andreyevna von Tessin, a noblewoman of Russian and Swedish descent. She rearranged the patriarchal ways of the Zamoskvorechye house, making it look more like a European mansion, and made sure that her stepchildren would receive high-quality education. Emilia Andreyevna had four children of her own, one of whom, Pyotr Ostrovsky, later became Alexander's good friend. She knew several European languages, played the piano and taught Alexander to read music.
In 1840 Ostrovsky graduated from the First Moscow Gymnasium and enrolled at Moscow University to study law. His tutors there included such prominent scholars of the time as professors Pyotr Redkin, Timofey Granovsky and Mikhail Pogodin. Soon the family moved into the house on the Yauza River owned by Ivan Tessin, Alexander's step-mother's brother. At this time Ostrovsky started to write poetry, sketches and occasionally plays (none of the latter have survived), and by the end of his second year he had become a theatre enthusiast, spending many an evening at the Moscow Petrovsky Theatre. In May 1843 Ostrovsky failed the Roman Law exams and left the university to join the Moscow Court of Consciousness as a clerk. In 1845 his father had him transferred to the Moscow Commercial Court, which specialised mostly in cases related to bribery and corruption. "If not for such an unpleasant occasion there wouldn't have been such a play as A Profitable Position," Ostrovsky noted later.[full citation needed] In 1851 Ostrovsky made a decision to devote himself entirely to literature and theatre.
In the mid-1840s Ostrovsky wrote numerous sketches and scenes inspired by the activities of the Zamoskvorechye merchant community and made a draft for the play called The Bankrupt. An extract from this comedy ("Scenes from the comedy The Bankrupt") was published in the No.7, 1847, issue of Moskovsky Gorodskoi Listok (Russian: Московский городской листок, lit. 'Moscow City Paper') as a collaboration with actor and a minor dramatist Dmitry Gorev who had co-written one scene of it. Also in Listok appeared (as unsigned) "Pictures of Moscow Life" and "The Picture of a Family Happiness", two sets of scenes which were later published in Sovremennik (No. 4, 1856) under the title The Family Picture (Семейная картина). Ostrovsky regarded it as his first original work and the starting point of his literary career.
On 14 February 1847 Ostrovsky made his public debut in the house of the university professor and literary critic Stepan Shevyryov, with the readings from "The Pictures". The audience, which included Aleksey Khomyakov and several members of the Listok staff, responded positively: both Shevyryov and Khomyakov speaking of the emergence of a new major talent in Russian literature.[full citation needed] On 27 August 1851, The Picture of Family Happiness (which reportedly the approval of (among others) Nikolai Gogol) was banned from being produced by Imperial Theatres. "Judging by these scenes what the Moscow merchants only do is cheat customers and drink while their wives are cheating on them", censor M. Gedeonov wrote.
In December 1849 The Bankrupt was finished. Ostrovsky's first audience was his university friend Alexey Pisemsky, who greeted it rapturously. The actor Prov Sadovsky, who described the comedy as a 'revelation', started to recite fragments of it, notably in the Countess Rostopchina's salon, frequented by the young authors like Boris Almazov, Nikolai Berg, Lev Mei and Yevgeny Edelson, Ostrovsky's friends from his university years. All of them soon accepted Mikhail Pogodin's invitation and joined Moskvityanin to form there the so-called "youth faction". Apollon Grigoriev, the informal leader of the team, started to actively promote Ostrovsky as a driving force of what he saw as the "new, authentic Russian literature".
Hub AI
Alexander Ostrovsky AI simulator
(@Alexander Ostrovsky_simulator)
Alexander Ostrovsky
Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky (Russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Остро́вский; 12 April [O.S. 31 March] 1823 – 14 June [O.S. 2 June] 1886) was a Russian playwright, generally considered the greatest representative of the Russian realistic period. The author of 47 original plays, Ostrovsky "almost single-handedly created a Russian national repertoire." His dramas are among the most widely read and frequently performed stage pieces in Russia.
Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky was born on 12 April 1823, in the Zamoskvorechye region of Moscow, to Nikolai Fyodorovich Ostrovsky, a lawyer who had received a seminary education. Nikolai's ancestors came from the village Ostrov in the Nerekhta region of the Kostroma Governorate (north-east of Moscow), hence their surname. Later Nikolai Ostrovsky became a high-ranking state official and as such in 1839 received a title of nobility with corresponding privileges. His first wife ( Alexander's mother), Lyubov Ivanovna Savvina, came from a clergyman's family. For some time the family lived in a rented flat in the Zamoskvorechye. Then Nikolai Fyodorovich bought a plot of land in Monetchiki and built a house on it. In the early 1826 the family moved there.
Alexander had three siblings, sister Natalya, and brothers Mikhail and Sergey. The former was his major companion in their childhood years, and from her and her girl-friends the boy learned such unmanly things as sewing and knitting. Nanny Avdotya Kutuzova played an important role in his upbringing too. Ostrovsky insisted that the fairy-tales she told him inspired one of his most popular plays, The Snow Maiden.
In 1831 Ostrovsky's mother died. In 1834 Nikolay Fyodorovich sold the Monetchiki house and bought two new ones, on Zhitnaya street. Two years later he married Baroness Emilia Andreyevna von Tessin, a noblewoman of Russian and Swedish descent. She rearranged the patriarchal ways of the Zamoskvorechye house, making it look more like a European mansion, and made sure that her stepchildren would receive high-quality education. Emilia Andreyevna had four children of her own, one of whom, Pyotr Ostrovsky, later became Alexander's good friend. She knew several European languages, played the piano and taught Alexander to read music.
In 1840 Ostrovsky graduated from the First Moscow Gymnasium and enrolled at Moscow University to study law. His tutors there included such prominent scholars of the time as professors Pyotr Redkin, Timofey Granovsky and Mikhail Pogodin. Soon the family moved into the house on the Yauza River owned by Ivan Tessin, Alexander's step-mother's brother. At this time Ostrovsky started to write poetry, sketches and occasionally plays (none of the latter have survived), and by the end of his second year he had become a theatre enthusiast, spending many an evening at the Moscow Petrovsky Theatre. In May 1843 Ostrovsky failed the Roman Law exams and left the university to join the Moscow Court of Consciousness as a clerk. In 1845 his father had him transferred to the Moscow Commercial Court, which specialised mostly in cases related to bribery and corruption. "If not for such an unpleasant occasion there wouldn't have been such a play as A Profitable Position," Ostrovsky noted later.[full citation needed] In 1851 Ostrovsky made a decision to devote himself entirely to literature and theatre.
In the mid-1840s Ostrovsky wrote numerous sketches and scenes inspired by the activities of the Zamoskvorechye merchant community and made a draft for the play called The Bankrupt. An extract from this comedy ("Scenes from the comedy The Bankrupt") was published in the No.7, 1847, issue of Moskovsky Gorodskoi Listok (Russian: Московский городской листок, lit. 'Moscow City Paper') as a collaboration with actor and a minor dramatist Dmitry Gorev who had co-written one scene of it. Also in Listok appeared (as unsigned) "Pictures of Moscow Life" and "The Picture of a Family Happiness", two sets of scenes which were later published in Sovremennik (No. 4, 1856) under the title The Family Picture (Семейная картина). Ostrovsky regarded it as his first original work and the starting point of his literary career.
On 14 February 1847 Ostrovsky made his public debut in the house of the university professor and literary critic Stepan Shevyryov, with the readings from "The Pictures". The audience, which included Aleksey Khomyakov and several members of the Listok staff, responded positively: both Shevyryov and Khomyakov speaking of the emergence of a new major talent in Russian literature.[full citation needed] On 27 August 1851, The Picture of Family Happiness (which reportedly the approval of (among others) Nikolai Gogol) was banned from being produced by Imperial Theatres. "Judging by these scenes what the Moscow merchants only do is cheat customers and drink while their wives are cheating on them", censor M. Gedeonov wrote.
In December 1849 The Bankrupt was finished. Ostrovsky's first audience was his university friend Alexey Pisemsky, who greeted it rapturously. The actor Prov Sadovsky, who described the comedy as a 'revelation', started to recite fragments of it, notably in the Countess Rostopchina's salon, frequented by the young authors like Boris Almazov, Nikolai Berg, Lev Mei and Yevgeny Edelson, Ostrovsky's friends from his university years. All of them soon accepted Mikhail Pogodin's invitation and joined Moskvityanin to form there the so-called "youth faction". Apollon Grigoriev, the informal leader of the team, started to actively promote Ostrovsky as a driving force of what he saw as the "new, authentic Russian literature".