The Presidential Library features a new collection on the occasion of the anniversary of Alexander Ostrovsky

The playwright Alexander Ostrovsky was born in Moscow 200 years ago on April 12, 1823. His literary heritage contains dozens of plays thanks to which a national theater appeared in Russia. His life is full of interesting events, his work still attracts the attention of researchers, and plays are successfully staged in theaters throughout the country.

Marking the anniversary of the playwright, the Presidential Library features a new collection, which includes official documents, archival materials, thesis, studies about the life and career of the playwright. Thanks to the collection A. N. Ostrovsky (1823–1886) one has an opportunity to learn about such rare documents as materials from the collections of the Russian State Historical Archive and the A. A. Bakhrushin Theater Museum, personal letters and photographs, memoirs, first publications in the magazines Moskvityanin, Sovremennik, Otechestvennye Zapiski.

Alexander Ostrovsky gained popularity almost immediately after the start of his literary activity. The first play Family Picture was followed by a comedy based on a story from the life of the Moscow merchants It's a Family Affair-We'll Settle It Ourselves (Bankrupt). Its publication in the Moskvityanin magazine (№ 6) for 1850 is available on the Presidential Library’s portal. But success was not as sweet as expected. By order of Emperor Nicholas I, the play was banned from staging, and the author was placed under police surveillance. “The Case on the establishment of supervision of the provincial secretary Ostrovsky for composing the comedy “It's a Family Affair-We'll Settle It Ourselves”” was drawn up. The a copy is available on the library’s portal. The play was highly appreciated by Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Goncharov and Leo Tolstoy, but officially it was allowed to be staged only more than 10 years after its creation - in 1861.

Ostrovsky fell in love with the theater as a child and for the rest of his life. His father taught him to be a lawyer, his son even studied at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, where he met advanced student youth, made friends with the future famous teacher Konstantin Ushinsky. According to Ostrovsky's memoirs, students at that time made up a significant part of the audience of the Bolshoi Theater, where the best artists of that time played: Shchepkin, Mochalov, Sadovsky. By his own admission, Ostrovsky was so carried away by the theater that he decided to leave the university and devote himself entirely to art. But his father did not immediately allow him to give up law. At his insistence, Alexander Nikolaevich goes to serve in the Moscow Conscientious, and then in the Commercial courts. In some ways, the parent turned out to be right: this work enriched Ostrovsky's life experience and gave the future playwright rich material for creativity.

In 1850, Ostrovsky became an employee of the Moskvityanin magazine, which united not only writers, but also actors, musicians, and artists who were keenly interested in realistic art, folk life, and Russian antiquity. At this time, he created plays that poeticize the life of the merchants: Stay in Your Own Sled, Poverty is No Vice, Live Not as You Would Like To.

Later, he will go to Nekrasov's Sovremennik and begin to denounce the "rulers" in his plays, opposing "little people" to them. The magazine will include Hangover in Someone Else's Feast, A Profitable Position, A Protégée of the Mistress. For the famous The Storm (1860), Ostrovsky was awarded the Uvarov Prize. It was awarded for works on history and outstanding works of drama.

In the 1860s, Ostrovsky turned to historical subjects: the chronicles Tushino, the psychological drama Vasilisa Melentyeva, the comedies Voevoda (Dream on the Volga), Comedian of the 17th century. According to Ostrovsky, the historian conveys what happened, and the dramatic poet shows how it happened, transfers the viewer to the scene and makes him an event participant.

The series of historical plays was opened by the work Kozma Zakharyich Minin-Sukhoruk, published in Sovremennik in 1862. Ostrovsky received an award for this work. The Presidential Library’s collections contain “The Case of Awarding the Dramatic Writer Alexander Ostrovsky a diamond ring from the Cabinet of His Majesty for the drama he composed: Kozma Minin Sukhoruk” dated February 14, 1862 - March 26, 1862”, where the playwright is highly appreciated for noble, patriotic feelings that caused the appearance of the play. But it was not without a curiosity: the work was immediately banned from staging and they were able to play it in the theater only four years later.

Not everyone was happy about the appearance of the playwright's plays on the stage. Contemporaries recall that his productions were often staged worse than the plays of most other authors, were included in the repertoire of state theaters on the least "cash" days - after the holidays or in the middle of the week, or, as Nekrasov complained in one of his letters to the playwright, published in the collection Unpublished Letters...from the archive of A. N. Ostrovsky, bad actors were put on the roles. And Ostrovsky, as if on purpose, continued to release new plays every year, in which he raised more and more acute questions.

Collaborating with the Otechestvennye Zapiski (1868–1884) magazine, he creates satirical comedies on topics now from the life of the nobility: Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man, Mad Money, The Forest, at times returns to the genre of folk comedy in plays It's Not All Shrovetide for the Cat, True is good, but happiness is better, etc. Contemporary criticism explodes: they write that the author has written out, that he is a “wasted celebrity”, and it is during these years that the beloved is created to this day The Dowry, and The Snow Maiden, which inspired two of Ostrovsky's greatest contemporaries - Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov - to create brilliant musical works.

The first love of the nobleman Ostrovsky was a simple woman Agafya Ivanovna, with whom he lived in a civil marriage for 20 years, until her death. He could not officially marry her: the ignoble origin of the chosen one did not allow. The second wife, Maria Vasilyevna, nee Bakhmetyeva, an actress of the Maly Theater, in marriage focused on raising six children and became, according to the memoirs of her contemporaries, a “real landowner” in the Shchelykovo estate bought under Ostrovsky’s father in Kostroma Region.

Ostrovsky helped aspiring playwrights by co-writing seven plays. Knowing foreign languages, he translated into Russian more than 20 plays by Italian, French and English authors. No other playwright has left such a rich and varied heritage as Ostrovsky: he created 47 original plays depicting the different strata of society and customs of pre-revolutionary Russia.

Despite the criticism, the merits of the writer were highly appreciated. The Presidential Library’s collections contain, for example, documents on granting him a life-long pension “on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his literary activity”, “The Case of Remuneration of the Author of Dramatic Works A. N. Ostrovsky on October 27, 1882”.

The dramaturgy of Ostrovsky, distinguished by every day, social details and the masterful use of the Russian language, remains in demand in the theatrical environment in our time.

Ostrovsky worked at the theater until the last day. In 1886, at the age of 62, he was appointed head of the repertoire and school of the Imperial Moscow theatres. A year later, Ostrovsky died in his Shchelykovo estate. According to the memoirs of the secretary of the playwright N. A. Kropachev, published in the collection Russian Archive (1888), - that happened at the desk...