What Mizgir says about the Snow Maiden. A

A bright ray of sun cuts through the morning fog and falls on the Snow Maiden.

But what is wrong with me: bliss or death?
What a delight! What a feeling of languor!
Oh Mother Spring, thank you for the joy,
For the sweet gift of love! What bliss
The languishing flows within me! Oh Lel,
Your enchanting songs are in my ears,
There is fire in the eyes... and in the heart... and in the blood
There's fire all over. I love and melt, melt
From the sweet feelings of love! Goodbye everyone Snow Maiden in hot embraces:
It was warm; and I felt in my heart,
How the human heart trembled inside her.
Love and fear fought in her soul,
She begged to escape from the light of day.
I did not listen to the pleas - and in front of me
She melted like spring snow.
Snow Maiden, you are not the liar;
I have been deceived by the gods; it's a joke
Cruel fate. But if the gods
Whom to punish and have mercy on? Finished
Truthful trial! Frost's offspring -
The Cold Snow Maiden died.
For fifteen years she lived among us,
For fifteen years the Sun was angry with us.
Now, with her wonderful death,
Frost's interference ceased.
Let's drive away the last trace of cold
From our souls we turn to the Sun.
And I believe it will look welcoming
For the devotion of the obedient Berendeys.
Cheerful Lel, sing a song to Yarila
Praise, and we will come to you.
Scorching God, we praise you with the whole world!

At the top of the mountain the fog clears for a few moments, revealing Yarilo in the form of a young guy in white clothes, in right hand a luminous human head, in the left - a sheaf of rye. By sign of the king minions they carry whole roasted bulls and rams with gilded horns, barrels and valleys of beer and honey, various dishes and all the paraphernalia of the feast.

(finishes singing)

Grant, god of light,
Warm summer.
The Red Sun is ours!
There is no one more beautiful in the world than you.
Krasnopogodnoye,
Summer is grainy.
The Red Sun is ours!
There is no one more beautiful in the world than you.

This work has entered the public domain. The work was written by an author who died more than seventy years ago, and was published during his lifetime or posthumously, but more than seventy years have also passed since publication. It may be freely used by anyone without anyone's consent or permission and without payment of royalties.

Below we characterize the fairy tale play by A.N. Ostrovsky, making the necessary, from our point of view, accents.

The extravaganza “The Snow Maiden” appeared one hundred and forty years ago, in 1873, in the magazine “Bulletin of Europe”. Everything was unusual in this play: genre (fairy tale play, extravaganza); combination of dramatic poetic text with music and ballet elements; plot; heroes - gods, demigods, ordinary residents of the country - Berendeys; fantasy, organically merged with realistic, often everyday paintings; vernacular, which includes elements of vernacular and, on the other hand, turns in some places into lofty poetic, solemn speech.

IN critical literature it has been suggested that the appearance of such a play was associated with random circumstances: in 1873, the Maly Theater was closed for renovation, the troupe moved to the Bolshoi Theater building to occupy the actors of dramatic and opera and ballet theater, the management decided to ask A.N. Ostrovsky to write a corresponding play. He agreed.

In fact, everything was more serious. The move of the Maly Theater was only a pretext, an impetus for the implementation of the theatrical genre conceived by Ostrovsky. The playwright's interests have long been connected with plays of this kind, folklore was his favorite and native element, and folk extravaganza occupied his thoughts long before 1873 and much later.

“On a holiday,” he wrote in 1881, “everyone is drawn to working person spend an evening outside the house... I want to forget the boring reality, I want to see a different life, a different environment, other forms of community life. I want to see boyars, princes’ mansions, royal chambers, I want to hear passionate and solemn speeches, I want to see the triumph of truth.”

The action takes place in fairyland Berendeev, as the playwright writes, in “prehistoric times.” The name of the Berendey tribe appears in the Tale of Bygone Years. I heard the writer and oral histories about the ancient city of Berendey and Tsar Berendey."

They pass in front of the viewer mythological characters- gods (Yarilo), demigods (Frost, Vesna-Krasna), daughter of Frost and Vesna-Krasna Snegurochka (child of a marriage opposed to Yarila), goblins, talking birds, animated bushes, ghosts. But all this fantasy is closely combined with realistic, everyday scenes. The great realist and writer of everyday life could not chain his imagination within the framework of fiction.

Living real life bursts into the play and gives a special brightness to the time and place of its action.

Snegurochka, Kupava, Lel, Moroz, Vesna-Krasna, Mizgir are endowed with unique character traits. There is something in them from the people of Ostrovsky’s time and later years.

The dialogue between Frost and Vesna-Krasna about their daughter’s future is indistinguishable in tone even from the conversations of parents of our time. Bobyl is modeled after a typical peasant slacker, a drinker, even Yarilo appears in the guise of a young pariah in white clothes with a human head in one hand and a sheaf of rye in the other (as he was painted in folk tales in some places in Rus').

There are not many traces of the primitive communal system in the fairy tale play (mostly mythological images). But there is plenty of evidence for the conventions of “prehistoric time.”

First of all, let us note the social inequality in Berendey’s kingdom. Society is divided into rich and poor, with the latter openly jealous of the former. Not to mention Bobylikha, who dreams of “filling her purse thicker” and commanding the family like Kabanikha, let’s pay attention to the pure and noble Kupava, who, getting ready to marry Mizgir, pictures her future like this: “8 to his house, in the big royal settlement , / In full view, as a rich housewife / I will reign...

The rich Murash refuses to accept the shepherd Lelya for the night, despising him as a poor man and not believing in his honesty: “Deceive others with your bows, / But we know you well enough, my friend, / What’s safe is safe, they say.”

It is no coincidence that in the stage directions to the first act we read: “On the right side is Bobyl’s poor hut, with a rickety porch; there is a bench in front of the hut; on the left side there is a large Murash hut decorated with carvings; in the background there is a street; Across the street is the Murash hop and bee garden.” A small sketch takes on a symbolic character.

In Berendey's kingdom, elements of social hierarchy are strong. Talking birds, singing about their way of life, essentially recreate a picture of the social structure of the Berendeys; they have governors, clerks, boyars, nobles (this is in “prehistoric times”), peasants, serfs, centurions, people different professions and positions: farmers, kissers, fishermen, merchants, masters, servants, privets, youths, buffoons.

The whole feast is crowned by the king and his faithful assistant, boyar Bermyata. Can the life of the Berendeys be considered a kind of idyll, serene and happy, as some researchers say?

Yes, in comparison with the outside world, where there are continuous wars (the buffoons sing about them, depicted in the colors of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”), the land of the Berendeys may seem like a corner of paradise.

For peaceful life For relative freedom, for the opportunity to turn to the king in any difficult case, the Berendeys praise beyond measure the wise father of their land. And the king takes this praise as due.

Nevertheless, life in the Berendey kingdom is far from ideal. It is not for nothing that the action of the play opens with the words of Spring-Red:

Greets you sadly and coldly
Spring its gloomy country.

This remark applies not only to the weather; it further turns out that the supreme deity Yarilo (Sun) is angry with the Berendeys because Frost and Spring-Red, violating canons and traditions, entered into marriage and gave birth to an unprecedented creature - a beautiful girl. Yarilo swore a terrible oath to destroy both this girl, the Snow Maiden, and her father, and brought all sorts of troubles upon the inhabitants of the country (however, they experienced these troubles even without Yarila’s will).

The Tsar himself is forced to admit that he has not seen prosperity among the people for a long time. And the point is not only that, according to Bermyata, compatriots “steal little by little” (this sin is unforgivable, but we can correct it from the tsar’s point of view), the point is that the moral state of the country’s inhabitants has changed:

The service of beauty has disappeared in them...
But we see completely different passions:
Vanity, envy of other people's outfits...

People envy wealth, lovers often cheat on each other, and are ready to get into a fight with a rival. The Biryuchi, who call the Berendeys to a meeting with the Tsar, jokingly give evil but truthful descriptions to their contemporaries: “The sovereign's people: / Boyars, nobles, / Boyar children, / Cheerful heads / Wide beards! / Do you, nobles, / Have greyhound dogs, / Are barefoot serfs! / Trade guests, / beaver hats, / Thick necks, / Thick beards, / Tight purses. / Clerks, clerks, / Hot guys, / Your job is to drag and reap, / and hold your hand with a hook (that is, take bribes, bribes) / Old old women / Your business; to trouble, to weave, / to separate a son from his daughter-in-law. / Young fellows, / Daring daredevils, / people for work, / You for idleness. / Your job is to look around the towers, / To lure out the girls.”

This “prehistoric time” is not much different from later times - great playwright remains true to himself in exposing human vices and shortcomings. The researcher is hardly wrong when she writes that “Berendey’s society is cruel, it no longer lives according to natural, but human laws, covering up its imperfection with the desires of Yaripa the Sun.”

Here we should add a few words about the king. In critical literature, his figure is assessed positively. He really ensured peace for his people, in any case, he did not go into reckless wars, he thinks a lot about the happiness of young people, does not shy away from communicating with ordinary Berendeys, and to some extent is not alien to art - he paints his palace. But unlimited power, as usual, left its mark on his thoughts, feelings and behavior.

He is convinced that the will of the king has no boundaries. When he decides to gather all the lovers and arrange a collective wedding on the solemn day of Yarilin, and Bermyata doubts the possibility of such a holiday, the king exclaims in anger: What? What can't you do, motherfuckers? Is it impossible to fulfill what the king desires? Are you sane?

Having learned from Kupava that Mizgir cheated on her for the sake of the Snow Maiden, he considers Mizgir a criminal worthy death penalty. But since “there are no laws in our bloody code,” the king, on behalf of the people, sentences Mizgir to ostracism - eternal exile - and calls on those who want to make the Snow Maiden fall in love with them before the end of the night (no later!).

True, loves and disappointments in the Berendey kingdom flare up and go out like a match, but this is the tradition of literature, going back to the Renaissance - let's remember Romeo and Juliet, who fell in love in a matter of seconds, essentially without recognizing each other. But even taking into account this tradition, the king’s order looks like an act of arbitrariness.

Having heard that the appearance of the Snow Maiden on Berendey's land caused a complete commotion among the young people due to jealousy, the Tsar orders Bermyata to “settle everyone and reconcile before tomorrow” (!), and the Snow Maiden to look for herself “a friend after her own heart.”

The promised holiday comes, a friend - Mizgir - is found, the young people are madly in love, but the vengeful Yarilo remembers his oath. Hot passion destroys the Snow Maiden; she melts under the influence of the sun's rays. Mizgir commits suicide, and the Tsar, who shortly before admired the beauty of the Snow Maiden and promised to arrange a feast for the one who “manages to captivate the Snow Maiden with love before dawn,” now solemnly says:

Snow Maiden's sad death
And the terrible death of Mizgir
They can't disturb us. The sun knows
Whom to punish and have mercy on? Finished
Truthful trial! Frost's spawn,
The Cold Snow Maiden died.

Now, the tsar believes, Yarilo will stop his acts of revenge and “look at the devotion of the obedient Berendeys.” The king most of all adores the submission of his subjects to himself and the highest deity - Yaril the Sun. Instead of a funeral song, he suggests singing a funny song, and the subjects gladly fulfill the will of the king. The death of two people does not matter compared to the life of the masses.

In general, Ostrovsky’s entire play, for all its apparent gaiety, is built on an antithesis, creating a contradictory, sometimes joyless picture. Heat and cold, wealth and poverty, love and infidelity, contentment with life and envy, war and peace, in a broader sense - good and evil, life and death are opposed to each other and determine general atmosphere Berendey's kingdom, and the contradictions and disharmony in the characters of the characters.

The hostile principle has even penetrated into space. Yarilo-Sun, the blessed sun that gives wealth and joy to earthlings, sends bad weather, crop failures, all sorts of sorrows to the Berendeys and destroys the innocent illegitimate daughter of illegitimate parents, taking revenge not only on Frost, but also on the congenial Spring-Red, depriving her beloved daughter.

If we talk about philosophical aspect plays, then what we have before us is not the embodiment of the dream of an ideal “prehistoric” kingdom, but fabulous work, imbued with a thirst for harmony of life in the present and future. The Berendey kingdom is deprived of this harmony, this harmony is not present in the character main character.

She merged physical beauty with spiritual nobility, a kind of almost childish naivety and defenselessness with heartfelt coldness and inability to love. A desperate attempt to go beyond the circle designated by nature causes inhuman tension of strength and emotions and ends in tragedy.

We can say that the playwright’s idea to show “a different life, a different environment” so that the audience would at least temporarily forget the “boring reality” was not entirely successful. But the depiction of the truth of life was fully successful, as A.N. Ostrovsky wrote about in the letter quoted above.

What is attractive is the persistent and irrepressible desire of the main character to change her fate, her high understanding of love, for the sake of which one can accept death:

Let me perish, one moment of love
More precious to me than years of melancholy and tears...
Everything that is precious in the world,
Lives in just one word. This is the word
Love.

At first Lel captivates her with her songs and soft nature. Her mother reminds her that Lel is the beloved son of the Sun, who is hostile to the Snow Maiden’s father.
I’m not afraid of Lelya or the Sun,
she answers...
… Happiness
Whether I find it or not, I’ll look.

Love is above all, more expensive than earthly existence - this is the leitmotif of the play. As noted in the critical literature, “in the late phase of his work (from the second half of the 1870s), the playwright’s main concern became the fate of his lovers.

In the chronological interval between “The Thunderstorm” and “The Dowry,” Ostrovsky creates the extravaganza “The Snow Maiden.” And the unfortunate fate of a woman, albeit in a fairy-tale interpretation, is in the foreground. The physical cold that surrounds Father Frost’s daughter can be endured, but the spiritual cold is unbearable. Love warms, makes a person human. This is a great feeling, but it requires the lover to be ready to fight for his happiness.

Sometimes, unfortunately, a high romantic feeling ends tragically - for a number of reasons, among which is a conflict with society or supermundane forces, as was shown by the classics of distant and closer times and as directly pointed out by A.N. Ostrovsky in his fairy tale play.

But the strength of spirit of the dying hero gives rise to deep respect for him on the part of the perceiver of art and does not pass without a trace for consciousness and emotional world reader and viewer. From these positions he can evaluate the tragedy of the Snow Maiden.

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky can rightfully be considered the creator of the repertoire for the national Russian theater. Despite the fact that he became famous most of all for his works about the morals of the Russian merchants (which the critic Nikolai Dobrolyubov very aptly nicknamed “ dark kingdom"), among the gloomy and slightly scary stories from the life of Zamoskvoretsky merchants there is a very bright and fabulous work - "Snow Maiden", written in 1873.

At the core plot For the play, the playwright used a Russian folk tale from Alexander Afanasyev’s collection “Poetic Views of the Slavs on Nature.” That is why the Slavic higher and lower deities act in the play: Yarilo, Frost, Spring, Leshy. The peculiarity is that the play “The Snow Maiden”, unlike all the previous ones, is written in verse, but without rhyme. However, the single rhythm of the work made it possible to set it to music. The whole play is a kind of poetic stylization of Russian folklore, which Ostrovsky was then passionate about.

This is explained by the fact that in 1873 the Maly Theater troupe was forced to move to Bolshoi Theater during repairs. So under one roof there were opera, ballet and drama troupe. Then the Moscow City Management Commission decided imperial theaters stage an extravaganza performance with the participation of all artists. Ostrovsky composed the play in short term, finishing on his fiftieth birthday. And the music for the play was written by a young and then little-known composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Thus, Ostrovsky’s lyrical play became a multi-level, multi-layered work, as it embodied both the folk tale about the Snow Maiden girl and folk legend O ancient tribe Berendeyev, and mythological features of Slavic legends, and ancient rituals and songs. And Ostrovsky’s “spring tale” breathes such purity of poetry that it is reminiscent of Pushkin’s fairy tales. And in its meaning there is a lot of Pushkin in it: life appears as the magic of beauty and tragedy at the same time, and goodness in a person turns out to be the natural basis.

Therefore, the life of nature in the play looks like a kingdom of harsh contrasts of cold and heat, lifelessness and bloom. Ostrovsky writes about nature as about man. The landscape resembles a portrait into which the artist peers. An abundance of emotional epithets, comparisons that are made natural phenomena on par with human feelings, emphasize the closeness of natural and human principles in the minds of the playwright.

The play takes place in the kingdom of Berendey. It is more reminiscent of a kind of utopian state in which people live according to the laws of honor and conscience, fearing the wrath of the gods: this is a kind of ideal social order, created by Ostrovsky. Even the tsar, who in Rus' was the sole ruler, autocrat, embodies in the work folk wisdom. He worries about his people in a fatherly way: it seems to him that his subjects have stopped noticing the beauty of nature, but are more likely to experience vanity and envy. This is why Yarilo got angry with the Berendeys, who every year freezes people more and more. Then Berendey discovers one of the main laws of nature: “Every living thing must love”. And he asks his assistant Bermyata to gather as many brides and grooms as possible on Yarilin’s day in order to sanctify their marriage and make a sacrifice to the Sun God.

However, the main dramatic conflict connected precisely with the confrontation between love and "cold heart" in the soul of the Snow Maiden, who lives in the cold purity of loneliness, and with her soul strives for the fire of love, which is why she must die. Father Frost warns mother Vesna-Krasna about this: he says that Yarilo has vowed to take revenge on him using their daughter Snegurochka. They say that when she truly falls in love, Yarilo will melt her with his hot rays.

The Snow Maiden did not immediately learn what it was true love. Finding herself in the family of childless Bobyl, the girl expects the same love that she received from her mother and father. But Bobyl and Bobylikha perceive adopted daughter as a kind of bait for rich suitors. Only the suitors are not the same: many guys quarreled with their girlfriends over the Snow Maiden, but neither she is ready to give her heart, nor are the adoptive parents satisfied with ordinary Berendeys.

The Snow Maiden herself likes the shepherd boy Lel, who generously bestows his songs on all the girls in the area. This is what hurts the heroine: she wants only her to be loved. When there is a rich groom, "trade guest" Mizgir, ready to give up all his wealth for the sake of the Snow Maiden, she cannot find feelings for him in her heart. Everyone is unhappy: Kupava, Mizgir’s failed bride, Mizgir, who can no longer think about anyone except the Snow Maiden, who captivated him with her beauty, and the Snow Maiden herself suffers because she does not know what true love is.

By turning to her mother for help, the heroine receives what she wanted more than anything else in the world - the opportunity to love. Vesna-Krasna says that she will love the first person she meets. Fortunately, it turns out to be Mizgir, and the reader can imagine that now everything will end happily. But no, Mizgir, intoxicated by the Snow Maiden’s love, wants to show everyone that he was able to achieve his goal - the beauty’s reciprocity. Without listening to the girl’s requests, he literally drags her up the mountain where the Berendeys met the dawn, and under the first rays of the sun the Snow Maiden dissolves. Having yielded to human law, she melts “from the sweet feelings of love.”

The melting of the Snow Maiden is a victory over the “traces of cold” in the heart. She was ready to die for the right to love with all her heart. Mizgir said about this: “Love and fear fought in her soul”. Now fear has been cast aside, and the Snow Maiden is last minutes her short life was given only to love.

Mizgir is also fearless. He kept his promise: “Trouble will come - we will die together”. The death of the Snow Maiden is a disaster for him, so he rushes into the lake to unite with the cool water into which the Snow Maiden has turned, recently warm in his hot embrace.

But Tsar Berendey calls the death of the Snow Maiden "sad", Then "wonderful". The difference between these epithets suggests to the reader a way out of tragedy into life affirmation. The death of the Snow Maiden and the Berendey holiday are nearby. Its extinction brings a flood of light into the world. No wonder the king says:

Snow Maiden's sad death
And the terrible death of Mizgir
They cannot disturb us; The sun knows
Whom to punish and pardon...

Thus, the tragedy of the individual dissolves in the general chorus of nature. In the words of Pushkin, the author’s sadness is light because it is light human soul: she turns out to be free and fearless in love, she stronger than fear self-preservation.

“The Snow Maiden” is perhaps the least typical of all Alexander Ostrovsky’s plays, which stands out sharply among his other works for its lyricism, unusual issues(instead of social drama, the author paid attention to personal drama, identifying it as central theme theme of love) and absolutely fantastic surroundings. The play tells the story of the Snow Maiden, who appears before us as a young girl desperately yearning for the only thing she never had - love. Remaining true to the main line, Ostrovsky simultaneously reveals several more: the structure of his half-epic, half-fairy-tale world, the morals and customs of the Berendeys, the theme of continuity and retribution, and the cyclical nature of life, noting, albeit in an allegorical form, that life and death always go hand in hand.

History of creation

The appearance of the play in Russian literary world owes a happy accident: at the very beginning of 1873, for overhaul The Maly Theater building was closed, and a group of actors temporarily moved to the Bolshoi. Deciding to take advantage of opportunities new scene and attract spectators, it was decided to organize an extravaganza performance, unusual for those times, using the ballet, drama and opera components of the theater team at once.

It was with the proposal to write a play for this extravaganza that they approached Ostrovsky, who, taking the opportunity to implement a literary experiment, agreed. The author changed his habit of looking for inspiration in unsightly sides real life, and in search of material for the play turned to the creativity of the people. There he found a legend about the Snow Maiden girl, which became the basis for his magnificent work.

In the early spring of 1873, Ostrovsky worked hard to create the play. And not alone - since stage production is impossible without music, the playwright worked together with the then very young Pyotr Tchaikovsky. According to critics and writers, this is precisely one of the reasons for the amazing rhythm of “The Snow Maiden” - words and music were composed in a single impulse, close interaction, and were imbued with each other’s rhythm, initially forming one whole.

It is symbolic that last point Ostrovsky staged The Snow Maiden on his fiftieth birthday, March 31. And a little more than a month later, on May 11, the premiere performance took place. He received quite different reviews among critics, both positive and sharply negative, but already in the 20th century literary scholars firmly agreed that “The Snow Maiden” is the brightest milestone in the playwright’s work.

Analysis of the work

Description of the work

The plot is based on - life path the Snow Maiden girl, born from the union of Frost and Spring-Red, her father and mother. The Snow Maiden lives in Berendey's kingdom, invented by Ostrovsky, but not with her relatives - she left her father Frost, who protected her from all possible troubles, - but in the family of Bobyl and Bobylikha. The Snow Maiden longs for love, but cannot fall in love - even her interest in Lelya is dictated by the desire to be one and only, the desire for the shepherd boy, who equally gives warmth and joy to all the girls, to be affectionate with her alone. But Bobyl and Bobylikha are not going to shower her with their love; they have a more important task: to cash in on the girl’s beauty by marrying her off. The Snow Maiden indifferently looks at the Berendey men who change their lives for her, reject brides and violate social norms; she is internally cold, she is alien full of life Berendeys - and therefore attracts them. However, the Snow Maiden also suffers misfortune - seeing Lel, who is favorable to another and rejects her, the girl rushes to her mother with a request to allow her to fall in love - or die.

It is at this moment that Ostrovsky clearly expresses the central idea of ​​his work: life without love is meaningless. The Snow Maiden cannot and does not want to put up with the emptiness and coldness that exists in her heart, and Spring, which is the personification of love, allows her daughter to experience this feeling, despite the fact that she herself thinks it’s bad.

The mother turns out to be right: the beloved Snow Maiden melts under the first rays of the hot and clear sun, having, however, managed to discover a new world filled with meaning. And her lover, who had previously abandoned his bride and was expelled by Tsar Mizgir, gives up his life in the pond, striving to reunite with the water, which the Snow Maiden has become.

Main characters

(Scene from the ballet performance "The Snow Maiden")

Snow Maiden - central figure works. A girl of extraordinary beauty who desperately wants to know love, but at the same time cold at heart. Pure, partly naive and completely alien to the Berendey people, she turns out to be ready to give everything, even her life, in exchange for knowledge of what love is and why everyone craves it so much.
Frost is the father of the Snow Maiden, formidable and strict, trying to protect his daughter from all sorts of troubles.

Vesna-Krasna is the mother of a girl who, despite a premonition of trouble, could not go against her nature and her daughter’s pleas and endowed her with the ability to love.

Lel is a windy and cheerful shepherd who was the first to awaken some feelings and emotions in the Snow Maiden. It was precisely because she was rejected by him that the girl rushed to Vesna.

Mizgir is a trade guest, or, in other words, a merchant who fell in love with the girl so much that he not only offered all his wealth for her, but also left Kupava, his would-be bride, thereby violating the traditionally observed customs of the Berendey kingdom. In the end, he found reciprocity with the one he loved, but not for long - and after her death he himself lost his life.

It is worth noting that despite large number characters in the play, even minor characters turned out to be bright and characteristic: that Tsar Berendey, that Bobyl and Bobylikha, that ex-fiancee Mizgirya Kupava - all of them are remembered by the reader, they have their own distinctive features and features.

“The Snow Maiden” is a complex and multifaceted work, including both compositionally and rhythmically. The play is written without rhyme, but thanks to the unique rhythm and melodiousness present in literally every line, it sounds smoothly, like any rhymed verse. “The Snow Maiden” is also decorated with the rich use of colloquial expressions - this is a completely logical and justified step by the playwright, who, when creating the work, relied on folk tales, telling the story of a girl made of snow.

The same statement about versatility is also true in relation to the content: behind the seemingly simple story of the Snow Maiden (published in real world- rejected people - received love - was inspired human world- died) hides not only the statement that life without love is meaningless, but also many other, no less important aspects.

Thus, one of the central themes is the interrelation of opposites, without which the natural course of things is impossible. Frost and Yarilo, cold and light, winter and the warm season outwardly oppose each other, enter into irreconcilable contradiction, but at the same time, a red line through the text runs the idea that one does not exist without the other.

In addition to the lyricism and sacrifice of love, the social aspect of the play, displayed against the backdrop of fairy-tale foundations, is also of interest. The norms and customs of the Berendey kingdom are strictly observed; violation is subject to expulsion, as happened with Mizgir. These norms are fair and to some extent reflect Ostrovsky’s idea of ​​an ideal old Russian community, where loyalty and love for one’s neighbor and life in unity with nature are valued. The figure of Tsar Berendey, the “good” Tsar, who, although forced to make harsh decisions, regards the fate of the Snow Maiden as tragic, sad, definitely evokes positive emotions; It is easy to sympathize with such a king.

At the same time, in Berendey’s kingdom, justice is observed in everything: even after the death of the Snow Maiden as a result of her acceptance of love, Yarila’s anger and dispute disappear, and the Berendeyites can again enjoy the sun and warmth. Harmony triumphs.