Description of the dark kingdom in a thunderstorm. The Dark Kingdom in the play "The Thunderstorm" - what is it? Weak attempts to resist tyrants

Article " Dark Kingdom"is one of the most important literary and theoretical speeches of Dobrolyubov, combining a masterful critical analysis of Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy with far-reaching conclusions of the socio-political order. Characterizing the very great national-democratic significance of Ostrovsky’s comedies, which were equally misunderstood by critics from both the Slavophile and bourgeois-liberal camps, Dobrolyubov argued that the pathos of Ostrovsky as one of the most advanced Russian writers is the exposure of “the unnaturalness of social relations occurring as a result of the tyranny of some and the lack of rights of others.” . Having correctly and deeply defined the social content of Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy, his “plays of life,” Dobrolyubov showed the typical, generalizing meaning of his images, revealed to the reader a stunning picture of the “dark kingdom,” oppressive tyranny, and moral corruption of people.

(Works by A. Ostrovsky. Two volumes. St. Petersburg, 1859)

What kind of direction is this that you won’t have time to turn around, and then they’ll release the story - and at least there would be some meaning... However, they blew it up, so there must have been some reason.

Gogol {1}

Not a single modern Russian writer has suffered such a strange fate in his literary activity as Ostrovsky. His first work (“Picture of Family Happiness”) was not noticed by absolutely anyone, did not cause a single word in magazines - neither in praise nor in censure of the author (2). Three years later, Ostrovsky’s second work appeared: “Our people - we will be numbered”; the author was greeted by everyone as a completely new person in literature, and was immediately recognized by everyone as an unusually talented writer, the best, after Gogol, representative of dramatic art in Russian literature. But, according to one of those strange, for the ordinary reader, and very annoying for the author, accidents that are so often repeated in our poor literature, - Ostrovsky’s play was not only not performed at the theater, but could not even find a detailed and serious assessment in any magazine. “Our People,” first published in Moskvityanin, managed to come out as a separate print, but literary criticism and didn’t mention them. So this comedy disappeared - as if it sank into the water, for some time. A year later Ostrovsky wrote new comedy: "Poor bride." Critics treated the author with respect, constantly called him the author of “His People” and even noticed that they were paying such attention to him more for his first comedy than for his second, which everyone recognized as weaker than the first. Then each new work of Ostrovsky aroused some excitement in journalism, and soon even two literary parties were formed about them, radically opposed to one another. One party was made up of the young editors of “Moskvityanin” (3), who proclaimed that Ostrovsky “with four plays created a folk theater in Russia” (4), that he -

Poet, herald of the new truth,

Surrounded us with a new world

And he told us a new word,

At least he served the old truth, -

and that this old truth, portrayed by Ostrovsky, -

Simpler, but more expensive

Healthier effect on the chest,(5)

than the truth of Shakespeare's plays.

These poems were published in “Moskvityanin” (1854, No. 4) about the play “Poverty is not a vice,” and mainly about one of its faces, Lyubim Tortsov. They laughed a lot at their eccentricities in their time, but they were not pedantic license, but rather served as a fairly faithful expression of the critical opinions of the party, which certainly admired every line of Ostrovsky. Unfortunately, these opinions were always expressed with amazing arrogance, vagueness and uncertainty, so that even a serious dispute was impossible for the opposing party. Ostrovsky's praisers shouted what he said new word(6) . But to the question: “What is this new word?” – they didn’t answer anything for a long time, and then they said that it was new word is nothing more than – what do you think? – nationality! But this nation was so awkwardly dragged onto the stage about Lyubim Tortsov and so intertwined with him that criticism, unfavorable to Ostrovsky, did not fail to take advantage of this circumstance, stuck out its tongue at the awkward praisers and began to tease them: “So yours.” new word- in Tortsov, in Lyubim Tortsov, in the drunkard Tortsov! The drunkard Tortsov is your ideal,” etc. This sticking out of the tongue was, of course, not entirely convenient for a serious speech about Ostrovsky’s works; but even this must be said - who could maintain a serious look after reading such poems about Lyubim Tortsov:

The poet's images are alive

The tall comedian put on flesh...

That's why now for the first time

A single current flows through them all.

That's why the theater hall

From top to bottom in one

Sincere, sincere, dear

Everything trembled with delight.

We love Tortsov alive in front of her

Worth with raised head,

Burnus put on a shabby one,

With a disheveled beard,

Unhappy, drunk, emaciated,

But with a Russian, pure soul.

Is the comedy in it crying before us,

Does tragedy laugh with him, -

We don’t know and we don’t want to know!

Hurry to the theater! They're bursting in crowds there,

There is now a familiar way of life there:

There the Russian song flows freely and loudly;

There is a man now crying and laughing,

There is a whole world out there, a world full and alive.

And to us, simple, humble children of the century,

It’s not scary, it’s fun now for the person:

The heart is so warm, the chest breathes so freely.

We love Tortsov, the path seems so straight to the soul!(Where?)

Great Russian life feasts on stage,

The Great Russian beginning triumphs,

Great Russian speech warehouse

And in the dashing saying, and in the song playful.

Great Russian mind, Great Russian look,

Like Mother Volga, wide and gurgling...

Warm, free, we like it,

Tired of living with painful deception!..

These verses were followed by curses against Ragdel(7) and those who admired her, revealing that spirit of slavish, blind imitation(8) . Even if she is a talent, even if she is a genius,” the author of the poem exclaimed, “but we out of place her art has arrived!” We, he says, need the truth, unlike others. And with this sure opportunity, the poetic critic scolded Europe and America and praised Rus' in the following poetic expressions:

Let falsehood be sweet

Old Europe

Or toothless-young America,

Sick of canine old age...

But our Rus' is strong!

There is a lot of strength and heat in her;

And Rus' loves the truth; and understand the truth

Holy grace was given to her by the Lord;

And now he finds shelter in her alone

All that ennobles a person!..

It goes without saying that such outcries about Tortsov, about what honors a person, could not lead to a healthy and impartial consideration of the case. They only gave criticism of the opposite direction a fair reason to fall into noble indignation and exclaim in turn about Lyubim Tortsov:

- And some people call it new word it comes looking like best color of all our literary productivity for recent years! Why such ignorant blasphemy on Russian literature? Indeed, such words it had never yet been said in it, such a hero had never even been dreamed of, thanks to the fact that the old literary legends were still fresh in it, which would not have allowed such a distortion of taste. We love Tortsov could appear on stage in all his ugliness only at the time when they began to fall into oblivion... What surprises and incomprehensibly amazes us is that the drunken figure of some Tortsov could grow to the ideal, that they want to be proud of it as the purest reproduction of the nationality in poetry, that the successes of literature are measured against Tortsov and imposed upon everyone loves him under the pretext that he is “one of our own”, that he is “at our yard!” Is this not a distortion of taste and a complete oblivion of all pure literary traditions? But there is shame, there is literary decency, which remain even after the best legends are lost, for Why are we going to shame ourselves? calling Tortsov “one of our own” and elevating him to our poetic ideals? (Ot. zap., 1854, No. VI).

We made this extract from Otechestven. notes”(9) because it shows how much the polemics between his detractors and praisers always harmed Ostrovsky. “Domestic. Notes" constantly served as an enemy camp for Ostrovsky, and most of their attacks were directed at critics who extolled his works. The author himself constantly remained on the sidelines, until very recently, when Otechestven. notes" announced that Ostrovsky, together with Mr. Grigorovich and Mrs. Evgenia Tur, had already finished his poetic career(see “Domestic Notes”, 1859, No. VI)(10). And yet, all the weight of the accusation of worshiping Lyubim Tortsov, of hostility to European enlightenment, of adoration of our pre-Petrine antiquity, etc. fell on Ostrovsky. The shadow of some kind of Old Belief, almost obscurantism, fell on his talent. And his defenders kept interpreting him about a new word- without uttering it, however, - they proclaimed that Ostrovsky is the first of the modern Russian writers, because he has some kind of special worldview... But they also explained very confusingly what this feature was. For the most part they got off with phrases, for example. like this:

U Ostrovsky, one in the present literary era, is its strong new and at the same time ideal worldview with a special touch(!), conditioned both by the data of the era and, perhaps, by the data of the poet’s own nature. We'll call this shade without any hesitation, the indigenous Russian worldview, healthy and calm, humorous without morbidity, direct without being carried away to one extreme or another, ideal, finally, in the fair sense of idealism, without false grandiosity or just as much false sentimentality (Moscow, 1853, No. 1) (11).

“So he wrote - darkly and sluggishly” (12) - and did not in the least explain the question of the peculiarities of Ostrovsky’s talent and its significance in modern literature. Two years later, the same critic suggested a whole series of articles “On Ostrovsky’s comedies and their significance in literature and on the stage” (“Moscow”, 1855, No. 3), but settled on the first article (13), and in that one he showed more pretensions and broad ambitions than the real deal. He very unceremoniously found that the current criticism was too much for me Ostrovsky's talent, and therefore she became a very comical position for him; he even declared that “His People” were not dismantled only because they had already expressed new word which even though critics see, yes it hurts... It seems that the author of the article could have positively known the reasons for the silence of criticism about “Our People”, without indulging in abstract considerations! Then, offering the program of his views on Ostrovsky, the critic says what, in his opinion, was expressed originality of talent, which he finds in Ostrovsky - and here are his definitions. “She expressed herself - 1) in everyday news, deduced by the author and still unexplored before him, if we exclude some essays by Veltman and Lugansky(good predecessors for Ostrovsky!!); 2) in relationship news the author to the life he depicts and the persons depicted; 3) in the news manners images; 4) in language news- in his floweriness (!), peculiarities(?)". That's it for you. These provisions are not explained by the critic. In the continuation of the article, several more contemptuous comments are thrown about the criticism, it is said that “She’s sick of this life(portrayed by Ostrovsky) Solon is his tongue, solon are his types, – salty according to her own condition",- and then the critic, without explaining or proving anything, calmly moves on to Chronicles, Domostroi and Pososhkov to present “an overview of the relationship of our literature to the people.” This was the end of the matter of the critic, who undertook to be Ostrovsky’s lawyer against the opposing party. Soon afterwards, sympathetic praise of Ostrovsky already entered the limits in which it appears in the form of a heavy cobblestone thrown into a person’s forehead by a helpful friend (14): in the first volume of “Russian Conversation” an article by Mr. Tertius Filippov about the comedy “Don’t Live That Way” was published "as you wish." In Sovremennik at one time the wild disgrace of this article was exposed, preaching that a wife should willingly expose her back to a drunken husband who beats her, and praising Ostrovsky for allegedly sharing these thoughts and being able to express them in relief... (15) . This article was met with general indignation among the public. In all likelihood, Ostrovsky himself (who again got it here because of his uninvited commentators) was not happy with it; at least since then he has given no reason to slap such nice things on him again.

Thus, Ostrovsky's enthusiastic praisers did little to explain to the public his significance and the characteristics of his talent; they only prevented many from looking at him directly and simply. However, enthusiastic praisers are rarely truly useful in explaining to the public the real significance of a writer; in this case, critics are much more reliable: looking for shortcomings (even where there are none), they still present their demands and make it possible to judge how much the writer satisfies or does not satisfy them. But in relation to Ostrovsky, his detractors turned out to be no better than his fans. If we combine into one all the reproaches that have been made to Ostrovsky from all sides for ten whole years and are being made to this day, then it will be absolutely necessary to abandon all hope of understanding what they wanted from him and how his critics looked at him. Each presented his own demands, and each at the same time scolded others who had opposite demands, each certainly took advantage of some of the advantages of one of Ostrovsky’s works in order to impute them to another work, and vice versa. Some reproached Ostrovsky for changing his original direction and, instead of a living depiction of the vulgarity of merchant life, began to present it in an ideal light. Others, on the contrary, praising him for his idealization, constantly stipulated that they considered “Our People” to be a half-thought-out, one-sided, even false work. In Ostrovsky’s subsequent works, along with reproaches for his cloying embellishment of that vulgar and colorless reality from which he took plots for his comedies, one could also hear, on the one hand, praise for this very embellishment, and on the other, reproaches for the fact that he daguerreotypically depicts all the dirt of life. This contrast in the most basic views on Ostrovsky’s literary activity would already be enough to confuse simple-minded people who would think of trusting criticism in their judgments about Ostrovsky. But the contradiction did not stop there; it extended to many more private notes about the various advantages and disadvantages of Ostrovsky’s comedies. The diversity of his talent, the breadth of content covered by his works, constantly gave rise to the most opposite reproaches. So, for example, for “Profitable Place” they reproached him for the fact that the bribe takers he brought out not quite disgusting; for “The Kindergarten” they condemned that the persons depicted in it too disgusting. For “The Poor Bride,” “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh,” “Poverty is not a Vice,” and “Don’t Live the Way You Want,” Ostrovsky had to listen to comments from all sides that he had sacrificed the completion of the play for his main task, and for those same work, the author happened to hear advice such as that he should not be content with slavish imitation of nature, but should try expand your mental horizon. Moreover, he was even reproached for the fact that he devotes himself too exclusively to the faithful depiction of reality (i.e., execution), without caring about idea of their works. In other words, he was reproached precisely for the absence or insignificance tasks, which other critics recognized as too broad, too superior to the means of their implementation.

In a word, it is difficult to imagine the possibility of a middle ground on which it would be possible to stay in order to at least somewhat agree with the demands that were presented to Ostrovsky over the course of ten years by different (and sometimes the same) critics. First, why does he denigrate Russian life too much, then why does he whiten and blush it? That is why he indulges in didacticism, then why not moral basis in his works?.. Either he conveys reality too slavishly, or he is unfaithful to it; sometimes he cares very much about the external decoration, sometimes he is careless in this decoration. Then - his action is too sluggish; then - a turn was made too quickly, for which the reader was not sufficiently prepared by the previous one. Sometimes the characters are very ordinary, sometimes they are too exceptional... And all this was often said about the same works by critics who, apparently, must have agreed on the basic views. If the public had to judge Ostrovsky only by the critics who have been writing about him for ten years, then it should have been left in extreme bewilderment about: what should it finally think about this author? Either he came out, according to these critics, as a leavened patriot, an obscurantist, or a direct successor of Gogol in his best period; sometimes a Slavophile, sometimes a Westerner; then the creator folk theater, now Gostinodvorsky Kotzebue (16), now a writer with a new special worldview, now a man who does not in the least comprehend the reality that he is copying. No one has yet given not only a complete description of Ostrovsky, but has not even indicated those features that constitute the essential meaning of his works.

Why did such a strange phenomenon happen? “So there was some reason?” Maybe Ostrovsky really changes his direction so often that his character has not yet been able to decide? Or, on the contrary, from the very beginning he rose, as the Moskvitian critics assured, to a height that surpasses the level of understanding of modern criticism? (17) It seems neither one nor the other. The reason for the carelessness that still prevails in judgments about Ostrovsky lies precisely in the fact that they certainly wanted to make him a representative famous family beliefs, and then punished for infidelity to these beliefs or exalted for strengthening in them, and vice versa. Everyone recognized Ostrovsky’s remarkable talent, and as a result, all critics wanted to see in him a champion and conductor of those beliefs with which they themselves were imbued. People with Slavophile overtones really liked that he depicted Russian life well, and without ceremony they declared Ostrovsky a fan "benign Russian antiquity" in defiance of the pernicious West. As a person who really knows and loves the Russian people, Ostrovsky really gave the Slavophiles many reasons to consider him “one of their own,” and they took advantage of this so immoderately that they gave the opposing party a very solid reason to consider him an enemy of European education and a writer of a retrograde trend. But, in essence, Ostrovsky was never one or the other, at least in his works. Perhaps the influence of the circle had an effect on him, in the sense of recognizing certain abstract theories, but it could not destroy in him the correct instinct for real life, could not completely close before him the path shown to him by his talent. That is why Ostrovsky’s works constantly eluded both completely different standards that were applied to him from two opposite ends. Slavophiles soon saw in Ostrovsky features that did not at all serve to preach humility, patience, adherence to the customs of their fathers and hatred of the West, and considered it necessary to reproach him - either for understatement or for concessions negative view. The most absurd of the critics of the Slavophile party very categorically expressed that everything would be fine with Ostrovsky, “but he sometimes lacks decisiveness and courage in carrying out his plans: he seems to be hampered by false shame and timid habits brought up in him natural direction. That's why he often starts something lofty or wide and memory about natural measurements and his plan will be frightened away; he should give free rein to happy suggestion, but he seems to be frightened by the height of the flight, and the image comes out somehow unfinished” (“Russian demon.”) (18). In turn, people who were delighted with “Our People” soon noticed that Ostrovsky, comparing the ancient principles of Russian life with the new principles of Europeanism in merchant life, constantly leans towards the side of the former. They did not like this, and the most absurd of the critics of the so-called Westernizing party expressed his judgment, also very categorical, as follows: “The didactic direction that determines the nature of these works does not allow us to recognize true poetic talent in them. It is based on those principles that our Slavophiles call folk. It was to them that Mr. Ostrovsky in comedies and drama subordinated the thought, feeling and free will of man” (“Athenaeus”, 1859) (19). In these two opposite passages one can find the key to why criticism until now could not directly and simply look at Ostrovsky as a writer depicting the life of a certain part of Russian society, and everyone saw him as a preacher of morality in accordance with the concepts of this or that another party. Having rejected this pre-prepared standard, criticism would have to proceed to Ostrovsky’s works simply to study them, with determination to take what the author himself gives. But then you would have to give up the desire to recruit him into your ranks, you would have to put your prejudices towards the opposing party in the background, you would have to not pay attention to the smug and rather arrogant antics of the other side... and this was extremely difficult for that , and for another party. Ostrovsky became a victim of the controversy between them, having taken several wrong chords to please both, and even more so, knocking them out of whack. to no avail.

Fortunately, the public cared little about critical disagreements and read Ostrovsky’s comedies themselves, watched at the theater those that were allowed to be presented, re-read them again and thus became quite familiar with the works of their favorite comedian. Thanks to this circumstance, the critic’s work is now greatly facilitated. There is no need to analyze each play separately, tell the content, follow the development of the action scene by scene, pick up minor awkwardness along the way, praise successful expressions, etc. Readers already know all this very well: everyone knows the content of the plays, a lot has been said about private mistakes Once again, successful, apt expressions have long been picked up by the public and are used in colloquial speech like sayings. On the other hand, it is also not necessary to impose your own way of thinking on the author, and it is also inconvenient (unless with such courage as was shown by the critic of the Athenaeum, Mr. N. P. Nekrasov, from Moscow): now it is clear to every reader that Ostrovsky is not an obscurantist, not a preacher of the whip as the basis of family morality, not a champion of vile morality that prescribes endless patience and renunciation of the rights of one’s own personality, nor is he a blind, bitter libeler trying at all costs to expose dirty spots Russian life. Of course, free will: recently another critic (20) tried to prove that the main idea of ​​the comedy “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh” is that it is immoral for a merchant’s wife to marry a nobleman, and it is much more respectable to marry an equal, on the orders of a parent. The same critic decided (very energetically) that in the drama “Don’t live as you want,” Ostrovsky preaches that “complete submission to the will of elders, blind faith in the justice of the anciently prescribed law and complete renunciation of human freedom, of any claim to the right to declare their human feelings much better than the very thought, feeling and free will of man.” The same critic very wittily realized that “in the scenes “A festive nap before dinner” superstition in dreams was ridiculed”... But now two volumes of Ostrovsky’s works are in the hands of readers - who will believe such a critic?

So, assuming that readers know the content of Ostrovsky’s plays and their very development, we will only try to recall the features common to all of his works or most of them, reduce these features to one result, and from them determine the significance of this writer’s literary activity. Having accomplished this, we will only present in a general outline what has long been familiar to most readers even without us, but which many may not have brought into proper harmony and unity. At the same time, we consider it necessary to warn that we do not assign any program to the author, we do not draw up for him any preliminary rules, in accordance with which he should conceive and execute his works. We consider this method of criticism very offensive for a writer whose talent is recognized by everyone and who has already gained the love of the public and a certain share of significance in literature. Criticism, which consists in showing that oh must what the writer did and how well he did his job job title, It is still appropriate occasionally, in application to a novice author who shows some promise, but is walking a decidedly wrong path and therefore needs guidance and advice. But in general it is unpleasant, because it puts the critic in the position of a school pedant who is about to examine some boy. Regarding a writer like Ostrovsky, one cannot afford this scholastic criticism. Every reader can remark to us with complete thoroughness: “Why are you tormented by the idea that this and that is needed here, and that something is missing here? We do not at all want to recognize your right to give lessons to Ostrovsky; we are not at all interested in knowing how you think the play he composed should have been composed. We read and love Ostrovsky, and from criticism we want it to comprehend in front of us what we are often passionate about unconsciously, so that it brings into some system and explains to us our own impressions. And if, after this explanation, it turns out that our impressions are erroneous, that their results are harmful, or that we attribute to the author something that is not in him, then let criticism begin to destroy our delusions, but again on the basis of what it gives the author himself." Recognizing such demands as quite fair, we consider it best to apply criticism to Ostrovsky’s works real, consisting in reviewing what his works give us. There will be no demands here like why Ostrovsky doesn’t portray characters like Shakespeare, why doesn’t he develop comic action like Gogol, etc. All such demands, in our opinion, are as unnecessary, fruitless and unfounded as demands, for example, that Ostrovsky be a comedian of passions and give us Moliere’s Tartuffes and Harpagons, or that he be like Aristophanes and give comedy political significance. Of course, we do not reject the fact that it would be better if Ostrovsky combined Aristophanes, Moliere and Shakespeare; but we know that this is not the case, that it is impossible, and yet we recognize Ostrovsky as a wonderful writer in our literature, finding that he himself, as he is, is very good and deserves our attention and study...

In the same way, real criticism does not allow the imposition of other people's thoughts on the author. The persons created by the author and their actions stand before her court; she must say what impression these faces make on her, and can blame the author only if the impression is incomplete, unclear, ambiguous. She will never allow herself, for example, the following conclusion: this person is distinguished by his attachment to ancient prejudices; but the author presented him as kind and intelligent, therefore the author wanted to present him as good light old prejudices. No, for real criticism here, first of all, the fact is presented: the author brings out a kind and intelligent person, infected with ancient prejudices. Criticism then examines whether such a person is possible and real; Having found that it is true to reality, it moves on to its own considerations about the reasons that gave rise to it, etc. If these reasons are indicated in the work of the author being analyzed, criticism uses them too and thanks the author; if not, he doesn’t pester him with a knife to his throat, how, they say, did he dare to bring out such a face without explaining the reasons for its existence? Real criticism treats the artist’s work in exactly the same way as it treats the phenomena of real life: it studies them, trying to determine their own norm, to collect their essential, characteristic features, but without fussing at all about why oats are not rye, and coal is not a diamond... There were, perhaps, such scientists who were engaged in experiments that were supposed to prove the transformation of oats into rye; There were also critics who were engaged in proving that if Ostrovsky had changed such and such a scene in such and such a way, then Gogol would have come out, and if such and such a face had been decorated like this, he would have turned into Shakespeare... But one must assume that such scientists and critics have done little good to science and art. Much more useful were those who brought into the general consciousness several previously hidden or not entirely clear facts from life or from the world of art as a reproduction of life. If nothing similar has been done in relation to Ostrovsky so far, then we can only regret it strange circumstance and try to correct it to the best of your ability and strength.

But in order to put an end to Ostrovsky’s previous critics, we will now collect those comments in which almost all of them agreed and which may deserve attention.

Firstly, everyone recognized Ostrovsky’s gift of observation and the ability to present a true picture of the life of those classes from which he took the subjects of his works.

Secondly, everyone noticed (although not everyone gave her due justice) accuracy and loyalty vernacular in Ostrovsky's comedies.

Thirdly, according to the agreement of all critics, almost all the characters in Ostrovsky’s plays are completely ordinary and do not stand out as anything special, do not rise above the vulgar environment in which they are staged. This is blamed by many on the author on the grounds that such persons, they say, must necessarily be colorless. But others rightly find very bright typical features in these everyday faces.

Fourthly, everyone agrees that most of Ostrovsky’s comedies “lack (in the words of one of his enthusiastic praisers) economy in the plan and construction of the play” and that as a result (in the words of another of his admirers) “ dramatic action does not develop in them consistently and continuously, the intrigue of the play does not organically merge with the idea of ​​the play and appears to be somewhat extraneous to it” (21).

Fifthly, no one likes too cool, random, denouement of Ostrovsky's comedies. As one critic puts it, at the end of the play, “it’s as if a tornado is sweeping through the room and turning everyone’s heads at once.” characters"(22) .

This, it seems, is everything that all criticism has hitherto agreed upon when talking about Ostrovsky... We could build our entire article on the development of these generally recognized provisions and, perhaps, we would choose the good part. Readers, of course, would be a little bored; but on the other hand, we would have gotten off extremely lightly, would have earned the sympathy of aesthetic critics and even - who knows? - would, perhaps, acquire the title of a subtle connoisseur artistic beauty and the same shortcomings. But, unfortunately, we do not feel a calling within ourselves bring up aesthetic taste public, and therefore it is extremely boring for us to take up the school pointer in order to talk at length and thoughtfully about the subtlest shades of artistry. By providing this Messrs. Almazov, Akhsharumov (23) and the like, we will present here only those results that the study of Ostrovsky’s works gives us regarding the reality he depicts. But first let us make a few remarks about the relationship of artistic talent to the abstract ideas of the writer.

In the works of a talented artist, no matter how diverse they are, one can always notice something in common that characterizes them all and distinguishes them from the works of other writers. In the technical language of art it is customary to call this worldview artist. But in vain would we bother to bring this worldview into definite logical constructions, to express it in abstract formulas. These abstractions usually do not exist in the artist’s consciousness itself; often, even in abstract reasoning, he expresses concepts that are strikingly opposite to what is expressed in his artistic activity - concepts he accepted on faith or obtained by him through false, hastily, purely externally composed syllogisms. His own view of the world, which serves as the key to characterizing his talent, must be sought in the living images he creates. This is where the significant difference lies between the talent of an artist and a thinker. In essence, thinking force And creativity both are equally inherent and equally necessary - both for the philosopher and the poet. The greatness of the philosophizing mind and the greatness of the poetic genius equally consist in being able, when looking at an object, to immediately distinguish its essential features from the accidental ones, then to correctly organize them in one’s consciousness and to be able to master them so as to be able to freely call them up for all sorts of combinations . But the difference between a thinker and an artist is that the latter’s receptivity is much more lively and stronger. Both of them draw their view of the world from the facts that have managed to reach their consciousness. But a person with a more lively sensibility, an “artistic nature,” is greatly amazed by the very first fact of a certain kind that presented itself to him in the surrounding reality. He does not yet have theoretical considerations that could explain this fact; but he sees that there is something special here that deserves attention, and with greedy curiosity he peers into the fact itself, assimilates it, carries it in his soul, first as a single idea, then adds to it other, homogeneous facts and images and, finally, he creates a type that expresses in itself all the essential features of all particular phenomena of this kind, previously noticed by the artist. The thinker, on the contrary, is not so quickly and not so strongly affected. The first fact of a new kind does not make a living impression on him; For the most part, he barely notices this fact and passes by it as if he were passing by a strange accident, without even bothering to assimilate it to himself. (We are not talking, of course, about personal relationships: fall in love, get angry, become sad - any philosopher can just as quickly, at the first appearance fact, like a poet.) Only later, when many homogeneous facts have accumulated in consciousness, will a person with weak receptivity finally turn his attention to them. But here the abundance of particular ideas, collected previously and imperceptibly resting in his consciousness, gives him the opportunity to immediately form a general concept from them and, thus, immediately transfer new fact from living reality to the abstract sphere of reason. And here the proper place for the new concept is sought among other ideas, its meaning is explained, conclusions are drawn from it, etc. At the same time, the thinker - or, more simply, the reasoning person - uses both actual facts and those images that are reproduced from life through the art of an artist. Sometimes even these very images lead a reasoning person to formulate correct concepts about some of the phenomena of real life. Thus, it becomes completely clear the importance of artistic activity among other activities public life: the images created by the artist, collecting in themselves, as if in focus, the facts of real life, greatly contribute to the compilation and dissemination among people of correct concepts about things.

From this it is clear that the main advantage of a writer-artist is truth his images; otherwise there will be false conclusions from them, and, by their grace, false concepts will be formed. But how to understand the truth artistic images? As a matter of fact, absolute untruth writers never invent: about the most absurd novels and melodramas one cannot say that those presented in them passions and the vulgarities were absolutely false, that is, impossible even as an ugly accident. But not true of such novels and melodramas lies precisely in the fact that they take random, false features of real life that do not constitute its essence, its characteristic features. They also seem to be lies in the sense that if you use them to formulate theoretical concepts, you can arrive at completely false ideas. There are, for example, authors who devoted their talent to glorifying voluptuous scenes and depraved adventures; They portray voluptuousness in such a way that if you believe them, then it alone constitutes the true bliss of man. The conclusion, of course, is absurd, although, of course, there really are people who, according to the degree of their development, are not able to understand any other bliss than this... There were other writers, even more absurd, who extolled the valor of warlike feudal lords who shed rivers of blood, burning cities and robbing their vassals. There was no outright lie in the description of the exploits of these robbers; but they are presented in such a light, with such praise, which clearly indicate that in the soul of the author who sang them there was no sense of human truth. Thus, any one-sidedness and exclusivity already interferes with the artist’s full observance of the truth. Consequently, the artist must either preserve his simple, childishly direct view of the whole world completely intact, or (since this is completely impossible in life) save himself from one-sidedness by a possible expansion of his view, through the assimilation of those general concepts that have been developed by reasoning people. This may express the connection between knowledge and art. The free transformation of the highest speculations into living images and, at the same time, full consciousness of the highest, general meaning in every, most private and random fact of life - this is an ideal that represents a complete fusion of science and poetry and has not yet been achieved by anyone. But an artist, guided by correct principles in his general concepts, still has the advantage over an undeveloped or falsely developed writer that he can more freely indulge in the suggestions of his artistic nature. His immediate feeling always correctly points him to objects; but when general concepts are false, then struggle, doubt, and indecision inevitably begin in him, and if his work does not therefore become completely false, it still comes out weak, colorless and discordant. On the contrary, when the artist’s general concepts are correct and are in complete harmony with his nature, then this harmony and unity are reflected in the work. Then reality is reflected in the work more clearly and vividly, and it can more easily lead a reasoning person to the correct conclusions and, therefore, have more meaning for life.

If we apply everything that has been said to the works of Ostrovsky and remember what was said above about his critics, then we will have to admit that his literary activity was not completely alien to those fluctuations that occur as a result of the disagreement between the inner artistic feeling and abstract, externally acquired concepts. These fluctuations explain the fact that criticism could draw completely opposite conclusions about the meaning of the facts presented in Ostrovsky’s comedies. Of course, his accusations that he preaches the renunciation of free will, idiotic humility, obedience, etc., should be attributed most of all to the stupidity of the critics; but still, it means that the author himself did not sufficiently protect himself from such accusations. And indeed, in the comedies “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh,” “Poverty is Not a Vice,” and “Don’t Live the Way You Want,” the essentially bad aspects of our ancient way of life are presented in action with such accidents that seem to force us not to consider them bad. Being used as the basis for the named plays, these accidents prove that the author attached more importance to them than they actually have, and this incorrectness of view damaged the integrity and brightness of the works themselves. But the power of direct artistic feeling could not leave the author here either - and therefore particular provisions and individual characters, taken by him, are constantly distinguished by genuine truth. Rarely, rarely, passion for an idea led Ostrovsky to the point of exaggeration in the presentation of characters or individual dramatic situations, as, for example, in that scene in “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh,” where Borodkin announces his desire to marry Rusakov’s disgraced daughter. Throughout the play, Borodkin is presented as noble and kind in the old way; His last act is not at all in the spirit of the category of people whom Borodkin serves as a representative. But the author wanted to attribute to this person all sorts of good qualities, and among them he even attributed one that the real Borodkins would probably have renounced with horror. But Ostrovsky has very few such stretches: a sense of artistic truth constantly saved him. Much more often he seemed to retreat from his idea, precisely out of a desire to remain true to reality. People who wanted to see in Ostrovsky a supporter of their party often reproached him for not expressing clearly enough the idea that they wanted to see in his work. For example, wanting to see in “Poverty is not a vice” the apotheosis of humility and obedience to elders, some critics reproached Ostrovsky for the fact that the denouement of the play is an unnecessary consequence of the moral virtues of the humble Mitya. But the author knew how to understand the practical absurdity and artistic falsity of such a denouement and therefore used the accidental intervention of Lyubim Tortsov for it. So, in the same way, the author was reproached for the face of Pyotr Ilyich in “Don’t Live as You Want,” because he did not give this face that breadth of nature, that powerful scope, which, they say, is characteristic of a Russian person, especially in revelry (24). But the author’s artistic flair made him understand that his Peter, coming to his senses from the ringing of the bells, is not a representative of the broad Russian nature, a rambunctious head, but a rather petty tavern reveler. Some rather funny accusations were also heard regarding “Profitable Place”. They said why Ostrovsky brought out such a bad gentleman as Zhadov as a representative of honest aspirations; They were even angry that Ostrovsky’s bribe takers were so vulgar and naive, and expressed the opinion that “it would be much better to put on public trial those people who deliberately and deftly create, develop, support bribery, servility and with all your energy They resist with everything they can the introduction of fresh elements into the state and social organism.” At the same time, adds the demanding critic, “we would be the most intense, passionate spectators of the sometimes stormy, sometimes deftly sustained clash of two parties” (“Athenaeus”, 1858, No. 10) (25). Such a desire, valid in abstraction, proves, however, that the critic was completely unable to understand the dark kingdom that is depicted by Ostrovsky and itself prevents any bewilderment about why such and such faces are vulgar, such and such situations are accidental, such and such collisions weak. We do not want to impose our opinions on anyone; but it seems to us that Ostrovsky would have sinned against the truth, would have riveted phenomena completely alien to it into Russian life, if he had decided to present our bribe-takers as a properly organized, conscious party. Where did you find similar parties here? What traces of conscious, deliberate actions did you discover? Believe me, if Ostrovsky began to invent such people and such actions, then no matter how dramatic the plot was, no matter how clearly all the characters of the play were exposed, the work as a whole would still remain dead and false. And then in this comedy there is already a false tone in Zhadov’s face; but the author himself felt it, even before all the critics. Halfway through the play, he begins to lower his hero from the pedestal on which he appears in the first scenes, and in last act shows him to be decisively incapable of the struggle that he took upon himself. Not only do we not blame Ostrovsky for this, but, on the contrary, we see proof of the strength of his talent. He, without a doubt, sympathized with the wonderful things that Zhadov says; but at the same time he knew how to feel what to force Zhadov do all these beautiful things would mean distorting the real Russian reality. Here the demand for artistic truth stopped Ostrovsky from being carried away by external trends and helped him deviate from the path of Messrs. Sollogub and Lvov (26). The example of these mediocre phrase-mongers shows that making a mechanical doll and calling it an honest official not difficult at all; but it is difficult to breathe life into her and make her speak and act like a human being. Having taken up the image of an honest official, Ostrovsky did not overcome this difficulty everywhere; but still, in his comedy, human nature is reflected many times due to Zhadov’s loud phrases. And in this ability to notice nature, to penetrate into the depths of a person’s soul, to capture his feelings, regardless of the depiction of his external, official relationships - in this we recognize one of the main and best properties of Ostrovsky’s talent. And therefore we are always ready to exonerate him from the reproach that in his portrayal of character he did not remain faithful to the basic motive that thoughtful critics would like to find in him.

In the same way, we justify Ostrovsky in the randomness and apparent unreasonableness of the endings in his comedies. Where can we get rationality when it is not in the life itself depicted by the author? Without a doubt, Ostrovsky would have been able to imagine some more valid reasons for keeping a person from drunkenness than the ringing of bells; but what to do if Pyotr Ilyich was such that he could not understand reasons? You can’t put your mind into a person, popular superstition you can't change it. To give it a meaning that it does not have would mean to distort it and lie to the very life in which it manifests itself. It’s the same in other cases: to create unyielding dramatic characters, evenly and deliberately striving for one goal, to invent a strictly conceived and subtly executed intrigue would mean imposing on Russian life something that is not in it at all. To be honest, none of us have met in our lives dark intriguers, systematic villains, or conscious Jesuits. If a person is mean to us, it is more due to weakness of character; if he makes up fraudulent speculations, it is more because those around him are very stupid and gullible; if he oppresses others, it’s more because it doesn’t cost any effort, everyone is so pliable and submissive. Our intriguers, diplomats and villains constantly remind me of one chess player who told me: “It is nonsense that you can calculate your game in advance; players are just in vain. boast about it; but in fact, it is impossible to calculate more than three moves forward.” And this player still beat many: others, therefore, did not even plan three moves, but just looked at what was under their noses. This is our whole Russian life: whoever sees three steps ahead is already considered a sage and can deceive and entangle thousands of people. And here they want the artist to present to us some Tartuffes, Richards, Shylocks in Russian skin! In our opinion, such a demand is completely unsuitable for us and strongly echoes scholasticism. According to scholastic requirements, a work of art should not allow for chance; everything in it must be strictly thought out, everything must develop sequentially from one given point, with logical necessity and at the same time natural! But if naturalness requires absence logical sequence? According to scholastics, there is no need to take such plots in which chance cannot be subsumed under the requirements of logical necessity. In our opinion, all sorts of plots are suitable for a work of art, no matter how random they may be, and in such plots it is necessary to sacrifice even abstract logic for naturalness, in full confidence that life, like nature, has its own logic and that this logic, maybe it will be much better than that one, which we often impose on her... This question, however, is still too new in the theory of art, and we do not want to present our opinion as an immutable rule. We only take this opportunity to express it regarding the works of Ostrovsky, in whom everywhere in the foreground we see fidelity to the facts of reality and even some contempt for the logical isolation of the work - and whose comedies, despite the fact that they have both entertaining and internal meaning.

Having made these cursory remarks, we must make the following reservation before moving on to the main subject of our article. Recognizing the main advantage of a work of art is its vital truth, we thereby indicate the standard by which it is determined for us degree of dignity and the meaning of each literary phenomenon. Judging by how deeply the writer’s gaze penetrates into the very essence of phenomena, how widely he captures various aspects of life in his images, one can decide how great his talent is. Without this, all interpretations will be in vain. For example, Mr. Fet has talent, and Mr. Tyutchev has talent: how to determine their relative importance? Without a doubt, no other way than by considering the sphere accessible to each of them. Then it will turn out that the talent of one is capable of manifesting itself in full force only in capturing fleeting impressions from quiet phenomena of nature, while the other is also capable of sultry passion, severe energy, and deep thought, excited by more than one natural phenomena, but also moral issues, the interests of public life. In showing all this, the assessment of the talent of both poets should, in fact, consist. Then readers, even without any aesthetic (usually very vague) considerations, would understand what place in literature belongs to both poets. We propose to do the same with Ostrovsky’s works. The entire previous presentation has led us so far to the recognition that fidelity to reality, the truth of life, is constantly observed in Ostrovsky’s works and stands in the foreground, ahead of all tasks and second thoughts. But this is still not enough: after all, Mr. Fet very correctly expresses the vague impressions of nature, and, however, it does not at all follow from this that his poems are of great importance in Russian literature. In order to say anything definite about Ostrovsky’s talent, it is impossible, therefore, to limit ourselves to general conclusion that he accurately depicts reality; it is still necessary to show how vast the sphere subject to his observations is, to what extent those aspects of the facts that occupy him are important, and how deeply he penetrates into them. For this, a real consideration of what is in his works is necessary.

The general considerations which should guide us in this consideration are the following:

Ostrovsky knows how to look into the depths of a person’s soul, knows how to distinguish in kind from all externally accepted deformities and growths; That’s why external oppression, the weight of the whole situation that oppresses a person, is felt in his works much more strongly than in many stories, terribly outrageous in content, but with the external, official side of the matter completely overshadowing the internal, human side.

Ostrovsky's comedy does not penetrate the upper strata of our society, but is limited only to the middle ones, and therefore cannot provide the key to explaining many of the bitter phenomena depicted in it. But nevertheless, it can easily lead to many analogous considerations that also apply to everyday life, which it does not directly concern; this is because Ostrovsky’s types of comedies often contain not only exclusively merchant or bureaucratic, but also national features.

Social activity is little touched upon in Ostrovsky’s comedies, and this, no doubt, is because our civil life itself, replete with formalities of all kinds, presents almost no examples of real activity in which one could freely and widely express oneself. Human. But Ostrovsky extremely fully and vividly displays two types of relationships to which a person can still attach his soul in our country - relationships family and relationships by property. It is no wonder, therefore, that the plots and the very names of his plays revolve around family, the groom, the bride, wealth and poverty.

Dramatic collisions and disasters in Ostrovsky’s plays all occur as a result of a clash between two parties - seniors And younger, rich And poor, self-willed And unrequited. It is clear that the outcome of such clashes, by the very essence of the matter, should have a rather abrupt character and feel random.

With these preliminary considerations, let us now enter this world revealed to us by the works of Ostrovsky, and we will try to take a closer look at the inhabitants who inhabit it. dark kingdom. You will soon see that it was not for nothing that we named it dark.

A. N. Ostrovsky’s play “The Thunderstorm” was written in 1859. At this time Russian society wondered about further path development of Russia. Slavophiles and Westerners argued fiercely about which is better: patriarchy (autocracy, nationality, Orthodoxy) or orientation to values Western Europe.
The author of “The Thunderstorm”, as is known, was a Slavophile. However, this work by Ostrovsky testifies to his “disappointment” in patriarchal Russia, in the ideas of building a socially prosperous society on its basis. What makes the writer and those who read the play come to such a conclusion? What conflicts of the play “The Thunderstorm”, stated and developed by the playwright, indicate the imperfection of the “old order”, the destructiveness of the Kalinov cities?
Let's look at the conflict between Katerina (the main character of the drama) and the city of Kalinov - a symbol of patriarchal Russia. The conflict between the “ray of light” and the “dark kingdom” (N. A. Dobrolyubov).
The city of Kalinov is a provincial city, typical of Russia at that time. This is how Dobrolyubov describes it: “The concepts and way of life they adopted are the best in the world, everything new comes from evil spirits... They find it awkward and even daring to persistently seek reasonable grounds... A dark mass, terrible in its hatred and sincerity.” The Kalinovites are either poor or “tyrants.” “Cruel morals, sir, in our city, cruel! In philistinism, sir, you will see nothing but rudeness and stark poverty. And we, sir, will never get out of this time! Because honest work will never earn us more than our daily bread. And whoever has money, sir, tries to enslave the poor so that his labors will be free more money make money” - this is the characterization of Kalinov by Kuligin, a man who, although different from the “dark mass,” is not able to resist it, like Katerina, since his position in life is “... one must try to please somehow!” The real threat to the “dark kingdom” is Katerina. She is a “ray of light” capable of illuminating “...the kingdom of the Wild.” What is Katerina like? “Katerina did not kill the human in herself. nature... The Russian strong character amazes us with its opposition to all tyrant principles... A creative, loving, ideal character” - this is how N. A. Dobrolyubov described her. Katerina is a person of the “new era”. Her protest to the “arrogant force” and the “world of quietly sighing sorrow” is that “one cannot live any longer with violent, deadening principles.”
Naturally, this protest, this conflict between Katerina and the “dark kingdom” is inevitable, since she cannot coexist harmoniously with such a world.
Katerina's opponent in this clash is Kabanova, or Kabanikha. We will mainly consider the conflict between Katerina and Kabanova, since the latter, in our opinion, is the most sharply opposed to Katerina, the most convinced that she is right.
What is Kabanikha like? In the poster she is presented as “a rich merchant’s wife, a widow.” A little later we hear how the “wanderer” Feklusha praises her for her virtue, and we learn Kuligin’s description: “Boorish, sir! He gives money to the poor, but completely eats up his family.” After we form a vague impression of Kabanova, the author gives us the opportunity to learn about her “first hand.” The scene of returning from church and subsequent conversations with Kabanova force the reader to give preference to Kuligin’s characterization.
The power and despotism of Kabanikha are based on the distorted “Domostroy”; in her opinion, the family should be based on the words “fear” and “order.” Therefore, Katerina, for whom family is “love” and “will,” collides with Kabanova.
Although Katerina is a product patriarchal world, she is sharply different from him. We can say that she “absorbed” only good points patriarchy. Katerina’s desire for freedom and “spaciousness of life” contradicts Kabanikha’s position. That is why the latter hates the “ray of light” so much and feels a threat to its existence.
From the first pages of the play one can see how hateful Katerina is to Kabanikha, how much the latter wants to “kill” her daughter-in-law. On sincere words Katerina: “For me, mamma, it’s all the same birth mother“What are you doing,” Kabanikha rudely replies: “You could... keep silent if they don’t ask you.” Katerina is disgusted to repeat her mother-in-law’s promises to Tikhon, disgusted, like “another good wife, who saw off her husband, howled for an hour and a half, lying on the porch.” We can say that for Katerina it is not the form that is important, but the true feelings that are clothed in it. So, she prefers to “throw herself on Tikhon’s neck” rather than “at her feet.”
Thanks to her childhood, Katerina managed, as mentioned above, to get a correct idea of ​​the family, a family in which there is no place for violence and coercion, where the husband is not only the “master”, but also the “protector” of his wife. In Kabanova’s house, “everything seems to be from under captivity.” That is why the values ​​of Katerina and Kabanikha are so different.
Katerina’s conflict with the “dark kingdom” is a tragic conflict; it is based on the contradiction between the hero and society. But he is not the only one who brings Katerina “into the pool.” Perhaps even more attention than social conflict, Ostrovsky paid attention to the internal conflict in Katerina’s soul.
Brought up on patriarchal ideas about the family, about the duty of a wife, Katerina was unable to live, having committed such a terrible sin, according to the canons of Domostroy, as betrayal of her husband. At the same time, she could not help but fall in love with Boris. She was led to this by the desire for freedom, to “fly like a bird,” a boring, hopeless life in the Kabanovs’ house. This love is both inevitable and contrary to morality. Katerina, with an integral character, cannot find a “golden mean” in such a situation, compromise with herself, like Varvara, who lives by the principle “if only everything was sewn and covered.” “It’s as if I’m standing over an abyss and someone is pushing me there, but I have nothing to hold on to,” she complains to Varvara. Indeed, the weak-willed Tikhon cannot help his wife in any way; he is not even capable of taking a “terrible oath” from her.
Having committed a sin, Katerina cannot keep it secret (due to her internal attitudes). Moreover, for her, there is still no hope left either that she will be forgiven, or that she will be able to continue to live the way she lives. “Will I be afraid of human judgment!” - she exclaims.
So, the impossibility of loving Boris because of one’s spiritual values ​​(that is, to be “free”) and the understanding that such a life “in chains” is impossible (“what goes home, what goes to the grave... it’s better in the grave”), They lead Katerina to death, into the pool. The Volga for Katerina is a symbol of will and freedom. For Ostrovsky, the landscape (“natural element”) is not just a background, but also “helps” the main character resist the “dark kingdom.”
The feeling of tragic guilt inexorably leads Katerina to death. In Katerina’s “fall” you can see the idea of ​​fate, inevitability. Therefore, it can be argued that tragic, internal conflict in the play “The Thunderstorm”, along with the dramatic (social), plays an important role. Both of these conflicts are resolved by death main character. Nevertheless, the end of the drama, Tikhon’s attempt to go against the will of his mother, gives hope for the collapse of the “dark kingdom”.
Katerina is a person of a new era. She is not a bearer of new ideals, but only a victim of old ones. At the same time, her fate exposes the patriarchal world. “When the old ideal wears out, then it begins, first of all, to contradict everything life system, and not a new ideal,” wrote Ostrovsky. Although the conflict she enters into leads to her death, it clearly shows that “the old Kabanovs are breathing heavily” and that they are not the future.

Dark Kingdom. Kingdom of darkness (foreign language) ignorance, backwardness... Michelson's Large Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary (original spelling)

- (foreign language) ignorance, backwardness...

Dark kingdom (kingdom of darkness) (foreign) ignorance, backwardness... Michelson's Large Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary

KINGDOM- (1) kingdom; 2) reign) 1) a state headed by a king; 2) the time of the reign of some king, reign; 3) a certain area of ​​reality, the focus of certain objects and phenomena (for example, nature, dark color, sleepy color) ... Power. Policy. Public service. Dictionary

"Dark Kingdom"- THE DARK KINGDOM is an expression that has become widespread. after the appearance of articles by N. A. Dobrolyubov The Dark Kingdom and the Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom (1859 60), dedicated early creativity A. N. Ostrovsky. Began to be used as a designation. tyrant... Russian humanitarian encyclopedic dictionary

- (born January 17, 1836, died November 17, 1861) one of the most remarkable critics of Russian literature and one of characteristic representatives public excitement in the era of "great reforms". He was the son of a priest in Nizhny Novgorod. Father,… …

Dramatic writer, head of the repertoire of the Imperial Moscow Theater and director of the Moscow Theater School. A. N. Ostrovsky was born in Moscow on January 31, 1823. His father, Nikolai Fedorovich, came from a clergy background, and... ... Large biographical encyclopedia

DARK, dark, dark; dark, dark, dark (dark, dark simple.). 1. Deprived of light, immersed in darkness, in darkness. “The flax was spread until dark in the dewy meadows.” Nekrasov. “There is one candle burning in a dark room.” A. Turgenev. "(Wolf) in the dark... ... Dictionary Ushakova

Dobrolyubov, Nikolai Alexandrovich, the most famous Russian critic after Belinsky, chief representative journalistic review method literary works. Things turned out sadly short life a highly talented young man, dazzling... ... Biographical Dictionary

- (Nikolai Alexandrovich) the most famous Russian critic after Belinsky, the main representative of the method of journalistic consideration of literary works. The short life of a highly gifted young man, dazzlingly brilliant in... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary F. Brockhaus and I.A. Ephron

Books

• Dark Kingdom. Stage versions, Potapov Nikolai Ivanovich. Nikolai Ivanovich Potapov - participant in the Great Patriotic War. After the war he graduated from the Navigation Aviation School. He flew as a navigator on different types of aircraft. Later he worked in newspapers and...

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky, for the first time in Russian literature, deeply and realistically depicted the world of the “dark kingdom”, painted colorful images of tyrants, their life and customs. He dared to look behind the iron merchant gates and was not afraid to openly show the conservative power of “inertia”, “numbness”. Analyzing Ostrovsky’s “plays of life”, Dobrolyubov wrote: “Nothing holy, nothing pure, nothing right in this dark world: the tyranny dominating him, wild, insane, wrong, drove out from him all consciousness of honor and right... And it cannot be them where human dignity, personal freedom, faith in love and happiness and the sanctity of honest labor have been crushed into dust and brazenly trampled by tyrants.” And yet, many of Ostrovsky’s plays depict “the precariousness and the near end of tyranny.”
Dramatic conflict in “The Thunderstorm” lies in the collision of the obsolete morality of tyrants with the new morality of people in whose souls a feeling awakens human dignity. In the play, the background of life itself, the setting itself, is important. The world of the “dark kingdom” is based on fear and monetary calculation. Self-taught watchmaker Kuligin tells Boris: “Cruel morals, sir, in our city, cruel! He who has money tries to enslave the poor so that he can make even more money from his free labors.” Direct financial dependence forces Boris to be respectful with the “scold” Dikiy. Tikhon is obediently obedient to his mother, although at the end of the play even he rises to a kind of rebellion. Wild Curly's clerk and Tikhon's sister Varvara are cunning and dodging. Katerina’s discerning heart senses the falseness and inhumanity of the life around her. “Yes, everything here seems to be out of captivity,” she thinks.
The images of tyrants in “The Thunderstorm” are artistically authentic, complex, and lack psychological certainty. Dikoy is a rich merchant, a significant person in the city of Kalinov. At first glance, nothing threatens his power. Savel Prokofievich, by apt definition Kudryasha, “as if he had broken free from a chain”: he feels like the master of life, the arbiter of the destinies of the people under his control. Isn’t this what Dikiy’s attitude towards Boris speaks about? Those around him are afraid to anger Savel Prokofievich with something, his wife is in awe of him.
Dikoy feels the power of money and the support of state power on his side. The requests to restore justice made by the “peasants” deceived by the merchant to the mayor turn out to be futile. Savel Prokofievich patted the mayor on the shoulder and said: “Is it worth it, your honor, for us to talk about such trifles!”
At the same time, as already mentioned, the image of the Wild is quite complex. Cool disposition “ significant person in the city” encounters not some kind of external protest, not the manifestation of discontent of others, but internal self-condemnation. Savel Prokofievich himself is not happy with his “heart”: “I was fasting about fasting, about great things, but now it’s not easy and slip a little man in; He came for money, carried firewood... He did sin: he scolded him, he scolded him so much that he couldn’t ask for anything better, he almost killed him. This is the kind of heart I have! After asking for forgiveness, he bowed at his feet. This is what my heart brings me to: here in the yard, in the dirt, I bowed; I bowed to him in front of everyone.” This recognition of the Wild contains a terrible meaning for the foundations of the “dark kingdom”: tyranny is so unnatural and inhuman that it becomes obsolete and loses any moral justification for its existence.
The rich merchant Kabanova can also be called a “tyrant in a skirt.” Kuligin put into his mouth an exact description of Marfa Ignatievna: “Prude, sir! He gives money to the poor, but completely eats up his family.” In a conversation with her son and daughter-in-law, Kabanikha hypocritically sighs: “Oh, a grave sin! How long will it take to sin!”
Behind this feigned exclamation lies a domineering, despotic character. Marfa Ignatievna actively defends the foundations of the “dark kingdom” and tries to conquer Tikhon and Katerina. Relations between people in the family should, according to Kabanova, be regulated by the law of fear, the Domostroevsky principle “let the wife fear her husband.” Marfa Ignatievna’s desire to follow previous traditions in everything is manifested in the scene of Tikhon’s farewell to Katerina.
The position of the mistress of the house cannot completely calm Kabanikha. Marfa Ignatievna is frightened by the fact that young people want freedom, that the traditions of hoary antiquity are not respected. “What will happen, how the old people will die, how the light will remain, I don’t know. Well, at least it’s good that I won’t see anything,” Kabanikha sighs. In this case, her fear is completely sincere, and is not intended for any external effect (Marfa Ignatievna pronounces her words alone).

"Dark Kingdom" in "The Thunderstorm" by Ostrovsky

Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm", in accordance with the critical and theatrical traditions of interpretation, is understood as a social and everyday drama, since it attaches special importance to everyday life.

As almost always with Ostrovsky, the play begins with a lengthy, leisurely exposition. The playwright not only introduces us to the characters and the setting: he creates an image of the world in which the characters live and where the events will unfold.

The action takes place in a fictional remote town, but, unlike other plays by the playwright, the city of Kalinov is depicted in detail, specifically and in many ways. In “The Thunderstorm,” the landscape plays an important role, described not only in the stage directions, but also in the dialogues of the characters. Some people see his beauty, others take a closer look at it and are completely indifferent. The high Volga steep bank and the distances beyond the river introduce the motif of space and flight.

Beautiful nature, pictures of youth partying at night, songs heard in the third act, Katerina’s stories about her childhood and her religious experiences- all this is the poetry of Kalinov’s world. But Ostrovsky confronts her with gloomy pictures everyday cruelty of residents to each other, with stories about the lack of rights of the majority of ordinary people, with the fantastic, incredible “lostness” of Kalinov’s life.

The motif of the complete isolation of Kalinov’s world intensifies in the play. Residents do not see anything new and do not know other lands and countries. But even about their past they retained only vague legends that had lost connection and meaning (talk about Lithuania, which “fell from the sky to us”). Life in Kalinov freezes and dries up. The past is forgotten, “there are hands, but nothing to work with.” News from big world the wanderer Feklusha brings the inhabitants, and they listen with equal confidence about countries where people with dog heads “for infidelity”, and about the railway, where for speed “they began to harness a fiery serpent”, and about time, which “began to come into disrepute” "

Among the characters in the play there is no one who does not belong to Kalinov’s world. The lively and the meek, the powerful and the subordinate, merchants and clerks, the wanderer and even the old crazy lady who prophesies hellish torment for everyone - they all revolve in the sphere of concepts and ideas of the closed patriarchal world. Not only Kalinov’s dark inhabitants, but also Kuligin, who performs some of the functions of a reasoning hero in the play, is also flesh and blood of Kalinov’s world.

This hero is depicted as an unusual person. The list of characters says about him: “... a tradesman, a self-taught watchmaker, looking for a perpetuum mobile.” The hero's surname clearly hints at real face– I.P. Kulibin (1735 – 1818). The word "kuliga" means a swamp with an established connotation of the meaning of "distant, remote place" due to the widespread famous saying"in the middle of nowhere."

Like Katerina, Kuligin is a poetic and dreamy person. So, it is he who admires the beauty of the Trans-Volga landscape and complains that the Kalinovites are indifferent to it. He sings “Among the flat valley...” folk song literary origin. This immediately emphasizes the difference between Kuligin and other characters associated with folklore culture; he is a bookish person, albeit of a rather archaic bookishness. He confidentially tells Boris that he writes poetry “in the old-fashioned way,” as Lomonosov and Derzhavin once wrote. In addition, he is a self-taught mechanic. However, Kuligin’s technical ideas are a clear anachronism. The sundial that he dreams of installing on Kalinovsky Boulevard comes from antiquity. Lightning rod - a technical discovery of the 18th century. And his oral stories about judicial red tape are consistent with even earlier traditions and resemble ancient moral tales. All these features show his deep connection with the world of Kalinov. He, of course, differs from the Kalinovites. We can say that Kuligin is a “new man,” but only his novelty has developed here, inside this world, which generates not only its passionate and poetic dreamers, like Katerina, but also its “rationalists” - dreamers, its own special, home-grown scientists and humanists.

The main thing in Kuligin’s life is the dream of inventing the “perpetuum mobile” and receiving a million for it from the British. He intends to spend this million on the Kalinov society, to give work to the philistines. Kuligin is truly a good person: kind, selfless, delicate and meek. But he is hardly happy, as Boris thinks of him. His dream constantly forces him to beg for money for his inventions, conceived for the benefit of society, but it does not even occur to society that they could be of any use. For his fellow countrymen, Kuligin is a harmless eccentric, something like a city holy fool. And the main possible “patron of the arts,” Dikaya, attacks the inventor with abuse, confirming the general opinion that he is unable to part with money.

Kuligin's passion for creativity remains unquenched: he feels sorry for his fellow countrymen, seeing in their vices the result of ignorance and poverty, but cannot help them in anything. For all his hard work and creative personality, Kuligin is a contemplative nature, devoid of any pressure and aggressiveness. This is probably the only reason why the Kalinovites put up with him, despite the fact that he differs from them in everything.

Only one person does not belong to the Kalinovsky world by birth and upbringing, and is not similar to other residents of the city in appearance and manners - Boris, “a young man, decently educated,” according to Ostrovsky’s remark.

But even though he is a stranger, he is still captured by Kalinov, cannot break ties with him, and has recognized his laws over himself. After all, Boris’s connection with Dikiy is not even a monetary dependence. And he himself understands, and those around him tell him that Dikoy will never give him his grandmother’s inheritance, left on such “Kalinovsky” conditions (“if he is respectful to his uncle”). And yet he behaves as if he were financially dependent on the Wild or obliged to obey him as the eldest in the family. And although Boris becomes the subject of Katerina’s great passion, who fell in love with him precisely because outwardly he is so different from those around him, Dobrolyubov is still right when he said about this hero that he should be related to the situation.

In a certain sense, this can be said about all the other characters in the play, starting with the Wild One and ending with Curly and Varvara. They are all bright and lively. However, compositionally, two heroes are put forward at the center of the play: Katerina and Kabanikha, representing, as it were, two poles of Kalinov’s world.

The image of Katerina is undoubtedly correlated with the image of Kabanikha. Both of them are maximalists, both will never reconcile with human weaknesses and will not compromise. Both, finally, believe the same, their religion is harsh and merciless, there is no forgiveness for sin, and they both do not remember mercy.

Only Kabanikha is completely chained to the earth, all her forces are aimed at holding, gathering, defending the way of life, she is the guardian of the ossified form of the patriarchal world. Kabanikha perceives life as a ceremony, and she not only does not need, but is also scared to think about the long-vanished spirit of this form. And Katerina embodies the spirit of this world, its dream, its impulse.

Ostrovsky showed that even in the ossified world of Kalinov, folk character amazing beauty and strength, whose faith - truly Kalinovsky - is still based on love, on a free dream of justice, beauty, some kind of higher truth.

For the general concept of the play, it is very important that Katerina did not appear from somewhere in the expanses of another life, another historical time (after all, patriarchal Kalinov and contemporary Moscow, where bustle is in full swing, or the railway that Feklusha talks about are different historical time), but was born and formed in the same “Kalinovsky” conditions.

Katerina lives in an era when the very spirit of patriarchal morality - harmony between an individual and the moral ideas of the environment - has disappeared and ossified forms of relationships rest only on violence and coercion. Her sensitive soul caught this. After listening to her daughter-in-law’s story about life before marriage, Varvara exclaims in surprise: “But it’s the same with us.” “Yes, everything here seems to be from under captivity,” Katerina says.

All family relationships in the Kabanovs' house are, in essence, a complete violation of the essence of patriarchal morality. Children willingly express their submission, listen to instructions without attaching any importance to them, and little by little break all these commandments and orders. “Ah, in my opinion, do what you want. If only it was sewn and covered,” says Varya

Katerina’s husband follows directly after Kabanova in the list of characters, and it is said about him: “her son.” This, indeed, is Tikhon’s position in the city of Kalinov and in the family. Belonging, like a number of other characters in the play (Varvara, Kudryash, Shapkin), to the younger generation of Kalinovites, Tikhon in his own way marks the end of the patriarchal way of life.

The youth of Kalinova no longer want to adhere to the old ways of life. However, Tikhon, Varvara, and Kudryash are alien to Katerina’s maximalism, and, unlike the central heroines of the play, Katerina and Kabanikha, all these characters stand on the position of everyday compromises. Of course, the oppression of their elders is hard for them, but they have learned to get around it, each in accordance with their character. Formally recognizing the power of elders and the power of customs over themselves, they constantly go against them. But it is precisely against the background of their unconscious and compromising position that Katerina looks significant and morally high.

Tikhon in no way corresponds to the role of a husband in a patriarchal family: to be a ruler and at the same time the support and protection of his wife. A gentle and weak person, he rushes between the harsh demands of his mother and compassion for his wife. Tikhon loves Katerina, but not in the way that, according to the norms of patriarchal morality, a husband should love, and Katerina’s feeling for him is not the same as she should have for him according to her own ideas.

For Tikhon, breaking free from his mother’s care means going on a binge and drinking. “Yes, Mama, I don’t want to live by my own will. Where can I live by my own will!” - he responds to Kabanikha’s endless reproaches and instructions. Humiliated by his mother’s reproaches, Tikhon is ready to take out his frustration on Katerina, and only the intercession of her sister Varvara, who allows him to drink at a party in secret from his mother, ends the scene.