Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrowski

Portrait of AN Ostrowskis by Vasily Perow , 1871.

Alexander Nikolajewitsch Ostrowski ( Russian Александр Николаевич Островский ; scientific transliteration Aleksandr Nikolaevič Ostrovskij ; * March 31st ^July / April 12th  1823 ^greg. In Moscow ; † June 2 ^jul. / June 14,  1886 ^greg. In Shchely ) was a ^.kowo in Schchely Russian playwright. He wrote 47 plays (seven of them together with other authors) and "almost single-handedly created a repertoire of original Russian plays".

Life

The First Moscow High School.

Ostrowski was the firstborn of four children of a court clerk. His mother died when he was nine years old. The family lived in Samoskvorechye , the merchant and artisan settlement of old Moscow. In 1835 he entered the First Moscow High School. This was followed in 1840 by studying at the law faculty of Moscow University , which he gave up in 1843. At the request of his father, he then worked in various law firms as a clerk.

Ostrowski's earliest literary attempts go back to 1843. In 1849 he completed his first comedy The Bankruptcy , which was published in 1850 under the title It remains in the family in the Moskvityanin . In order for the piece to be included in the first collection of his works (1859), he had to change several positions at the request of the censors.

In 1851 Ostrowski resigned and devoted himself entirely to his artistic work. His first dramas were very successful on Russia's stages. Since the state held the theater monopoly and the authors often had to forego their salaries so that their plays could be performed at all, Ostrowski also had constant financial worries. Ostrowski's idea was to create a sophisticated repertoire of original Russian pieces. On January 1, 1886 Ostrowski was finally appointed head of the program department of the Moscow theaters and director of the theater school, but he died that same year.

effect

Ostrowski is considered a master of comedy. Pieces like being clever don't protect against folly or poverty is not a vice are still considered two of the most influential Russian comedies to this day. Ostrowski was also a major influence on Lev Tolstoy , who watched many Ostrowski comedies at a young age.

Leoš Janáček's opera Káťa Kabanová (1919–1921) is based on Ostrowski's drama Gewitter .

Sergej Eisenstein produced the short film Glumow's Diary in 1923 for an adaptation of Ostrowski's play Eine Dummheit macht Even the Smartest , in which he uses various movements to transform Glumow, a character from Ostrowski's play, into his various roles.

Dramas (selection)

title	Publishing year	Original title
A family picture	1847	Семейная картина
It stays in the family	1850	Свои люди - сочтёмся
A young man's morning	1850	Утро молодого человека
The poor bride	1852	Бедная невеста
Don't sit in someone else's sledge	1853	Не в свои сани не садись
Poverty is not a vice	1854	Бедность не порок
Don't live the way you want	1854	Не так живи, как хочется
The bitter rest at the strange party	1856	В чужом пиру похмелье
A lucrative position	1856	Доходное место
Holiday dream before dinner	1857	Праздничный сон - до обеда
When the characters don't go together	1858	Не сошлись характерами!
The foster daughter (also: when cats play, mice have to cry )	1859	Воспитанница
An old friend is better than two new ones	1860	Старый друг лучше новых двух
thunderstorm	1860	Гроза
Where your own dogs fight, a stranger stays away	1861	Свои собаки грызутся, чужая не приставай
What one looks for, he finds ( Balsaminov's marriage )	1861	За чем пойдёшь, то и найдёшь (Женитьба Бальзаминова)
Kosma Sacharjitsch Minin-Suchoruk	1862 (first version), 1866 (second version)	Козьма Захарьич Минин-Сухорук
Sin and hardship are for everyone	1863	Грех да беда на кого не живёт
Heavy days	1863	Тяжёлые дни
The jokers	1864	Шутники
A visited place (also: thieves and love )	1865	На бойком месте
The abyss	1866	Пучина
The false Demetrius and Vasily Shuisky	1867	Дмитрий Самозванец и Василий Шуйский
Even the cleverest does something stupid (also: being clever does not protect against folly )	1868	На всякого мудреца довольно простоты
A hot heart	1869	Горячее сердце
Great money (also: crazy money )	1870	Бешеные деньги
The forest	1871	Лес
Every day is not a Sunday	1871	Не всё коту масленица
First not a penny and now a thaler	1872	Не было ни гроша, да вдруг алтын
Snowflake	1873	Снегурочка
Late love	1873	Поздняя любовь
Honestly earned bread	1874	Трудовой хлеб
Wolves and sheep	1875	Волки и овцы
Rich brides	1876	Богатые невесты
The last victim	1878	Последняя жертва
Girl without dowry (also: bad part )	1878	Бесприданница
The troubled wives	1881	Невольницы
Talents and admirers	1881	Таланты и поклонники
The handsome man	1882	Красавец мужчина
The innocent guilty	1884	Без вины виноватые
Not from this world	1885	Не от мира сего

Film adaptations

• 1965: who marries whom? ( Женитьба Бальзаминова )
• 1984: A Bitter Romance ( Жестокий романс )

Web links

Commons : Alexander Nikolajewitsch Ostrowski  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Alexander Nikolajewitsch Ostrowski in the catalog of the German National Library
• Biography of Alexander Ostrowskis (Russian)

literature

• Erich Wendt : TO Ostrowskij. Foreword in: A. N. Ostrowskij: Dramatic works in 4 volumes. Volume 1, pp. 7-19. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag 1951.
• Aleksandr Ostrovsky. In: Reinhard Lauer : History of Russian Literature. From 1700 to the present. 2nd, revised and supplemented edition. Munich: Beck 2009. pp. 302-306.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Aleksandr Nikolayevich Ostrovsky. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .