Four Plays | Page 2

of Ostr��vsky from the civil service, in 1851. The whole episode illustrates the difficulties under which the great writers of Russia have constantly labored under a despotic government.
Beginning with 1852 Ostr��vsky gave his whole strength to literary work. He is exceptional among Russian authors in devoting himself almost exclusively to the theatre. The latest edition of his works contains forty-eight pieces written entirely by him, and six produced in collaboration with other authors. It omits his translations from foreign dramatists, which were of considerable importance, including, for example, a version of Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew."
The plays of Ostr��vsky are of varied character, including dramatic chronicles based on early Russian history, and a fairy drama, "Little Snowdrop." His real strength lay, however, in the drama of manners, giving realistic pictures of Russian life among the Russian city classes and the minor nobility. Here he was recognized, from the time of the appearance on the stage of his first pieces, in 1853 and the following years, as without a rival among Russian authors for the theatre. Of this realistic drama the present volume gives four characteristic examples.
The tone of "Poverty Is No Crime" (1854), written only four years after "A Family Affair," is in sharp contrast with that of its predecessor. In the earlier play Ostr��vsky had adopted a satiric tone that proved him a worthy disciple of G��gol, the great founder of Russian realism. Not one lovable character appears in that gloomy picture of merchant life in Moscow; even the old mother repels us by her stupidity more than she attracts us by her kindliness. No ray of light penetrates the "realm of darkness"--to borrow a famous phrase from a Russian critic--conjured up before us by the young dramatist. In "Poverty Is No Crime" we see the other side of the medal. Ostr��vsky had now been affected by the Slavophile school of writers and thinkers, who found in the traditions of Russian society treasures of kindliness and love that they contrasted with the superficial glitter of Western civilization. Life in Russia is varied as elsewhere, and Ostr��vsky could change his tone without doing violence to realistic truth. The tradesmen had not wholly lost the patriarchal charm of their peasant fathers. A poor apprentice is the hero of "Poverty Is No Crime," and a wealthy manufacturer the villain of the piece. Good-heartedness is the touchstone by which Ostr��vsky tries character, and this may be hidden beneath even a drunken and degraded exterior. The scapegrace, Lyub��m Torts��v, has a sound Russian soul, and at the end of the play rouses his hard, grasping brother, who has been infatuated by a passion for aping foreign fashions, to his native Russian worth.
Just as "Poverty Is No Crime" shows the influence of the Slavophile movement, "A Prot��g��e of the Mistress" (1859) was inspired by the great liberal movement that bore fruit in the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. Ostr��vsky here departed from town to a typical country manor, and produced a work kindred in spirit to Turg��nev's "Sportsman's Sketches," or "Mumu." In a short play, instinct with simple poetry, he shows the suffering brought about by serfdom: the petty tyranny of the landed proprietor, which is the more galling because it is practised with a full conviction of virtue on the part of the tyrant; and the crushed natures of the human cattle under his charge.
The master grim, the lowly serf that tills his lands; With lordly pride the first sends forth commands, The second cringes like a slave. --_Nekrasov._
Despite the unvarying success of his dramas on the stage, Ostr��vsky for a long time derived little financial benefit from them. Discouragement and overwork wrecked his health, and were undoubtedly responsible for the gloomy tone of a series of plays written in the years following 1860, of which "Sin and Sorrow Are Common to All" (1863) is a typical example. Here the dramatist sketches a tragic incident arising from the conflict of two social classes, the petty tradesmen and the nobility. From the coarse environment of the first emerge honest, upright natures like Krasn��v; from the superficial, dawdling culture of the second come weak-willed triflers like Bab��yev. The sordid plot sweeps on to its inevitable conclusion with true tragic force.
Towards the end of his life Ostr��vsky gained the material prosperity that was his due. "There was no theatre in Russia in which his plays were not acted" (Skabich��vsky). From 1874 to his death he was the president of the Society of Russian Dramatic Authors. In 1885 he received the important post of artistic director of the Moscow government theatres; the harassing duties of the position proved too severe for his weak constitution, and he passed away in the next year.
As a dramatist, Ostr��vsky is above all else a realist; no more thoroughly natural dramas than