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The titles of the "Russian Moliere" and "Russian Shakespeare" Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky (1823-1886) were rightfully worn: he became the creator of the Russian National Theater - an original, multifaceted, built on a powerful literary basis. The plays included in the collection - "profitable place" (comedy), "thunderstorm" (drama), "Snow Maiden" (fairy tale) and "unlocked" (drama) - represent various aspects of his talent. Yes, Ostrovsky is a recognized householder of Moscow merchants and bureaucracy (he lived in Zamoskvorechye in his youth and served in the courts), but he is a deep psychologist, and the prosecutor of the barbaric house -building customs, and a researcher of Russian folk mythology. These plays of Ostrovsky do not leave the stage and became the basis of the great operas P.I. Tchaikovsky and N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, many famous films. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the popular critic Yu. I. Aichenwald wrote about Ostrovsky: “All this is superficial and specific, and much has passed away and passes away, even the notorious tyranny, and Ostrovsky also leaves it. He loses its meaning. That"s the incident: a century later, criticism lost the meaning of reasoning, and Ostrovsky is still modern, the halls on its performances are full, the audience applies.

The accompanying article "... He gave us to look around in this dark kingdom ...": contemporaries of Alexander Ostrovsky - about his life and work