Comedy "The Forest" by Alexander Ostrovsky: holding out for a hero. Experience of a comment

Abstract

The publication of comedy "The Forest" and its premier performances in St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1871 germinated considerable number of critical responses; at that, in most of them there was lack of understanding of artistic-moral and psychological problems the playwright was uneasy about and showed in his play. Alexander Ostrovsky was considered to be, first of all, a portrayer of ordinary life who was keeping exposing the cloyed social sores of the Russian life. Only few reviewers paid attention that in the comedy, luminaries of art were opposed to the spiritless world of powers that be. They were not ideal, but capable to rise beyond mercantile interests, and their restless existence was, in the opinion of the author, more attractive, than life of men in the street filled with falseness, intrigues and lie. Alexander Ostrovsky understands that art, unfortunately, is not omnipotent, but it also is not powerless; it well influences the person. The comedy "The Forest" carries on tradition of search of the positive fundamentals in the Russian life by the playwright and opens the important topic of theatre and figures of theatre – carriers of humanistic values – in his creative work; it plans a new vector of holding out for the hero.