Description of nature in the play of the Ostrovsky Snow Maiden. Analysis of the "Snow Maiden" Ostrovsky

The play by A. Ostrovsky "The Snow Maiden" and the opera of the same name by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov created on its basis is a kind of hymn to Russian folklore, a tribute of respect and admiration for the richest heritage of pagan Russia, its beliefs, traditions, rituals and wise attitude to life in harmony with nature.

Talking about the folklorism of these works is both easy and difficult. It is easy because the folklore beginning, ethnographism constitute the essence, content, language of both plays and opera. Many facts lie on the surface here, so it is not difficult to find the primary sources of images, plot lines, episodes in a fairy tale, song, ritual material. We are amazed and admired by the author's penetration into the world of Russian archaism and the contemporary playwright and composer of folk art, surprisingly careful and at the same time brightly individual, bold treatment of this layer of national culture and the creation of works on the basis of its greatest beauty, depth of thought, consonant with the past and the present.

The difficulty, and no small one, lies in the fact that the folklorism of The Snegurochka is fraught with many mysteries and hidden meaning. It always puzzles and fascinates, this is the enduring value and power of art, its eternal relevance and novelty. Let's take the accepted genre definition of "The Snow Maiden" - a spring fairy tale. Everything seems to be clear, but, strictly speaking, it is not true: it is by no means a fairy tale action that unfolds before us, if only because it ends with the death of the main characters, which is in no way typical of a classic fairy tale. This is pure mythology, seen through the thickness of the centuries, understood and processed by the artists of the 19th century. Even more accurately, the plot of The Snow Maiden could be described as an ancient calendar myth, saturated with later texts of ritual, song, epic content, which retained, if not entirely, then partially the features of an archaic view of the world, of the place and role of man in the cosmological universe.

By the way, what we habitually call a folk tale about a girl sculpted out of snow melted under the rays of the summer sun is also not a fairy tale. Let us note in parentheses: the plot about the Snow Maiden stands apart in the traditional fairy tale repertoire, it has practically no options and is very short, rather resembles a parable about the natural punishment for disregard of the rules of behavior determined by the laws of nature, and the unviability of an artificial, unnaturally created contrary to the laws of life.

The main thing in the plot of the play and the opera is the idea of ​​harmony between man and nature, admiration for the beauty of the surrounding world and the expediency of the laws of natural life. All this, according to the thoughts of many representatives of the Russian intelligentsia of the 19th century, was once characteristic of human society and was lost with the advent of civilization of the Western European, urban type. Today you can see how strong nostalgia for the “ideal past” was in Russian society and how much it was based on the desire to learn its roots, where it came from, where it came from, to understand and comprehend oneself today through its historical and mythological past, to heal and to correct modern society through an appeal to the precepts of the gray-haired antiquity.

Without touching upon the author's intention and purely professional methods of composing, I will limit myself to a few comments on the folklore and ethnographic realities reflected in the libretto of the opera by N.A.Rimsky-Korsakov. Individual details, plot twists, motivations, which are now perceived as secondary, or even simply strange, in fact turn out to be extremely important and help to penetrate into the depths of the popular worldview, to understand the symbolism and logic of the actions of the characters of the opera.

It is mentioned several times in the play and in the libretto Krasnaya Gorka. First, Spring appears here, then young Berendei - girls and boys - go here to lead round dances. On Krasnaya Gorka he meets Kupava Mizgir and falls in love with him. This, of course, is not accidental. Firstly, for a long time it was on the heights and hills that girls called spring, going there to sing spring flowers and meet the arrival of birds. It was called the Red Hill, and in some places it is still called the first spring festivities of young people on the street after winter hut gatherings. The first Sunday after Easter is also called the Red Hill; it is considered a happy day for a wedding. Yarilina Gora "Snegurochka", one might say, takes over the baton of Krasnaya Gorka, realizing its mating, erotic orientation and strengthening the motives for the flourishing of the productive forces of nature, the productivity of the land.

The Snegurochka brilliantly reflects the mythological idea of ​​the eternal cycle of life and the harsh laws of nature: everything has its own time, everything is inevitably born, matures, grows old and dies; after winter, spring should come, which will definitely be replaced by summer, then, in strict order, autumn and winter. This order is a condition for the eternal existence of the Universe, man and culture. Violation of the order and the correct course of things, interference in the once and for all established stream of life is fraught with tragic events - both in the field of natural phenomena and in the fate of man. However, centuries of experience have shown that there is practically no smooth, calm transition from one state to another, breakdowns and disruptions are inevitable, therefore the great mission of man is not only in strict adherence to the established order, but also in restoring the lost balance. In pagan times, as, indeed, in those closer to us, rituals and ritual complexes, which necessarily included sacrifices, were a powerful mechanism for regulating life processes.

If we look at The Snow Maiden from this position, then it becomes obvious that it is literally penetrated by the theme of sacrifice for the sake of the highest good, the motives of purification and transformation through death, destruction. This is the burning of Shrovetide with crying and laughter, and the joy of the Berendeys on the occasion of the death of Snegurochka and Mizgir. Finally, this is the final apotheosis - the appearance of the Yarila-Sun with the symbols of life and death, end and beginning - a human head and a sheaf of rye ears. Here it is necessary to emphasize once again the excellent knowledge of Ostrovsky and Rimsky Korsakov of folk traditions, rituals and images that underlie the pre-Christian agricultural picture of the world.

In the Prologue, the Berendeys, exactly in accordance with the age-old tradition, see off Shrovetide in the form of a stuffed straw dressed in women's clothing. In real ritual practice, Maslenitsa was burned, in the "Snegurochka" it is taken (chased) into the forest. The latter is justified by the circular construction of the play and the opera: in the final scene of Act 4, the straw of Shrovetide turns into ears of rye filled with grain, held by Yarilo; the dark cold forest is replaced by the sun-drenched open space of the Yarilina valley; people come out of the forest, out of the darkness into the light, and their gazes are turned upward - to a mountain with a sharp top, where the hot god of the Sun appears. In the folk tradition, the connection between Shrovetide and Kupala fires was strengthened by a wheel symbolizing the sun. An effigy of Maslenitsa was put on a wheel and burned with it, on the Kupala night from the hills, where fires were kindled, burning wheels rolled.

Even more striking is the almost quoting of real rituals in The Snow Maiden. The most striking example: the final appearance of Yarila with a human head and a sheaf of bread and the rite of invoking summer recorded more than once. By April 27, the following action was timed in Belarus: a young woman was chosen to portray a young handsome man (apparently, Yarila). Barefoot, she was dressed in a white shirt with a wreath of wildflowers on her head. The woman held in her right hand a symbolic image of a human head, and in her left - ears of rye. In other places, a girl dressed in the same dress, with the same attributes, was put on a white horse tied to a tree. The girls danced around her. Voronezh residents performed a similar ritual on the eve of Peter's Lent and dressed up not a girl, but a young man.

Recall that Yarila is a Slavic mythological and ritual character who embodies the idea of ​​fertility, primarily of spring, as well as sexual power. The name of this deity is derived from the root yar. A wide range of meanings is revealed in words of the same root, for example, spring bread, rage, bright, bright (sheep), in the Russian North there is the term "yarovukha", meaning a joint walk of guys and girls and their overnight stay in a hut during Christmas time.

The images of Bobyl and Bobylikha are presented completely in the spirit of folk ideas. In fairy tales, legends, folk songs, there were bobs - outcasts, flawed people who could not or did not want to fulfill their natural social functions - to start a family and have children. They were pitied, but also avoided. It is not for nothing in folklore texts that bobs live on the outskirts of the village, in the last house, and the customary peasant law deprived them of a number of privileges and rights, in particular, their participation in rituals associated with the producing principle was prohibited, elderly male bobs were not included in the council of elders. Beans, as socially inferior peasants, often became shepherds, the generally accepted disdainful attitude towards whom is well known from the mass of ethnographic observations, descriptions, and studies. It is clear why Snegurochka, who is half human herself, gets to such “non-people”, it is with them that she must go through, in today's language, a period of adaptation to new conditions. According to the laws of a fairy tale and initiation-type rituals, a house on the outskirts and its owner (owners) must perform the function of a mediator, help the heroine transform, move from one world to another through a system of tests. The Berendeevskie bobs are clearly a laughable, reduced image of the classic "testers" of fairytale heroines: Babyagi, Blizzard, witches, etc. The bobs did not have a magic ball or a cherished word for their adopted daughter that would help a girl from another world to turn into a full-fledged member of the human community. But this is not a fairy tale ...

Bobyl and Bobylikha are deprived of the Shepherd's trumpets and horn with vitality, the heat of love, therefore they are greedy for imaginary, deceitful values ​​(the wealth of Mizgir) and are cold in relation to the Snow Maiden. In the outline of the image of Bobylikha there is one essential detail that today escapes attention, but which was well understood by our compatriots in the 19th century and was used as a bright additional touch, making Bobylikha funny and pathetic in their claims. We are talking about the horn-that kitsch, which, in the end, after marrying an adopted daughter and receiving a ransom, Bobyl-ha acquired. The fact is that kitsch is not just a traditional female headdress. A horned kitsch (with elevations on the front in the form of a horse's hoof, shovel or horns directed up and back) could be worn by women who had children, and the height of the “horns” usually directly depended on the number of children. So, having got a kitschka, Bobylikha, as it were, was equalizing herself with other berendeyks - "boyars" and could claim a different attitude towards herself. By the way, the same technique in the same laughing function was applied by A. Pushkin in "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish", where the Old Woman, having acquired a new status, sits in a decorated horned kitsch.

The image of Mizgir is mysterious in its own way. His role in the plot, the attitude of the Berendeevs towards him, the motivation of behavior and the tragic, from our point of view, death become more understandable when referring to beliefs and ideas, some of which survived almost to the beginning of the 20th century.

Misgir is one of the names of the spider. In traditional culture, a spider is a creature close to the host of evil spirits, insidious, evil, aggressive. There is a persistent notion that the one who killed the spider is forgiven seven sins. On the other hand, misgir is also perceived as one of the hypostases of a brownie, it is believed that a spider in a house cannot be killed, as it brings wealth and prosperity. Surprisingly, both relationships converge in the image of Misgir the merchant. Merchants have long been respected in Russia, endowed with special qualities and knowledge, almost magical, or even magical, thanks to their stay in distant countries, on the edge of the earth, which means closeness to the unknown, otherworldly and dangerous. (Let us recall the Novgorod epic Sadko, a merchant from The Scarlet Flower, etc.) Money, gold, wealth were usually perceived as a sign of either a miraculous gift or chance, or as a result of robbery, an unclean and dishonest deal.

Among the people, marriage and love themes are associated with the spider. In the wedding rituals of Belarusians, residents of Western Russian provinces, complex figures woven from straw are used - symbols of happiness and strong union. Such an object was called a spider, it was attached to the ceiling of the hut, often above the table where the wedding feast took place. Mizgir is an overseas merchant - although from a Berendey clan, he is a stranger, cut off from his roots. In this sense, he is a real fabulous groom - unknown and rich, giving the heroine happiness, but also a wedding "stranger" - a groom who arrived from across the sea, "from behind the forest, from behind the mountains" and is associated primarily with - lectures about separation and captivity. The fervor, selfishness, aggressiveness of Mizgir are akin to the opposite pole - the coldness and passivity of the Snow Maiden. Both, in their extreme manifestations, are alien to simple berendey and are dangerous for the human community.

We add that there is a well-known ritual timed to the end of summer - the expulsion of insects from the house by means of the ears of a new crop. Cockroaches, spiders, bedbugs are collected in boxes and buried (buried) in the ground with the words: "Rye sheaf - into the house, cockroaches - out!".

Thus, the very topic of getting rid of insects, taking the guise of a nursery rhyme, and once, perhaps, a serious ritual, was relevant to traditional society. And in certain situations, the expulsion, killing of the spider (mizgir) was considered a good and necessary deed. Another addition is that the magic rituals of making rain with the help of spiders are known, which emphasizes the original, mythological involvement of the spider in the water element, in the extrahuman world. In the context of the "Snow Maiden", all popular ideas about the spider seem to converge, which justifies the expulsion of Mizgir from the Berendey kingdom and makes him consider his death as a return to his native (extra-human) element, in another world, that, naturally, it was understood as the restoration of the lost order and justice and contributed to the return of normal life, the arrival of Yari-ly-Sun and summer. Water turns out to be the native element of the Snow Maiden, its essence and normal natural existence in the spring-summer period, so that the death of lovers is a return to nature. Merging in one element unites them - different, but identical in strangeness towards people and in the doom of death for the sake of eliminating disharmony in the world.

There are a lot of similar examples of a subtle, precise, deeply meaningful approach to traditional Russian culture in Snegurochka.

The opera, created by Rimsky-Korsakov, at the libretto level retained both the plot and the poetic basis of Ostrovsky's work.

Of course, the folklorism of the opera is more obvious and vivid thanks to the inclusion of authentic folk songs and tunes, folklore methods of sound imitation, folk cries and crying, thanks to musical imagery, an amazing system of leitmotifs, rich and juicy instrumentation.

NA Rimsky-Korsakov paid back a hundredfold to the people who generously revealed to them the thousand-year spiritual wealth, presenting in a new, modern form his ingenious creative imagination on the themes of Ancient Russia.

Below we characterize the play-fairy tale by A.N. Ostrovsky, making the necessary, from our point of view, accents.

The Snow Maiden extravaganza appeared one hundred and forty years ago, in 1873, in the Vestnik Evropy magazine. Everything was unusual in this play: genre (fairy tale play, extravaganza); a combination of dramatic poetic text with music and ballet elements; plot; heroes - gods, demigods, ordinary inhabitants of the country - berendei; fantasy, organically fused with realistic, often everyday pictures; a folk language, which includes elements of vernacular and, on the other hand, in some places turns into a high, poetic, solemn speech.

In the critical literature, an opinion was expressed that the appearance of such a play was associated with accidental circumstances: in 1873 the Maly Theater was closed for renovations, the troupe moved to the building of the Bolshoi Theater to occupy the artists of the drama and opera and ballet theaters, the management decided to ask A.N. Ostrovsky to write a corresponding play. He agreed.

In fact, everything was more serious. The move of the Maly Theater was only a pretext, an impetus for the implementation of the theatrical genre conceived by Ostrovsky. The playwright's interests have long been associated with plays of this kind, folklore was his favorite and native element, and folk extravaganza occupied his thought long before 1873 and much later.

“On a holiday,” he wrote in 1881, “every working person is tempted to spend an evening outside the home ... I want to forget the boring reality, I want to see a different life, a different environment, other forms of community. I would like to see boyar, princely mansions, royal chambers, I would like to hear hot and solemn speeches, I would like to see the triumph of truth. "

The action takes place in the fairyland of the Berendeys, as the playwright writes, in "prehistoric times." The name of the Berendey tribe is found in the Tale of Bygone Years. Heard the writer and oral stories about the ancient city of the Berendey and the king Berendey. "

Mythological characters pass in front of the viewer - gods (Yarilo), demigods (Frost, Spring-Red), the daughter of Frost and Spring-Red, Snow Maiden (the child of marriage, contrary to Yarila), goblin, talking birds, bushes that come to life, ghosts. But all this fantasy is closely combined with realistic, everyday scenes. The great realist, the writer of everyday life could not fetter his imagination in the framework of fiction.

Living real life bursts into the play and gives special brightness to the time and place of its action.

Snegurochka, Kupava, Lel, Moroz, Vesna-Krasna, Mizgir are endowed with features of unique characters. There is something in them from the people of Ostrovsky's time and later years.

The dialogue between Frost and Spring-Red about the future of their daughter is indistinguishable in tone even from the conversations of the parents of our time. Bobyl is a splinter from a typical peasant-idler, a drinker, even Yarilo appears in the guise of a young pariah in white clothes with a human head in one hand and a sheaf of rye in the other (as he was painted in folk legends in some places of Russia).

There are not so many traces of the primitive communal system in the fairy-tale play (mostly mythological images). But there is plenty of evidence of the conventionality of "prehistoric time".

First of all, let us note the social inequality in the Berendean kingdom. Society is divided into rich and poor, with the latter openly jealous of the former. Not to mention Bobylikha, who dreams of “stuffing a bag thicker” and commanding the family like Kabanikha, let's pay attention to the pure and noble Kupava, who, getting ready to marry Mizgir, paints her future this way: “8 to his house, in a large royal settlement , / In all sight, a rich mistress / Reign ...

The richer Murash refuses to accept the shepherd Lel for the night, despising him as a poor man and not believing in his honesty: "Use bows to deceive others, / And we know you, my friend, / What is safe is safe, they say."

It is no coincidence that in the remark to the first act we read: “On the right side is the poor Bobyl's hut, with a shaky porch; a bench in front of the hut; on the left side there is a large Murash hut decorated with carvings; in the back is the street; across the street Khmelnik and Murash the beekeeper. " A small sketch takes on a symbolic character.

In the Berendey kingdom, elements of the social hierarchy are strong. Talking birds, singing about their life order, in essence, recreate a picture of the social system of the Berendei; they have governors, clerks, boyars, nobles (this is in "prehistoric times"), peasants, serfs, centurions, people of different professions and positions: farmers, kissing men, fishermen, merchants, masters, servants, priest, youths, buffoons.

The king with his faithful assistant boyar Bermyat is crowning all this feast. Can the life of the Berendeans be considered a kind of idyll, serene and happy, as some researchers say?

Yes, in comparison with the surrounding world, where continuous wars are going on (buffoons are singing about them, depicted in The Lay of Igor's Campaign), the land of the Berendei may seem like a paradise.

For a peaceful life, for relative freedom, for the opportunity in any difficult case to turn to the king, the Berendei praise without any measure the wise father of their land. And the king takes this praise for granted.

Nevertheless, life in the Berendey kingdom is far from ideal. No wonder the action of the play is opened by the words of Vesna-Krasna:

Cheerfully and coldly meets
Spring is its gloomy country.

This remark applies not only to the weather, then it turns out that the supreme deity Yarilo (the Sun) is angry with the Berendeys for the fact that Frost and Spring-Red, violating canons and traditions, entered into marriage and gave birth to an unprecedented creature - a beautiful girl. Yarilo swore a terrible oath to destroy both this girl, the Snow Maiden, and her father, and brought all sorts of troubles to the inhabitants of the country (however, they experienced these troubles even without Yarila's will).

The tsar himself is forced to admit that he has not seen well-being in the people for a long time. And the point is not only that, according to Bermyaty, compatriots "steal a little" (this sin is unforgivable, but we can correct it from the point of view of the king), the point is that the morale of the country's inhabitants has changed:

The service to beauty disappeared in them ...
But completely different passions are seen:
Vanity, envy of other people's outfits ...

People are jealous of wealth, lovers often cheat on each other, they are ready to get into a fight with a rival. Priyuchi, calling the Berendeys to a meeting with the tsar, jokingly give evil but truthful characteristics to their contemporaries: “Sovereign people: / Boyars, nobles, / Boyar children, / Cheerful heads / Wide beards! / Do you, nobles, / Greyhound dogs, / Barefoot slaves! / Trade guests, / beaver hats, / Thick heads, / Thick beards, / Tight purses. / Clerks, clerks, / The guys are hot, / Your business is to drag and reap, / Yes, hold your hand with a hook (that is, take bribes, bribes) / Old old women / Your business; muddy, spinning, / Divorce the son and daughter-in-law. / Young fellows, / Daring daredevils, / people for the cause, / You are for idleness. / It's up to you to look around the towers, / to lure the girls out. "

Such a "prehistoric time" is not much different from later times - the great playwright remains true to himself in exposing human vices and shortcomings. The researcher is hardly wrong when she writes that "Berendey's society is cruel, it no longer lives according to natural, but human laws, covering up its imperfection with the desires of Yaripa the Sun."

A few words about the king should be added here. In the critical literature, his figure is assessed positively. He really provided peace to his people, in any case, he did not embark on reckless wars, he thinks a lot about the happiness of young people, does not shy away from communicating with ordinary Berendei, to some extent he is not alien to art - he paints his palace. But unlimited power, as usual, left an imprint on his thoughts, feelings and behavior.

He is convinced that the will of the king has no boundaries. When he decides to gather all the lovers and arrange a collective wedding on Yarilin's solemn day, and Bermyata doubts the possibility of such a holiday, the tsar exclaims in anger: What? What is not allowed, bermata? Can't do what the king wants? Are you in your mind?

Having learned from Kupava that Mizgir cheated on her for the sake of the Snow Maiden, he considers Mizgir a criminal worthy of the death penalty. But since “there are no bloody laws in our code,” the tsar, on behalf of the people, condemns Mizgir to ostracism - eternal exile - and calls on those who want to fall in love with the Snow Maiden before the end of the night (no later!).

True, falling in love and disappointment in the Berendey kingdom flares up and goes out with the speed of a match, but this is the tradition of literature, going back to the Renaissance - remember Romeo and Juliet, who fell in love in a matter of seconds, in fact, without recognizing each other. But even taking into account this tradition, the order of the king looks like an act of arbitrariness.

Hearing that the appearance of Snegurochka on the Berendeeva land caused a complete commotion among young people because of jealousy, the tsar ordered Bermyata to “settle everyone and reconcile until tomorrow” (!), And Snegurochka to look for a friend after her heart.

The promised holiday is coming, a friend - Misgir - is found, young people are in love without memory, but the vengeful Yarilo remembers his oath. Hot passion destroys the Snow Maiden, she melts under the influence of sunlight. Misgir commits suicide, and the tsar, who shortly before that admired the beauty of the Snow Maiden and promised to arrange a feast with a mountain to the one who “will manage to captivate the Snow Maiden with love before dawn,” now solemnly says:

Snow Maiden sad death
And the terrible death of Mizgir
They cannot disturb us. The sun knows
Whom to punish and pardon. Finished
True judgment! A product of frost,
The cold Snow Maiden died.

Now, the king believes, Yarilo will stop his acts of revenge and "look at the loyalty of the submissive Berendei." the king most of all adores the obedience of his subjects to himself and to the highest deity - Yarila-Sun. Instead of a mourning one, he proposes to sing a cheerful song, and the subjects are happy to fulfill the will of the king. The death of two people in comparison with the life of the masses does not matter.

In general, Ostrovsky's entire play, for all its apparent gaiety, is built on an antithesis that creates a contradictory, sometimes bleak picture. Warmth and cold, wealth and poverty, love and infidelity, contentment with life and envy, war and peace, in a broader sense - good and evil, life and death are opposed to each other and determine the general atmosphere of the Berendean kingdom, and contradictions and disharmony in characters actors.

The hostile principle has penetrated even into space. The Yarilo-Sun, the blessed sun, which gives wealth and joy to earthlings, sends bad weather, crop failures, all kinds of sorrow to the Berendeys and destroys the innocent illegitimate daughter of illegitimate parents, taking revenge not only on Frost, but also on the spiritually close Spring-Red, depriving her beloved daughter.

If we talk about the philosophical aspect of the play, then before us is not the embodiment of the dream of an ideal "prehistoric" kingdom, but a fabulous work imbued with a thirst for harmony of life in the present and the future. The Berendey kingdom is devoid of this harmony, this harmony is not even in the character of the main character.

She merged physical beauty with spiritual nobility, a kind of almost childish naivety and defenselessness with a coldness of the heart, an inability to love. A desperate attempt to go beyond the circle designated by nature causes inhuman tension of forces and emotions and ends in tragedy.

We can say that the playwright's idea to show “a different life, a different setting” so that the audience at least for a while would forget “boring reality” was not entirely successful. But the image of the truth of life was fully succeeded, as A.N. Ostrovsky wrote about in the letter cited above.

She is attracted by the persistent and irrepressible desire of the main character to change her fate, her high understanding of love, for the sake of which one can accept death:

Let me perish, love one moment
More dear to me than years of melancholy and tears ...
Everything that is dear in the world
Lives in just one word. This word
Love.

At first Lel fascinates her with her songs, the softness of her nature. Mother reminds her that Lel is the beloved son of the Sun, hostile to the father of the Snow Maiden.
I'm not afraid of either Lelya or the Sun,
she answers ...
… Happiness
I’ll find or not, but I’ll look.

Love is above all, dearer than earthly existence - this is the leitmotif of the play. As noted in the critical literature, “in the late phase of creativity (from the second half of the 1870s), the main concern of the playwright was the fate of loving women.

In the chronological interval between The Thunderstorm and The Dowry, Ostrovsky creates the Snow Maiden extravaganza. And those are the unfortunate fate of a woman, albeit in a fabulous interpretation, in the foreground. The physical cold that surrounds the daughter Frost-father can be endured - the mental cold is unbearable. Love warms, makes a person a person. This is a great feeling, but it requires the willingness of the lover to fight for his happiness.

Sometimes, unfortunately, a high romantic feeling ends tragically - for a number of reasons, among which is a conflict with society or supermundane forces, as the classics of distant and closer times have shown, and as A.N. Ostrovsky in his fairy tale play.

But the strength of the spirit of the dying hero gives rise to deep respect for him on the part of the person who perceives the art and does not pass without a trace for the consciousness and emotional world of the reader and viewer. From these positions can assess the tragedy of the Snow Maiden.

Ostrovsky was a talented writer and playwright. He can rightfully be considered the creator of the repertoire of the Russian theater. Ostrovsky often touched upon the customs of the merchants. However, among all his stories about the merchants of Zamoskvoretsk, there is also a certain fabulous work that is not like the others. She was called Snegurochka. Let's do it, too, by characterizing the Snow Maiden in the play.

Ostrovsky: Snow Maiden, analysis of the work

The Snow Maiden was written by Ostrovsky in 1873 and she became truly enchanting. Everyone who read the tale noted its lyricism, surrounded by a fantastic entourage. The Snow Maiden is unusual not only in the genre, where a fairy-tale play is combined with an extravaganza, but also in the general combination of text that is intertwined with music and ballet performance. In this work, the viewer and reader meet with gods, demigods, as well as with ordinary inhabitants of the Berendei. Ostrovsky manages to combine fantasy with reality in Snegurochka, and this makes the play even more interesting.

Speaking about the sources of inspiration for the appearance of this play, it was Slavic mythology, well-known about the Snow Maiden. Studying the plot, we are transported to the world of Berendey's reign, where everything was very ideal. Even the ruler of the kingdom was unlike the others. He was a true embodiment of folk wisdom and worried about his people. And so Berendey began to notice that his people were becoming vain and for this they fell under the wrath of Yarilo. However, Berendey reveals the truth - all living things must love. But the Snow Maiden lives in the kingdom, who does not have the gift of love. Her father Frost knows about the revenge of Yaril, who vowed to melt the girl as soon as she really falls in love.

This is how Snegurochka lives in a boar's family. For the named parents, the girl is just a bait for the grooms. The Snow Maiden brought confusion to the kingdom, because for the sake of the girl they are ready to abandon their lovers, violating the foundations. Moreover, the colder the girl was towards the guys, the more they were drawn to her. Snegurochka liked the shepherd Lel, but he gave his attention to all the girls, while Snegurochka wanted attention only to herself. This upset the girl who did not know how to love. And then there was Misgir, who wanted to marry her. Only a girl cannot accept his offer, because there is an emptiness in his heart. And here we see the suffering of the characters, because the Snow Maiden is also bad, since she cannot know love. Kupava, whom Mizgir abandoned, also suffers, and the groom himself is bad, because except for the Snow Maiden he does not see anyone else.

And then the girl asks her mother Vesna to give her the opportunity to love, and she agreed. According to her, the Snow Maiden will fall in love with the first comer, and it turned out to be Mizgir. His joy was great, because the Snow Maiden responded to his feelings. However, his selfishness also manifested itself here, because because of him the girl melted.

The death of the Snow Maiden, who was ready to die for love, became a victory over the cold in her heart. And Misgir, once giving the Snow Maiden a promise to die together, jumps into the lake to unite with her beloved, who has turned into cold water.

In general, the play reveals the theme of love, without which our life is meaningless. The author also shows the connection of opposites, where it is impossible to imagine the world without light and darkness, without warmth and cold. At the same time, we see, despite their contradiction, their struggle, they cannot exist without each other.

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If you want to know what Ostrovsky is, read carefully The Snow Maiden. A. R. Kugel

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The image of the fairytale heroine Snegurochka was gradually formed in the popular mind over the centuries. ... In 1873 A. N. Ostrovsky, under the influence of Afanasyev's ideas, wrote the play The Snow Maiden. Initially, the play was not a success with the public. A spring tale by A.N. Ostrovsky was highly appreciated by A.I. Goncharov and I.S. Turgenev, however, many responses of his contemporaries were sharply negative.

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Drama - (Greek dráma, literally - action), 1) one of three kinds of literature (along with epic and lyric poetry; belongs to both theater and literature: being the fundamental principle of the performance. A play is a dramatic work intended for a theatrical performance. A fairy tale is one of the genres of folklore A literary tale is an epic genre: a fiction-oriented work closely related to a folk tale, but, unlike it, belonging to a specific author Conflict - (Latin conflictus - collided) is the most acute way of resolving contradictions in interests, goals, views arising in the process of social interaction, which consists in the counteraction of the participants in this interaction Antithesis - Greek. a common point of view on them.

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The Snow Maiden's pedigree is indistinct and dark. It is impossible to say for sure when the Snow Maiden established herself in the status of the “granddaughter” of Santa Claus. Undoubtedly, the image of the Snow Maiden is a mutation and transformation of many pre-Christian beliefs, myths and customs. First of all, this concerns such holidays as Maslenitsa, Krasnaya Gorka, when the villagers called out and called for spring, Yarilino gulbische, the funeral of Kostroma. Russian Orthodoxy has absorbed many pagan ideas. So, the Orthodox holiday of the Trinity, celebrated as the day of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, in Russia merged with the ancient Slavic holiday of the Semik, associated with the veneration of the spirits of vegetation.

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1. one keyword (noun); 2. two adjectives characterizing the word in the first line; 3. three verbs; 4. a short phrase, inference, which shows the attitude to the problem; 5. one noun (synonym for the first line).

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The most famous literary work about the Snow Maiden is the play of the same name by A.N. Ostrovsky, written in 1873. In the drama "The Snow Maiden" (the writer defined her genre as a "spring tale") A.N. Ostrovsky makes an attempt to touch the deep roots of Russian and Slavic culture, to learn the secrets of folk mythology. The work "Snow Maiden" is an amazing fairy tale, which shows the beauty of the surrounding world, love, nature, youth.

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There is nothing surprising in the fact that the theatrical production of "The Snow Maiden" by the Moscow Maly Theater (May 11, 1873) actually failed. Only at the beginning of the twentieth century, the dramatic concept of A.N. Ostrovsky was appreciated. A.P. Lensky, who staged The Snegurochka in September 1900 in Moscow, remarked: “Ostrovsky would have had enough imagination to overflow his fairy tale to the brim with native devilry. But he, apparently, deliberately saved the fantastic elements, saved in order not to overshadow the enchantingness of another, more complex element - the poetic one ”.

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In 1873, the music to the "spring tale" by A.N. Ostrovsky's The Snow Maiden was written by P.I. Tchaikovsky (1840-1893). Responses to the musical accompaniment of the play were contradictory. Someone P. Akilov in "Theatrical Notes" noticed that the music for "The Snow Maiden" is monotonous "to sleep." Perhaps this impression was facilitated by the disgusting performance of musical numbers by the orchestra under the direction of I.O. Shrameka. Sunny music for the spring fairy tale by A.N. Ostrovsky cannot but evoke positive emotions. It is no coincidence that P.I. Tchaikovsky defined his idea as follows: "There should be a noticeably joyful, spring mood in this music."

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In 1900, A.T. Grechaninov (1864-1956). The premiere took place on September 24, 1900 at the Moscow Art Theater. The roles were played by: Tsar Berendey - V.I. Kachalov, Snow Maiden - M.P. Lilina, Lel - M.F. Andreeva. In 1880, from the pen of N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), the opera The Snow Maiden was released - one of the pinnacles of Russian musical classics. The composer was completely captured by the themes and images of A.N. Ostrovsky. Two-tiered gazebo It is believed that here Ostrovsky A.N. came up with the idea of ​​creating the play "Snow Maiden".

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Music by N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov is permeated with the fragrance of spring, warmth and light, warmed by folk songs. The first performance of the opera took place on January 29, 1882 at the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theater. Conducted by E.F. Guide. On October 8, 1885, The Snow Maiden was staged in Moscow on the stage of the Private Russian Opera by S.I. Mamontov. Opera N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov was a success in the best Russian theaters. Scenery sketch for the play

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The opera was composed in the summer of 1880 in a remote Russian village. The composer later said that no piece was given to him with such ease and speed as The Snow Maiden. The opera was completed in 1881. The premiere, which took place on January 29 (February 10) next year at the Mariinsky Theater, was a great success. Alexander Ostrovsky enthusiastically accepted the opera: “The music to my“ Snow Maiden ”is amazing, I could never have imagined anything more suitable for it and so vividly expressing all the poetry of the Russian pagan cult and this first snow-cold, and then irresistibly passionate heroines of a fairy tale ".

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The work of A.N. Ostrovsky made a revolution in the Russian theater. Already his first plays showed on the stage a world perfectly familiar to the playwright himself, but completely unknown to readers and spectators of the mid-19th century. The dramaturgy of Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky marked the most important stage in the development of the Russian national theater. As a playwright and director, Ostrovsky contributed to the formation of a new school of realistic play.

Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovsky can rightfully be considered the creator of the repertoire for the national Russian theater. Despite the fact that he became famous most of all for his works on the customs of the Russian merchants (which the critic Nikolai Dobrolyubov very aptly called "the dark kingdom"), among the gloomy and a little scary stories from the life of the Zamoskvoretsk merchants there is a very light and fabulous work - "Snow Maiden" written in 1873.

At the heart of plot plays the playwright used a Russian folk tale from the collection of Alexander Afanasyev "Poetic views of the Slavs on nature." That is why the Slavic higher and lower deities act in the play: Yarilo, Moroz, Vesna, Leshy. The peculiarity is that the play "Snow Maiden", unlike all the previous ones, is written in verse, but without rhyme. However, the unified rhythm of the piece made it possible to put it to music. The entire play is a kind of poetic stylization for Russian folklore, with which Ostrovsky was then fascinated.

This is explained by the fact that in 1873 the troupe of the Maly Theater was forced to move to the Bolshoi Theater for the period of renovation. This is how the opera, ballet and drama troupes ended up under the same roof. Then the commission for the management of the Moscow imperial theaters decided to stage an extravaganza performance with the participation of all the artists. Ostrovsky composed the play in a short time, finishing on the day of his fiftieth birthday. And the music for the play was written by a young and little-known then composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Thus, Ostrovsky's lyric play became a multi-level, multi-layered work, as it embodied the folk tale about the Snow Maiden, and the folk legend about the ancient Berendei tribe, and mythological features of Slavic legends, and ancient rituals and songs. And also Ostrovsky's "spring tale" breathes such purity of poetry that it resembles Pushkin's fairy tales. And in terms of meaning, there is a lot of Pushkin in it: life appears as the magic of beauty and tragedy at the same time, and goodness in a person turns out to be a natural basis.

Therefore, the life of nature in the play looks like a kingdom of harsh contrasts of cold and warmth, lifelessness and flowering. Ostrovsky writes about nature as a person. The landscape resembles a portrait that the artist is peering into. The abundance of emotional epithets, comparisons that put natural phenomena on a par with human feelings, emphasize the closeness of the natural and human principles in the mind of the playwright.

The play takes place in the kingdom of Berendey. It looks more like a kind of utopian state in which people live according to the laws of honor and conscience, fearing to provoke the wrath of the gods: this is a kind of ideal of social order created by Ostrovsky. Even the tsar, who in Russia was the sole ruler, autocrat, embodies folk wisdom in his work. He worries about his people in a fatherly way: it seems to him that his subjects have ceased to notice the beauty of nature, and are more experiencing vanity and envy. That's why I got angry with Yarilo Berendeev, who every year more and more freezes people. Then Berendey discovers one of the main laws of nature: "All living things must love"... And he asks his assistant Bermyatu on Yarilin day to gather as many brides and grooms as possible in order to consecrate their marriage and make a sacrifice to the sun god.

However, the main dramatic conflict is connected precisely with the confrontation between love and "Cold heart" in the soul of the Snow Maiden, who lives in the cold purity of loneliness, and with her soul strives for the fire of love, which is why she must perish. Father Frost warns mother Vesna-Krasnu about this: he says that Yarilo has vowed to take revenge on him using their daughter Snegurochka. Say, when she really falls in love, Yarilo will melt her with his hot rays.

The Snow Maiden did not immediately know what true love is. Finding herself in the family of a childless Bobyl, the girl expects the same love as from her mother and father. But Bobyl and Bobylikha perceive their adopted daughter as a kind of bait for rich suitors. Only the suitors are not the same: many guys quarreled with their girls because of the Snow Maiden, but neither she is ready to give her heart, nor the foster parents are satisfied with the usual berendei.

The Snow Maiden herself likes the shepherd Lel, who generously presents all the girls in the neighborhood with her songs. This offends the heroine: she wants to be loved only her. When a rich groom is found, "Shopping guest" Misgir, ready to give up all the riches for the sake of the Snow Maiden, cannot find feelings for him in her heart. Everyone is unhappy: Kupava, the failed bride of Mizgir, Mizgir, who can no longer think of anyone except the Snow Maiden, who captivated him with her beauty, and the Snow Maiden herself suffers, since she does not know what true love is.

Turning to her mother for help, the heroine gets what she wanted more than anything else - the opportunity to love. Vesna-Krasna says that she will fall in love with the first comer. Fortunately, it turns out to be Mizgir, and the reader can imagine that now everything will end happily. But no, Mizgir, intoxicated with the love of the Snow Maiden, wants to show everyone that he was able to achieve his goal - the reciprocity of the beauty. Not listening to the girl's requests, he literally drags her up the mountain, where the Berendei met the dawn, and under the first rays of the sun the Snow Maiden dissolves. Having yielded to human law, it melts "from the sweet feelings of love."

The melting of the Snow Maiden is a victory over the "traces of cold" in the heart. She was ready to die for the right to love with all her heart. Mizgir said about this: "Love and fear in her soul fought"... Now fear has been dropped, and the Snow Maiden in the last minutes of her short life is given only to love.

Mizgir is also fearless. He kept his promise: "Trouble will come - we will perish together"... The death of the Snow Maiden is a misfortune for him, so he rushes into the lake to connect with the cool water, into which the Snow Maiden has turned, until recently warm in his hot embraces.

But Tsar Berendey calls the death of the Snow Maiden "Sad", after "Wonderful"... The difference in these epithets prompts the reader to get out of the tragedy into life affirmation. The death of the Snow Maiden and the feast of the Berendeys are close by. Its extinction brings a flood of light into the world. No wonder the king says:

Snow Maiden sad death
And the terrible death of Mizgir
They cannot disturb us; The sun knows
Whom to punish and pardon ...

So the tragedy of personality dissolves in the general chorus of nature. In the words of Pushkin, the author's sadness is light, because the human soul is light: it turns out to be free and fearless in love, it is stronger than the fear of self-preservation.