Alexander Ostrovsky – författare

One of Ostrovsky's most poetical works, The Storm is set in Kalinov, a provincial town on the banks of the Upper Volga. Trapped in an unhappy marriage, Katerína is tormented by her widowed mother-in-law, Marfa Kabanova. Katerína seeks solace in an affair with a similarly tormented young lover, and the confession of this affair to her husband leads ultimately to tragedy. The Storm was a great success on its first performance the Maly Theatre, Moscow, in November 1859, and continues to be critically regarded as one of Ostrovsky's best plays. It inspired Janácek's opera Katia Kabanova.

Gloumov, (the protagonist) has not only become an eduring character on the Russian stage, but the abstract noun derived from his name, gloumovshchina (or gloumovism), has entered the language. As long as ambitious young men with brains and talent can most readily achieve success by selling themselves and betraying their better natures, gloumovism will thrive. Transitional societies have a special need of Gloumov to keep things moving – as well as to maintain equilibrium – since the actor-opportunist will further any cause, switch positions overnight, defend opposite sides of the same issue, and turn his coat with every wind until he almost becomes the coat. – from the Afterword by Daniel Gerould

Four of Ostrovsky's finest plays. The best known of these, The Forest (1871), has two young lovers in thrall to their tyrannical elders, who are prevented from marrying until a pair of strolling actors come to their rescue. In Artistes and Admirers (1881), a comedy of theatre life, a dedicated young actress renounces both love and fortune in order to pursue her sacred calling. In the comedy Wolves and Sheep (1875) Ostrovsky returns to a favourite theme, the double-dealing and hypocrisy of the Russian landowning classes, while the melodrama Sin and Sorrow (1863) explores the tragic consequences of a bored provincial wife's brief affair.