A Protégée of the Mistress

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A Protégée of the Mistress
Written by Aleksander Ostrovsky
Date premiered 21 October 1863 (1863-10-21)
Place premiered Maly Theatre in Moscow
Original language Russian
Genre Social drama

A Protégée of the Mistress (Vospitannitsa, Воспитанница; also, The Ward Girl) is a play by Alexander Ostrovsky, first published in the No.1, January 1859 issue of Biblioteka Dlya Chteniya . Refused the permission to be produced at the Imperial Theatres in October 1859, it premiered in Maly Theatre, Moscow, only on October 21, 1863. [1]

Alexander Ostrovsky Russian playwright

Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky was a Russian playwright, generally considered the greatest representative of the Russian realistic period. The author of 47 original plays, Ostrovsky "almost single-handedly created a Russian national repertoire." His dramas are among the most widely read and frequently performed stage pieces in Russia.

<i>Biblioteka Dlya Chteniya</i>

Biblioteka Dlya Chteniya was a Russian monthly magazine founded in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, in 1834 by Alexander Smirdin.

Maly Theatre (Moscow) theatre in Moscow, Russia

Maly Theatre is a theatre in Moscow, Russia, principally associated with the production of plays. Established in 1806 and operating on its present site on the Theatre Square since 1824, the theatre traces its history to the Moscow University drama company, established in 1756. In the 19th century, Maly was "universally recognized in Russia as the leading dramatic theatre of the century", and was the home stage for Mikhail Shchepkin and Maria Yermolova. 40 of Alexander Ostrovsky's 54 plays premiered at Maly, and the theatre was known as The House of Ostrovsky. The Maly Theatre in Moscow and Alexandrinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg "to a great extent determined the development of Russian theatre during the 19th and 20th century".

Contents

History

Ostrovsky conceived A Protégée of the Mistress in 1855 as a two-act play. On July 12 of that year he prepared a rough draft of the Act 1 and compiled a list of characters, some of which (retired official Zakhar Zveroboyev, merchant Savva Bruskov), were later dropped. The play's original title was "Game for a Cat, Tears for a Mouse" (Koshke igrushki, myshke slyozki), with a subtitle "Pictures of Rural Life". [1]

In an April 21 letter to Alexander Druzhinin, Ostrovsky promised to quickly finish the play and bring it to Saint Petersburg soon, but failed to do so. It was completed on 7 December 1858 but for the next several months the author continued to make changes to the text. [1] On 26 September 1859, A Protégée of the Mistress was approved by the Theatre and Literature committee but not unanimously: the chairman S.P.Zhikharev and A.G.Rogchev voted against. Ostrovsky's friend Ivan Gorbunov warned the author that this was a bad sign and proved to be right: on October 23 the play was banned by the head of the Third Department Alexander Timashev after a censor in his report poised the question: "Are we supposed to promote a play highlighting the immorality Russian landowners allegedly display in their daily life?" [2]

Alexander Druzhinin Russian writer and magazine editor

Alexander Vasilyevich Druzhinin, , was a Russian writer, translator, and magazine editor.

Saint Petersburg Federal city in Northwestern, Russia

Saint Petersburg is Russia's second-largest city after Moscow, with 5 million inhabitants in 2012, part of the Saint Petersburg agglomeration with a population of 6.2 million (2015). An important Russian port on the Baltic Sea, it has a status of a federal subject.

The Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery was a secret police department set up in Imperial Russia, inherited from Tayny Prikaz, Privy Chancellery and Specialty Chancellery, effectively serving as the Imperial regime's secret police for much of its existence. The organization was relatively small. Created in 1825 by Tsar Nicholas I, it included only sixteen investigators. Their number was increased to forty in 1855. It was disbanded in 1880 and replaced by the Police Department and the Okhrana.

In 1861 Fyodor Burdin made an unsuccessful attempt to persuade censors to lift the ban. The then chief of the Third Department L.A.Potapov refused to grant the permission, explaining: "What's the point of talking now about the serfdom and all the abuses of power [related to it]? Dvoryanstvo here is portrayed in quite an awful way. It's been getting enough stick these days to be finished off by such presentation on stage. Besides, there'll be elections in Moscow soon, and dvoryanstvo may take offense." When Burdin pointed to him that there were no references to either dvoryanstvo or serfdom in the play, Potapov replied: "Sure, things are not said here directly, but we are not that naïve not to be able to read between the lines." [3] [4] [5]

Serfdom status of peasants under feudalism

Serfdom is the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism. It was a condition of debt bondage, which developed during the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages in Europe and lasted in some countries until the mid-19th century.

Productions

There were two unofficial performances of the play in 1861-1862, one at the Saint Petersburg's Merchants Club, as a benefit for actor Alexander Martynov, another on 27 January 1862 at the Saint Petersburg Passage Theatre, organized by the Theatrical Society as a charity for the Literary Fund. After the Imperial Theatres' license has been finally granted, the play premiered on October 21, 1863, as a benefit for actress Lyudmila Karskaya. It also featured Prov Sadovsky (Potapych), Nadezhda Rykalova (Ulanbekova), Alexandra Kolosova (Nadya), Khioniya Talanova (Vasilisa Peregrinova), Alexander Pogonin (Leonid), Sofia Akimova (Gavrilovna), Alexander Rasskazov (Grisha), Vladimir Lensky (Negligentov), Maria Vasilyeva (Liza), Vera Strekalova (girl servant). The Alexandrinsky Theatre premiere took place on 22 November 1863, as a benefit for actress Yekaterina Zhuleva. Both performances were successful, according to the newspaper reports. Among the authors who reviewed the Alexandrinka show favourably were Apollon Grigoryev and Pyotr Boborykin. [1]

Prov Sadovsky was the stage name of Prov Mikhailovich Yermilov (1818-1872), a Russian actor who founded the famous Sadovsky theatrical family, which was regarded as the foremost interpreters of the plays by Aleksandr Ostrovsky in the Malyi Theatre until the mid-20th century. It has been said that Sadovsky and his relatives made of Ostrovsky's plays a national institution. Additionally, Prov Sadovsky finds mention in ´Anton Chekhov's famous 1896 play, The Seagull, in a comparison to a famous Russian comedian of the same era, Pavel Chadin. Both men were known at the time to play the same character, Rasplyuev, from the comedy, The Marriage of Krechinsky by A. Sukhovo-Kobylin.

Nadezhda Rykalova Russian actor (1824-1914)

Nadezhda Vasilyevna Rykalova was a Russian stage actress, best known for her Maly Theatre performances in plays by Alexander Ostrovsky, who created the Kabanikha character especially for her.

Alexandra Kolosova Russian actor (1802-1880)

Alexandra Mikhailovna Kolosova was a Russian stage actress, later translator and memoirist. She was the daughter of Elena Kolosova, a prima ballerina.

Reception

The play was greeted warmly by the Russian literary left. In a letter to Pavel Annenkov (dated January 29, 1859) Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote: "Ostrovsky is the master of scenery, and the idea behind it is great too." [6] Nikolai Dobrolyubov, reviewing the play in 1859, called it "quite remarkable" and praised the author's restraint in dealing with main heroine's character's more ugly features. "This work is devoid of roughness that usually comes with the author' conscious attempts to show how ugly and vulgar the subject of their hatred is. This play is remarkable for its placid, moderate tone," he wrote. Nadya was Dobrolyubov's favourite character. "In Ostrovsky's play her emotions are expressed with enormous force and clarity. There is no other portrait of such depth in the whole of the Russian literature," he wrote. [7]

Pavel Annenkov Russian literary critic and memoirist

Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov was a significant Russian Empire literary critic and memoirist.

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin Russian writer and satirist

Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin, was a major Russian satirist of the 19th century. He spent most of his life working as a civil servant in various capacities. After the death of poet Nikolay Nekrasov he acted as editor of the well-known Russian magazine, Otechestvenniye Zapiski, until the government banned it in 1884. His best-known work, the novel The Golovlyov Family, appeared in 1876.

Critics from the literary left accepted Dobrolyubov's essay as a yardstick and never contradicted his verdict. "How much does this little drama say, what lively characters and scenes are being presented here for a viewer's imagination," marveled otherwise harsh Dmitry Pisarev in his Scholastics of the XIX Century (1861). [8]

Russian liberal critics took to it less kindly. Nikolai Akhsharumov argued that Ostrovsky's writing style was sketch-like and his characters except for Nadya were caricatures, "...filtered out from lumps of human dirt of all kinds" and "making heavy impression upon one's heart" as the author was keen only to depict only "the dirtier spots of life." [9]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Revyakin, I.A. (1959). "Commentary to A Protégée of the Mistress". The Complete A.N.Ostrovsky in 10 Volumes. Khudozhestvennaya literatura. Moscow. Vol.2. Retrieved 2012-03-01.
  2. ↑ Unpublished letters to A.N.Ostrovsky. Moscow, Leningrad, Academia, 1932, p. 669.
  3. ↑ Burdin, Fyodor. Remembering Ostrovsky. Vestnik Evropy, 1886, No.12, p. 671
  4. ↑ A.N.Ostrovsky's Unpublished letters. p. 12.
  5. ↑ Lakshin, Vladimir (1982). "Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky". Iskusstvo, Moscow. Life in Art series. Retrieved 2012-03-01.
  6. ↑ Saltykov-Shchedrin, M.E. The Complete Works of... Goslitizdat, Leningrad, 1937, Vol.XVIII, pp. 142-143.
  7. ↑ Dobrolyubov, N.A. The Works of… in 3 Volumes, Goslitizdat, Moscow, 1852, Vol.2, p.490
  8. ↑ Pisarev, D.I. The Works of… in 4 Volumes. Moscow. Goslitizdat, 1955, vol. 1, p.106
  9. ↑ Vesna Anthology, 1859. Saint Petersburg, p.351.
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