Saint-Petersburg, Moscow, Province in the creativework of I. A. Goncharov and A. N. Ostrovsky

Abstract

The article covers the problematic for the researchers issue - the possibility of comparing the creative work of the playwright Ostrovsky and the prosaic Goncharov. The author considers such comparing approach to be possible at both ideological and artistic levels. Special attention is paid to the images of Saint-Petersburg and Moscow in the works by Ostrovsky and Goncharov, and their understanding of the Russian province. The newly made comparison of the depiction of capital and province by these artists allows us to show the specificity of the image of the world in the creative work of each of them. The actuality of the work is in the use of the new for the research of the theme sources by Goncharov: “Frigate “Pallada”” and the late essays. As the result of the analysis the author comes to the conclusion that with the obvious difference in the social position of the writers, variety in the attitude towards nobility and its role in the social life of Russia of 1860-70s, their creative heredity has the works where the people from Moscow and Saint-Petersburg society get close moral characteristics and are characterized and portrayed with the use of the same poetic techniques. Keeping in mind this commonality, the author states the possibility of Goncharov’s influence on Ostrovsky. Besides, the depiction of the Russian province by Goncharov in “Obryv (Precipice)” and his shift of accent to the portrait of a woman and the greatness of her soul, her fall, the pursuit to connect her destiny with the one of the Motherland as well as the use of the image of a bird as her characteristics allows the author of the article to see the influence of Ostrovsky on Goncharov.

Keywords

• saint-petersburg
• moscow
• capital and province
• devices of creating the image
• female images
• the image of a bird