The Thunderstorm is a drama by AN. Ostrovsky. Written in July-October 1859. First publication: Library for Reading magazine (1860, vol. 158, January). The first acquaintance of the Russian public with the play caused a whole "critical storm". Prominent representatives of all directions of Russian thought considered it necessary to speak out about The Thunderstorm. It was obvious that the content of this folk drama reveals "the deepest recesses of non-Europeanized Russian life" (A.I. Herzen). The dispute about it resulted in a controversy about the basic principles of national existence. Dobrolyubov's concept of the "dark kingdom" accentuated the social content of the drama. And A. Grigoriev considered the play as an "organic" expression of the poetry of folk life. Later, in the 20th century, a point of view arose on the “dark kingdom” as the spiritual element of a Russian person (A.A. Blok), a symbolic interpretation of the drama was proposed (F.A. Stepun).

The image of the city of Kalinov

The city of Kalinov appears in Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" as a kingdom of "bondage", in which living life is regulated by a strict system of rituals and prohibitions. This is a world of cruel morals: envy and self-interest, "debauchery of the dark and drunkenness", quiet complaints and invisible tears. The course of life here has remained the same as one hundred and two hundred years ago: with the languor of a hot summer day, ceremonial compline, festive revelry, nightly meetings of couples in love. The completeness, originality and self-sufficiency of the life of the Kalinovites does not need any way out beyond its limits - to where everything is “wrong” and “in their opinion everything is opposite”: both the law is “unrighteous”, and the judges “are also all unrighteous”, and “ people with dog heads. Rumors about the long-standing “Lithuanian ruin” and that Lithuania “fell on us from the sky” reveal the “historiosophy of the laity”; simple-minded reasoning about the picture of the Last Judgment - "the theology of the simple", primitive eschatology. “Closeness”, remoteness from the “big time” (the term of M.M. Bakhtin) is a characteristic feature of the city of Kalinov.

Universal sinfulness (“It is impossible, mother, without sin: we live in the world”) is an essential, ontological characteristic of Kalinov's world. The only way to fight sin and curb self-will is seen by the Kalinovites in the “law of everyday life and custom” (P.A. Markov). "Law" has constrained, simplified, subjugated living life in its free impulses, aspirations and desires. “The predatory wisdom of the local world” (G. Florovsky’s expression) shines through in the spiritual cruelty of the Kabanikh, the dense obstinacy of the Kalinovites, the predatory grasp of Curly, the quirky sharpness of Varvara, the flabby pliability of Tikhon. The seal of social outcast marks the appearance of the "non-possessor" and silver-free Kuligin. Unrepentant sin roams the city of Kalinov in the guise of a crazy old woman. The graceless world languishes under the oppressive weight of the "Law", and only the distant peals of a thunderstorm remind of the "final end". A comprehensive image of a thunderstorm arises in action, as breakthroughs of higher reality into the local, otherworldly reality. Under the onslaught of an unknown and formidable “will”, the time of life of the Kalinovites “began to diminish”: the “end times” of the patriarchal world are approaching. Against their background, the duration of the play is read as the “axial time” of breaking the integral way of Russian life.

The image of Katerina in "Thunderstorm"

For the heroine of the play, the collapse of the “Russian cosmos” becomes a “personal” time of the tragedy experienced. Katerina is the last heroine of the Russian Middle Ages, through whose heart the crack of the “axial time” passed and opened the formidable depth of the conflict between the human world and the Divine heights. In the eyes of the Kalinovites, Katerina is “some kind of wonderful”, “some kind of tricky”, incomprehensible even to relatives. The "otherworldliness" of the heroine is emphasized even by her name: Katerina (Greek - ever-clean, eternally clean). Not in the world, but in the church, in prayerful communion with God, the true depth of her personality is revealed. “Ah, Curly, how she prays, if only you looked! What an angelic smile on her face, but from her face it seems to glow. In these words of Boris is the key to the mystery of the image of Katerina in The Thunderstorm, an explanation of the illumination, the luminosity of her appearance.

Her monologues in the first act push the boundaries of the plot action and take them beyond the boundaries of the "small world" designated by the playwright. They reveal the free, joyful and easy soaring of the heroine's soul to her "heavenly homeland". Outside the church fence, Katerina is lured by "bondage" and complete spiritual loneliness. Her soul passionately strives to find a soul mate in the world, and the heroine’s gaze stops on the face of Boris, who is alien to the Kalinov world not only due to European upbringing and education, but also spiritually: “I understand that all this is our Russian, dear, and all I won't get used to it anyway." The motive of a voluntary sacrifice for a sister - “sorry for a sister” - is central in the image of Boris. Doomed to "sacrifice", he is forced to meekly wait for the desiccation of the tyrannical will of the Wild.

Only outwardly, the humble, hidden Boris and the passionate, resolute Katerina are opposites. Internally, in the spiritual sense, they are equally alien to the world here. Having seen each other a few times, never having spoken, they "recognized" each other in the crowd and could no longer live as before. Boris calls his passion "fool", he is aware of its hopelessness, but Katerina "doesn't get" out of his head. Katerina's heart rushes to Boris against her will and desire. She wants to love her husband - and cannot; seeks salvation in prayer - "will not pray in any way"; in the scene of her husband's departure, he tries to curse fate ("I'll die without repentance, if I...") - but Tikhon does not want to understand it ("... and I don't want to listen!").

Going on a date with Boris, Katerina commits an irreversible, “fatal” act: “After all, what am I preparing for myself. Where is my place…” Exactly according to Aristotle, the heroine guesses the consequences, foresees the coming suffering, but commits a fatal act, not knowing all its horror: “It’s no one’s fault to feel sorry for me, she herself went for it.<...>They say it’s even easier when you suffer for some sin here on earth.” But the “unquenchable fire”, “fiery hell”, predicted by the mad lady, overtake the heroine during her lifetime, with pangs of conscience. The consciousness and feeling of sin (tragic guilt), as it is experienced by the heroine, leads to the etymology of this word: sin - to warm (Greek - heat, pain).

Katerina's public confession of what she has done is an attempt to extinguish the fire that burns her from within, to return to God and find the lost peace of mind. The culminating events of Act IV are both formally and meaningfully and figuratively and symbolically connected with the feast of Elijah the Prophet, the “terrible” saint, all of whose miracles in folk legends are associated with bringing down heavenly fire to earth and intimidating sinners. The thunderstorm that had previously rumbled in the distance burst right over Katerina's head. In conjunction with the image of the Last Judgment on the wall of a dilapidated gallery, with the cries of the mistress: “You won’t get away from God!”, With the phrase of Diky that the thunderstorm is “sent as a punishment”, and the replicas of the Kalinovites (“this thunderstorm will not pass in vain” ), it forms the tragic climax of the action.

In Kuligin's last words about the "Merciful Judge" one can hear not only a reproach to the sinful world for the "cruelty of morals", but also Ostrovsky's belief that the suya of the Almighty is unthinkable outside of mercy and love. The space of Russian tragedy is revealed in The Thunderstorm as a religious space of passions and suffering.

The protagonist of the tragedy dies, and the pharisaea triumphs in her rightness (“Understood, son, where the will leads to! ..”). With the severity of the Old Testament, Kabanikha continues to observe the foundations of the Kalinov world: “flight into the ritual” is the only conceivable salvation for her from the chaos of will. The escape of Varvara and Kudryash to the expanses of freedom, the revolt of the previously unrequited Tikhon (“Mother, it was you who ruined her! You, you, you ...”), crying for the deceased Katerina - portend the onset of a new time. The "borderline", "turning point" of the content of "Thunderstorm" allow us to speak of it as "the most decisive work of Ostrovsky" (N.A. Dobrolyubov).

Productions

The first performance of The Thunderstorm took place on November 16, 1859 at the Maly Theater (Moscow). In the role of Katerina - L.P. Nikulina-Kositskaya, who inspired Ostrovsky to create the image of the main character of the play. Since 1863 G.N. Fedotov, from 1873 - M.N. Yermolov. The premiere took place at the Alexandrinsky Theater (Petersburg) on ​​December 2, 1859 (F.A. Snetkov in the role of Katerina, A.E. Martynov brilliantly played the role of Tikhon). In the 20th century, The Thunderstorm was staged by directors: V.E. Meyerhold (Alexandrinsky Theatre, 1916); AND I. Tairov (Chamber Theatre, Moscow, 1924); IN AND. Nemirovich-Danchenko and I.Ya. Sudakov (Moscow Art Theatre, 1934); N.N. Okhlopkov (Moscow Theater named after Vl. Mayakovsky, 1953); G.N. Yanovskaya (Moscow Youth Theater, 1997).

The conflict of the play by A.N. Ostrovsky's "Thunderstorm" is built on the tragic confrontation of the individual with the environment - with the world of the patriarchal merchant class, the "dark kingdom" of the city of Kalinov.

In my opinion, Ostrovsky compares the world of this city with the fabulous world of a Russian fairy tale. Everything here is subject to laws and rules, established by no one knows who, but inviolable, sacred. In "Thunderstorm" there are no characters who would go beyond the limits of Kalinov's worldview, even Katerina Kabanova, yearning for another life, cannot imagine what life is like outside the "dark kingdom".

Dikiy's nephew Boris, Katerina's lover, resembles a foreigner who came to this sleepy "city-state" from an unknown country. But the "alien" also becomes one of the subjects of the Kalinov world, in which there are villains and victims. For the weak-willed Boris, there is no other role than the role of a thinking, understanding, but powerless victim: “And I, apparently, will ruin my youth in this slum.”

Katerina looks like the heroine of the fairy tale about the "sleeping beauty", but the "awakening" does not please her at all. A wonderful dream - life in the parental home - was rudely interrupted by marriage: “Was I like that! I lived, did not grieve about anything, like a bird in the wild.

The "good fellow" Tikhon seems to be bewitched by the evil sorcery of Kalinov's "Baba Yaga" - Kabanikha. He is too weak-willed to resist the dictatorship of his mother: “But how can I, mother, disobey you!”

The very image of the city of Kalinov is a symbolic image of an enchanted, sleepy kingdom, where nothing has changed for centuries. Kalinovsky's world is depicted by the playwright as geographically closed and spiritually self-sufficient. No wonder the wanderer Feklusha praises the "promised" Kalinov "You still have paradise and silence in your city ..."

Like fairy-tale villains, Kalinov's petty tyrants appear as the personification of evil forces that rule the life of the city. So, the tyrant Dikoy creates arbitrariness not only in his family (“And what a home it was! After that, for two weeks everyone hid in attics and closets”), but also keeps the whole city in fear. And the true mistress of Kalinov - Kabanikhe - there is no court and justice anywhere: neither on earth nor in heaven. Marfa Ignatievna is convinced that her behavior and the principles she preaches are the only true ones, because the original ones: “Do you think the law means nothing?”

The boar is a living symbol of the city of Kalinov, where everything happens according to the established order once and for all. In her opinion, violation of the rules and customs would mean the end of the world, the destruction of the meaning of existence: “I don’t know what will happen, how the old people will die, how they will stand. Well, at least it’s good that I don’t see anything.” This heroine looks at life as a ritual that does not allow deviations and liberties.

It seems to me that there are no direct culprits in the death of Katerina in the play. The entire "cruel world" of Kalinov is to blame for her tragic fate. Katerina, I think, is a victim of the very way of life that arose in time immemorial. And the strength of this way of life continues to keep Kalinovtsy in complete obedience. At best, the heroine finds silent sympathy in them (Kuligin) or receives advice on how to deceive the vigilance of the Kabanikh (Barbara). But this is always opportunism, existence within the framework of the “dark kingdom”. "Order" and "submission" - that's what Kalinovtsy got used to: "Let's take an example from him! Better be patient."

The central link in Kalinovsky's world outlook is the idea of ​​complete obedience to fate. This idea determines the life of all the characters, except for Katerina. In various situations and for various reasons, the characters of the play affirm the idea of ​​the inevitability of fate: “What to do, sir! You have to try to please somehow." They always expect changes in their lives only "from above", not allowing active personal interference. “Cruel morals in our city,” in their opinion, are the finger of fate, so they need to come to terms with.

Thus, the "cruel world" of the city of Kalinov, depicted in Ostrovsky's play "Thunderstorm", is a world inhabited by the living dead, who perceive their existence as preparation for the "afterlife". Each of the Kalinovites, to one degree or another, is dissatisfied with his life, but he does not even think about really changing it. All the heroes of the play live under the yoke of ancient customs and habits, taking them for the "higher law", the "word of God". That is why Katerina's rebellion is perceived by the "cruel world" of Kalinov as a kind of sacrilege and madness, which you need to quickly forget about and return to your usual way of life.

I bring to your attention two school essays on the theme of the city of Kalinov from Ostrovsky's play "Thunderstorm". The first one is called "The city of Kalinov and its inhabitants", and the second is a description of this provincial town in an unusual form, in the format of a letter to a friend on behalf of Boris.

1st composition, "The city of Kalinov and its inhabitants"

Before creating the play, Ostrovsky traveled to the cities of the Volga region as part of an expedition that studied the life and customs of this province. Therefore, the image of the city of Kalinov turned out to be collective, based on the observations of the writer, and in many respects reminiscent of the real cities on the Volga of those times. It is no coincidence that almost all the cities of the Volga region (Torzhok, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, Kineshma and others) argued for the title of the prototype of Kalinov.

Kalinov became a generalized image of a Russian provincial town. What is important is the idea of ​​similarity to a typical Russian town, the play could take place in any of these places. This is also evidenced by the fact that the play does not contain a detailed description of the city, we can judge it only from a few remarks and indirect descriptions. Thus, the play itself opens with a remark with a description: "A public garden on the high bank of the Volga, beyond the Volga - a rural view."

Kalinov is a city with a fictitious name, and it is very useful for readers to understand why the city is called that way.

On the one hand, the very semantics of the word “viburnum” is interesting (because the suffix “ov” is typical for the names of Russian cities, for example, Pskov, Tambov, Rostov, etc.) - this is a bright, outwardly very beautiful berry (like the city itself, a boulevard on the high bank of the Volga), but inside it is bitter and tasteless. This is similar to the inner life of the city, the one that is hidden behind high fences - this is a hard, and in some ways even terrible life. Kalinov is characterized by the self-taught mechanic Kuligin, who admires the beauties of the local nature: “The view is extraordinary! The beauty! The soul rejoices, ”and at the same time admitting:“ Cruel customs in our city, sir, cruel.

For all the external well-being of the city, it is boring, dreary, there is a stuffy and unpleasant atmosphere. One of the most important parts of the city is the boulevard where no one walks.

Wealthy citizens prefer a completely different entertainment - to sue and quarrel with neighbors, intrigue, and "devour" their family. Another "entertainment" is visiting the temple, where people come not for sincere prayers and communication with God, but for the exchange of gossip and circuses. It is not surprising that the city, in which hypocrisy and hypocrisy reign, is praised by the same hypocritical Feklusha (“The Blessed City”).

During the day, Kalinov completely belongs to stiff people, and at night couples go out for a walk on the boulevard, “stealing” another hour so that everything is “sewn and covered”, so that nothing violates the external well-being of the city, whose inhabitants live in a patriarchal way of life and read Domostroy ".

Kalinov, in fact, does not have permanent connections with the world, he is closed and closed in himself. They don’t read newspapers in it, they don’t learn news about the world, here Feklusha’s stories about her wanderings are easily taken at face value.

The city acts in some way as a symbolic force that feeds the power of the tyrant Wild (leaving the city, he seems to lose his strength). Tikhon seeks to escape from the city, in Kalinovo he is always downtrodden and depressed, but outside it he tries to free himself from the shackles. Even the outsider Boris feels the pressure of provincial foundations.

Another association that the fictional city from Ostrovsky's play evokes is the Kalinov Bridge from the Russian fairy tale about Ivan the Peasant's Son and Miracle Yuda. This bridge was the place where good and evil converged in the struggle. Also, Kalinov is the scene where the tragedy of Katerina's personality, the intransigence of her pure and bright soul with the city's orders, as well as the story of her sinful love unfolds.

The city enters into plot interaction with the characters, sets off their feelings and thoughts. So, on a holiday in the middle of the city, Katerina repents of her sins before the whole world, while the frescoes of the Last Judgment are visible on the walls.

Another element of the city is the garden where Katerina meets Boris. It resembles the Garden of Eden, here, as in the well-known biblical story, the fall of Katerina takes place.

An important symbolic role is played by the Volga, washing Kalinov. In the drama, the river personifies strength, freedom, energy, pure feelings. It is no coincidence that Katerina is so eager for water (it is not the water that kills her, but the anchor).

The city of Kalinov, obviously, was necessary for Ostrovsky to show the way of Russian life in a small, provincial city, of which there are so many in Russia, and any of them, in part, resembles Kalinov. Kalinov is not just a background against which events unfold, he also conveys the mood of his inhabitants, helps to reveal their characters, in some ways takes on a symbolic function that enriches the play.

Composition "Characteristics of the city of Kalinov in the form of a friendly letter"

My dear friend!

For a long time I did not write letters, but now the soul asks. I am writing to you to tell you about my life in the city of Kalinov, where I have been recently. If you suddenly wonder how I got here, then I can assure you that it was not the most prosperous combination of circumstances. There is no doubt about the beauty of this place, but the people here are rabble. I came here to my uncle, Savel Prokofievich. According to my father's will, my uncle owes me and my sister a certain amount, which we will receive only if we are respectful to him. Dear friend, it seems almost impossible! He is so stupid that just give him the slightest reason for anger - the whole family and everyone he meets on his way will suffer. I am glad that my sister stayed at home and did not go with me, it would be very bad for her here.

Kalinov is an ordinary provincial town, the only thing that, perhaps, makes the soul expand here is the view of the Volga, but nothing more. The rest is very gray, boring. A lot of merchants' houses, a boulevard, and a little church - nothing but here, perhaps, you will not find.

The whole city seems to see no one but two merchants: only my uncle, and another merchant's wife - Kabanikha. They are here as if at the head of everything, everything is subordinate to them, and they, in turn, do not put anyone in anything: everyone must listen to them and do what is ordered.

Time here seems to be completely dead, people are narrow-minded, no one can even imagine that outside their town there is still a world, a living world that does not stand still. They do not even realize the scale of their own disaster. It is worth giving them their due in that they work for the most part tirelessly, but they are completely frozen in this, bogged down. They are ignorant, they believe in everything that is said to them, because their life is so boring and monotonous. The only one with whom I can talk a little bit about anything is Kuligin, but he will disappear here, lose everything that is in his head, he is a stranger here.

So I live my days in this slum. The strength to endure all this is already running out, and I would have quit a long time ago if my sister weren’t with me, but I have to endure it, I can’t let her down.

How are you, dear friend? Do you still write your novels, or have you completely abandoned writing with the service? Tell me about everything that is on your mind, I want to know everything to the smallest detail!

Until the next letter, I hug you tightly.

Best wishes,

Your devoted friend Boris Grigorievich.

October 14, 1859

The composition was provided by Julia Grekhova.

Alexander Ostrovsky's play "Thunderstorm" was created by the playwright on the eve of the reform of 1861. The need for public and social changes is already ripe, there are disputes, discussions, the movement of social thought. But there are places in Russia where time has stopped, society is passive, does not want changes, is afraid of them.

Such is the city of Kalinov, described by Ostrovsky in his play "Thunderstorm". This city did not really exist, it is the fiction of the writer, but thereby Ostrovsky shows that in Russia there are still many such places where stagnation and savagery reign. For all that, the city is located in a beautiful area, on the banks of the Volga. The surrounding nature just screams that this place could be paradise! But happiness, in the full sense of the word, is not among the inhabitants of this city, and they themselves are to blame.

The inhabitants of Kalinov are mostly people who do not want any changes, they are illiterate. Some live reveling in their power, which money gives them, others put up with their humiliating position and do nothing to get out of this situation. The dark kingdom called the Kalinovskoye society Dobrolyubov.

The main negative characters of the play are Savel Prokofievich Dikoi and Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova.

A wild merchant, an important person in the city. To characterize him briefly, he is a tyrant and a miser. He simply does not consider everyone who is lower than him in position as people. Wild can easily shortchange an employee, but does not want to give his own nephew the inheritance left to him by his grandmother. At the same time, he is very proud of his qualities.

The rich merchant's wife Kabanikha is a real punishment for her family. From this domineering, grumpy person there is no rest for anyone in the house. She wants everyone to obey her unquestioningly, to live according to the laws of Domostroy. The boar cripples the lives of her children and at the same time puts such an existence to her credit.

The boar's son, the meek cowardly Tikhon, is afraid to say an extra word against his domineering mother and cannot even defend his wife, whom the boar constantly reproaches and humiliates. But her daughter Barbara learned to lie and live a double life in order to get out of the influence of her mother, and this state of affairs suits her quite well.

Boris, Dikiy's nephew, is completely dependent on his uncle, although he has received an education, he is not a stupid person, he does not make any moves to get rid of this dependence. With his lack of independence and indecision, he destroys the woman he loves.

The tradesman Kuligin, a self-taught inventor, an intelligent person who is aware of the depth of stagnation and savagery in society, but he, too, cannot do anything in this situation and leaves reality, trying to realize the impossible, to invent a perpetual motion machine.

The person who can give at least some rebuff to the rudeness and tyranny of Diky is his worker Vanya Kudryash, the secondary hero of the play, who, however, plays a significant role in the unfolding action.

The only pure and bright person in this city is Kabanikh's daughter-in-law Katerina. She cannot live in this swamp, where there is no love, no normal human relations, where lies and hypocrisy rule. Against this, she protests with her death, having decided on this terrible step, she, even for a moment, acquires such a desired will.

Ostrovsky called his play "Thunderstorm" for a reason, the name is meaningful. The imminent changes in society, like thunderclouds, are gathering over the heads of the inhabitants of the "dark kingdom". Katerina, in her dismay, thinks that the storm was sent to her as a punishment for treason, but in fact the storm should finally destroy this dominance of stagnation, slavery and evil.

The image of the city of Kalinov, life and customs of the monasteries

All events in the work of a dramatic nature called "Thunderstorm", written by Ostrovsky, take place on the territory of the city of Kalinov. The city is a district and is located on one of the banks of the Volga. The author says that the area is distinguished by beautiful landscapes and pleases the eye.

The tradesman Kulagin talks about the morals of the city's inhabitants, his opinion is that each of the inhabitants has rather cruel morals, they are used to being rude and cruel, such problems were often caused by the existing poverty.

Two heroes become the center of cruelty - the merchant Dikoy and Kabanikha, who are bright representatives of ignorance and rudeness addressed to the people around them.

Wild, holding the position of a merchant, a fairly rich man, avaricious and with great influence in the city. But at the same time, he was used to holding power in his hands quite cruelly. He is sure that a thunderstorm is sent to people every time as a punishment for their wrong deeds and therefore they should endure it, and not put lightning rods on their houses. Also, from the story, the reader learns that Wild is doing a good job of managing financial matters, but this is all that limits his horizons. At the same time, it is worth noting his lack of education, he does not understand why electricity is needed and how it actually works.

Therefore, we can conclude that most of the merchants and townspeople living in the town are uneducated people, unable to accept new information and change their lives for the better. At the same time, books and newspapers are available to everyone, which they can read regularly and improve their inner intelligence.

Everyone who has a certain wealth is not accustomed to respect any officials and government officials. They treat them with some disdain. And they treat the mayor as a neighbor and communicate with him in a friendly way.

The poor are accustomed to sleep no more than three hours a day, they work days and nights on the fly. The rich try in every possible way to enslave the poor and get even more money at the expense of someone else's work. Therefore, Dikoy himself does not pay anyone for work, and everyone receives a salary only through great abuse.

At the same time, scandals often occur in the city that do not lead to anything good. Kuligin tries to write poems himself, he is self-taught, but at the same time he is afraid to show his talent, because he is afraid that he will be swallowed alive.

Life in the city is boring and monotonous, all residents are used to listening to Feklusha more than reading newspapers and books. It is he who tells others that there are countries where there are people who have the head of a dog on their shoulders.

In the evening, the inhabitants of the town do not go out for a walk along the narrow streets, they try to lock the door with all the locks and stay inside the house. They also release dogs to protect them from possible robbery. They are very worried about their property, which sometimes gets them overwork. Therefore, they try to always stay at home.

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The city of Kalinov and its inhabitants (based on the play by A. N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm")

The action of the play begins with a remark: “A public garden on the high bank of the Volga; beyond the Volga, a rural view. Behind these lines lies the extraordinary beauty of the Volga expanses, which only Kuligin, a self-taught mechanic, notices: “... Miracles, it must truly be said that miracles! Curly! Here you are, my brother, for fifty years I have been looking beyond the Volga every day and I can’t see enough of everything. All other residents of the city of Kalinov do not pay attention to the beauty of nature, this is evidenced by the casual remark of Kud-ryash in response to Kuligin's enthusiastic words: "Something!" And then, off to the side, Kuligin sees Diky, the “cursor”, who is waving his arms, scolding Boris, his nephew.

The landscape background of the "Thunderstorm" allows you to more tangibly feel the stuffy atmosphere of the life of the Kalinovites. In the play, the playwright truthfully reflected the social relations of the middle of the 19th century: he gave a description of the material and legal status of the merchant-philistine environment, the level of cultural demands, family and everyday life, and outlined the position of a woman in the family. "Thunderstorm" ... presents us with an idyllic "dark kingdom" ... Residents ... sometimes walk along the boulevard over the river ..., in the evening they sit on the rubble at the gate and engage in pious conversations; but they spend more time at home, take care of the household, eat, sleep - they go to bed very early, so it is difficult for an unaccustomed person to endure such a sleepy night as they ask themselves ... Their life flows smoothly and peacefully, no interests the world does not disturb them, because they do not reach them; kingdoms can collapse, new countries open up, the face of the earth can change as it pleases, the world can start a new life on new principles - the inhabitants of the town of Kalinov will exist as before in complete ignorance of the rest of the world ...

It is terrible and difficult for every newcomer to attempt to go against the demands and convictions of this dark mass, terrible in its naivety and sincerity. After all, she will curse us, she will run around like the plagued, not out of malice, not out of calculations, but out of a deep conviction that we are akin to the Antichrist ... The wife, according to the prevailing concepts, is connected with him (with her husband ) inseparably, spiritually, through the sacrament; whatever the husband does, she must obey him and share his meaningless life with him ... And in the general opinion, the main difference between a wife and a bast shoe lies in the fact that she brings with her a whole burden of worries from which the husband does not can get rid of, while the la-pot gives only convenience, and if it is inconvenient, then it can easily be thrown off ... Being in such a position, a woman, of course, must forget that she is the same person, with the same rights, like a man, ”N. A. Dobrolyubov wrote in the article “A Ray of Light in the Dark Kingdom”. Continuing to reflect on the position of a woman, the critic says that she, having decided "to go to the end in her uprising against the oppression and arbitrariness of the elders in the Russian family, must be filled with heroic self-denial, must decide on everything and be ready for everything. -va”, because “at the very first attempt, they will let her feel that she is nothing, that they can crush her”, “they will beat her, leave her to repentance, on bread and water, deprive her of daylight, try all home remedies good old days and lead to obedience.”

The characterization of the city of Kalinov is given by Kuligin, one of the heroes of the drama: “Cruel morals, sir, in our city, cruel! In philistinism, sir, you will see nothing but rudeness and bare poverty. And never, sir, get out of this bark! Because honest labor will never earn us more than our daily bread. And whoever has money, sir, tries to enslave the poor, so that he can make even more money for his free labors ... And among themselves, sir, how they live! They undermine each other's trade, and not so much out of self-interest, but out of envy. They are at enmity with each other ... ”Kuligin also notes that there is no work for the townspeople in the city: “The work must be given to the philistines. Otherwise, there are hands, but there is nothing to work,” and he dreams of inventing a “perpeta mobile” in order to use money for the benefit of society.

The tyranny of Dikiy and others like him is based on the material and moral dependence of other people. And even the mayor cannot call Wild to order, who will not "discount" any of his peasants. He has his own philosophy: “Is it worth it, your honor, to talk about such trifles with you! A lot of people stay with me every year; you understand: I won’t pay them extra for a penny per person, but I make thousands of this, so it’s good for me! And the fact that these men have every penny in the account does not bother him.

The ignorance of the inhabitants of Kalinov is emphasized by the introduction of the image of Feklusha, a wanderer, into the work. She considers the city "the promised land": "Bla-alepie, honey, blah-alepie! Beauty is wondrous! What can I say! Live in the promised land! And the merchants are all a pious people, adorned with many virtues! Generosity and alms by many! I'm so happy, so, mother, happy, neck-deep! For our non-leaving them, even more bounty will increase, and especially to the Kabanovs' house. But we know that in the house of the Kabanovs Katerina is suffocating in captivity, Tikhon is drinking himself; Wild swaggers over his own nephew, forcing him to grovel because of the inheritance that rightfully belongs to Boris and his sister. Reliably talks about the morals that reign in families, Kuligin: “Here, sir, what a little town we have! They made a boulevard, but they don't walk. They go out only on holidays, and then they do one thing, that they go for a walk, but they themselves go there to show their outfits. You will only meet a drunken clerk, trudging home from the tavern. The poor have no time to go out, sir, they have day and night to worry about ... But what do the rich do? Well, what would it seem, they do not walk, do not breathe fresh air? So no. Everyone's gates, sir, have long been locked and the dogs let down. Do you think they do business or pray to God? No, sir! And they do not lock themselves up from thieves, but so that people do not see how they eat their own household and tyrannize their families. And what tears flow behind these locks, invisible and inaudible!.. And what, sir, behind these locks is the debauchery of dark and drunkenness! And everything is sewn and covered - no one sees or knows anything, only God sees! You, he says, see me in people and on the street; and you don’t care about my family; to this, he says, I have locks, and constipation, and evil dogs. Family, he says, it's a secret, a secret! We know these secrets! From these secrets, sir, the mind only has fun, and the rest howl like a wolf ... To rob orphans, relatives, nephews, beat up household members so that they don’t dare to utter a word about anything that he does there.

And what are Feklusha's stories about overseas lands worth! (“They say there are such countries, dear girl, where there are no Orthodox tsars, and the Saltans rule the earth ... And then there is the land where all the people have dog heads.” What about distant countries! The narrowness of the views of the wanderer is especially clearly manifests itself in the narrative of the “vision” in Moscow, when Feklush takes an ordinary chimney sweep for an unclean one, who “scatters tares on the roof, and the people in the daytime in their vanity invisibly pick up”.

The rest of the inhabitants of the city match Feklusha, one has only to listen to the conversation of local residents in the gallery:

1st: And this, my brother, what is it?

2nd: And this is the Lithuanian ruin. Battle! See? How ours fought with Lithuania.

1st: What is Lithuania?

2nd: So it is Lithuania.

1st: And they say, you are my brother, she fell on us from the sky.

2nd: I can't tell you. From the sky so from the sky.

It is not surprising that the Kalinovites perceive the thunderstorm as God's punishment. Kuligin, understanding the physical nature of a thunderstorm, is trying to protect the city by building a lightning rod, and asks Di-whom for money for this purpose. Of course, he did not give anything, and even scolded the inventor: “What kind of power is there! Well, what are you not a robber! A thunderstorm is sent to us as a punishment so that we feel, and you want to defend yourself with poles and some kind of mugs, God forgive me. But Diky's reaction does not surprise anyone, parting with ten rubles just like that, for the good of the city, is like death. The behavior of the townspeople is horrifying, who did not even think of standing up for Kuligin, but only silently, from the side, watched how Dikoy insulted the mechanic. It is on this indifference, irresponsibility, ignorance that the power of petty tyrants vibrates.

I. A. Goncharov wrote that in the play “Thunderstorm” “a broad picture of national life and customs has subsided. Pre-reform Russia is authentically represented in it by its socio-economic, family-household and cultural-everyday appearance.