Alexander Ostrovsky

Alexander Ostrovsky
Portrait of Ostrovsky by Vassily Perov.
Born	Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky Александр Николаевич Островский 12 April [O.S. 31 March] 1823 Moscow, Russian Empire
Died	14 June [O.S. 2 June] 1886 (aged 63) Shchelykovo, Kostroma Governorate, Russian Empire
Occupation	Playwright • Translator
Nationality	Russian
Period	19th century
Genre	Comedy • Tragedy
Notable works	Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man The Thunderstorm

Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky (Russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Остро́вский; 12 April [O.S. 31 March] 1823, Moscow, Russian Empire – 14 June [O.S. 2 June] 1886, Shchelykovo, Kostroma Governorate, Russian Empire) 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.

Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky was born on 12 April 1823, in the Zamoskvorechye region of Moscow, to Nikolai Fyodorovich Ostrovsky, a lawyer who received religious education. Apparently, Nikolai's ancestors came from the village Ostrov in the Nerekhta region of Kostroma governorate, hence the surname. According to another theory the Ostrovskys were of Polish and Belorussian origins, but since all the Kostroma archives perished in the fire in the late 19th century, this question remained unsettled. Later Nikolai Ostrovsky became a high-ranked state official and as such in 1839 received a nobility title with the corresponding privileges. His first wife and Alexander's mother, Lyubov Ivanovna Savvina, came from a clergyman's family. For some time the family lived in a rented flat in Zamoskvorechye. Then Nikolai Fyodorovich bought himself a plot of land in Monetchiki and built a house on it. In the early 1826 the family moved there.

Alexander had three siblings, sister Natalya, and brothers Mikhail and Sergey. The former was his major companion in their childhood years, and it was from her and her girl friends that the boy learned such unmanly things as sewing and knitting. Nanny Avdotya Kutuzova played an important role in his upbringing too. Ostrovsky insisted it was the fairy tales she told him that inspired his The Snow Maiden, one of his most popular plays.

In 1831 Ostrovsky's mother died. In 1834 Nikolay Fyodorovich sold the Monetchiki house, bought two new ones, on Zhitnaya street, and two years later married Baroness Emilia Andreyevna von Tessin, a noblewoman of Russian and Swedish descent. She rearranged the patriarchal ways of their Zamoskvorechye house, making it look more like a European mansion and made sure their stepchildren would receive high quality education. Emilia Andreyevna had four children of her own, one of whom, Pyotr Ostrovsky, later became Alexander's good friend. She knew several European languages, played the piano and taught Alexander to read music.