It's a Family Affair-We'll Settle It Ourselves
| It's a Family Affair-We'll Settle It Ourselves | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Aleksander Ostrovsky |
| Date premiered | 9 December 1860 |
| Place premiered | Maly Theatre in Moscow |
| Original language | Russian |
| Genre | Comedy |
It's a Family Affair-We'll Settle It Ourselves (Russian: Свои люди - сочтемся, Romanized as Svoi lyudi - sotchtemsya) is a comedy by Alexander Ostrovsky. It was his first major work, written in 1849 and published in the No.6 (March, book 2) 1850 Moskvityanin issue. Having caused a furore, it was banned by the Imperial Theatres' censorship committee and was staged for the first time on 9 December 1860, ten years after its publication. For some time the play has been also referred to as The Bankrupt, which was its original title.
After his attempt to write a play called The Legal Request (Исковое прошение) failed Ostrovsky started working upon another storyline, again stemming from his experience in the Moscow commercial court. Uncertain in his own potential, he invited a friend, Tertiy Filippov, to become a co-author, but the latter refused. Then Dmitry Gorev (real surname Tarasenko) emerged, the son of a merchant who lived not far from the Ostrovskys' (and later turned bankrupt), who published a drama called Tzar the Liberator or the Poor Orphan in 1843. It was Gorev who suggested that they should work upon the play together. Several scenes of Act 1 finished, Gorev suddenly left Moscow and has not been seen there until 1853 when he re-emerged to accuse Ostrovsky of "stealing" the text he, Gorev, had been the co-author of.
Ostrovsky was working on The Bankrupt all through 1847 and 1848. By the end of 1849 it has been finished. Ostrovsky's first audience was his University friend Alexey Pisemsky. He also met the now famous actor Prov Sadovsky who, much impressed, started to recite the play to his literary friends in Moscow. In the summer Ostrovsky read the play at Mikhail Katkov's in Merzlyakovsky Lane where another Moscow University professor, I.V.Belyaev was also present. Both Ostrovsky and Sadovsky started to receive invitations to the houses of Moscow cultural elite (Nikolai and Karolina Pavlovs, Alexander Veltman, professors Stepan Shevyryov and Mikhail Pogodin, at Meshchersky's and Sheremetyev's, even in the astronomer Alexander Drashusov's observatory where they became frequent guests since the autumn of 1849. Ivan Goncharov, who was in Moscow on his way from Saint Petersburg to Simbirsk, has heard the Bankrupt, liked it a lot and advised Ostrovsky to send the play to Krayevsky's Otechestvennye Zapiski. The author decided against it, still hoping to get the censorship permission first.
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