Textological Commentary to A. N. Ostrovsky’s Comedy Rich Brides: on the Formation of the Author's Intention

Abstract

The article is devoted to the formation of the author’s intention in A. N. Ostrovsky’s comedy Rich Brides. The play was originally published in 1876 in the February issue of Otechestvennye Zapiski, but before publication it had been staged at the Alexandrinsky (St. Petersburg) and Maly (Moscow) theaters. The comedy provoked very contradictory, and sometimes rude, judgments from critics. In 1876, A. N. Ostrovsky, possibly under the influence of criticism, attempted to partially change the text of the play, but not all the author’s corrections were included in the final version of the comedy, published in 1878. Manuscript departments of the Russian State Library and the Institute of Russian Literature preserve draft autographs of the play, testifying to the formation of the author’s intention. To describe the main stages of work on the text, tracing the nature of the main changes, later saved or rejected by the playwright, is the main task of the presented work.