One more Emma Bovary on the banks of the Volga?

A little grave under a tree ... how sweet.... The sunshine warms it, the sweet rain falls on it ... in the spring the grass grows on it, soft and sweet grass ... the birds will fly in the tree and sing, and bring up their little ones, and flowers will bloom; golden, red and blue ... all sorts of flowers, (dreamily) all sorts of flowers ... how still! how sweet! My heart's as it were lighter!




While discussing Nikolai Leskov’s [b:Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk|58043|Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk|Nikolai Leskov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388712638l/58043._SY75_.jpg|56529], my friend Katia was so kind to bring a Russian play to my attention addressing related issues, Alexandr Ostrovsky’s The storm (also known as The Thunderstorm,1859). Just like many will be familiar with Nikolai Leskov’s short story via Shostakovich’s eponymous opera, I found myself cognizant of the plot of Ostrovsky’s play in a different package, namely the opera Leoš Janáček composed under the title of the name of the play’s central character, Katya Kabanova, which I attended in a staging by Robert Carsen in the Flemish opera back in 2004.

Alexandr Nikolayevich Ostrovsky (1823-1886) was a playwright and director, closely connected to the Maly theatre in Moscow. His plays epitomize the matching part in drama of the great realist novel in the second half of the 19th century in Russia. While unlike Chekhov’s plays, Ostrovsky’s plays are little known outside of Russia as difficult to translate truthfully, to this day many of his about fifty plays, comedies and tragedies which are often set in a peasant, petty bourgeois or middle class merchant milieu are still frequently performed in Russia.

Like Leskov’s [b:Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk|58043|Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk|Nikolai Leskov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388712638l/58043._SY75_.jpg|56529], Ostrovsky’s The Storm is an utterly dark and bleak story, which entices contemplating the place of women and the individual in Russian society in the 19th century, the storm of the title reflecting the weather, the inner tensions of the central figure and the intergenerational tensions within family and society. Infidelity is the social transgression through which lens we will witness the acts, emotions and predicament of an offender of social norms in a stifling, oppressive environment, in both cases from a woman’s perspective. The parallels between both tragedies are striking; both Leskov’s Katerina Lvovna and Ostrovsky’s Katerina Kabanova will pay a ghastly price, torn between their desire for freedom and love and their conscience, crushed in the end by their sweltering sense of guilt. That their destiny despite their differences in character and in their acts will turn out quite similar (and is in tune with the common treatment of the 19th century literary (anti)heroine who breaks the rules or digresses from the norms of their social milieu) illustrates the zeitgeist doesn't allow a different outcome yet, regardless of their distinctive individuality and attempts of protest. In the person of Varvara, Katerina Kabanova young sister-in-law, Ostrovsky suggests this will be different for the younger generation however, a sparkle of hope where relationships seems stifled by obscure conservative morals.




Both Katerina’s are passionate, intense women bound in a loveless marriage. Both belong to the merchant class and are confined to domestic life, kept in check by a parent-in-law when the husband is absent. While Katerina Lvovna will commit hideous crimes following the adultery she gets caught up in a state of mind of sheer boredom, Katerina Kabanova is a dreamy, sensitive soul who has internalized the cage she yearns to escape, a cage built from mystic religious beliefs and traditions from which she cannot free herself (nor could her weak lover Boris).

In [b:De Russische leeslijst: Essays over de klassieke Russische literatuur|10732634|De Russische leeslijst Essays over de klassieke Russische literatuur|Alexander Genis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1299571852l/10732634._SY75_.jpg|15643498] Alexandr Genis and Pjotr Vajljl draw a quite fascinating comparison between The storm and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary(the scandal and legal procedure surrounding Flaubert’s novel was reported in the Russian papers and the novel which got translated into Russian in 1858 made a big impression in Russia). They showcase how The storm mirrors Madame Bovary in many aspects, structurally as well as in character types (the despotic and hostile mothers-in-law, the feeble and docile husbands, the helpless lovers, the asides formulated by the adepts of science) and even imagery (birds, visions of hell). They propagate the thesis that Ostrovsky polemicizes against Flaubert’s novel and that his play in this respect can be situated in the ongoing discussion between Westerners and Slavophiles. By making his Katerina an emblem of the unfathomably profound lyrical Russian soul, Ostrovksy contrasts her exalted state of mind and her irrationalism with the ennui of Emma and the money-driven world of Madame Bovary in which Emma eventually perishes in the banality of debts.

Katerina’s infatuation (awakening pretty abruptly in the play), her fatalism, her acute emotionality and sense of doom might come across as rather perplexing at present times, nevertheless her elated poetic observations, wistfulness, longing for love and freedom and suffering are still likely to strike a chord.



And what dreams I used to have, dear Varia, what lovely dreams! Golden temples or gardens of some wonderful sort, and voices of unseen spirits singing, and the sweet scent of cypress and mountains and trees, not such as we always see, but as they are painted in the holy pictures. And sometimes I seemed to be flying, simply flying in the air. I dream sometimes now, but not often, and never dreams like those.

The play can be read here.
(***½)

3.5.

after my last update, this actually got pretty good. i might end up rounding it to four stars in the future but i disliked the first half of it so much i might not.

3.5.

after my last update, this actually got pretty good. i might end up rounding it to four stars in the future but i disliked the first half of it so much i might not.