Alexander Ostrovsky's A Profitable Position

I've recently been caught up trying to catch up with theater.  To this end, I've been building my collection of plays, both Russian and non-Russian.  I've read or reread much of Shakespeare, especially the tragedies, and spent some time on August Wilson and other modern playwrights.  With respect to this blog, I've posted recently on Chekhov and Platonov and stumbled on a few other Russian playwrights.  One glaring omission in my reading has been Alexander Ostrovsky.  I know little about either the man or his works, but finally decided to do something about this omission by reading Ostrovsky's A Profitable Position.

At first, I found the language of this mid-19th century play to be a little too formal, stiff, and dated.  It's themes seemed modern, but the language and structure seemed trapped between modern and pre-modern sensibilities.  However, by the time I had finished the play I was completely enthralled with the importance of the play's themes, the modernity of its conflicts, and the incredible tension that had developed between its characters.  A modern reader can't help but be struck by the fact that Ostrovsky's play prefigures Turganev's novel, Father's and Sons.  The conflict between a corrupt but successful uncle and a noble but impoverished nephew is a powerful dramatic engine.  The nephew strives to leverage youth, education, and idealism, against his uncle's experience, cynical wisdom, and venality.

The almost mythological power of the father-son conflict is supplemented by the author's critique of traditional roles.  Here, the author makes a sophisticated attempt to link societal corruption in the public sphere with societal corruption in the private sphere.  If men are tempted to steal in the public sphere, it is largely because they are expected to use stolen funds to provide consumer goods to females in the private sphere.  The critique is redolent of Engels' critique of bourgeois marriage.  Like Engels, Ostrovsky suggests that the ethics of marriage often resemble the ethics of prostitution.  The most impressive component of Ostrovsky's critique--which never completely releases women from a dependent gender role--is that he demonstrates the extent to which both men and women replicate the ideology of prostitution.  Young girls ask their husbands to buy them things to adore themselves in polite society, but their mothers teach them to do so.  And men seem only too happy to purchase the love and respect of their brides, as for example when the old male lead of the play, Vyshnevsky, showers gifts on his young bride in order to convince her to marry him, and remain intimate with him, despite her understandable disinterest in him.

The play's ending is optimistic.  Vshnevsky is publicly shamed, prosecuted for his venality, and ultimately suffers a stroke.  His foil, the youthful Zhadov, stumbles, but recovers his dignity, and decides that all of his philosophical training should be put into practice at any cost.   The optimism seems a little sappy to the modern ear.  However, its dramatic effect is heightened by the author's sympathy for the old Russia.  While the author knows corruption is wrong, he understands why even good characters, like the protagonist Zhadov, are drawn to it.  Modern readers may also see a hint of revolutionary tragedy in the whole affair.  While Russia's youth would continue to oppose ideological purity to Ancien Regime corruption, the cure would turn out to be worth than the disease.

But how do I become a Russophile?

So you want to be a Russophile but you don’t know where to start. It’s a very common conundrum. Do you delve right into Dr. Zhivago? Well, I suppose you could do worse. Zhivago has its merits. You’re not dealing with the best in Russian literature, but you do have the advantage of a damned good film to get you primed for the book. And Zhivago takes you right into the Revolution and the subsequent Civil War. You get a glimpse of class conflict, a healthy dose of Russian tragedy and suffering, a glimpse of Russian poetry, a dash of romanticism and nostalgia, and a nice introduction to the Siberian landscape. On the other hand, I’d also recommend a short book on Stalin, who seems to encapsulate Russia’s long experience with autocracy. I’d probably start with Koba the Dread. Martin Amis, the author, has taken the trouble to encapsulate his father’s famous flair for anti-communism in digestible form. Koba was one of Stalin’s hundreds of nicknames. You get all Stalin’s crimes in a neat, artistic tale of horror, with Stalin cast as a monstrous killer. If this doesn’t seem like it could be the last word on a man like Stalin, who was capable of charming F.D.R. as well as Zinoviev and Kamenev, you’re right. But certainly Stalin had his vampiric qualities, and these deserve a little attention from a gifted mythologist like Amis. Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons would be a third choice. It’s short, perhaps 200 pages, written by one of Russia’s most notable authors, and not too complicated or involved. And it gives you a plot as well as a style rooted in the 19th century but pointing toward the 20th. By contemporary standards, it’s a gentle plot, but one that adumbrates generational conflicts that will become increasingly antagonistic in the future. And of course its lead character was based on the real life of Bakunin: and what better guide to Russia could there be? I wonder what other books readers would recommend as a primer to the tragic greatness of the Russian past?