About the work
Comedy in three acts by Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky, written in 1854 and first performed on 25 January 1854 at the Maly Theatre in Moscow, followed the same year by a production in St Petersburg. The play was written under the influence of the Slavophile circle around the journal "Moskvityanin," with which Ostrovsky was then closely associated, and is more conciliatory in tone than his earlier merchant plays.
Plot
The wealthy, heartless merchant Gordey Torzov wants to marry off his daughter Lyubov against her will to the rich but dissolute manufacturer Korshunov and forbids her love for his humble clerk Mitya. Only his impoverished but upright brother Lyubim brings Torzov to his senses during the Christmas festivities, so that he finally consents to the marriage of Mitya and Lyubov.
Cultural significance
With its many Christmas customs, songs and rituals of provincial Russia, the play paints a folkloric counter-image to the cold calculation of the business world and marks Ostrovsky's turn toward a more conciliatory, comic register. The figure of the impoverished but morally upright brother Lyubim Torzov became one of the most popular comic roles in nineteenth-century Russian theatre.