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Abstract: The main objective of the article is to reinterpret A. Ostrovsky’s drama “The Storm” based on the principles of the psychobiographical approach, which presupposes the need to search for and analyze the confessional impulse in the literary text. The hypothesis underlying the article is that the play was written by Ostrovsky during his passionate infatuation with the actress L. Kositskaya, who became the prototype of the main character of “The Storm”; accordingly, the playwright was concerned not so much with the social and moral problems of the Russian society of that time, but with the specific personality traits of his beloved. Kositskaya was an extremely spontaneous person; she made decisions and took actions (especially in the love and family sphere of her life), listening exclusively to her inner voice and not paying attention to rational and logical reasons. To a large extent, Katerina Kabanova, the main character of the drama “The Storm”, has a very similar disposition. The traditional interpretation of the work is based on the fact that Katerina’s tragic fate is determined by the influence of the external environment: according to this point of view, the character is a victim of ugly traditions, cruel morals or complex historical processes (such as, for example, the crisis and destruction of the traditional patriarchal order). The depiction of social unrest occupies a truly important place in the work, however, despite this, the root cause of what happened to Katerina, as the analysis shows, was the fatal marriage, which was the result of her own voluntary choice (the version according to which the main character was married against her will contradicts the plot and semantic realities of the text). Thus, the undertaken research leads the reader to the conclusion that Katerina’s tragedy should be largely attributed to the factor of her specific spontaneously irrational mentality. The image of the main character of “The Storm” should be considered in the context of the conflict between the “head and the heart,” which largely determined the cultural and ideological atmosphere characteristic of the Russian society at that time, when women’s emancipation was perceived as a rebellion of the emotional principle against rationality.

About the author(s) :

Alexander O. Bolshev

Saint Petersburg State University (Saint Petersburg, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0974-2145

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 03.12.2024; date of publication: 28.03.2025

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