d Aryol) a solitary, surly man
is called a wolf-_biriuk_.

[25] For a nursing-bottle, the Russian peasants use a cow's horn, with a
cow's teat tied over the tip.

CHAPTER X

SEVENTH PERIOD: OSTROVSKY, A. K. TOLSTOY, POLONSKY, NEKRASOFF,
SHEVTCHENKO, AND OTHERS.

The new impulse imparted to all branches of literature in Russia during
the '50's and the '60's could not fail to find a reflection in the
fortunes of the drama also. Nowhere is the spirit of the period more
clearly set forth than in the history of the Russian theater, by the
creation of an independent Russian stage.

Russian comedy had existed from the days of Sumarokoff, as we have seen,
and had included such great names as Von Vizin, Griboyedoff, and Gogol.
But great as were the works of these authors, they cannot be called its
creators, in the true sense of the word, because their plays were like
oases far apart, separated by great intervals of time, and left behind
them no established school. Although Von Vizin's comedies contain much
that is independent and original, they are fashioned after the models of
the French stage, as is apparent at every step. "Woe from Wit" counts
rather as a specimen of talented social satire than as a model comedy,
and in its type, this comedy of Griboyedoff also bears the imprint of
the French stage. Gogol's comedies, despite their great talent, left
behind them no followers, and had no imitators. In the '30's and the
'40's the repertory of the Russian theater consisted of plays which had
nothing in common with "Woe from Wit," "The Inspector," or "Marriage,"
and the latter was rarely played. As a whole, the stage was given over
to translations of sensational French melodramas and to patriotic
tragedies.

The man who changed all this and created Russian drama, Alexander
Nikolaevitch Ostrovsky (1823-1886), was born in Moscow, the son of a
poor lawyer, whose business lay with the merchant class of the
Trans-Moscow River quarter, of the type which we meet with in Alexander
Nikolaevitch's celebrated comedies. The future dramatist, who spent most
of his life in Moscow, was most favorably placed to observe the varied
characteristics of Russian life, and also Russian historical types; for
Moscow, in the '30's and '40's of the nineteenth century, was the focus
of all Russia, and contained within its walls all the historical and
contemporary peculiarities of the nation. On leaving the University
(where he did not finish