Aim. We examine the role of sentences of desirability (optative) in the language of drama as one of the means of speech characterization of characters, and identify their expressive possibilities in the space of a dramatic text.
Methodology. The paper considers the main features of the functioning of sentences of desirability (optative) in the speech of the characters of A. N. Ostrovsky’s dramatic work; multi-level means in volved in the creation of an artistic image are identified and analyzed. Use is made of the methods of observation, generalization, and interpretation of the results, as well as of discursive analysis.
Results. We determined the role of sentences of desirability as a means of speech characteristics of the heroes of the play. Using the text material, which has not previously been subjected to such an analysis, we systematized the means of the category of optativity, with the help of which a mechanism is realized for creating artistic imagery and expressiveness in the idiostyle of A. N. Ostrovsky.
Research implications. The results of the research expand and complement the ideas about the expressive possibilities that optative sentences are promising for their research on the material of dramatic texts

Aim. We identify and consider the specifics of the language means of the cycle of N. S. Leskov’s critical publications “Russian Drama Theater in St. Petersburg,” characterizing the work of A. N. Ostrovsky, including the drama “Abyss”.
Methodology. A model of the individual-author’s presentation of theatrical plays and productions is developed based on the descriptive-analytical method. Use is also made of stylistic-functional-contextological and linguoculturological methods, which are significant.
Results. The corpus of linguistic units as a means of predication in paradigmatics and syntagmatics is revealed, which is used to evaluate the plays of A. N. Ostrovsky, representing the approach of N. S. Leskov to the theater as an intellectual and cultural source.
Research implications. The study and description of lexical units in these works by N. S. Leskov make it possible to reveal an individual-author’s approach to one of the most prominent Russian playwrights and his drama “Abyss,” in particular. The practical significance of the study is determined by the possibility of using materials and conclusions in teaching the stylistics of the Russian language, the language of fiction, and in the possibility of using the results to describe individual author’s concept spheres

Aim. We identify the features of the functioning of bookish analytical constructions in the replicas of the characters of A. Ostrovsky’s plays.
Methodology. The paper examines the stylistic significance of descriptive verb-nominal phrases with the components to do and to have, characteristic of the language of dramatic works by A. N. Ostrovsky. Use is made of such methods of observation, generalization, and interpretation of the results.
Results. In the course of the work, we show the peculiarity of the expressiveness of analytical constructions based on the stylistic mismatch of descriptive phrase and context. The deliberate inappropriateness of language units with bookish stylistic coloring in a dialogical replica imitating oral speech is used by A. Ostrovsky as a means of characterization of characters. Structural transformations of the nominal component of analytical constructions contribute to the emergence of an ironic meaning in the statement.
Research implications. The results of the study expand the understanding of the evaluative potential of descriptive verb-nominal phrases in the language of fiction.

Aim. We analyze the significance of the name of A. N. Ostrovsky as a precedent for the linguistic personality of N. S. Leskov, according to his texts reflecting the author’s idiolect, including the anthroponymicon.
Methodology. Using a targeted sample from texts of various genres, including the epistolary genre, we revealed ideologically, aesthetically, and pragmatically stimulated consituations, in which N. S. Leskov addressed the name of A. N. Ostrovsky, who is an authoritative representative of the older generation of writers of the 19th century and a venerable playwright. The means of predication are analyzed, allowing one to establish the significance of this anthroponym and related words of the proprietary vocabulary. Applied research methods include linguistic observation, description, interpretation, comparison, and elements of component analysis.
Results. The use of the proprietary vocabulary (the name of A. N. Ostrovsky, the titles of his works, and the heroes of character zones) and phraseological units from the replicas of actors and the assessment of the frequency of use of such a unit as “cruel morals” indicate the high importance of the anthroponym in N. S. Leskov’s texts and the precedent character and value of the onym in Leskov’s anthroponymicon as a linguistic personality.

Aim. We examine lexico-grammatical markers of the syntactic time category based on the text of A. N. Ostrovsky’s comedy “It’s a family affair – we’ll settle it ourselves.”. Methodology. Methods of linguistic observation, description, interpretation, and generalization are employed to structurally and semantically analyze sentences from A. N. Ostrovsky’s comedy, extracted by targeted sampling.
Result. Peculiarities of the structure, functions, and lexical and grammatical semantics of sentences containing temporal adverbs, temporal syntaxemes or temporal substantive phrases are identified. It is shown that preserving the grammatical form increases the semantic saturation of the statement and its emotional-expressive and functional orientation.
Research implications. The theoretical significance is determined by the contribution to the methodology of linguistic description of simple sentences and by the demand for the proposed approach in syntactic analysis. The practical significance of the presented materials stems from the possibility of their use in the practice of teaching philological disciplines.

Aim. The central task of the paper is to analyze the dynamics of the development of the concept of beauty in A. N. Ostrovsky’s plays, considering its genesis and development specifics in the context of the playwright’s artistic anthropology. We also reveal the contradictions and dramatic conflicts caused by beauty as a defining characteristic of a character.
Methodology. The analysis is based on the principles of literary anthropology, which implies consideration of the writer’s artistic world in the aspect of the concept of a person, which is formed in it. The analysis of the concept of beauty involves addressing the problems of physical and spiritual principles in a person, the correlation of conditionality and freedom, and natural and social principles. The context of the analysis is the concept of beauty, which took shape in the Russian literature and journalism of Ostrovsky’s epoch, from N. G. Chernyshevsky to V. S. Solovyov.
Results. The undertaken analysis made it possible to identify and consider the motive “the fate of beauty” in Ostrovsky’s plays of different periods. On its basis, a typology of characters is proposed, and the main differences between the images of “beauty” and “handsome” in the writer’s dramaturgy are revealed in terms of the ratio of absolute and relative principles, substantially and socially conditioned, opposing the surrounding world or conventionally associated with it.
Research implications. The results of the study can form the basis for considering the aesthetics of the playwright Ostrovsky, as well as for studying the concepts of “beauty” / “handsome” in the works of writers – his contemporaries, in Russian dramaturgy of the second half of the 19th century.

Aim. We systematize the literary-critical observations on Ostrovsky’s comedy “The Poor Bride” expressed by Turgenev in the review of this play, which are not so much a criticism of the text, but statements about the principles of the psychological theater that emerged in Russia in the middle of the 19th century.
Methodology. Use is made of the historical-cultural and comparative-typological approaches. Results. It is found that with the advent of Ostrovsky, who relied on popular culture and developed democratic theater, Turgenev became disillusioned with the possibility of creating a subtle psychological play adequate to the possibilities of stage, and that his article on “The Poor Bride” is partly an admission of his defeat. The article proves that Turgenev considers Ostrovsky not so much as an opponent in the dramatic field, but as a like-minded person. Turgenev the critic finds in Ostrovsky’s new play a deep understanding of the nature of modern man, since the most successful characters in “The Poor Bride” embody various egoistic traits in an original way. Turgenev’s criticism of the “false manner,” or “false” psychologism is significantly corrected by the support of deep psychologism, which is expressed in the so-called “sudden movements.” Turgenev’s disagreement with the principles of building the character of Ostrovsky’s central heroine is motivated by a lack of understanding of the psychological pattern of her character and the enthusiasm of the critic for Goethe’s “Faust” and the tragic image of Gretchen. On the whole, in “The Poor Bride” Turgenev sees a play that is close to his dramatic line, since he himself repeatedly turned to plots in the spirit of the “natural school”, which differed from the trend outlined by Ostrovsky in the comedy “Our people – let’s get along”. It was the failure in the dramatic field that caused Turgenev to strongly wish Ostrovsky to return to the lost path. Turgenev did not call on the playwright to abandon the psychological vector, but he acknowledged that a writer for the theater must choose very balanced decisions in the stage embodiment of the inner person.
Research implications. The work is of theoretical importance, since the content of the methods of psychological reconstruction of a person in the dramatic art of the 1840s‒1850s is specified. It is also of practical importance for understanding the history of the development of Russian drama, and for concretizing the problem of the creative dialogue between Turgenev and Ostrovsky

Aim. We reveal the personality features of A. N. Ostrovsky based on the memoirs of S. V. Maksimov, his contemporary and the ethnographer.
Methodology. The portrait of A. N. Ostrovsky is considered as the subject of the study; both the principles of portraiture themselves and the accents placed by the writer-ethnographer who personally knew Ostrovsky and was close to him in his value orientations and moral sympathies, are revealed. The methodology of the work relies on the use of biographical, cultural-historical, and psychological methods that allow us to present the personality of Ostrovsky and his value orientations.
Results. It is determined that the portrait of Ostrovsky created by S. V. Maksimov is based on the Russian literary and critical tradition, and recreates the appearance of the writer in the unity of the external manifestations of his character and his ideals. It is revealed that the process of portraying the writer in S. V. Maksimov’s essay is associated with the use of contrast techniques, metaphorical comparison, and allusions to the Holy Scriptures. The portrait of A. N. Ostrovsky is created by describing his face and the way he dresses, as well as by attention to the details of the landscape and interior, which is determined not only by the general attitudes when creating a portrait and the fact of personal communication of writers, but also reflects the specific skills of S. V. Maksimov as an ethnographer writer.
Research implications. The theoretical significance of the study is to identify the principles of portraying the writer in the ethnographic direction of the Russian literature. The results of the research can be used in the value study of the writer’s personality in school and university literature courses.

Aim. We present the concept of A. N. Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy as a national poetic epic. Methodology. In our research, we rely on the views of A. A. Grigoriev, A. V. Druzhinin, and I. A. Goncharov, who laid the foundations for an objective and ideologically free understanding of Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy as folk poetry. Unfortunately, for many decades, especially in the Soviet era, a satirical concept of N. A. Dobrolyubov about Ostrovsky’s dramaturgy prevailed. The methodology of the research is based on a hermeneutical approach to the literary text associated with the strategy of understanding and explanation, with the need to turn to the theory of tradition, accumulating the entire Orthodox dogmaticliturgical ontos of the Church.
Results. The dramaturgy of A. N. Ostrovsky appears as a national poetic epic aimed at poetizing the historical path of Russia, its religious values, the fundamental foundations of Russian life, and its eternal ideals. The reception of Ostrovsky’s artistic thinking, in the form of a national-poetic epic about the historical path of Russia and the fate of the hero, are relevant not only for the present, but also for the “ever-present”, according to N. N. Strakhov.
Research implications. The original concept of the national poetic epic of A. N. Ostrovsky is proposed, which contributes to the expansion and deepening of ideas about the poetics of the playwright; his generic properties and existential symbols are highlighted, and the features of the special typology of Ostrovsky’s heroes are outlined. The research material can be used in teaching the history of the Russian literature and in special courses on the works of A. N. Ostrovsky

Aim. We reveal Tolstoy’s attitude to Ostrovsky’s play “Thunderstorm” in its interpretation by Dobrolyubov, the founder of “real criticism”.
Methology. Using the analysis of Tolstoy’s views on Ostrovsky’s work, the drama “Thunderstorm”, and the draft versions of the novel “Anna Karenina” relating to the death of Katerina, we make conclusions that Tolstoy possibly used not only Ostrovsky’s play, but also Dobrolyubov’s articles dedicated to it and hidden polemic with a critic.
Results. The choice made by Tolstoy in favor of one of the variants of the tragic outcome in the novel “Anna Karenina” gives an idea of the reasons for the writer’s rejection of Ostrovsky’s drama “Thunderstorm”, about his critical assessment of the democratic wing of Russian social thought in the person of its main representatives such as Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky. Tolstoy and Dobrolyubov interpreted human nature in their own ways; each had his own understanding of eudmonism, the problem of good and evil, the relationship of the individual and the environment, and the tasks of literature. The writer polemicized with the writers of the mid-18th century in three main directions: social, ethical, and aesthetic, which was reflected in several his works, including in the novel Anna Karenina.
Research implications. The paper discusses the issue of Tolstoy’s polemic position in relation to the tasks of modern literature, the revolutionary and democratic education, the “real criticism” of Dobrolyubov, and his interpretation of Ostrovsky’s drama the “Thunderstorm”, which was realized both in direct journalistic statements of the artist, and in the process of writing the novel “Anna Karenina.” The results of the study can be used to further study Tolstoy’s work and the history of Russian criticism, as well as in the course of teaching the history of the Russian literature of the 19th century