Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky was a Russian playwright, generally considered the greatest representative of the Russian realistic period. The author of 47 original plays, Ostrovsky "almost single-handedly created a Russian national repertoire." His dramas are among the most widely read and frequently performed stage pieces in Russia.
Portrait by Vasily Perov, 1871
Moscow's First Gymnasium where Ostrovsky studied
Konstantin Rybakov (as Bolshov) and Vladimir Maksheyev (as Rispolozhensky) in Ostrovsky's Family Affair. Maly Theatre, 1892
On 15 February 1856, the six Sovremennik authors (excluding Nekrasov who was unwell that day) visited the photographer Sergei Levitsky's studio to sit for a photograph session. Ostrovsky is far right.
Sovremennik was a Russian literary, social and political magazine, published in Saint Petersburg in 1836–1866. It came out four times a year in 1836–1843 and once a month after that. The magazine published poetry, prose, critical, historical, ethnographic and other material.
The title page of the issue printed after the death of Alexander Pushkin
Most popular contributors to Sovremennik in 1856 (left to right): Ivan Goncharov, Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Dmitri Grigorovich, Alexander Druzhinin and Aleksandr Ostrovsky
Contributors to Sovremennik
"Inevitable Contributors"
