“The Italian in Kalinov...”: A Parody of the Precedent Text by A.N. Ostrovsky

Abstract

The article briefly reviews the literary fate of A. N. Ostrovsky, his path from “The Storm” to writing historical chronicles and librettos to previously staged dramatic plays. Such a professional transformation provoked the appearance of critical reviews and feuilletons, which primarily ironized not the content of the works, but their form. One of these feuilletons, “The Italian in Kalinov” by G. N. Zhulev, was written against the libretto by A. N. Ostrovsky for the opera “The Storm”. The text is based on the opposition of the “prose” of the life of the original and the false “poetry” of the opera against the background of the discourse of Russian criticism. The appendix contains the text of G. N. Zhulev's parody with commentary and explanation. The article was prepared for the 200th anniversary of A. N. Ostrovsky.