Playwright Alexander Ostrovsky, the 200th Anniversary of his Birth

Obverse

a relief image of the National Coat of Arms of the Russian Federation and a semicircular inscription above it along the rim: ‘РОССИЙСКАЯ ФЕДЕРАЦИЯ’ (RUSSIAN FEDERATION) framed with paired diamonds on both sides, under the coat of arms there are the chemical symbol of the metal and fineness on the left and fine metal content and the mint trade mark on the right, at the bottom in the centre, in three lines, there is an inscription: ‘БАНК РОССИИ’ (BANK OF RUSSIA), the coin denomination: ‘2 РУБЛЯ’ (2 RUBLES), and the year of issue: ‘2023 г.’ (2023).

Reverse

a relief image of Alexander Ostrovsky’s portrait against the background of a raised grande drape; an image of a scene from the play The Storm, cast in relief and laser-treated for matte finishing, on the left; and a relief image of a quill, the facsimile of the playwright’s signature, and the years of his birth and death ‘1823’ and ‘1886’ below.

Authors

Designers: E.V. Kramskaya (obverse), A.A. Chernova (reverse).
Sculptors: A.A. Dolgopolova (obverse), A.A. Chernova (reverse).
Mint: Saint Petersburg Mint (СПМД).
Edge: 195 corrugations.

Discover more

Alexander Ostrovsky (1823–1886) is a Russian playwright whose works formed the basis for the national theatre art. An attentive observer, the writer was able to perfectly describe his contemporaries’ life and manners. Leo Tolstoy believed that Ostrovsky was a truly national writer in the widest sense. Critic Ivan Goncharov said: ‘You have gifted a whole library of works of art to literature and created a special world for the theatrical stage. You are the one who has completed the construction of a building, the foundation stones of which were laid by Fonvizin, Griboyedov, and Gogol.’

Alexander Ostrovsky symbolises a whole epoch in Russia’s cultural life of the 1850–1880s. Society’s vices – the power of money, women’s rightlessness, and the prevalence of violence and abuse of power – were the main topics of his works. The dramatist studied everyday life, manners, behaviours, and language features of various groups of Russian society, acquiring a wealth of knowledge for his literary works.

His talent was recognised in the literary world after he wrote the comedy ‘A Family Affair’ in 1850. The first public reading of the play took place in historian Mikhail Pogodin’s house and was attended by Nikolay Gogol. Poet Nikolay Berg wrote that all representatives of the intellectual class in Moscow started to talk of the play as of something extraordinary. In 1850, the play was published by the magazine Moskvityanin, after which the number of its readers increased from 500 to 1,100. It was difficult to find the Moskvityanin issue with the play.

Overall, the dramatist wrote 47 plays, including ‘Stay in Your Own Sled’, ‘A Profitable Position’, ‘Even a Wise Man Stumbles’, ‘Talents and Admirers’, ‘Guilty Without Guilt’, ‘The Storm’, ‘The Forest’, ‘Wolves and Sheep’, ‘Without a Dowry’, and others.

Today, Ostrovsky’s plays are in the repertoires of many Russian theatres and have become the basis for many domestic movies.

Source: https://www.culture.ru