SOURCE: "A. N. Ostrovski: Slavophile or Westerner," in Slavic Studies, edited by Alexander Kaun and Ernest J. Simmons, Cornell University Press, 1943, pp. 117-31.

In the following essay, Patrick analyzes the long-standing debate over whether Ostrovsky's writings reveal him to be a "Slavophile," rejecting Western values in favor of traditional Russian culture, or a "Westerner," recognizing "a spiritual kinship and solidarity between Russia and Europe. "

In the history of Russian literature Alexander Nikolaevich Ostrovski (1823-1886) is known chiefly as the faithful recorder of the life and manners of the merchant class which he had observed and studied from his youth.¹ This mercantile class, abounding in patriarchal characters, had hardly been dealt with in Russian literature before Ostrovski; it was slightly touched upon by Gogol (1809-1852) in the comedy Marriage, where we find an excellent portrayal of a merchant's daughter in search of a bridegroom from the nobility. But the...