SOURCE: "Ostrovsky," in A Panorama of Russian Literature, Barnes & Noble Books, 1973, pp. 147-53.

In the excerpt that follows, Lavrin presents an overview of Ostrovsky's plays, focusing on the playwright's depiction of the Russian merchant class and his interest in moral and social values.

While Russian realism was scoring its triumphs in prose, there was at least one dramatist whose work had affected the Russian theatre or theatres for generations, although his plays are still comparatively little known outside Russia. His name is Alexander Ostrovsky. Paradoxically enough, it was his very originality, his 'Russianness', that was the chief obstacle to an international reputation. His fifty-odd plays, with all their colourfulness, are too remote for foreign audiences who would probably miss in them some of the very points Ostrovsky's own countrymen most enjoyed and evidently still enjoy.

This is true of Ostrovsky's early works in particular. Born (1823) and bred in...