Realistic tendencies in M. N. Zagoskin’s comedies

Abstract

The work of M.N. Zagoskin, a famous novelist and playwright, is associated primarily with historical novels, which were kindly acclaimed by the most talented writers and critics of the 19th century. The perception of the author’s dramatic works was not unambiguous. The author was accused of excessive imitativeness, lack of originality in the images construction, the dialogues development. Analysis of the structure, ideological content, principles of creating characters in M.N. Zagoskin’s plays allows us to speak of the author as a comedian, one of the first to apply realistic principles in the plays’ creation. Such a revolutionary approach consisted mainly of creating an images system: “positive” and “negative” characters in varying degrees, but still endowed with vices. M.N. Zagoskin was able to reflect in his comedies plots the often curiosity of the existing order of things. The senselessness of the noble elite's existence was deduced by the playwright using the example of the characters popular at that time: both positive and negative characters are endowed with “fashionable” personality characteristics. The author shows that contemporary society is struck by the “disease” of imitativeness, and this could become the reason for the loss of national identity. The comedy legacy of M.N. Zagoskin does not lose its relevance, it is highly appreciated from the point of view of ideological content, innovation and patriotic pathos.