The Storm

One of the best dramas of Ostrovsky is The Thunderstorm (translated into English as The Storm). The scene is laid in a small provincial town, somewhere in the upper Volga, where the manners of the local tradespeople have retained the stamp of primitive wildness. There is, for instance, one old merchant, Dikoy, very much respected by the inhabitants, who represents a special type of tyrants whom Ostrovsky has so well depicted

Dikoy is deaf to entreaties and to tears, and laughs at other people suffering. The chief interest in this novel centered in its essentially poetical subject. Katerína, in the environment of her brutal samodúr mother-in law and weak, dissipating husband, feels the necessity of a poetical union with a kindred soul, a feeling wich has been nurtured by the recollection of a happy youth passed in a loving family in one of the charming spots along the Vólga