In Katerina’s worldview, Slavic pagan antiquity, rooted in prehistoric times, harmoniously merges with the democratic trends of Christian culture. Katerina’s religiosity includes sunrises and sunsets, dewy grass in flowering meadows, birds flying, butterflies fluttering from flower to flower. Along with it is the beauty of a rural church, and the expanse of the Volga, and the Trans-Volga meadow expanse. And as the heroine prays, “what an angelic smile she has on her face, and her face seems to glow.”
Emitting spiritual light earthly heroine Ostrovsky is far from the harsh asceticism of Domostroevsky morality. According to the rules of Domostroy, during church prayer one had to listen to divine singing with unflagging attention, and “keep your eyes down.” he directs his eyes upward. And what does she see, what does she hear during church prayer? These angelic choirs in the pillar sunlight, pouring from the dome, this church singing, picked up by the singing of birds, this spirituality of the earthly elements - the elements of heaven: “Actually, it happened that I would go in, and I don’t see anyone, and I don’t remember the time, and I don’t hear when the service is over.”
Katerina experiences the joy of life in the temple. She bows to the sun in her garden, among the trees, herbs, flowers, and the morning freshness of awakening nature. “Or early in the morning I’ll go to the garden, the sun is just rising, I’ll fall on my knees, pray and cry:”
In a difficult moment of her life, Katerina will complain: “If only I had died as a little girl, it would have been better. I would look from heaven to earth and rejoice at everything. Otherwise she would fly invisibly wherever she wanted. I would fly out into the field and fly from cornflower to cornflower in the wind, like a butterfly.” " Why do people they don’t fly!.. I say: why don’t people fly like birds? You know, sometimes I feel like I'm a bird. When you stand on a mountain, you feel the urge to fly. That’s how I would run up, raise my hands and fly.”
Katerina’s freedom-loving impulses, even in her childhood memories, are not spontaneous: “I was born so hot! I was still six years old, no more, so I did it! They offended me with something at home, and it was late in the evening, it was already dark, I ran out to the Volga, got into the boat and pushed it away from the shore.” After all, this act of Katerina is completely consistent with her people's soul. In Russian fairy tales, the hero is always hiding from his pursuers.
Since ancient times, they worshiped rivers and believed that they all flow to the end of the white world, to where the sun rises from the sea - to the land of truth and goodness. Along the Volga, in a dugout boat, the Kostroma residents sailed the sun god Yarila and escorted him to the promised land of warm waters. They threw shavings from the coffin into running water. They floated obsolete icons along the river. So, little Katerina’s impulse to seek protection from the Volga is a departure from untruth and evil to the land of light and goodness, this is a rejection of “wrong lies” with early childhood and readiness to leave the world if everything in it “gets fed up” with her.
Without feeling the pristine freshness of Katerina’s inner world, you will not understand the vitality and power of her character, the figurative mystery of the folk language. “How frisky I was! - Katerina turns to Varvara, but then, wilting, she adds: “I’ve completely withered with you.” Katerina’s soul, blossoming at the same time as nature, really fades in the hostile world of wild boars and wild boars.
In the early fifties, significant changes occurred in Ostrovsky’s work. A look at merchant life in the first comedy “Our People - We Will Be Numbered!” seems to the playwright “young and too tough.” “: It is better for a Russian person to rejoice when he sees himself on stage than to be sad. Correctors will be found even without us. In order to have the right to correct the people without offending them, you need to show them that you know the good in them; This is what I’m doing now, combining the sublime with the comic.” In the plays of the first half of the fifties, “Don’t get into your own sleigh,” “Poverty is not a vice,” and “Don’t live as you want,” Ostrovsky portrays mainly the bright, poetic sides. The same traditions are preserved in the drama “The Thunderstorm”. The poetics of Ostrovsky’s works still captivates the hearts of readers and viewers.
In the drama “The Thunderstorm,” Ostrovsky created a very psychologically complex image - the image of Katerina Kabanova. This young woman charms the viewer with her huge, pure soul, childish sincerity and kindness. But she lives in the musty atmosphere of the “dark kingdom” of merchant morals. Ostrovsky managed to create a bright and poetic image of a Russian woman from the people. Main storyline plays are tragic conflict the living, feeling soul of Katerina and the dead way of life of the “dark kingdom”. Honest and touching Katerina turned out to be a powerless victim of the cruel orders of the merchant environment. No wonder Dobrolyubov called Katerina “a ray of light in dark kingdom" Katerina did not accept despotism and tyranny; Driven to despair, she challenges the “dark kingdom” and dies. This is the only way she can save her inner world from harsh pressure. According to critics, for Katerina “it is not death that is desirable, but life that is unbearable. Living for her means being yourself. Not being herself means not living for her.”
The image of Katerina is built on a folk-poetic basis. Her pure soul is fused with nature. She presents herself as a bird, the image of which in folklore is closely connected with the concept of will. “I lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild.” Katerina, who ended up in Kabanova’s house as if in a terrible prison, often remembers her parents’ home, where she was treated with love and understanding. Talking to Varvara, the heroine asks: “...Why don’t people fly like birds? You know, sometimes I feel like I’m a bird.” Katerina breaks free from the cage, where she is forced to remain until the end of her days.
High feelings, religion aroused a surge of joy and reverence in her. The beauty and fullness of the heroine’s soul were expressed in prayers to God. “On a sunny day, such a light column goes down from the dome, and smoke moves in this column, like clouds, and I see it as if angels are flying and singing in this column. And then, it happened... at night I would get up... and somewhere in the corner and pray until the morning. Or I’ll go into the garden early in the morning, when the sun is still rising, I’ll fall on my knees, pray and cry.”
Katerina expresses her thoughts and feelings poetically vernacular. The heroine's melodious speech is colored by love for the world, the use of many diminutive forms characterizes her soul. She says “sunshine”, “voditsa”, “grave”, often resorts to repetitions, as in songs: “on a good three”, “and people are disgusting to me, and the house is disgusting to me, and the walls are disgusting.” Trying to throw out the feelings boiling in her, Katerina exclaims: “Violent winds, bear with him my sadness and melancholy!”
Katerina's tragedy is that she does not know how and does not want to lie. And in the “dark kingdom” lies are the basis of life and relationships. Boris tells her: “No one will know about our love...”, to which Katerina replies: “Let everyone know, let everyone see what I do!” These words reveal the courageous, integral nature of this woman, who risks challenging ordinary morality and confronting society alone.
But, having fallen in love with Boris, Katerina enters into a struggle with herself, with her beliefs. She, a married woman, feels like a great sinner. Her faith in God is not the hypocrisy of Kabanikha, who covers up her anger and misanthropy with God. Awareness of her own sinfulness and pangs of conscience haunt Katerina. She complains to Varya: “Oh, Varya, sin is on my mind! How much I, poor thing, cried, what I didn’t do to myself! I can't escape this sin. Can't go anywhere. After all, this is not good, this is a terrible sin, Varenka, why do I love someone else?” Katerina does not think about the fact that she was violated by marrying someone she didn’t love. Her husband, Tikhon, is glad to leave home and does not want to protect his wife from her mother-in-law. Her heart tells her that her love is the greatest happiness, in which there is nothing bad, but the morality of society and the church does not forgive the free expression of feelings. Katerina struggles among unsolvable questions.
The tension in the play increases, Katerina is afraid of a thunderstorm, hears terrible prophecies of a crazy lady, sees a picture on the wall depicting doomsday. In a darkened state of mind, she repents of her sin. Repentance from the heart according to religious laws necessarily requires forgiveness. But people have forgotten the kind, forgiving and loving God; they are left with a punishing and punishing God. Katerina does not receive forgiveness. She doesn’t want to live and suffer, she has nowhere to go, her loved one turned out to be as weak and dependent as her husband. Everyone betrayed her. The church believes suicide terrible sin, but for Katerina this is an act of despair. It is better to end up in hell than to live in the “dark kingdom.” The heroine cannot harm anyone, so she decides to die herself. Throwing herself off a cliff into the Volga, at the last moment Katerina thinks not about her sin, but about love, which illuminated her life with great happiness. Katerina’s last words are addressed to Boris: “My friend! My joy! Goodbye!" One can only hope that God will be more merciful to Katerina than people.
In Katerina’s worldview, Slavic pagan antiquity, rooted in prehistoric times, harmoniously merges with the democratic trends of Christian culture. Katerina’s religiosity includes sunrises and sunsets, dewy grass in flowering meadows, birds flying, butterflies fluttering from flower to flower. Along with it is the beauty of a rural church, and the expanse of the Volga, and the Trans-Volga meadow expanse. And as the heroine prays, “what an angelic smile she has on her face, and her face seems to glow.” Isn’t she akin to the “sun-like” Catherine from the lives of saints revered by the people: “And such a radiance emanated from her face that it was impossible to look at her.” Ostrovsky's earthly heroine, emitting spiritual light, is far from the harsh asceticism of Domostroevsky morality. According to the rules of Domostroy, during church prayer one had to listen to divine singing with unflagging attention, and “keep your eyes down.” Katerina turns her eyes to grief. And what does she see, what does she hear during church prayer? These angelic choirs in the pillar of sunlight pouring from the dome, this church singing, picked up by the singing of birds, this spirituality of the earthly elements - the elements of heaven... “It used to be that I entered heaven, and I didn’t see anyone, and I don’t remember the time, and I don’t hear when the service is over.” But Domostroy taught to pray “with fear and trembling, with sighing and tears.” Katerina’s life-loving (*61) religiosity is far from the harsh precepts of Domostroevskaya morality.
Katerina experiences the joy of life in the temple. She bows to the sun in her garden, among the trees, herbs, flowers, and the morning freshness of awakening nature. “Or early in the morning I’ll go to the garden, the sun is still just rising, I’ll fall on my knees, pray and cry...” In a difficult moment of life, Katerina will lament: “If only I had died as a little girl, it would have been better. I would have looked from heaven to earth and rejoiced.” everything. Otherwise, she would fly invisibly wherever she wanted. She would fly out into the field and fly from cornflower to cornflower in the wind, like a butterfly.” “Why don’t people fly!.. I say: why don’t people fly like birds? You know, sometimes it seems to me that I’m a bird. When you’re standing on a mountain, you feel the urge to fly. That’s how you’d take a run, raise your arms and fly ..."
How to understand these fantastic desires of Katerina? What is this, a figment of a morbid imagination, a whim of a refined nature? No. Ancient pagan myths come to life in Katerina’s mind, deep layers stir Slavic culture. IN folk songs A woman yearning for the other side of an unloved family often turns into a cuckoo, flies into the garden to her beloved mother, and complains to her about her hard lot. Let us remember Yaroslavna’s cry in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”: “I will fly like a cuckoo along the Danube...” Katerina prays to the morning sun, since the Slavs considered the East a land of almighty fruitful forces. Even before the arrival of Christianity in Rus', they imagined paradise as a wonderful, unfading garden in the domain of the God of Light. There, to the East, all the righteous souls flew away, turning after death into butterflies or light-winged birds. In the Yaroslavl province, until recently, peasants called the moth “darling”. And in Kherson they claimed that if funeral alms were not distributed, then the soul of the deceased would appear to his relatives in the form of a moth. From pagan mythology These beliefs became Christian. In the biography of Saint Martha, for example, the heroine has a dream in which she, inspired, flies into the blue heavens. Katerina’s freedom-loving impulses, even in her childhood memories, are not spontaneous: “I was born so hot! I was only six years old, no more, so I did it! They offended me with something at home, and it was late in the evening, it was already dark, I ran out to Volga, got into the boat, and pushed it away from the shore." After all, this act of Katerina is completely consistent with her people's soul. In Russian fairy tales, a girl (*62) turns to the river with a request to save her from evil pursuers. And the river shelters her in its banks. In one of the Oryol legends, a girl pursued by the robber Kudeyar runs up to the Desna River and prays: “Mother, most pure Mother of God! Mother, Desna River! It’s not my fault, I’m disappearing from evil man!" After praying, she throws herself into the Desna River, and the river immediately dries up in this place, gives her an onion, so that the girl remains on one bank, and Kudeyar the Robber on the other. And they also say that the Desna somehow rushed to the side - So the wave captured Kudeyar himself and drowned him.
Since ancient times, the Slavs worshiped rivers and believed that they all flow to the end of the white world, to where the sun rises from the sea - to the land of truth and goodness. Along the Volga, in a dugout boat, the Kostroma residents sailed the sun god Yarila and escorted him to the promised land of warm waters. They threw shavings from the coffin into running water. They floated obsolete icons along the river. So little Katerina’s impulse to seek protection from the Volga is a departure from untruth and evil to the land of light and goodness, this is a rejection of “vain lies” from early childhood and a readiness to leave the world if everything in it “gets sick of her.” Rivers, forests, grass, flowers, birds, animals, trees, people in popular consciousness Katerinas are the organs of a living spiritual being, the Lord of the universe, who sympathizes with the sins of people. Katerina’s feeling of divine powers is inseparable from the forces of nature. In the folk "Pigeon Book"
The sun is red - from the face of God,
Frequent stars - from the vestments of God,
Dark nights are from the thoughts of the Lord,
Morning dawns are from the eyes of the Lord,
Stormy winds come from the Holy Spirit.
So Katerina prays to the dawn of the morning, to the red sun, seeing the eyes of God in them. And in a moment of despair, she turns to the “violent winds” so that they can convey to her beloved her “sadness, melancholy, sadness.” From the point of view folk mythology all nature acquired an aesthetically lofty and ethically active meaning. Man felt himself to be the son of animate nature - an integral and unified being. The people believed that kind person can tame the forces of nature, and the evil one incur their disfavor and anger. The righteous, revered by the people, could, for example, return raging rivers during floods to their banks, tame wild animals, and command thunder. Without feeling the pristine freshness of Katerina’s inner world, you will not understand the vitality and power of her character, the figurative mystery of the folk language. “How playful I was!” Katerina turns to Varvara, but then, wilting, she adds: “I’ve completely withered with you.” Blooming at the same time as nature, Katerina’s soul really fades in the hostile world of the Wild and Kabanovs.
Dobrolyubov about Katerina
Speaking about how “the strong Russian character is understood and expressed in The Thunderstorm,” Dobrolyubov, in his article “A Ray of Light in a Dark Kingdom,” rightly noted Katerina’s “focused determination.” However, in defining her origins, he completely departed from the spirit and letter of Ostrovsky’s tragedy. Is it possible to agree that “her upbringing and young life gave her nothing”? Without the heroine’s monologues and memories of her youth, is it possible to understand her freedom-loving character? Without feeling anything bright and life-affirming in Katerina’s reasoning, without deserving her religious culture of enlightened attention, Dobrolyubov reasoned? : “Nature here replaces considerations of reason and the demands of feeling and imagination, where Ostrovsky triumphs.” folk religion, Dobrolyubov has an abstractly understood nature. Katerina’s youth, according to Ostrovsky, is the morning of nature, the solemn beauty of the sunrise, bright hopes and joyful prayers. Katerina’s youth, according to Dobrolyubov, is “the senseless ravings of wanderers,” “a dry and monotonous life.” Having replaced culture with kind, Dobrolyubov did not feel the main thing - the fundamental difference between Katerina’s religiosity and the Kabanovs’ religiosity. The critic, of course, did not ignore that in the Kabanovs “everything emanates coldness and some kind of irresistible threat: the faces of the saints are so stern, and the church readings are so menacing, and the stories of the wanderers are so monstrous.” But what did he connect this change with? With Katerina's mood. “They are still the same,” that is, in the heroine’s youth the same “Domostroy”, “they have not changed at all, but she herself has changed: she no longer has the desire to build aerial visions.” But in tragedy it’s the other way around! “Aerial visions” just broke out in Katerina under the yoke of the Kabanovs: “Why don’t people fly!” And, of course, in the Kabanovs’ house, Katerina encounters a decisive “wrong”: “Everything here seems to be from under captivity,” here the life-loving generosity of the Christian worldview has eroded, here it has died. Even the pilgrims in the Kabanovs’ house are different, from among those bigots who “due to their weakness did not walk far, but heard a lot.” And they talk about " the last times", about the imminent end of the world. A religiosity mistrustful of life reigns here, which plays into the hands of the pillars of society, who with angry grumbling greet the living life that has broken through the Domostroevsky dams. Perhaps the main mistake in the stage interpretations of Katerina was and remains the desire to either obscure her key monologues, or to give them unnecessarily mystical meaning. In one of classical productions"Thunderstorms", where Strepetova played Katerina and Kudrina played Varvara, the action took place on sharp contrast heroines. Strepetova played a religious fanatic, Kudrina - an earthly, cheerful and reckless girl. There was some one-sidedness here. After all, Katerina is also an earthly person; no less, but rather more deeply than Varvara, she feels the beauty and fullness of being: “And such a thought will come to me that, if it were my will, I would now ride along the Volga, on a boat, with songs, or in a troika on good, hugging..." Only the earthly in Katerina is more poetic and subtle, more warmed by the warmth of moral Christian truth. It triumphs in the love of life of the people, who sought in religion not the denial of the earth with its joys, but its sanctification and spiritualization.
In Katerina’s worldview, Slavic pagan antiquity, rooted in prehistoric times, harmoniously merges with the democratic trends of Christian culture. Katerina’s religiosity includes sunrises and sunsets, dewy grass in flowering meadows, birds flying, butterflies fluttering from flower to flower. Along with it is the beauty of a rural church, and the expanse of the Volga, and the Trans-Volga meadow expanse. And as the heroine prays, “what an angelic smile she has on her face, and her face seems to glow.”
Ostrovsky's earthly heroine, emitting spiritual light, is far from the harsh asceticism of Domostroevsky morality. According to the rules of Domostroy, during church prayer one had to listen to divine singing with unflagging attention, and “keep your eyes down.” Katerina directs her eyes upward. And what does she see, what does she hear during church prayer? These angelic choirs in the pillar of sunlight pouring from the dome, this church singing, picked up by the singing of birds, this spirituality of the earthly elements - the elements of heaven... “Sure, it happened that I would enter heaven, and I don’t see anyone, and I don’t remember the time, and I hear when the service is over.”
Katerina experiences the joy of life in the temple. She bows to the sun in her garden, among the trees, herbs, flowers, and the morning freshness of awakening nature. “Or early in the morning I’ll go to the garden, the sun is still just rising, I’ll fall on my knees, pray and cry...”
In a difficult moment of her life, Katerina will complain: “If only I had died as a little girl, it would have been better. I would look from heaven to earth and rejoice at everything. Otherwise she would fly invisibly wherever she wanted. I would fly out into the field and fly from cornflower to cornflower in the wind, like a butterfly.” “Why don’t people fly!.. I say: why don’t people fly like birds? You know, sometimes I feel like I'm a bird. When you stand on a mountain, you feel the urge to fly. That’s how I would run up, raise my hands and fly.”
Katerina’s freedom-loving impulses, even in her childhood memories, are not spontaneous: “I was born so hot! I was still six years old, no more, so I did it! They offended me with something at home, and it was late in the evening, it was already dark, I ran out to the Volga, got into the boat and pushed it away from the shore.” After all, this act of Katerina is completely consistent with her people's soul. In Russian fairy tales, the hero is always hiding from his pursuers.
Since ancient times, the Slavs worshiped rivers and believed that they all flow to the end of the white world, to where the sun rises from the sea - to the land of truth and goodness. Along the Volga, in a dugout boat, the Kostroma residents sailed the sun god Yarila and escorted him to the promised land of warm waters. They threw shavings from the coffin into running water. They floated obsolete icons along the river. So little Katerina’s impulse to seek protection from the Volga is a departure from untruth and evil to the land of light and goodness, this is a rejection of “vain lies” from early childhood and a readiness to leave the world if everything in it “gets fed up” with her.
Without feeling the pristine freshness of Katerina’s inner world, you will not understand the vitality and power of her character, the figurative mystery of the folk language. “How frisky I was! - Katerina turns to Varvara, but then, wilting, she adds: “I’ve completely withered with you.” Katerina’s soul, blossoming at the same time as nature, really fades in the hostile world of wild boars and wild boars.
In the early fifties, significant changes occurred in Ostrovsky’s work. A look at merchant life in the first comedy “Our People - Let's Be Numbered!” seems to the playwright “young and too tough.” “...It is better for a Russian person to rejoice when he sees himself on stage than to be sad. Correctors will be found even without us. In order to have the right to correct the people without offending them, you need to show them that you know the good in them; This is what I’m doing now, combining the sublime with the comic.” In the plays of the first half of the fifties, “Don’t Get in Your Own Sleigh,” “Poverty is Not a Vice,” and “Don’t Live the Way You Want,” Ostrovsky depicts mainly the bright, poetic sides of Russian life. The same traditions are preserved in the drama “The Thunderstorm”. The poetics of Ostrovsky’s works still captivates the hearts of readers and viewers.
The image of Matryona Timofeevna in the poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'”... Part called "Peasant Woman". In general, this image occupies a special place in all of Nekrasov’s poetry. The Russian woman has always been the main thing for Nekrasov...
Summary of an integrated drawing lesson in the senior group: “Trees”, World of Preschoolers... Summary of an integrated drawing lesson in the senior group: “Trees” Continue to introduce children to non-traditional drawing techniques. Pin...
In the drama “The Thunderstorm,” Ostrovsky created a very psychologically complex image - the image of Katerina Kabanova. This young woman charms the viewer with her huge, pure soul, childish sincerity and kindness. But she lives in the musty atmosphere of the “dark kingdom” of merchant morals. Ostrovsky managed to create a bright and poetic image of a Russian woman from the people. The main storyline of the play is the tragic conflict between the living, feeling soul of Katerina and the dead way of life of the “dark kingdom”. Honest and touching Katerina turned out to be a powerless victim of the cruel orders of the merchant environment. No wonder Dobrolyubov called Katerina “a ray of light in a dark kingdom.” Katerina did not accept despotism and tyranny; Driven to despair, she challenges the “dark kingdom” and dies. This is the only way she can save her inner world from harsh pressure. According to critics, for Katerina “it is not death that is desirable, but life that is unbearable. Living for her means being yourself. Not being herself means not living for her.”
The image of Katerina is built on a folk-poetic basis. Her pure soul is fused with nature. She presents herself as a bird, the image of which in folklore is closely connected with the concept of will. “I lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild.” Katerina, who ended up in Kabanova’s house as if in a terrible prison, often remembers her parents’ home, where she was treated with love and understanding. Talking to Varvara, the heroine asks: “...Why don’t people fly like birds? You know, sometimes I feel like I’m a bird.” Katerina breaks free from the cage, where she is forced to remain until the end of her days.
Religion evoked high feelings, a surge of joy and reverence in her. The beauty and fullness of the heroine’s soul were expressed in prayers to God. “On a sunny day, such a light column goes down from the dome, and smoke moves in this column, like clouds, and I see it as if angels are flying and singing in this column. And then, it happened... at night I would get up... and somewhere in the corner and pray until the morning. Or I’ll go into the garden early in the morning, when the sun is still rising, I’ll fall on my knees, pray and cry.”
Katerina expresses her thoughts and feelings in poetic folk language. The heroine's melodious speech is colored by love for the world, the use of many diminutive forms characterizes her soul. She says “sunshine”, “voditsa”, “grave”, often resorts to repetitions, as in songs: “on a good three”, “and people are disgusting to me, and the house is disgusting to me, and the walls are disgusting.” Trying to throw out the feelings boiling in her, Katerina exclaims: “Violent winds, bear with him my sadness and melancholy!”
Katerina's tragedy is that she does not know how and does not want to lie. And in the “dark kingdom” lies are the basis of life and relationships. Boris tells her: “No one will know about our love...”, to which Katerina replies: “Let everyone know, let everyone see what I do!” These words reveal the courageous, integral nature of this woman, who risks challenging ordinary morality and confronting society alone.
But, having fallen in love with Boris, Katerina enters into a struggle with herself, with her beliefs. She, a married woman, feels like a great sinner. Her faith in God is not the hypocrisy of Kabanikha, who covers up her anger and misanthropy with God. Awareness of her own sinfulness and pangs of conscience haunt Katerina. She complains to Varya: “Oh, Varya, sin is on my mind! How much I, poor thing, cried, what I didn’t do to myself! I can't escape this sin. Can't go anywhere. After all, this is not good, this is a terrible sin, Varenka, why do I love someone else?” Katerina does not think about the fact that she was violated by marrying someone she didn’t love. Her husband, Tikhon, is glad to leave home and does not want to protect his wife from her mother-in-law. Her heart tells her that her love is the greatest happiness, in which there is nothing bad, but the morality of society and the church does not forgive the free expression of feelings. Katerina struggles among unsolvable questions. Material from the site
The tension in the play increases, Katerina is afraid of a thunderstorm, hears the terrible prophecies of a crazy lady, and sees a picture on the wall depicting the Last Judgment. In a darkened state of mind, she repents of her sin. Repentance from the heart according to religious laws necessarily requires forgiveness. But people have forgotten the kind, forgiving and loving God; they are left with a punishing and punishing God. Katerina does not receive forgiveness. She doesn’t want to live and suffer, she has nowhere to go, her loved one turned out to be as weak and dependent as her husband. Everyone betrayed her. The church considers suicide a terrible sin, but for Katerina it is an act of despair. It is better to end up in hell than to live in the “dark kingdom.” The heroine cannot harm anyone, so she decides to die herself. Throwing herself off a cliff into the Volga, at the last moment Katerina thinks not about her sin, but about love, which illuminated her life with great happiness. Katerina’s last words are addressed to Boris: “My friend! My joy! Goodbye!" One can only hope that God will be more merciful to Katerina than people.
