A magician ( Ukrainian. Moskal-charivny , literally " Moskal- wizard") - a one-act play by Ivan Petrovich Kotlyarevsky , written in 1819 . First published in the journal Ukrainian Almanac in 1841 in Moscow, I. I. Sreznevsky .
According to genre features, the play approaches vaudeville , although the writer himself called it opera. “The Wizard Soldier”, as well as his “ Natalka Poltavka ”, is close to comic operas of the late 18th and early 19th centuries with its dramatic techniques, ideological and thematic tendencies. In addition, with his play Kotlyarevsky pursued not only entertaining, but also educational moralizing goals.
When creating the play, the playwright relied on the artistic experience of French, Russian, Ukrainian literature. Folk art - jokes, legends, stories - always attracted the attention of the writer.
The social and everyday conflict, which became the basis of the “Warrior-Wizard”, was reflected in many folk songs and anecdotes. But for the traditional story about the unfaithful wife, Kotlyarevsky found a new, original interpretation. Instead of the images of the traitorous wife and her idiot husband, the playwright created the image of a faithful spouse.
Content
Characters
- Dashing - soldier
- Mihailo Chuprun - a simple, gullible husband
- Tatiana Chuprun - “unfaithful” wife, clever, sly, beautiful, painstaking, but with character
- Kalenik Kononovich Fintik - a loser fan
Story
Tatiana is a frivolous woman, to whom, in the absence of her husband, the official office clerk Fintik, she even invites him to “Smoked sausage, baked chicken and a bottle of obovity.” As it turns out later, she does it with certain intentions - to teach a spoiled suitor.
Fintik is a carrier of customs alien to the common people. Having received some education in the city, this ignoramus is proud of his “literacy”, he is ashamed of his “peasant” origin, he cannot “without shame and without flushing to call just dressed old woman as mother” - his own mother. Finkey's servile "civilization" is also manifested in his dismissive attitude to folk songs; it is perfectly transmitted and speech characteristics. Fintik's language is interspersed with stationery, distortion, a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian words.
Tatiana reprimands Fintika for misbehavior, heartlessness, his arrogant attitude towards his mother. A soldier appearing in Tatyana's house with his supposed strict look wants to frighten the hostess of the house. But this is not possible for the “servant”; Tatiana debunks his vanity, a somewhat dismissive attitude towards the "muzhiks". After all, you were a peasant, until you had your forehead shaved and your uniform was not pulled over your shoulders, - Tatyana ironically addresses the soldier. “If I hadn’t been a woman, I could have been a better soldier than you .” "
But one day, Tatyana's husband suddenly returned from a trip. She persuades Fintik to hide behind the stove, she herself goes to meet her husband. Suddenly, a drunk soldier comes to the hut. He begins to mock at the owners, cunning and deceiving convinces them that he is capable of miracles and sorcery ...
Revealing the characters of ordinary people - carriers of a healthy beginning, Kotlyarevsky convincingly proves the superiority of the popular morals over the morality of gentlemen and officials. By this, the “Wizard Soldier” approaches Natalka Poltavka.
Further fate in culture
For the first time the play was staged on the stage of the Poltava Free Theater. In the 1820s, Natalka Poltavka and Soldier-Wizard were a great success in St. Petersburg at the Alexandrinsky Theater and at the Moscow Maly Theater .
The great popularity of Kotlyarevsky’s plays Natalka Poltavka and Soldier-Wizard on the Ukrainian and Russian stages in the first half of the 19th century was facilitated by the fact that MS Shchepkin took part in these performances. With his vital truthful execution of the roles of Makogonenk and Chuprun, the talented actor not only ensured unprecedented success on the theatrical scene of these first works of Ukrainian national dramaturgy, but also helped the Russian audience more deeply to understand Ukraine, its people, its way of life.
In 1995, at the studio to them. A. Dovzhenko was filmed "The Soldier-Wizard" , where Bogdan Benyuk (Likha), Ruslana Pysanka (Tatiana) and Alexander Bondarenko (Chuprun) starred.