In the '30's and the '40's the repertory of the Russian theater consisted of plays which had nothing in common with "Woe from Wit," "The Inspector," or "Marriage," and the latter was rarely played.

As a whole, the stage was given over to translations of sensational French melodramas and to patriotic tragedies.
The man who changed all this and created Russian drama, Alexander Nikolaevitch Ostrovsky (1823-1886), was born in Moscow, the son of a poor lawyer, whose business lay with the merchant class of the Trans-Moscow River quarter, of the type which we meet with in Alexander Nikolaevitch's celebrated comedies.

The future dramatist, who spent most of his life in Moscow, was most favorably placed to observe the varied characteristics of Russian life, and also Russian historical types; for Moscow, in the '30's and '40's of the nineteenth century, was the focus of all Russia, and contained within its walls all the historical and contemporary peculiarities of the nation.

On leaving the University (where he did not finish the course), in 1843, Ostrovsky entered the civil service in the commercial court, where he enjoyed further opportunities of enlarging his observations on the life of the Trans-Moscow quarter.

In 1847 he made his first appearance in literature, with "Scenes of Family Happiness in Moscow," which was printed in a Moscow newspaper.