2 Roubles Alexander Ostrovsky

Reverse

The reverse of the coin features a relief image of Alexander Ostrovsky’s portrait against the background of a raised grande drape; an image of a scene from the play The Storm, cast in relief and laser-treated for matte finishing, on the left; and a relief image of a quill, the facsimile of the playwright’s signature, and the years of his birth and death ‘1823’ and ‘1886’ below.

Script: Cyrillic (cursive)

Lettering:
А Островский
1823
1886

Translation: A Ostrovsky

Engraver: Alexandra Chernova

Designer: Alexandra Chernova

Edge

195 corrugations

Comment

Date of issue: 06 FEB 2023

Alexander Ostrovsky (1823–1886) is a Russian playwright whose works formed the basis for the national theatre art. An attentive observer, the writer was able to perfectly describe his contemporaries’ life and manners. Leo Tolstoy believed that Ostrovsky was a truly national writer in the widest sense. Critic Ivan Goncharov said: ‘You have gifted a whole library of works of art to literature and created a special world for the theatrical stage. You are the one who has completed the construction of a building, the foundation stones of which were laid by Fonvizin, Griboyedov, and Gogol.’
Alexander Ostrovsky symbolises a whole epoch in Russia’s cultural life of the 1850–1880s. Society’s vices – the power of money, women’s rightlessness, and the prevalence of violence and abuse of power – were the main topics of his works. The dramatist studied everyday life, manners, behaviours, and language features of various groups of Russian society, acquiring a wealth of knowledge for his literary works.
His talent was recognised in the literary world after he wrote the comedy ‘A Family Affair’ in 1850. The first public reading of the play took place in historian Mikhail Pogodin’s house and was attended by Nikolay Gogol. Poet Nikolay Berg wrote that all representatives of the intellectual class in Moscow started to talk of the play as of something extraordinary. In 1850, the play was published by the magazine Moskvityanin, after which the number of its readers increased from 500 to 1,100. It was difficult to find the Moskvityanin issue with the play.
Overall, the dramatist wrote 47 plays, including ‘Stay in Your Own Sled’, ‘A Profitable Position’, ‘Even a Wise Man Stumbles’, ‘Talents and Admirers’, ‘Guilty Without Guilt’, ‘The Storm’, ‘The Forest’, ‘Wolves and Sheep’, ‘Without a Dowry’, and others.
Today, Ostrovsky’s plays are in the repertoires of many Russian theatres and have become the basis for many domestic movies.
Source: https://www.culture.ru

Interesting fact

Price

Date	Mintage	VG	F	VF	XF	AU	UNC
2023 СПМД	3000	-	-	-	-	-	-

Values in the table are based on evaluations by sales realized on Internet platforms. They serve as an indication only for 2 Roubles (Alexander Ostrovsky) 2023 coin.