Vladislav Ozerov
Vladislav Aleksandrovich Ozerov
(Russian: Владисла́в Алекса́ндрович
О́зеров) (11 October 1769 – 17 September
1816) was the most popular Russian
dramatist in the first decades of the
19th century.
Ozerov wrote five tragedies "in the
stilted and sentimental manner of the
Frenchified era". Their success was
tremendous, largely owing to the
remarkable acting of one of the greatest
Russian tragediennes, Ekaterina
Semyonova. What the public liked in
these tragedies was the atmosphere of
sensibility and the polished,
Karamzinian sweetness that Ozerov
infused into the classical forms.
Ozerov's first success was Oedipus in
Athens (1804), a wry comment on
Alexander I's rumoured privity to the
murder of his father Paul. The public
was ecstatic about his next tragedy,
Fingal (1805), staged with effective
sets representing sombre Scottish
scenery. Dmitry Donskoy (1807) was
staged within days after the Battle of
Eylau, when its patriotic ethos was
particularly apposite. His last play was
Polyxena (1809), variously assessed as
the finest sentimental tragedy in the
language and the best Russian tragedy on
the French classical model.
The production of Polyxena turned out
to be a flop, largely due to intrigues
of Ozerov's literary woes. He was forced
to leave St. Petersburg for his country
estate near Zubtsov, where he reportedly
went mad and burnt all his papers.
Ozerov's last years were spent in
poverty, and his posthumous reputation
was damaged by Pushkin's dismissal of
his plays as "very mediocre".
