A. N. Ostrovsky's "The Storm" in the Russian Novel of the Second Half of the 19th Century: Canonisation Through Intertext and Metatext

The paper investigates the process of canonisation of A. N. Ostrovsky's play «The Storm» through its depiction in other works of the second half of the XIX century. The analysis of the intertextual links between the play and these works has shown that in all cases the drama is treated as an authoritative text that already has canonical qualities. The analysis of the metatext allowed us to suggest that this attitude towards «The Storm» in fictional reality may reflect similar perceptions of the drama in the present world and influence it at the same time. The characters' reactions to the productions depicted in these works testify not only to the audience's positive response to «The Storm», but also to the «universality» of the drama. This allowed «The Storm» to remain in the space of literature throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, until it became canonised through other literary institutions.