«The Storm» in Russian with a Parallel Translation

The play is set in the fictional town of Kalinov on the banks of the Volga. The town seems frozen in a closed patriarchal era, alien to innovations and news from the outside world. The plot centres on the life and tragic fate of Katerina, a young woman who experiences deep inner suffering in the tyrannical and conservative atmosphere of the provincial town. She is caught between her sense of duty to her family and society, epitomised by her cruel mother-in-law Kabanikha, and her own aspirations for freedom and love. Katerina's tragedy shows the fracture that was taking place in the people's consciousness, when the freedom of the individual and the expression of his or her will began to take centre stage, in opposition to the existing traditions and way of life.