Can Gogol's early work be called romantic? The romantic period of Gogol's creativity. Perhaps this will interest you

29.06.2020

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This is real gaiety, sincere, relaxed, without affectation, without stiffness. And in places what poetry! What sensitivity! All this is so unusual in our current literature that I still haven’t come to my senses. I congratulate the public on a truly fun book, and I sincerely wish the author further success.

For God's sake, take his side if journalists, as usual, attack the indecency of his expressions, bad taste, etc. "The humor and poetry of Gogol's stories were also noted by Pushkin in a review in Sovremennik on the second edition of Evenings: “Everyone was delighted with this lively description of the singing and dancing tribe, these fresh pictures of Little Russian nature, this gaiety, simple-minded and at the same time crafty. How amazed we were at the Russian book, which made us laugh, we who had not laughed since the time of Fonvizin! We were so grateful to the young author that we willingly forgave him for the unevenness and irregularity of his style, the incoherence and implausibility of some of the stories..." V. G. Belinsky in his reviews invariably noted the artistry, fun and folk character of "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka." “Literary Dreams” he wrote: “Mr. Gogol, who so cutely pretended to be a beekeeper, is one of the extraordinary talents. Who doesn’t know his “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”?

How much wit, gaiety, poetry and nationality they contain!” In the article “On the Russian Tale and the Stories of Mr. Gogol,” Belinsky again returned to his assessment of “Evenings”: “These were poetic essays of Little Russia, essays full of life and charm. Everything that nature can have that is beautiful, the rural life of common people that can be seductive, everything that a people can have that is original, typical, all of this shines with rainbow colors in these first poetic dreams of Mr. Gogol. It was poetry that was young, fresh, fragrant, luxurious, intoxicating, like the kiss of love.” After reading “Arabesques” and “Mirgorod,” Belinsky started talking about realism as the distinctive character of Gogol’s work.

Belinsky pointed out that the book incorrectly drew the attention of readers only to Gogol’s humor, without affecting his realism. He wrote that in Gogol’s “Evenings on a Farm”, in the stories “Nevsky Prospekt”, “Portrait”, “Taras Bulba” the funny is mixed with the serious, sad, beautiful and lofty. Comicism is by no means the dominant and outweighing element of Gogol’s talent. His talent lies in the amazing fidelity of depicting life in its elusively diverse manifestations.

One cannot see in Gogol’s creations one thing comic, one thing funny... The realism of “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” was noted by Belinsky later: “The poet himself seems to admire the originals he created. However, these originals are not his invention, they are funny not at his whim ; the poet is strictly faithful to reality in them.

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Loading... Gogol's book was highly appreciated by A. S. Pushkin, which influenced the first critical reviews of "Evenings". Pushkin wrote to the publisher of “Literary Additions to the Russian Invalid”:...

Loading... In 1831-1832, the stories were published in two collections under the general title “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.” And in the preface to the first...

Loading... We encounter elements of fantasy and the grotesque in the works of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol in one of his first works, “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.”...

Loading... Gogol Laughter through tears in M. V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” A beautiful image of Ukraine in Gogol’s works Outline of the essay – The image of the author in the poem...

Loading... Gogol began working on the superfiction of “Evenings on the Farm...” soon after arriving in St. Petersburg. After graduating from the Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences, he came to the capital, dreaming of “doing...

The desire for cyclization manifests itself at all stages of Gogol’s work. The basis of the cycle is called various features: ethical, i.e., the interaction of good and evil (Gukovsky); spatial, i.e. one side of Russian life in the corresponding territory - Dikanka, Mirgorod, St. Petersburg (Yu. Lotman); romantic or realistic characteristics. The first romantic cycle, the prologue to Gogol’s entire work, is the collection “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”, in two parts. Part I (four stories) - 1831, Part II (four more stories) - 1832. The book brought Gogol fame, it was supported by Pushkin (“How amazed we were at the Russian book that made us laugh”), approved by Belinsky. The unfamiliar world of folk life is presented by several narrators (the same technique in Pushkin’s works). According to Gukovsky’s definition, Gogol’s narrator doubles, triples, multiplies, and in the end the people themselves talk about their dreams. That is why there is no feudal reality in “Evenings”. The romantic nature of the first cycle allows us to name the characteristics characteristic of romanticism: a combination of a beautiful dream and a feeling of melancholy, loneliness (the so-called lyrical monologue of sadness in the finale of “Sorochinskaya Fair”); hyperbolization of natural phenomena (Dnieper legends); the fantastic, the supernatural, sometimes in an everyday, “non-scary” form, sometimes in a threatening form. Historicism in the stories is of a romantic nature. The fabulous style of “Evenings” was a discovery for Russian literature.

The romanticism of “Evenings...” is, first of all, a manifestation of deep interest in the peculiarities of the national mentality, spirituality and identity of Ukrainian history, national artistic thinking, drawing the original characters of individuals, which determined the Christian-philosophical concept of human existence. Gogol’s mystical romanticism, from the origins of which the fantastic realism of many writers of the 20th age (O. Dovzhenko, G. Bulgakov, Ch. Aitmatov, Garciamarques) would later be determined, crossed out the idyllic ideas about Ukraine that had developed in literature by that time.

Gogol's attention will focus on social, ethical, spiritual, historical problems that will not leave the writer until the end of his life. This intervention of evil spirits in the fate of a person, who often makes it helplessly tragic, brings cruel retribution to the seduced sinner for the perfect step, for excessive gullibility and temptation through curiosity, the desire to equip earthly life with illusory luxuries, often obtained from the blood and grief of others.

The stylistic norm of the vernacular element of “Evenings” is rustic simplicity with slyness and mischief. In their combination, there is the comedy of Gogol’s first stories.

“Mirgorod” (1835) is the second cycle, which the author himself considered a continuation of “Evenings”, but a different name, characteristic epigraphs represented a different world - not of the song Dikanka, but of a socially polar reality, remote both spatially and chronologically. Of course, there is a lot in common between the first and second collections: threads of continuity stretched from Shponka to Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich; the poetic coloring of “Viy” and “Taras Bulba” is reminiscent of most of the stories in “Evenings”. The collection opens with the story “Old World Landowners,” touchingly and highly appreciated by Belinsky. In it, Gogol, drawing the beauty of nature, conveying its sounds and colors, seemed to be talking about human possibilities, and then in a different stylistic tonality (instead of detailed comparisons and metaphors - a series of verbs) showed how these possibilities are realized, how Philemon and Baucis are obtained Tovstoguby. But for the author, their affection and loyalty to each other is dear, in contrast to their young contemporaries who do not have kindness, loyalty, and decency.

The comedy of the second collection is different. The essence of the phenomenon, the character, turns out to be terrible; stupidity and narrow-mindedness turn into malice, striving for destruction. Gogol does not create isolated images of “sky-smokers,” but a way of life that creates and nourishes such characters. In “The Tale of How They Quarreled...” the space is densely populated with persons who appear once (Agafya Fedoseevna, the most virtuous person in Mirgorod Golopuz, a sexton in love, etc.). The narrator of this story is also a Mirgorod resident, who enthusiastically talks about the beauties of the city (puddle) and the virtues of the inhabitants. Romantic irony is the next form of Gogol’s comedy that we encounter in this story. The story ends (and it is the last in the cycle, which means the collection also ends) with a phrase belonging to the author and expressing his understanding of modern life. Mirgorod: “It’s boring in this world, gentlemen!”

In “Mirgorod” there is another form of life - a fantastic one in the story “Viy” and a heroic one in the story “Taras Bulba”. The creative history of the latter demonstrates the direction of the author's interests. Gogol did not create a historical canvas in it; and an ideal picture of human relations and feelings - patriotism, camaraderie, the high meaning of life attached (to a conventional time and a relatively conventional space. Among Gogol’s works, this story, perhaps for the last time in artistic images, spoke of the masses as the guardian and bearer of national origins. Hence the lyrical current that is so strongly manifested in the story.

The collection “Mirgorod” represented Gogol’s versatile talent. It appeared even more unexpectedly in the collection of the same year “Arabesques”. The word “arabesque” itself means: a colored pattern, a bizarre combination of shapes, colors, animals, monsters, attributes, architectural elements, all kinds of objects and tools created more by the artist’s imagination than taken from real life. “Arabesques” were not understood either by the author’s contemporaries (Belinsky: “How can you so thoughtlessly compromise your literary name”), or by later researchers (Gukovsky: “Gogol’s desire for cyclization was so strong that it could overflow the boundaries of artistic creativity”) . The collection demonstrated for the first time the writer's philosophical orientation. It consists of articles of historical content, cultural representations and artistic stories “Portrait”, “Nevsky Prospect”, “Notes of a Madman”. The diversity of content reveals the moral values that, according to Gogol, underlie life and culture. The literary and ethical program “Arabesque” fits into the general concept of the world and man, in the search and formation of which the progressive thought of the thirties developed.

For Gogol, the ideal manifestation of the Russian character in “Arabesques” is Pushkin: “this is the Russian man in his development, in which he may appear in two hundred years” (“A few words about Pushkin”) The miniature “Life” predicts the appearance in “The Dead” souls" of lyrical digressions. An essay dedicated to Bryullov’s painting reveals the author’s aesthetic views.

If we apply the spatial principle to this collection, then, unlike previous collections, “Arabesques” mixes East and West, past, present and future. The fate of the collection is unlike the fate of “Evenings” or “Mirgorod”: it was “snatched” from other volumes of Gogol’s works. After the only lifetime edition, “Arabesques” was published as a cycle only three times in a century and a half (the last one in 1990).

The stories included in “Arabesques” began the last artistic cycle in Gogol’s work - the St. Petersburg one. “Portrait”, “Nevsky Prospekt”, “Notes of a Madman”, “Nose”, “Overcoat” were never singled out by Gogol himself as a special cycle. When published in the collected works of 1842, they were placed by the author in one (third) volume and side by side with “The Stroller” and an excerpt from the novel “Rome”, and, nevertheless, from the very beginning they were perceived as a single whole. This circumstance allowed Gukovsky to formulate the concept of Gogol’s story cycles as a struggle between good and evil. From his point of view, “Evenings” is a world of goodness and beauty, where evil is represented by distant temporal and social signs in the story about Shponka. In Mirgorod, good and evil are still balanced, although good is all in the past, and evil is in the present. In the St. Petersburg cycle, evil wins. Only in “Rome,” whose genre form is different, where the action takes place in distant historical times, do goodness and beauty appear.

The perception of the St. Petersburg stories as a cycle is explained by its artistic unity: 1) purposeful selection of material (base reality); 2) mixing everyday life with fantasy; 3) a fabulous manner of narration, in which one can distinguish the voice of “collective vulgarity” (Gukovsky), the voice of a simple-minded narrator and an ironic author, and various narrative manners transform into one another instantly and naturally. Herzen called the St. Petersburg stories a pathological course on Russian bureaucracy. The inhabitants of St. Petersburg: minor officials, artists - are portrayed by Gogol differently than by Pushkin.

Pushkin's low reality became a high theme. The harmonizing power of Pushkin’s style, “soul-nurturing humanity” (Belinsky), united high poetic traditions with prosaic naturalness and represented the “simple greatness of ordinary people” (Gogol). For Gogol, a comprehensive synthesis is unacceptable; the juxtaposition of high and low creates intolerable contradictions. On this occasion, J. Mann wrote: “To bring the lofty and transcendental into such close contact with the prosaic and everyday means to create such a deep situation that cannot be completely exhausted by any words.” Hence the crazy Poprishchin utters lofty tragic words about his loneliness in the finale, the complete idiot Akaki Akakievich (in the assessment of revolutionary democrats) will say “Why are you offending me?”, and through these words it sounds: “I am your brother,” etc. Image and understanding the “little man” became the author’s highest achievement in his St. Petersburg cycle: the tragic and the comic permeate each other.

Despite the fact that the writer’s creative life was short-lived, and some periods of his life are completely shrouded in mystery, everyone knows the name of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. Having quickly become famous, the young author surprised his contemporaries with his talent. It surprises the current reader as well.

Those fifteen years that the writer devoted to writing showed the world a genius of the highest standard. A distinctive feature is its versatility and creative evolution. Poetics, associative perception, metaphor, grotesque, intonation diversity, alternation of the comic with the pathetic. Stories, plays, even poems.

Housewarming (1826)

The writer's whole life was full of struggle and internal experiences. Perhaps, while still studying in Nizhyn, the young man felt that he would have many questions about the meaning of life.

There, as a high school student, Kolya wrote a poem for the school handwritten magazine, the title of which is considered to be “Housewarming.” But it is known for sure that in its final form with the author’s autograph it was called “Bad Weather.”

The young poet, already at the age of seventeen, had doubts about the correctness of the title of his poem. The author will carry these doubts about the correctly chosen style, the correctly inserted cue, and even the word, throughout his entire work, mercilessly dealing with texts that, in his opinion, failed.

The young man seemed to prophesy to himself:

Whether it's light or dark - it's all the same,
When there is bad weather in this heart!

In addition to the poem “Housewarming”, Gogol wrote four more poems and the poem “Hanz Küchelgarten”.

Hanz Küchelgarten (1827-1829)

The first publication did not live up to Nikolai's expectations - it was a severe disappointment. The hopes placed on this story were not justified. The romantic idyll in paintings, written back in the Nizhyn gymnasium in 1827, received negative reviews and forced the author to reconsider his creative possibilities.

At this time, Gogol was hiding behind the pseudonym A. Alov. The writer bought all unsold copies and destroyed them. Now Nikolai decided to write about what he knows well - about beautiful Ukraine.

Evenings on a farm near Dikanka (1829-1832)

The book aroused keen interest among readers. A historical excursion around Little Russia, depicting pictures of Ukrainian life, sparkling with gaiety and subtle humor, made a great impression.

It would be completely logical if the narrator used Ukrainian for his creations. But in Russian, Gogol seemed to erase the line between Little Russia and Great Russia. Ukrainian folklore motifs, where the main language is Russian, generously strewn with Ukrainian words, made the entire collection of “Evenings” absolutely exquisite, absolutely unlike anything that was available at that time.

The young writer did not begin his work with a blank slate. Even in Nizhyn, he kept a notebook, which he himself called “All sorts of things.” It was a notebook with four hundred and ninety pages in which the school student wrote down everything that seemed interesting to him: historical and geographical information, statements of famous writers, proverbs and sayings, legends, songs, customs, his own thoughts and writings.

The young man did not stop there. He writes letters to his mother and sisters, and asks them to send him various information on the topic: “the life of the Little Russian people.” He wants to know everything. Thus began a lot of work on the book.

“Evenings” had the subtitle: “Stories published by the beekeeper Rudy Panko.” This is a fictional character. It was needed to give credibility to the stories. The author seems to go into the shadows, passing forward the image of a simple, good-natured, cheerful beekeeper, allowing him to laugh and joke at his fellow villagers. Thus, through the stories of a simple peasant, the flavor of Ukrainian life is conveyed. This character seems to wink at the reader, slyly reserving the right to fiction, but presenting it as the pure truth. And all this with a special upbeat intonation.

The differences between fantasy and the writer’s stories are that fairy tales have magical characters, while Gogol’s have religious ones. Everything here is imbued with faith in God and the devil’s power.

The action of all the stories included in the collection is connected with one of the time chronological layers: antiquity, the recent legendary times of Catherine the Great and modernity.

The first readers of “Evenings” were printing workers who, when they saw Gogol visiting them, began to chuckle and assured that his “stuff” was very funny. "So! - thought the writer. “Cherni liked me.”

First book

And then the debut took place. The first book has been published. These are: “Sorochinskaya Fair”, “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala”, “Drowning”, “The Missing Letter”.

And it became clear to everyone around - this is Talent! All famous critics unanimously expressed their delight. The writer makes acquaintances in literary circles. He is published by Baron Anton Antonovich Delvig, finds out the opinion of the already recognized critic Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky at that time. Having become friends with Zhukovsky, Nikolai finds himself in the literary and aristocratic circle.

A year has passed and the second part of the collection has been released. The simplicity, diversity, diversity of the nationality spilled out into stories: “The Night Before Christmas”, “Terrible Revenge”, “Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and His Aunt”, “Enchanted Place”.

The festive, colorful side also has another side - night, dark, sinful, otherworldly. Truth coexists with lies, irony with seriousness. There was a place for love stories and unsolved mysteries.

Even at the dawn of cinema, Gogol’s works began to attract directors. At the beginning of the 20th century, the film adaptations of “The Night Before Christmas”, “Terrible Vengeance”, “Viy” were received by the public with “Hurray”, despite the fact that the poetics and imagery of the plot that the narrator so diligently put in disappeared on the screen in silent films in every phrase.

Films based on Gogol’s “Evenings” were released later, and “Viy,” in fact, is the first Soviet horror film.

Arabesques (1835)

This was the next collection, partly composed of articles published in the years 30-34 of the 19th century, and partly of works published for the first time.

The stories and literary texts included in this collection are little known to the general reader. Here Gogol discussed Russian literature, looked for its place in history, and outlined tasks for it. He talked about art, about Pushkin as a great national poet, about folk art.

Mirgorod (1835)

This period marked the peak of Gogol’s fame, and all his works included in the collection “Mirgorod” only confirmed the author’s genius.

For the editors, the collection was divided into two books, two stories in each.

Taras Bulba

After the release of Taras Bulba, Belinsky immediately declared that it was “a poem of great passions.”

Indeed: war, murder, revenge, betrayal. In this story there was also a place for love, so strong that the hero is ready to give everything for: his comrades, his father, his homeland, his life.

The narrator has created such a plot that it is impossible to unambiguously evaluate the actions of the main characters. Taras Bulba, so thirsty for war, eventually loses two sons and dies himself. The betrayal of Andriy, who fell in love with a beautiful Polish girl and was ready to do anything for the sake of this fatal passion.

Old world landowners

This work was not understood by many. Few people saw the story of an old married couple as a love story. That love that is not expressed by stormy confessions, vows or betrayals with a tragic end.

The simple life of old landowners who cannot live without each other, because they are one whole in this life - this is what the narrator tried to convey to the reader.

But the public, having understood the story in their own way, nevertheless expressed approval.

Contemporaries of Nikolai Vasilyevich were surprised to meet the Old Slavic pagan character. This character does not exist in Ukrainian folk tales; Gogol “brought” him from the depths of history. And the character took root, frightening the reader with his dangerous gaze.

The story has a colossal semantic load. All the main action takes place in the church, where there is a struggle between good and evil, faith and unbelief.

The ending is sad. The evil spirits won, the main character died. Here's something to think about. Man did not have enough faith to be saved.

The story of how Ivan Ivanovich quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich

This is the final work of the collection “Mirgorod”, in which all the passions are ironic.

Human nature in the person of two landowners, who, out of nothing to do, started a long-term lawsuit, is shown from all sides, exposing their worst traits. The elite secular society is shown in the most unsightly pictures: stupidity, stupidity, stupidity.

And the ending: “It’s boring in this world, gentlemen!” - food for deep philosophical reasoning.

Notes of a Madman (1835)

The first title of the story is “Scraps from the Notes of a Madman.”

This story of madness, in Gogol's style, had no analogues. Here Nikolai Vasilyevich added a good dose of pity to his wit and originality.

The hero did not suffer in vain. In this strange grotesque, many saw both the poetry of words and the philosophy of thought.

Nevsky Prospekt (1835)

The writer lived in St. Petersburg for many years and he simply could not help but describe the place that was central in the lives of many citizens.

What happens on Nevsky Prospekt. And the narrator, as if making Nevsky Prospekt the main character, shows his life using the example of two characters completely accidentally snatched from the crowd.

The Inspector General (1835)

An immortal play that brought Nikolai Vasilyevich enormous fame. He created the most vivid, authentic images of provincial bureaucracy, embezzlement, bribery and stupidity.

It is believed that the idea of this play was born in Pushkin’s head, but the elaboration of the plot and the creation of the characters’ characters are all the merit of Gogol. Behind the farce and naturalism lies a philosophical subtext, because behind the impostor there is a punishment for the officials of the county town.

It was not possible to get the play staged right away. It was up to the emperor himself to convince him that the play was not dangerous, that it was simply a mockery of bad provincial officials.

Comedy The Morning of a Business Man (1836)

Initially, the work was conceived as a large work, which was to be called “Vladimir of the Third Degree,” and “Morning” is only part of the big idea.

But for various reasons, including censorship, the great work was not destined to take place. There is too much “salt, anger, laughter” in the comedy. Even the initial title “Morning of an Official” was replaced by the censor with “Morning of a Business Man.”

The remaining manuscripts of the failed great work were revised and used by Gogol in other works.

Litigation (1836)

An unfinished comedy - part of the play "Vladimir of the Third Degree". Despite the fact that “Vladimir” fell apart and did not take place, and “Litigation” remained unfinished, individual scenes received the right to life and were staged in the theater during the author’s lifetime.

Excerpt (1839-1840)

The first title, “Scenes from Social Life,” is a dramatic passage. He was not destined to see the light of day - that’s what the censorship decided.

Nikolai Vasilyevich included this passage in “Dramatic passages and individual scenes” in his publication in 1842.

Lakeyskaya (1839-1840)

Another dramatic excerpt from the failed play “Vladimir of the Third Degree,” independently published in “The Works of Nikolai Gogol” in 1842.

Nose (1841-1842)

The absurd satirical work was not understood. The Moscow Observer magazine refused to publish it, accusing the writer of stupidity and vulgarity. But Pushkin found a lot of unexpected, funny and original things in it, publishing it in his Sovremennik magazine.

True, there was some censorship, which cut out entire pieces of text. But the image of an empty, ambitious man striving for status and admiration for higher ranks was a success.

Dead Souls (1835-1841)

This is the most fundamental creation, with a difficult fate. The planned three-volume work could not see the light of day, in the version that Nikolai Vasilyevich wanted - hell, purgatory, heaven (as many philologists believe).

In 1842, the first volume, strictly edited by censorship, was published. But the semantic load remained. The reader could see everything: temptation, evil, dynamic beginning. And recognize the devil in the one who buys souls - in Chichikov. And all the landowners are a whole gallery of different types, each of which personifies some property of human character.

The book received a decent rating. Its translation into other languages began already in 1844, and very soon it could be read in German, Czech, English, and Polish. During the author's lifetime, the book was translated into ten languages.

The ideas for the third volume remained just ideas. The writer collected materials for this volume, but did not have time to use them.

Theatrical tour after the presentation of a new comedy (1836-1841)

The writer spent his entire life searching for genuine feelings, analyzing spiritual qualities, and putting a certain philosophy into his creations.

Essentially, “Theatrical Travel” is a play about a play. And the conclusion suggests itself. The number of jesters that society needs is disproportionate to various types of acquisitiveness and the desire for profit. “There are many opinions, but no one understood the main thing,” the author complains.

Overcoat (1839-1841)

It is believed that this story was born from an anecdote. Mixing compassion with irritation, Akaki Akakievich suddenly came out. And the sad, funny story about a small, insignificant man suddenly turned out to be interesting.

And after laughing at Gogol’s character, the time comes to think about whether there is a biblical meaning to this story. After all, the soul wants to love only what is beautiful, but people are so imperfect. But Christ calls everyone to be kind and meek. In Greek, “one who does no evil” is Akakios. So we get Akaki Akakievich, a soft and vulnerable image.

“The Overcoat” was understood in different ways, but fell in love. She found her place in cinema. The film “The Overcoat,” released in 1926 and enthusiastically received by the public, was banned by censorship in 1949. But for the 150th anniversary of the writer’s birth, a new film, “The Overcoat,” directed by Alexei Batalov, was shot.

Portrait (1842)

In the first part, the writer touches on the attitude of others towards art, criticizing monotony and short-sightedness. The author condemns the deception on the canvases, which is so popular with the public, calling for service to real art.

In the second part, Gogol dug even deeper. Explaining that the purpose of art is to serve God. Without insight, the artist simply makes soulless copies, and in this case, the triumph of evil over good is inevitable.

The story was criticized for being too preachy.

Play Marriage (1842)

The play with the full title “Marriage, or an Absolutely Incredible Event in Two Acts” was written back in 1835, and was called “Grooms”.

But Nikolai Vasilyevich made adjustments for another eight years, and when, finally, the play was staged, many did not understand it. Even the actors themselves did not understand what they were playing.

But time put everything in its place. The idea that marriage is a union of two souls, and not a search for an illusory ideal, has been forcing audiences to go to this performance for many years, and directors to stage it on different stages.

Comedy Players (1842)

In Tsarist Russia, the topic of gambling was in the air. It was touched upon by many writers. Nikolai Vasilyevich also expressed his vision on this matter.

The writer twisted the story so much, flavoring everything with chic turns of phrase, including slang expressions of gamblers, that the comedy turned into a real intricate matrix, where all the heroes pretend to be someone else.

The comedy was an immediate success. It is still relevant today.

Rome (1842)

This is not an independent work, but an excerpt from the unfinished novel Annunziata. This passage quite clearly characterizes the author’s evolution in creativity, but it did not receive a worthy assessment.

Selected passages from correspondence with friends (1845)

A mental crisis pushes the writer to religious and philosophical themes. The fruit of this work was the publication of the collection “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends.”

This work, written in an edifying and preaching style, caused a storm among critics. In all literary circles there were debates and excerpts from this book were read.

The passions were serious. Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky wrote a critical review in the form of an open letter. But the letter was banned from publication, and it began to be distributed in manuscript. It was for distributing this letter that Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was sentenced to death. True, the “death penalty by shooting” did not happen; the sentence was commuted to punishment in the form of hard labor.

Gogol explained the attacks against the book as his mistake, believing that the chosen edifying tone ruined everything. And those places that the censor initially did not let through finally ruined the presented material.

All the works of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol are pages of amazing beauty of the Russian word, when reading you are happy and proud that you can speak and think in the same language.

Gogol tried to use his main idea about the role of Providence in history to partially justify the First Rome. In his discussion “On the Middle Ages,” he writes about the rise of the Pope: “I will not talk about the abuse and the severity of the shackles of a spiritual despot. Having penetrated more deeply into this great event, we will see the amazing wisdom of Providence: if this almighty power had not grabbed everything into its own hands... - Europe would have crumbled...".

In the same year, 1834, Gogol allowed himself the only sharp attack in his life against Eastern Rome in its initial, subsequent existence: “The Eastern Empire, which very rightly began to be called Greek, and even more rightly could be called the empire of eunuchs, comedians, favorites of the lists, conspiracies, base murderers and disputing monks..." (On the movement of peoples at the end of the 5th century), - an opinion clearly inspired by Western historiography.

However, even then, in Gogol’s soul, the inspiration of the artist contradicted the views of the scientist. He combined his historical articles and published them in 1835 as part of the collection “Arabesques”. Three fictional stories included in the same collection, written on behalf of different narrators who do not coincide in views with Gogol himself, left a special imprint of detachment from the author’s personality on the entire book, and therefore on the articles contained in it. In general, in “Arabesques” various shades of the magical worldview are reproduced, reflected, expressed, and some general “impurity” of the book is emphasized by the number of selected articles: there are 13 of them, and the one that contains an attack against Byzantium is placed precisely in 13th place - before eloquently closing the book with “Notes of a Madman.”

The unifying basis of all the components of “Arabesques” was pantheism, which directs the consciousness of the narrators and heroes towards self-deification, and in reality – towards self-destruction, dissolution in the elements of natural existence. Gogol hinted at this already by the name, which the sensitive F.V. immediately noticed. Bulgarin, who responded like this: “Arabesques in painting and sculpture are fantastic decorations composed of flowers and figures, patterned and capricious. Arabesques were born in the East, and therefore they do not include images of animals and people, whom the Koran prohibits from drawing. In this regard, the title of the book is successfully tidied up: for the most part it contains images without faces» .

The spirit of magical pantheism permeates not only the artistic stories of “Arabesques,” but also articles where, for example, according to the remark of S. Karlinsky, bloody conquerors (Attila and the like) “are viewed as evil magicians who sometimes receive retribution at the hands of medieval popes and saints, depicted as good magicians." As part of “Arabesques,” this acts in two ways: on the one hand, most of the articles in the collection are in a magical spirit, and magic tends to see itself everywhere, including in Christianity; on the other hand, Gogol, hiding behind his magically minded narrators, points to signs of a real, from the Orthodox point of view, Catholicism’s deviation towards magic.

Wanting to fully comprehend the essence of the First Rome, Gogol strives for Italy, as he once strived for St. Petersburg. Having gone to Europe in July 1836, he began life in Rome in March 1837. Now he completely indulges in the charm of Italian nature and the ancient city and finds himself more distant than ever from Russia and Orthodoxy. It is noteworthy that, along with sympathy for Catholicism, in his letters of 1838–1839 Gogol also reveals a passion for paganism and magic. In April 1838 he writes from Rome to M.P. Balabina: “It seemed to me that I saw my homeland... the homeland of my soul... where my soul lived before me, before I was born.” The non-Christian idea of the pre-existence of souls (internally connected with the pantheistic idea of reincarnation of souls) is supplemented in the same letter by a general equalization of the merits of Christianity and paganism. The first Rome, according to Gogol, “is beautiful because... on one half of it the pagan century breathes, on the other the Christian century, and both are the greatest two thoughts in the world.” Such an equalization of the merits of essentially different types of spirituality is a sign of magical consciousness. Gogol seems to be trying to turn history back, to return to paganism, and therefore designates his letter not with Christian, but with Roman-pagan chronology: “year 2588 from the foundation of the city.” The thought: “...in Rome alone they pray, in other places they only show the appearance of praying,” sounds in this letter not only pro-Catholic, but also partly pagan.

Catholic priests in Rome tried to convert Gogol to their faith. Rumors about this reached Russia. When Gogol justifies himself in a letter home on December 22, 1837, his words sound unorthodox: “... I will not change the rituals of my religion... Because both our religion and the Catholic one are absolutely the same.”

At the end of the 1830s, the writer sympathized with the Catholic hope, adopted from Judaism, in the “kingdom of God” (or “paradise”) on earth, which supposedly could be established by the will and forces of churched humanity. Naturally, the First Rome was thought to be the grain of this “paradise.” On January 10, 1840, Gogol, who returned to Moscow, writes to M.A. To Maksimovich: “I can’t wait for spring and the time to go to my Rome, my paradise... God, what a land! what a land of wonders!” .

The Italians themselves admit that Gogol’s attitude towards their capital revealed the ability to “love, admire, understand” this “luminous oasis of peace and quiet.” Like no one among foreign writers, Gogol in the minds of Italians acquired an unparalleled right to speak on behalf of Rome. T. Landolfi, having collected several dozen essays about the life of writers from different countries in Rome, called the entire book “Gogol in Rome,” although only a few pages are devoted to Gogol, like the others.

The turning point in the “Roman” self-awareness of the writer that took place in the fall of 1840 seems all the more significant. The external cause was a mysterious dangerous illness that happened in Vienna, shaking the soul and crushing the body. Having barely recovered and arrived in Rome, Gogol confessed to M.P. Pogodin: “Neither Rome, nor the sky, nor anything that would fascinate me so much, nothing has any influence on me now. I don't see them, I don't feel them. I wish I had a road now, a road in the rain, slush, through forests, across the steppes, to the ends of the world” - “even to Kamchatka” (letter dated October 17, 1840).

Since then, love for the First Rome has been supplanted by an attraction to the Third, to Moscow, so that in December 1840 Gogol writes to K.S. Aksakov from the capital of Italy: “I send you a kiss, dear Konstantin Sergeevich, for your letter. It seethes strongly with Russian feeling and smells of Moscow... Your calls for snow and winter are also not without fascination, and why not chill sometimes? This is often great. Especially when there is plenty of internal heat and hot feelings.” It is noteworthy that this is written by a man who, most of all, seems to be afraid of frost.

The failure of Russian-Italian Catholics to convert Gogol to the Latin faith is also noteworthy: since 1839, the writer has pointedly resisted their seductions. Gogol’s Roman letters mention many, even the most fleeting acquaintances, but there is “not the slightest hint about such, in any case, close acquaintances of the poet as young Semenenko and Kaysevich,” priests who left Poland and tried hard to convert Gogol. This speaks of the writer’s initially cautious attitude towards Catholic influences, of an initial internal rejection (despite the fact that in Rome it was very beneficial for him to maintain good relations with Catholics).

The change in consciousness, of course, was reflected in Gogol’s artistic work. Moreover, initially, on a whim, feeling the deep basis of his views and the future manifestation of this basis, he expressed his attraction to the First Rome not on his own behalf, but through the detached consciousness of the narrators and heroes. Thus, if in “Portrait” (1834–1842) the narrator speaks of “wonderful Rome,” and in “Rome” (1838–1842) another narrator develops this image in every possible way, then behind their voices one can hear the more restrained judgment of the writer himself, who shows , as, for example, in “Rome” the main character and narrator are carried away by the element of pagan pantheism - it also exudes from the ruins of ancient Rome and the surrounding nature and drowns the Christian face of the city along with the souls of its inhabitants.

The story “Rome” is dominated by the image of a fading, setting ( western) sun. In its seductive, languid, ghostly light, beckoning into darkness, souls dissolve with the features of the Roman world, pagan and Christian, reflected in them: all these “tombs and arches” and the “most immeasurable dome” of the temple of the Apostle Peter. And then, “when the sun was already hiding... evening established its dark image everywhere.” In this ghostly half-being, “luminous flies” hover, like some fallen spirits, flickering with magical fire stolen from the sun. They surround the frenzied human soul, which has forgotten about God and itself, and among them is “a clumsy winged insect, rushing upright, like a man, known under the name of the devil.”

In the syllable “Rima” there are persistent signs of ancient pagan worship of beauty. The story reveals the chaotic, spontaneous, pantheistic underlying basis of the outwardly decorous pagan veneration of the “divine” beauty of man and nature. The triumph of chaos over the seemingly bright orderliness of the pagan vision of beauty is emphasized in the story by the images of ancient ruins swallowed up by wild nature, the image of sunset light drying up in the darkness, and the most confusingly unexpected raggedness of the “excerpt”, which, nevertheless, was sent by Gogol to print.

In “Rome,” the young prince felt “some mysterious meaning in the word “eternal Rome”” after looking at his Italian fatherland from afar, from bustling Paris. Meanwhile, Gogol himself, working in Italian Rome on a story about a Roman prince, finally began to understand the Roman, world-powerful dignity of his own homeland and its ancient capital - Moscow. This understanding was reflected in the first volume of “Dead Souls,” which was completed simultaneously with the story “Rome”: “Rus! Rus! I see you, from my wonderful, beautiful distance I see you: poor, scattered and uncomfortable in you... But what incomprehensible, secret power attracts you?.. Is it here, in you, that a boundless thought cannot be born, when you yourself are endless? And a mighty space envelops me menacingly, reflecting with terrible force in my depths; My eyes lit up with unnatural power: oh! what a sparkling, wonderful, unknown distance to the earth! Rus'!..” The narrator who argues this way is already extremely close to Gogol himself, and it is no coincidence that he is called “the author.” The first volume of “Dead Souls” ends with a direct proclamation of the unsurpassed sovereign power of Russia: “... the air torn into pieces thunders and becomes the wind; “everything that is on earth flies past, and, looking askance, other peoples and states step aside and give way to it.”

Chichikov, who, according to Gogol’s plan, was supposed to be reborn in the Orthodox spirit, already in the first volume touches on the foundations of the corresponding teaching, although not yet very close to him: “Chichikov began somehow remotely, touched upon the entire Russian state in general and responded with with great praise about its space, he said that even the most ancient Roman monarchy was not so great, and foreigners are rightly surprised..."

The change in consciousness of Gogol himself is evidenced by his observation made during the arrival of Nicholas I in Rome and immediately recounted in a letter to A.P. Tolstoy dated January 2 Art. 1846: “I won’t tell you much about the sovereign... People everywhere simply called him Imperatore, without adding: di Russia, so that a foreigner might think that this was the legitimate sovereign of the local land." Gogol would like to see that the Italian people themselves, the “Romans” (as a special indigenous part of this people) confirm the idea that has revived in Russia about the Orthodox Russian power as the only legitimate successor to the “Roman” power.

Returning from abroad to his homeland, Gogol prefers to live in Moscow, and from the late 1840s, after a trip to the Holy Places, the desire to not leave the Fatherland anywhere at all and not even leave Moscow at all grew stronger in his soul: “No way.” I wouldn’t have left Moscow, which I love so much. And in general, Russia is becoming closer and closer to me. In addition to the quality of the homeland, there is something in it even higher than the homeland, as if it were the land from where it is closer to the heavenly homeland” (letter from A.S. Sturdze dated September 15, 1850).

For the mature Gogol, Russia is precisely the Third Moscow Rome: not a sweet paradise on earth, but a harsh temporary fortress that protects souls faithful to Christ from visible and invisible enemies and allows them to safely transition from a short earthly life to an eternal afterlife existence with a possible subsequent residence (if Christ will) into the Kingdom of God, which is “not of this world.”

The ancient image of such a Christian fortress on earth is a monastery, and Gogol in “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” directly writes: “Your monastery is Russia!” The Christian humility of Russia the monastery turns into belligerence only when a threat arises to the shrine of the faith: “...or you don’t know what Russia is for a Russian. Remember that when trouble came to her, then monks came out of the monasteries and stood in ranks with others to save her. The Chernets Oslyablya and Peresvet, with the blessing of the abbot himself, took a sword that was disgusting to a Christian.”

For the late Gogol, Moscow is the holiest place in monastic Russia, and St. Petersburg is the farthest from holiness: “Here there is a more free, convenient time for our conversations than in dissolute St. Petersburg”; in Moscow conversations about “truly Russian goodness” “the stronghold of our character is nurtured and the mind is illuminated with light” (letter from A.O. Smirnova dated October 14, 1848). Motivated by this idea, Gogol in “The Inspector General” (1846) puts the thought into the mouth of the “first comic actor”: “... we hear our noble Russian breed... we hear the Supreme command to be better than others!” . In “Bright Sunday,” the final chapter of “Selected Places...”, Gogol assures both himself and his compatriots that it is in Russia that the purity of ancient Christianity, lost everywhere, will most likely be restored, and will be restored, since in Russia it has been preserved most of all. The essence of Christianity is faith in the incarnation of Christ God, His death on the cross for the sins of people and the Resurrection from the dead - so that fallen people would be resurrected. About the Bright Resurrection of Christ, Gogol writes: “Why does it still seem to one Russian that this holiday is celebrated as it should be, and is celebrated like that in his own land? Is this a dream? But why doesn’t this dream come to anyone other than a Russian?.. Such thoughts are not invented. By the inspiration of God they are born at once in the hearts of many people... I know for sure that not one person in Russia... firmly believes this and says: “We will celebrate the Bright Resurrection of Christ before any other land!”

Every official of the Russian Orthodox state, according to Gogol, must at the same time be an “honest official of God’s great state” (Denomination “”), which is reflected and pre-exists on earth with its threshold - in the form of a Russian: “Let us together prove to the whole world that in the Russian land everything whatever is, from small to large, strives to serve the One Whom everything should serve, whatever is on the whole earth, rushes there... upward, to the Supreme eternal beauty! , - the “first comic actor” expresses thoughts close to Gogol himself. Russia must show the lost world an example of sovereign worship of God.

IN<«Авторской исповеди»>Gogol sums up his sovereign teaching: “So, after many years and labors, and experiences, and reflections... I came to what I had already thought about during my childhood: that the purpose of man is to serve and our whole life is service. You just need to remember that you took a place in the earthly state in order to serve the Heavenly Sovereign in it and therefore keep His law in mind. Only by serving in this way can you please everyone: the sovereign, the people, and your land.” This is one of the possible definitions of the Orthodox-“Roman” symphony of Church and State. The Church and the service to God carried out through it is the content of state life, and the state is the fence of the Church as the people of God.

In the chapter “Selected Places...” “A few words about our Church and the clergy,” Gogol reminds his compatriots and all humanity of the true essence of Orthodoxy and the role of Russia in its development: “This Church, which, like a chaste virgin, has been preserved alone from apostolic times in immaculate to its original purity, this Church, which... alone is able to resolve all the knots of bewilderment and our questions, which can produce an unheard-of miracle in the sight of all of Europe, forcing every class, rank and position among us to enter their legal borders and limits and, without changing nothing in the state, to give Russia the power to amaze the whole world with the harmonious harmony of the same organism with which it has hitherto frightened us - and this Church is unknown to us! And we still have not introduced this Church, created for life, into our lives!” .

The focus of church life is worship, liturgy, and Gogol, reflecting on “our liturgy” (1845–1851), points, among other things, to the “Roman” symbolism in it, for example in the “Cherubic Song” (“...as if the King of all let us rise, invisibly angelic dorinoshima chinmi, hallelujah!”): “The ancient Romans had a custom of bringing the newly elected emperor to the people, accompanied by legions of troops on a shield under the shade of many spears bowed over him. This song was composed by the emperor himself, who fell into the dust with all his earthly greatness before the greatness of the King of all, carried by the spear of cherubim and legions of heavenly powers: in the early times the emperors themselves humbly stood in the ranks of ministers when carrying out the Holy Bread... At the sight of the King of all, carried in a humble form The Lamb lying on the paten, as if on a shield, surrounded by the instruments of earthly suffering, as if by the spears of countless invisible armies and officials, everyone bows their heads down and prays in the words of the thief who cried out to Him on the cross: “Remember me, Lord, when you come to His kingdom."

The idea for a series of stories about Ukraine arose from N.V. Gogol, apparently, in 1829. His letters to his relatives date back to this time with a request to inform them “about the customs of the Little Russians.” The information sent to him was recorded by Gogol in the notebook “The Book of All Things” and then used in his stories.
Work on "Evenings" continued for several years. First, the first book of stories “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka, published by the beekeeper Rudy Panko” appeared, and then the second part came out.
Gogol's book was highly appreciated by A. S. Pushkin, which influenced the first critical reviews of "Evenings". Pushkin wrote to the publisher of “Literary Supplements to the Russian Invalid”: “I just read Evenings near Dikanka.” They amazed me. This is real gaiety, sincere, relaxed, without affectation, without stiffness. And in places what poetry! What sensitivity! All this is so unusual in our current literature that I still haven’t come to my senses. I congratulate the public on a truly fun book, and I sincerely wish the author further success. For God's sake, take his side if journalists, as usual, attack the indecency of his expressions, bad taste, etc.
The humor and poetry of Gogol’s stories were also noted by Pushkin in his review in Sovremennik on the second edition of “Evenings”: “Everyone was delighted with this lively description of the singing and dancing tribe, these fresh pictures of Little Russian nature, this gaiety, simple-minded and at the same time crafty. How amazed we were.” Russian book that made us laugh, we, who had not laughed since the time of Fonvizin, We were so grateful to the young author that we willingly forgave him for the unevenness and irregularity of his style, the incoherence and implausibility of some of the stories..."
V. G. Belinsky in his reviews invariably noted the artistic, cheerful and folk character of “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.” In “Literary Dreams” he wrote: “Mr. Gogol, who so sweetly pretended to be a beekeeper, is one of the extraordinary talents. Who doesn’t know his “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”? How much wit, gaiety, poetry and nationality are in them!”
In the article “On the Russian Tale and the Stories of Mr. Gogol,” Belinsky again returned to his assessment of “Evenings”: “These were poetic essays of Little Russia, essays full of life and charm. Everything that the nature of beauty can have, the rural life of common people is seductive, everything, that the people can have the original, the typical, all this shines with rainbow colors in these first poetic dreams of Mr. Gogol. It was youthful, fresh, fragrant, luxurious, intoxicating poetry, like the kiss of love.”
After reading “Arabesques” and “Mirgorod”, Belinsky started talking about realism as the distinctive character of Gogol’s work. Belinsky pointed out that the book incorrectly drew the attention of readers only to Gogol’s humor, without affecting his realism. He wrote that in Gogol’s “Evenings on a Farm”, in the stories “Nevsky Prospekt”, “Portrait”, “Taras Bulba” the funny is mixed with the serious, sad, beautiful and lofty. Comicism is by no means the dominant and outweighing element of Gogol’s talent. His talent lies in the amazing fidelity of depicting life in its elusively diverse manifestations. You can’t see only the comic, the only funny in Gogol’s creations...
The realism of “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” was noted by Belinsky later: “The poet himself seems to be admiring the originals he created. However, these originals are not his invention, they are not funny at his whim; the poet is strictly faithful to reality in them. And therefore every face speaks and he acts in the sphere of his life, his character and the circumstances under the influence of which he is, and not one of them is condemned: the poet is mathematically faithful to reality and often draws comic features, without any pretense to make people laugh, but only obeying his instinct, to his own tact of reality."