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Gogol analysis of his works. The creative and life path of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol

“The Inspector General” is an immortal comedy by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. From the moment it was written, people did not stop reading it and performing it on stage, because the problems that the author revealed in the work will never lose their relevance and will resonate in the hearts of viewers and readers at all times.

Work on the work began in 1835. According to legend, wanting to write a comedy, but not finding a story worthy of this genre, Gogol turned to Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin for help in the hope that he would suggest a suitable plot. And so it happened, Pushkin shared an “anecdote” that happened either to himself or to an official he knew: a man who came to a certain city on his own business was mistaken by local authorities for an auditor who had arrived on a secret mission to monitor, find out, and report. Pushkin, who admired the writer’s talent, was confident that Gogol would cope with the task even better than him, he really looked forward to the release of the comedy and supported Nikolai Vasilyevich in every possible way, especially when he was thinking of abandoning the work he had begun.

For the first time, the comedy was read by the author himself at an evening hosted by Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky in the presence of several acquaintances and friends (including Pushkin). In the same year, The Inspector General was staged at the Alexandrinsky Theater. The play outraged and alarmed with its “unreliability”; it could have been banned. It was only thanks to Zhukovsky’s petition and patronage that it was decided to leave the work alone.

At the same time, Gogol himself was dissatisfied with the first production. He decided that neither the actors nor the public perceived The Inspector General correctly. This was followed by several explanatory articles by the writer, giving important instructions to those who really want to delve into the essence of comedy, correctly understand the characters, and play them on stage.

Work on “The Inspector General” continued until 1842: after numerous edits were made, it acquired the form in which it has come down to us.

Genre and direction

“The Inspector General” is a comedy where the subject of the story is the life of Russian officials. This is a satire on the morals and practices established among people belonging to this circle. The author skillfully uses comic elements in his work, providing them with both plot twists and turns and a system of characters. He cruelly ridicules the current state of society, either openly ironizing about events that illustrate reality, or covertly laughing at them.

Gogol worked in the direction of realism, the main principle of which was to show “a typical hero in typical circumstances.” This, on the one hand, made it easier for the writer to choose the topic of the work: it was enough to think about what issues are pressing for society at the moment. On the other hand, this presented him with the difficult task of describing reality in such a way that the reader recognized it and himself in it, believed the word of the author, and, immersed in the atmosphere of disharmony of reality, realized the need for change.

About what?

The action takes place in a county town, which naturally has no name, thereby symbolizing any city, and therefore Russia as a whole. Anton Antonovich Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky - the mayor - receives a letter that talks about an auditor who can come to the city incognito at any moment with an inspection. The news literally puts all residents who have anything to do with the bureaucratic service on their ears. Without thinking twice, the frightened townspeople themselves find a candidate for the role of an important official from St. Petersburg and try in every possible way to flatter him, to please the high-ranking official so that he will be lenient towards their sins. The comedy of the situation is added by the fact that Ivan Aleksandrovich Khlestakov, who made such an impression on those around him, does not realize until the last minute why everyone is behaving so courteously towards him, and only at the very end begins to suspect that he was mistaken for someone else, all over the place. apparently an important person.

Woven into the outline of the overall narrative is a love conflict, also played out in a farcical manner and built on the fact that the young ladies participating in it, each pursuing their own benefit, try to prevent each other from achieving it, and at the same time the instigator cannot choose one of the two. I'll give.

Main characters and their characteristics

Ivan Aleksandrovich Khlestakov

This is a petty official from St. Petersburg, returning home to his parents and mired in debt. “The most difficult role is the one who is mistaken by the frightened city for an auditor,” - this is what Gogol writes about Khlestakov in one of the articles in the appendix to the play. An empty and insignificant person by nature, Khlestakov wraps a whole city of rogues and swindlers around his finger. His main assistant in this is the general fear that gripped the officials who are mired in official “sins”. They themselves create an incredible image of the all-powerful auditor from St. Petersburg - a formidable man who decides other people's destinies, the first of the first in the whole country, as well as a metropolitan thing, a star in any circle. But you need to be able to support such a legend. Khlestakov copes with this task brilliantly, turning every passage thrown in his direction into a fascinating story, so brazenly ridiculous that it is difficult to believe that the cunning people of the city of N could not see through his deception. The secret of the “auditor” is that his lies are pure and naive to the extreme. The hero is incredibly sincere in his lies; he practically believes what he is telling. This is probably the first time he has received such overwhelming attention. They really listen to him, listen to his every word, which makes Ivan completely delighted. He feels that this is his moment of triumph: whatever he says now will be received with admiration. His imagination takes flight. He doesn't realize what's really going on here. Stupidity and bragging do not allow him to objectively assess the real state of affairs and realize that these mutual delights cannot continue for long. He is ready to linger in the city, taking advantage of the imaginary goodwill and generosity of the townspeople, not realizing that the deception will soon be revealed, and then the rage of the officials who have been fooled will know no bounds.

Being a loving young man, Khlestakov drags himself after two attractive young ladies at once, not knowing who to choose, the mayor’s daughter or his wife, and throws himself first on his knees in front of one, then in front of the other, which wins the hearts of both.

In the end, gradually beginning to guess that everyone present was mistaking him for someone else, Khlestakov, surprised by this incident, but without losing his good spirits, writes to his friend, the writer Tryapichkin, about what happened to him, and offers to make fun of his new acquaintances in the appropriate article. He joyfully describes the vices of those who graciously accepted him, those whom he managed to rob fairly (accepting exclusively on loans), those whose heads he gloriously turned with his stories.

Khlestakov is “a lying, personified deception” and at the same time this empty, insignificant character “contains a collection of many of those qualities that are not found in insignificant people,” which is why this role is all the more difficult. You can find another description of the character and image of Khlestakov in essay format.

Anton Antonovich Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, mayor

“Rogue of the first category” (Belinsky)

Anton Antonovich is a smart person and knows how to manage things. He could have been a good mayor if he had not cared primarily about his pocket. Having deftly settled in his place, he carefully looks at every opportunity to grab something somewhere and never misses his chance. In the city he is considered a swindler and a bad manager, but it becomes clear to the reader that he earned such fame not because he is angry or ruthless by nature (he is not at all like that), but because he put his own interests much higher than those of others. Moreover, if you find the right approach to him, you can enlist his support.

The mayor is not mistaken about himself and does not hide in a private conversation that he himself knows everything about his sins. He considers himself a devout person, for he goes to church every Sunday. It can be assumed that he is not alien to some repentance, but he still puts his weaknesses above it. At the same time, he treats his wife and daughter with reverence; he cannot be reproached with indifference.

When the inspector arrives, the mayor is more frightened by the surprise than by the inspection itself. He suspects that if you properly prepare the city and the right people for the meeting of an important guest, and also take into account the official from St. Petersburg himself, then you can successfully arrange the business and even win something for yourself here. Feeling that Khlestakov is being influenced and is in a good mood, Anton Antonovich calms down, and, of course, there is no limit to his joy, pride and the flight of his imagination when the opportunity arises to become related to such a person. The mayor dreams of a prominent position in St. Petersburg, of a successful match for his daughter, the situation is under his control and turns out as well as possible, when suddenly it turns out that Khlestakov is just a dummy, and a real auditor has already shown up on the doorstep. It is for him that this blow becomes the most difficult: he loses more than others, and he will receive it much more severely. You can find an essay describing the character and image of the mayor in The Inspector General.

Anna Andreevna and Maria Antonovna

The main female characters of the comedy. These ladies are the wife and daughter of the mayor. They are extremely curious, like all bored young ladies, hunters of all city gossip, as well as big flirts, they love it when others are carried away by them.

Khlestakov, who appears so unexpectedly, becomes wonderful entertainment for them. He brings news from the capital's high society, tells many amazing and entertaining stories, and most importantly, shows interest in each of them. Mother and daughter are trying in every possible way to woo the delightful dandy from St. Petersburg, and, in the end, he wooes Maria Antonovna, which her parents are very happy about. Everyone begins to make rosy plans for the future. The women do not realize that the wedding is not included in his plans, and in the end both, like all residents of the city, find themselves broke.

Osip

Khlestakov's servant is not stupid and cunning. He understands the situation much faster than his owner and, realizing that things are not going well, advises the owner to leave the city as soon as possible.

Osip understands well what his owner needs, to always take care of his well-being. Khlestakov himself clearly does not know how to do this, which means that without his servant he will be lost. Osip also understands this, so sometimes he allows himself to behave familiarly with his owner, is rude to him, and behaves independently.

Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky

They are city landowners. Both are short, round, “extremely similar to each other.” These two friends are talkers and liars, the two main town gossips. It is they who mistake Khlestakov for an auditor, thereby misleading all other officials.

Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky give the impression of being funny and good-natured gentlemen, but in reality they are stupid and, in essence, just empty talkers.

Other officials

Each official of city N is remarkable in some way, but nevertheless, they primarily constitute the overall picture of the bureaucratic world and are of interest in the aggregate. They, as we will see later, have all the vices of people occupying important positions. Moreover, they do not hide it, and sometimes they are even proud of their actions. Having an ally in the mayor, the judge, the trustee of charitable institutions, the superintendent of schools and others freely do any arbitrariness that comes to their mind, without fear of reprisal.

The announcement of the arrival of the auditor terrifies everyone, but such “sharks” of the bureaucratic world quickly recover from the first shock and easily come to the simplest solution to their problem - bribing the terrible, but probably just as dishonest auditor as they are. Delighted by the success of their plan, the officials lose their vigilance and composure and find themselves completely defeated at the moment when it turns out that the Khlestakov they had favored is a nobody, but a real high-ranking official from St. Petersburg is already in the city. The image of the city N is described.

Themes

Political topics: arbitrariness, nepotism and embezzlement in government structures. The author's field of view comes to the provincial town of N. The absence of a name and any territorial indications immediately suggests that this is a collective image. The reader immediately becomes acquainted with a number of officials living there, since they are the ones of interest in this work. These are all people who completely abuse power and use official duties only for their own interests. The life of the officials of the city of N has been established for a long time, everything goes on as usual, nothing violates the order they created, the foundation of which was laid by the mayor himself, until a real threat of trial and reprisal for their arbitrariness appears, which is about to fall on them in the person of the auditor. We talked about this topic in more detail.
Social topics. Along the way, the comedy touches on theme of universal human stupidity, manifesting itself differently in different representatives of the human race. So, the reader sees how this vice leads some of the play's heroes into various curious situations: Khlestakov, inspired by the opportunity once in his life to become what he would like to be, does not notice that his legend is written with a pitchfork on the water and he is about to be exposed ; The mayor, at first frightened to the core, and then faced with the temptation to go out into public in St. Petersburg itself, is lost in a world of fantasies about a new life and turns out to be unprepared for the denouement of this extraordinary story.

Problems

The comedy is aimed at ridiculing specific vices of people with high positions in the service. Residents of the city do not disdain either bribery or embezzlement; they deceive ordinary people and rob them. Selfishness and arbitrariness are the eternal problems of officials, so “The Inspector General” remains a relevant and topical play at all times.

Gogol touches not only on the problems of a particular class. He finds vices in every resident of the city. For example, in noble women we clearly see greed, hypocrisy, deceit, vulgarity and a tendency to betray. In ordinary townspeople, the author finds slavish dependence on masters, plebeian narrow-mindedness, a willingness to grovel and fawn for immediate gain. The reader can see all sides of the coin: where tyranny reigns, there is no less shameful slavery. People resign themselves to this attitude towards themselves; they are satisfied with such a life. This is where unjust power derives its strength.

Meaning

The meaning of the comedy is laid down by Gogol in the folk proverb he chose as the epigraph: “There is no point in blaming the mirror if your face is crooked.” In his work, the writer talks about the pressing problems of his country of the contemporary period, although more and more new readers (each in his own era) find them topical and relevant. Not everyone greets comedy with understanding, not everyone is ready to admit the existence of a problem, but they are inclined to blame the people around them, circumstances, life as such for the imperfection of the world - just not themselves. The author sees this pattern in his compatriots and, wanting to fight it using methods available to him, writes “The Inspector General” in the hope that those who read it will try to change something in themselves (and, perhaps, in the world around them) in order to prevent troubles and outrages on their own, but by all possible means to stop the triumphant path of dishonor in the professional environment.

There are no positive characters in the play, which can be interpreted as a literal expression of the author’s main idea: everyone is to blame for everyone else. There are no people who would not take a humiliating part in riots and riots. Everyone contributes to injustice. Not only officials are to blame, but also merchants who give bribes and rob people, and ordinary people who are always drunk and live in bestial conditions on their own initiative. Not only greedy, ignorant and hypocritical men are vicious, but also deceitful, vulgar and stupid ladies. Before criticizing someone, you need to start with yourself, reducing the vicious circle by at least one link. This is the main idea of The Inspector General.

Criticism

The writing of “The Inspector General” resulted in a wide public outcry. The audience received the comedy ambiguously: reviews were both enthusiastic and indignant. Criticism took opposing positions in assessing the work.

Many of Gogol's contemporaries sought to analyze the comedy and draw some conclusion regarding its value for Russian and world literature. Some found it rude and harmful to read. So, F.V. Bulgarin, a representative of the official press and Pushkin’s personal enemy, wrote that “The Inspector General” is a slander against Russian reality, that if such morals exist, it is not in our country, that Gogol depicted a Little Russian or Belarusian city and such an ugly one that it is not clear how he can stay on the globe.

O.I. Senkovsky noted the writer’s talent and believed that Gogol had finally found his genre and should improve in it, but the comedy itself was not so well received by the critic. Senkovsky considered it to be the author’s mistake to mix in his work something good and pleasant with the amount of dirt and baseness that the reader ultimately encounters. The critic also noted that the premise on which the entire conflict rests is unconvincing: such seasoned scoundrels as the officials of the city of N could not be so gullible and allow themselves to be led into this fateful delusion.

There was a different opinion regarding Gogol's comedy. K.S. Aksakov stated that those who criticize “The Inspector General” did not understand its poetics and should read the text more carefully. Like a true artist, Gogol hid his real feelings behind ridicule and satire, but in reality his soul ached for Russia, in which all the characters in the comedy actually have a place.

It is interesting that in his article “The Inspector General” Comedy, Op. N. Gogol" P.A. Vyazemsky, in turn, noted the complete success of the stage production. Recalling the accusations of implausibility against the comedy, he wrote about the psychological causes of the phenomena described by the author as more significant, but was also ready to admit that what happened was possible from all other points of view. An important note in the article is the episode about attacks on the characters: “They say that in Gogol’s comedy not a single smart person is visible; not true: the author is smart.”

V.G. himself Belinsky praised The Inspector General. Oddly enough, he wrote a lot about Gogol’s comedy in the article “Woe from Wit.” The critic carefully examined both the plot and some of the characters of the comedy, as well as its essence. Speaking about the genius of the author and praising his work, he admitted that everything in The Inspector General is excellent.

It is impossible not to mention critical articles about the comedy of the author himself. Gogol wrote five explanatory articles for his work, as he believed that it was misunderstood by actors, spectators, and readers. He really wanted the public to see in The Inspector General exactly what he showed, so that they would perceive him in a certain way. In his articles, the writer gave instructions to the actors on how to play their roles, revealed the essence of some episodes and scenes, as well as the general essence of the entire work. He paid special attention to the silent scene, because he considered it incredibly important, the most important. I would especially like to mention the “Theatrical tour after the presentation of a new comedy.” This article is unusual in its form: it is written in the form of a play. The audience who have just watched the performance, as well as the author of the comedy, are talking among themselves. It contains some clarifications regarding the meaning of the work, but the main thing is Gogol’s responses to criticism of his work.

Ultimately, the play became an important and integral part of Russian literature and culture.

Interesting? Save it on your wall!

It is very difficult to describe briefly - his literary heritage and significance for the development of Russian literature were too multifaceted.

The Master's Path

The creative path of a writer is difficult to divide into distinct stages, characterized by common themes and genres of works. Materiality and mysticism, humor and tragedy, realism and romance always coexisted in his stories, novellas, and plays.

Conventionally, they try to divide Gogol’s work, like any other writer, into stages: the beginning of the path is the collections “”.

In this collection of stories on themes of Ukrainian folklore, allegedly retold from the words of an old Cossack, the writer in a fairy-tale and fantastic style describes the past and present of Ukrainian peasants, their way of life and prejudices, not forgetting about social contradictions; youth - collections of stories "Mirgorod" and "Arabesques" combine works on various topics and in different genres.

They contain a real knightly romance "", the literary thriller "Viy" with a description of the life of the small nobility and officials, reflections on the topic of art, history, the complexity of human relationships; maturity - plays.

"", "Marriage", "Players", the plot of which not only sharply ridiculed the contemporary reality of the writer, but has not lost its relevance to this day.

Exceptions to the rules

Despite this typical division for the work of any writer, many researchers of Gogol’s work believe that, in fact, only two works can be attributed to separate stages of development, namely, to the beginning of the path and to the pinnacle of creativity:

1. "Hanz Küchelgarten" - the beginning of creativity. The writer's first work. During the writer’s youth, all landowners and nobles whiled away their time by scribbling poetry on romantic themes. Gogol did not escape this either. His only rhymed work did not delight either his contemporaries or future generations.
2. " " - the crown of the great master's creation. The work, called a “poem” by the author, absorbed all of Gogol’s writing experience and combined all aspects of his work.

The story “The Overcoat” also stands out. A terrible story about the primitive dreams of a man in a harsh world, about his willingness to give his worthless life for a pathetic coat. This work is still relevant now, despite consumer abundance, no less than in the time of Gogol.

Separately, I would also like to say about mysticism, which is somehow present in most of his works. In "Terrible Revenge" and "Dead Souls", in "The Night Before Christmas" and "The Overcoat" - mysticism not only frightens the reader, but also helps explain the worldview of the characters.

Significance in history

The writer's work had a huge influence on all Russian literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He was highly valued both during the life and after the death of the writer (probably the only example in history). Without Gogol there would be no a. The works of the great author are translated into all languages of the world. Many of them were filmed.

Such popularity of his characters and plots is explained by the fact that the problems raised in his works: veneration of rank, corruption, superstition, quarrelsomeness, poverty, exist to this day in all countries of the world and will exist for a long time. But even when they disappear, Gogol’s books will serve as a source of knowledge about these disgusting phenomena.

Chapter 2. Analysis of works

“How to make the devil look like a fool” - this, by Gogol’s own admission, was the main thought of his entire life and work. “For a long time now, all I’ve been trying to do is ensure that after my writing, people laugh at the devil to their heart’s content” (Letter to Shevyrev from Naples, April 27, 1847).

In Gogol’s religious understanding, the devil is a mystical essence and a real being in whom eternal evil is concentrated. Gogol explores the nature of the mystical essence; how a man fights this real being with the weapon of laughter: Gogol’s laughter is a man’s struggle with the devil.

God is the infinite, the end and the beginning of things; devil is the denial of God, and therefore the denial of the infinite, the denial of every end and beginning; the devil is the begun and unfinished, which presents itself as beginningless and endless; the devil is the negation of all depths and peaks - eternal flatness, eternal vulgarity. The only subject of Gogol's creativity is the devil in precisely this sense, that is, as a phenomenon of “immortal human vulgarity.”

Evil is visible to everyone in great violations of the moral law, in rare and extraordinary atrocities, in stunning denouements of tragedies. Gogol was the first to see the invisible and most terrible, eternal evil not in tragedy, but in the absence of everything tragic, not in strength, but in powerlessness, not in insane extremes, but in the too prudent middle, not in sharpness and depth, but in dullness and flatness, vulgarity of all human feelings and thoughts, not in the greatest, but in the smallest. Gogol realized that the devil is the smallest thing, which only because of our own smallness seems great. “I call things,” he says, “directly by name, that is, I call the devil directly the devil, I do not give him a magnificent suit b la Byron and I know that he walks around in a tailcoat...” “The devil came out into the world without a mask: he appeared in his own form.”

The main power of the devil is the ability to appear to be something other than what he is. Gogol, the first, saw the devil without a mask, saw his true face, terrible not for its extraordinaryness, but for its ordinariness, vulgarity; the first to understand that the face of the devil is not a distant, alien, strange, fantastic, but the closest, familiar, real “human, all too human” face, the face of the crowd, a face “like everyone else’s,” almost our own face in those moments, when we don’t dare to be ourselves and agree to be “like everyone else.”

Gogol's two main characters - Khlestakov and Chichikov - are two modern Russian faces, two hypostases of eternal and universal evil - "immortal human vulgarity."

The inspired dreamer Khlestakov and the positive businessman Chichikov - behind these two opposite faces there is a hidden third face connecting them - the feature “without a mask”, “in a tailcoat”, in “his own form”, the face of our eternal double, who, showing us in himself our own reflection , as in a mirror, says:

Why are you laughing? You're laughing at yourself!

“You hit this brute (devil), hit him in the face and don’t be embarrassed by anything. He’s a clicker and is all about deception. He’s like a petty official who has crept into the city, supposedly for an investigation. He’ll throw dust at everyone, he’ll shout, he’ll shout. You just have to chicken out a little and move back - that's when he'll start to show his courage. And as soon as you step on him, he'll put his tail between his legs. We ourselves make a giant out of him; but in reality he's the devil knows what. A proverb doesn't come in vain, but a proverb says: the devil boasted "to take over the whole world, but God did not give him power over even a pig. To frighten, to deceive, to depress - that is his business."

It’s easy to guess who exactly this “petty official who entered the city supposedly for an investigation” is, that is, as an auditor, scolding everyone.

By Gogol’s own admission, in both of his greatest works - in “The Government Inspector” and “Dead Souls” - the paintings of a Russian provincial city of the 20s have, in addition to the obvious, some secret meaning, eternal and universal, symbolic, among “idleness”, emptiness , not a person, but the devil himself, the “father of lies,” in the image of Khlestakov or Chichikov, weaves his eternal, worldwide “gossip.” “I was completely convinced that gossip is woven by the devil, and not by a person,” writes Gogol. “A person blurts out a word without meaning, which he would not have wanted to say (wasn’t it exactly Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky who blurted out the word “auditor”?). This the word will go for a walk; and little by little the story will weave itself, without everyone knowing. It’s crazy to look for the real author, because you won’t find him... Don’t blame anyone... Remember that everything in the world is a deception, everything seems to us not what it is is in fact... It is difficult, difficult for us to live, forgetting at every moment that our actions will be audited by the One Who cannot be bribed with anything."

Isn’t it given here the complete, not only understandable and real, but also until now, apparently not understood by anyone, mystical meaning of the Inspector General?

In Khlestakov, in addition to a real human face, there is a “ghost”: “this is a phantasmagoric face,” says Gogol, “which, like a lying personified deception, was carried away along with the troika God knows where.” The hero of "The Overcoat", Akakiy Akakievich, just like Khlestakov, only not during his life, but after his death, becomes a ghost - a dead man who scares passers-by at the Kalinkin Bridge and pulls off their overcoats. And the hero of “Notes of a Madman” becomes a fantastic, ghostly figure - “King Ferdinand VIII of Spain.” All three have the same starting point: these are petty St. Petersburg officials, impersonal cells of a huge state body. From this starting point - the almost complete absorption of a living human personality by a dead impersonal whole - they rush into the void, into space and describe three different, but equally monstrous parabolas: one in a lie, another in madness, the third in a superstitious legend. In all three cases the personality takes revenge for his real denial; takes revenge with illusory, fantastic self-affirmation. A person tries to be not what is in every human personality and what shouts from it to people, to God: I am alone, there has never been another like me anywhere and there will never be, I am everything to myself - “I, I, I !" - Khlestakov screams in a frenzy.

Some insects, with the shape and color of their bodies, reproduce with precision, to the point of completely deceiving even human vision, the shape and color of dead twigs, withered leaves, stones and other objects, using this property as a weapon in the struggle for existence, in order to avoid enemies and catch prey. In Khlestakov, nature inherent something similar to this primordial “Khlestakov lies,” says Gogol, “not at all coldly or in a fanfare-theatrical way; he lies with feeling; the pleasure he receives from this is expressed in his eyes. This is generally the best and most poetic moment of his life - almost a kind of inspiration."

“It seems that an unknown force has taken you on its wing, and you are flying, and everything is flying.” Go-go! Excelsior! What does it mean, in Gogol’s words, “this terrifying movement,” on the one hand, and this terrifying immobility, on the other? Is it really possible that the petrified Russian City, shackled without iron chains by the “Egyptian darkness,” is all old and modern Russia, and Khlestakov, flying somewhere to hell, is the new Russia? Stone heaviness, illusory lightness, the real vulgarity of the present, the fantastic vulgarity of the future, and here are two equally pitiable ends, two equally terrible paths for Russia to “hell,” into the void, into “nihilism,” into nothingness. And in this sense, what a terrible mockery, unexpected for Gogol himself, is his comparison of Russia with a rushing troika: “Rus, where are you rushing? Give an answer. Doesn’t give an answer. The bell rings with a wonderful ringing (“Ring, my bell,” Poprishchin raves ; and in the fourth act of “The Inspector General” “the bell rings”). Everything that is on earth flies past, and, looking askance, other peoples and states step aside and give way to it.” The crazy Poprishchin, the witty Khlestakov and the prudent Chichikov - that’s who this symbolic Russian troika is rushing along in its terrible flight into the vast expanse or immense emptiness. "The horizon is endless... Rus'! Rus'! I see you... What does this vast expanse prophesy? Isn't it here, in you, that an endless thought will be born, when you yourself are endless? Isn't this where a hero should be, when there is a place for him to turn around and walk ?" Alas, this question was mercilessly answered by Gogol’s laughter! Like gigantic visions, like “decrepit monsters with sad faces,” only two “heroes of our time” appeared to him, two “heroes” born of the Russian expanse - Khlestakov and Chichikov.

In Khlestakov, the beginning of movement, “progress” predominates; in Chichikov - the beginning of balance, stability. Chichikov's strength lies in reasonable calm, in sobriety. Khlestakov has “extraordinary lightness”; Chichikov has extraordinary weight and thoroughness in his thoughts. Chichikov is an activist. For Khlestakov, everything desired is real; for Chichikov, everything that is real is desirable. Khlestakov is an idealist; Chichikov is a realist. Khlestakov is a liberal; Chichikov is a conservative. Khlestakov - “poetry”; Chichikov is the “truth” of modern Russian reality.

But, despite all this obvious opposition, their secret essence is the same. They are two poles of a single force; they are twin brothers, children of the Russian middle class and the Russian 19th century, the most middle, bourgeois of all centuries; and the essence of both is the eternal middle, “neither this nor that” is complete vulgarity. Khlestakov asserts what is not, Chichikov - what is - both in the same vulgarity. Khlestakov plans, Chichikov executes. The fantastic Khlestakov turns out to be the culprit of the most real Russian events, just as the real Chichikov is the culprit of the most fantastic Russian legend about “Dead Souls”. These, I repeat, are two modern Russian faces, two hypostases of eternal and universal evil - a trait.

“It’s fairest,” Gogol notes, “to call Chichikov the owner, the acquirer. Acquisition is the fault of everything.”

So that's how it is! Somehow, Pavel Ivanovich! “So you have acquired it,” says the chairman after completing the deed of sale for the dead souls.

“I got it,” says Chichikov.

Good deed! really, good deed!

Yes, I see for myself that I could not have undertaken a better deed. Be that as it may, a man's purpose is still undetermined unless he has finally placed his feet firmly on a solid foundation, and not on some free-thinking chimera of youth.

Isn’t the entire European culture of the 19th century expressing its innermost essence through the mouth of Chichikov? The highest meaning of life, the last goal of man is “undefined” on earth. The end and beginning of the world are unknowable; only the middle - the world of phenomena - is accessible to knowledge, sensory experience, and therefore real. The only and final measure for assessing everything is the strength, solidity, “positivity” of this sensory experience, that is, ordinary “healthy” - average human sensuality. All the philosophical and religious aspirations of past centuries, all their impulses towards the beginningless and infinite, the supersensible are, according to Comte’s definition, only “metaphysical” and “theological” nonsense, “free-thinking chimeras of youth.” “But our hero (the hero of our time, like time itself) was already middle-aged and of a prudently cool character.” He thought “more positively,” that is, “more positive.” And Chichikov’s main positive thought is precisely the thought of how to reject everything that seems to him to be a “chimera,” a deceptive ghost of the infinite, the unconditional, “to place a firm foot on the solid foundation” of the conditional, finite, relative, the only supposedly real one.

“But it’s remarkable,” Gogol adds, “that there was still some kind of unsteadiness in his words, as if he immediately said to himself: “Eh, brother, you’re lying, and a lot!” Yes, in the depths of Chichikov’s “positivism” "the same worldwide "lie" as in the depths of Khlestakov's idealism. Chichikov's desire to "stand with a firm foot on a solid foundation" is exactly what I will now use, and therefore - gone, just like Khlestakov's desire to "engage in, finally, something lofty." Both of them only talk and think like everyone else; but in essence, neither Chichikov cares about the "solid" foundations, nor Khlestakov cares about the mountain peaks of existence. Behind the conservative thoroughness of one of them, the same "chimera" is hidden ", emptiness, nothing, like behind the liberal "lightness of thoughts" - the other. These are not two opposite ends and beginnings, not two crazy, but still honest extremes, but two dishonest, because they are too reasonable, middles, two identical planes and the vulgarities of our century.

If there is no definite meaning in human life, higher than this life itself, then there is no definite goal for man on earth other than real victory in the real struggle for existence. “I want to eat like I’ve never wanted before!” - this unconscious, spontaneous cry of Khlestakov, “the voice of nature,” becomes a conscious, socio-cultural thought in Chichikov - the thought of acquisition, of property, of capital.

“Most of all, take care and save a penny: this thing is more reliable than anything in the world... A penny will not give you away... You can do everything and lose everything in the world with a penny.” This is the testament of Chichikov’s father and the entire spiritual fatherland of the 19th century. This is the most positive thought of the most positive of all centuries, with its industrial-capitalist, bourgeois system permeating the entire culture; This is supposedly the only “solid foundation” found, if not in abstract contemplation, then in vital action and opposed to all the “chimeras” of past centuries. There is, of course, no Divine truth here, but there is “human, all too human” truth, maybe even partly justification.

The errant knight of money, Chichikov sometimes seems to the same extent as Don Quixote, a genuine, not only comic, but also tragic hero, a “hero” of his time. “Your destiny is to be a great man,” Murazov tells him. And this is partly true: Chichikov, just like Khlestakov, is growing and growing before our eyes. As we diminish, we lose all our “ends” and “beginnings”, all “free-thinking chimeras”, our prudent middle, our bourgeois “positivity” - Chichikov - seems more and more great, endless.

“Why did he get a penny? Then, in order to live out the rest of his days in contentment, to leave to his wife and children, whom he intended to acquire for the good, for the service of the fatherland. He had no attachment to money for the sake of money, he was not possessed by miserliness and stinginess. No, not they moved him: he imagined a life ahead of him with all the pleasures, with all the prosperity. Good and evil for him are so conditional in comparison with the highest good - acquisition, that sometimes he himself would not be able to distinguish one from the other; he himself does not know where the investment in His nature is the instinct of “master”, “acquirer” and where meanness begins: average meanness and average nobility are mixed into one “decency”, “decency”.

Despite all his conservatism, Chichikov is partly a Westerner. Like Khlestakov, he feels like a representative of European enlightenment in the Russian provincial outback: here is Chichikov’s deep connection with the “St. Petersburg period” of Russian history, with Peter’s reforms. Chichikov is drawn to the West: he seems to have a presentiment that there is his strength, his future kingdom. “I wish I could move somewhere,” he dreams of customs, “and the border is close, and enlightened people. And what fine Dutch shirts you can get!” - “It should be added that at the same time he was also thinking about a special kind of French soap, which imparted extraordinary whiteness to the skin and freshness to the cheeks.” European enlightenment only strengthens the consciousness of the Russian gentleman, the “enlightened nobleman,” in his age-old contrast to the dark people. “Good, very good!” Chichikov exclaims one day, noticing that Petrushka is drunk. “You can say: I surprised Europe with its beauty!” Having said this, Chichikov stroked his chin and thought: “What, however, is the difference between an enlightened court and a rude lackey’s face!”

“Chichikov,” says Gogol, “took great care of his descendants.” “To leave it to his wife and children, whom he intended to acquire for the good, for the service of the fatherland, that’s why he wanted to acquire it!” - he admits himself. “God knows, I always wanted to have a wife, to fulfill the duty of a man and a citizen, so that I could really later earn the respect of citizens and authorities.” Chichikov's main mortal fear is not for himself, but for his future family, for his family, for his “seed.” “I would have disappeared,” he thinks in a moment of danger, “like a blister on the water, without any trace, leaving no descendants.” To die without giving birth is the same as not to live at all, because every personal life is a “blister in the water”; the blister will burst, the person will die - and there will be nothing left but steam. Personal life makes sense only in a family, in a clan, in a people, in a state, in humanity, just as the life of a polyp, a bee, an ant only in a polyp forest, a hive, an anthill. Every “yellow-faced positivist,” a student of Confucius, and every “white-faced Chinese,” a student of O. Comte, would agree with this unconscious metaphysics of Chichikov: here the extreme West meets the extreme East, the Atlantic Ocean meets the Pacific.

“What am I now?” thinks the ruined Chichikov, “where am I fit? With what eyes will I now look at every respectable father of the family? How can I not feel remorse, knowing that I am burdening the earth for nothing? And what will my children say later? - Here, They will say that my father is a brute: he didn’t leave us any fortune!” “Someone else, perhaps,” notes Gogol, and would not have sunk his hand so deeply if not for the question that, unknown why, comes by itself: what will the children say? with one eye to the side, he hastily grabs everything that is closest to him.” When Chichikov imagines himself as an owner, the owner of capital and estate, he immediately imagines both “a fresh, white-faced woman, and the young generation who should perpetuate the name of the Chichikovs: “a playful boy, and a beautiful daughter, or even two boys, two or even three girls, so that everyone knows that he really lived and existed, and not that he somehow passed through the earth as a shadow or a ghost, so that he would not be ashamed before his fatherland." “My dream is to come true, but finally, irrevocably,” - the devil says to Ivan. This is Chichikov’s main “positive” dream: he needs “women and Chichenkas” in order to “finally come true”, so that “everyone would know” that he “really existed” (as if it were otherwise for everyone and for himself, his reality is doubtful), and was not just a “shadow”, a “ghost”, a “blister on the water.” The existence of the “positivist” Chichikov, devoid of “descendants,” bursts in the same soap bubble as the existence of the “idealist” Khlestakov, devoid fantastic "chimera". Chichikov’s desire “for wenches and Chichenkas” is the desire of the devil, the most ghostly of ghosts, “for earthly realism.” And the “kingdom of this world” predicted by the Grand Inquisitor, “millions of happy babies” is nothing more than the “Middle Kingdom” of countless little positivists, global future Chinese (here is the spiritual “pan-Mongolism” that so frightened Vl. Solovyov), millions of happy “ Chichenkov”, in which the single “ancestor” of this kingdom, the immortal “master” of dead souls, the noumenal Chichikov, is repeated, like the sun in the drops of the “Pacific” ocean.

“Dead souls” - this was once a familiar official word for everyone in the clerical language of serfdom. But now we don’t need to be sensitive Manilovs at all, but we just need to really feel and “understand the object as it is,” that is, we need to understand not the conditional, official, “positive”, Chichikovsky, but the unconditional, religious, human, divine the meaning of these two words is “soul” and “death”, so that the expression “dead souls” sounds “strange” and even terrible. Not only dead, but living human souls, like soulless goods on the market - isn’t this strange and scary? Here, the language of the closest and most real reality does not resemble the language of the most alien and fantastic fairy tale? It is incredible that according to some clerical “fairy tales”, according to such and such a “revision”, dead souls are listed as alive; or perhaps vice versa, the living are dead, so that in the end there is no solid, positive “foundation” for distinguishing the living from the dead, being from non-being.

There is a monstrous confusion of words from a monstrous confusion of concepts. Language expresses concepts: what must be the vulgarity of concepts in order to obtain such vulgarity of language. And, despite this internal cynicism, Chichikov and his entire culture retain an external “amazing decency.” Of course, people of common sense and even statesmanship have adopted the popular word “dead souls” into official use; and yet what an abyss of Khlestakov’s lightness is revealed here in Chichikov’s “solidness”! I repeat, you don’t have to be Manilov, you just have to not be Chichikov, in order to feel that in this combination of words “something else is hidden”, behind the obvious, flat one there is a deep, secret meaning, and to be terrified by these two meanings.

“I’ve never sold dead people before,” Korobochka objects. “He came from God knows where,” she thinks, “and at night, too.” - “Listen, mother, this is dust. Do you understand? "It's not needed for anything. Well, tell me yourself, what is it needed for?"

When, losing patience, Chichikov promised Korobochka the devil, “the landowner was incredibly frightened. Oh, don’t remember him, God bless him!” she cried out, turning pale. “On the third day, I dreamed all night about the damned one... I dreamed of such an ugly one; and the horns - longer than bull ones."

We may not suspect to what extent at this moment a new, genuine, somewhat more terrible and mysterious devil is close to us, who walks in the world “without a mask, in his own form, in a tailcoat.”

Sobakevich has a dead soul in his living body. And Manilov, and Nozdryov, and Korobochka, and Plyushkin, and the prosecutor “with thick eyebrows” - all of this is in living bodies - dead souls. That's why it's so scary with them. This is the fear of death, the fear of a living soul touching the dead. “My soul ached,” Gogol admits, “when I saw how many, right there, in the midst of life itself, there were unresponsive, dead inhabitants, terrible with the immovable coldness of their souls.” And here, just as in “The Inspector General,” “Egyptian darkness” approaches, “blind night in broad daylight,” “stunning fog,” a damn haze in which nothing is visible, only “pig snouts” are visible instead of human faces. And the most terrible thing is that these “decrepit monsters with sad faces” staring at us, “children of ignorance, Russian freaks,” in the words of Gogol, “were taken from our own land,” from Russian reality; despite all their illusory nature, they are “from the same body from which we are”; they are us, reflected in some devilish and yet truthful mirror.

In one of Gogol’s youth fairy tales, in “Terrible Revenge,” “the dead are gnawing the dead”: “pale, one taller than the other, one more bony than the other.” Among them is “another one, taller than all, more terrible than all, rooted in the ground, a great, great dead man.” So here, in “Dead Souls,” among other dead people, the “great, great dead man” Chichikov grows, rises, and his real human image, refracted in the fog of the damn haze, becomes an incredible “bogeyman.”

The same gossip is woven around Chichikov as around Khlestakov. “All the searches carried out by the officials revealed to them only that they probably do not know in any way what Chichikov is: is he the kind of person who needs to be detained and captured as ill-intentioned, or is he the kind of person who can seize and detain himself them all as ill-intentioned." The postmaster expresses the brilliant idea that Pavel Ivanovich is none other than the new Stenka Razin, the famous robber, Captain Kopeikin. The others, for their part, also did not lose face and, prompted by the postmaster’s witty guess, wandered almost further. Of the many assumptions, there was, finally, one - that Chichikov might not be Napoleon in disguise, that the Englishman has long been jealous of Russia, that, they say, Russia is so great and vast... And now they, perhaps, have released Napoleon from the island of Helena, and now he is making his way to Russia, as if Chichikov, but in fact not Chichikov at all. - Of course, officials will believe this They didn’t believe it, but they became thoughtful, each considering this matter to himself, and found that Chichikov’s face, if he turned and stood sideways, looked very much like a portrait of Napoleon.”

Khlestakov is the Generalissimo, Chichikov is Napoleon himself and even the Antichrist himself. And here, just as in The Inspector General, as everywhere, always in Russia, the most fantastic legend becomes the source of the most real action. “All these rumors, opinions and rumors, for unknown reasons, had the greatest effect on the prosecutor, to such an extent that when he came home, he began to think and think and suddenly, as they say, for no reason at all, he died. Paralysis whether it was him or something else that grabbed him, he just sat there and fell backwards from the chair. They cried out, as usual, clasping their hands: “Oh, my God!” - they sent for the doctor to draw blood, but they saw that the prosecutor was has long been a soulless body."

Who knows, maybe to us, the “current generation”, the “unclean spirit” himself whispers in our ears through the lips of Chichikov: “Why are you laughing? Are you laughing at yourself!” Perhaps our civil “reproaches” of Chichikov will turn out to be no less Khlestakovian than the reproaches of the prince-auditor. “What can we do!” Chichikov could answer us, as he answers Murazov. “The damned ignorance of proportion destroyed us, Satan seduced us, took us beyond the limits of human reason and prudence. He transgressed, he transgressed!” - and having answered like that, he would have left us in the fool, because his essence lies precisely in the fact that he does not begin to transgress or not, that he observes too well the “measure”, the middle in everything that is never he goes beyond the limits of “human prudence” and that he was not “deceived by Satan,” but he himself is Satan, who deceives everyone. Perhaps our Christian mercy towards Chichikov is similar to the mercy of the new Christian millionaire Murazov, reminiscent of the philanthropic penny that Chichikov himself forks out for. So, in the end, both our civil justice and our Christian charity are off him like water off a duck's back: having deceived not only the officials, Prince Khlobuev, but also us, and even Gogol himself, Chichikov will again be released from prison, acquitted, as if nothing had happened, pitying only the tailcoat, torn in a fit of despair: “Why did you have to indulge in so much contrition?” - and he will order himself a new tailcoat from the same cloth, “Navaro flames with smoke,” and the new one will be “exactly like the old one” - and - “sit down, my coachman, ring my bell, soar your horses and carry me! " - like Khlestakov, he will rush off on his bird-troika, “like a ghost, like an embodied deception,” into the immeasurable spaces of the future. And again - “the horizon without end... Rus'! Rus'!., why do you look like that, and why did everything that is in you turn its eyes full of expectation to me? What does this vast expanse prophesy? Isn’t there a hero here? "

Chichikov disappeared. But from the vast Russian expanse the Russian hero will also emerge, the immortal Master of “dead souls” will appear again, in his final terrifying appearance. And only then will it be revealed what is now still hidden not only from us, the readers, but also from the artist himself - how scary this funny prophecy is:

“Standing before me is a man who laughs at everything that we have... No, this is not ridicule of vices: this is a disgusting mockery of Russia,” perhaps not only of Russia, but of all humanity, of all of God’s creation, - this is what he justified himself in, and, therefore, this is what Gogol was afraid of. He saw that “you can’t joke with laughter.” - “What I laughed at became sad.” One might add: it became scary. He felt that his very laughter was terrible, that the power of this laughter lifted some final veils, revealed some final secret of evil. Looking too directly into the face of the “devil without a mask,” he saw something that is not good for human eyes to see: “a decrepit monster with a sad face stared into his eyes,” and he was frightened and, not remembering himself from fear, shouted to all of Russia : “Compatriots! It’s scary! The soul freezes with horror at the mere forehearing of the greatness beyond the grave... My entire dying composition groans, sensing the gigantic growths and fruits, the seeds of which we sowed in life, without seeing or hearing what horrors will rise from them”...

The two main “monsters” who are closest and most terrible to Gogol, whom he therefore persecutes with the greatest malice, are Khlestakov and Chichikov.

“My heroes have not yet completely separated from myself, and therefore have not received real independence.” Those two who separated the least from him were Khlestakov and Chichikov.

“In my book (Correspondence with Friends), I have made such a big deal about Khlestakov that I don’t have the courage to look into it,” writes Gogol to Zhukovsky (from Naples, March 6, 1847). “Really,” he concludes, “there is something Khlestakovsky in me.” What terrible significance does this confession take on if you compare it with something else - the fact that he saw the devil in Khlestakov!

There was perhaps even more Chichikovsky in Gogol than Khlestakovsky. Chichikov, just like Khlestakov, could have said what Ivan Karamazov says to his devil: “You are the embodiment of myself, only one side of me, however... my thoughts and feelings, only the most disgusting and stupid... You are me, I am myself, only with a different face." But Gogol didn’t say this, didn’t see it, or just didn’t want to, didn’t dare to see his devil in Chichikov, perhaps precisely because Chichikov “separated from himself and gained independence” even less than Khlestakov. Here the truth and the power of laughter suddenly betrayed Gogol - he felt sorry for himself in Chichikov: there was something in Chichikov’s “earthly realism” that Gogol could not overcome in himself. Feeling that this was, in any case, an extraordinary man, he wanted to make him a great man: “Your purpose, Pavel Ivanovich, is to be a great man,” he tells him through the mouth of the new Christian Murazov. Gogol needed to save Chichikov at all costs: it seemed to him that he was saving himself in him.

But he did not save him, but only destroyed himself along with him. Chichikov’s great calling was the last and most cunning ambush, the last and most seductive mask behind which the devil, the true owner of “Dead Souls,” hid, lying in wait for Gogol.

Just as Ivan Karamazov fights the devil in his nightmare, so Gogol fights in his work, also a kind of “nightmare”. “These nightmares crushed my own soul: what was in the soul came out of it.” “For a long time now, all I’ve been trying to do is make sure that people laugh at the devil to their heart’s content,” that’s the main thing that was in his soul. Did he succeed? In the end, who laughed at whom in Gogol's work - man over the devil or devil over man?

In any case, the challenge was accepted, and Gogol felt that he should not refuse the fight, it was too late to retreat. But this terrible struggle, which began in art, in contemplation abstracted from life, had to be resolved in life itself, in real action. Before overcoming eternal evil in the outside world as an artist, Gogol had to overcome it within himself as a person. He understood this and truly transferred the struggle from creativity to life; in this struggle I saw not only my artistic calling, but also my “life’s work”, “spiritual work”

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The work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is a literary heritage that can be compared to a large and multifaceted diamond, shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow.

Despite the fact that Nikolai Vasilyevich’s life was short-lived (1809-1852), and in the last ten years he did not finish a single work, the writer made an invaluable contribution to Russian classical literature.

Gogol was looked upon as a hoaxer, a satirist, a romantic and simply a wonderful storyteller. Such versatility was attractive as a phenomenon even during the writer’s lifetime. Incredible situations were attributed to him, and sometimes ridiculous rumors were spread. But Nikolai Vasilyevich did not refute them. He understood that over time all this would turn into legends.

The writer's literary destiny is enviable. Not every author can boast that all of his works were published during his lifetime, and each work attracted the attention of critics.

Start

The fact that real talent had come to literature became clear after the story “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.” But this is not the author's first work. The first thing the writer created was the romantic poem “Hanz Küchelgarten”.

It is difficult to say what prompted young Nikolai to write such a strange work, probably a passion for German romanticism. But the poem was not a success. And as soon as the first negative reviews appeared, the young author, together with his servant Yakim, bought all the remaining copies and simply burned them.

This act became something of a ring-shaped composition in creativity. Nikolai Vasilyevich began his literary journey with the burning of his works and ended it with the burning. Yes, Gogol treated his works cruelly when he felt some kind of failure.

But then a second work came out, which was mixed with Ukrainian folklore and ancient Russian literature - “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.” The author managed to laugh at the evil spirits, at the devil himself, to unite the past and the present, reality and fiction, and paint it all in cheerful tones.

All the stories described in the two volumes were received with delight. Pushkin, who was an authority for Nikolai Vasilyevich, wrote: “What poetry!.. All this is so unusual in our current literature.” Belinsky also put his “quality mark”. It was a success.

Genius

If the first two books, which included eight stories, showed that talent had entered literature, then the new cycle, under the general title “Mirgorod,” revealed a genius.

Mirgorod- these are only four stories. But each work is a true masterpiece.

A story about two old men who live in their estate. Nothing happens in their life. At the end of the story they die.

This story can be approached in different ways. What was the author trying to achieve: sympathy, pity, compassion? Maybe this is how the writer sees the idyll of the twilight part of a person’s life?

A very young Gogol (he was only 26 years old at the time of working on the story) decided to show true, genuine love. He moved away from generally accepted stereotypes: romance between young people, wild passions, betrayals, confessions.

Two old men, Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna, do not show any special love for each other, there is no talk of carnal needs, and there are no anxious worries. Their life is caring for each other, the desire to predict, not yet voiced desires, to play a joke.

But their affection for each other is so great that after the death of Pulcheria Ivanovna, Afanasy Ivanovich simply cannot live without her. Afanasy Ivanovich is weakening, dilapidating, like the old estate, and before his death he asks: “Put me near Pulcheria Ivanovna.”

This is a daily, deep feeling.

The story of Taras Bulba

Here the author touches on a historical topic. The war that Taras Bulba is waging against the Poles is a war for the purity of faith, for Orthodoxy, against “Catholic mistrust.”

And although Nikolai Vasilyevich did not have reliable historical facts about Ukraine, being content with folk legends, meager chronicle data, Ukrainian folk songs, and sometimes simply turning to mythology and his own imagination, he perfectly managed to show the heroism of the Cossacks. The story was literally stretched into catchphrases that still remain relevant today: “I gave birth to you, I will kill you!”, “Be patient, Cossack, and you will be an ataman!”, “Is there still gunpowder in the flasks?!”

The mystical basis of the work, where evil spirits and evil spirits united against the main character form the basis of the plot, is perhaps the most incredible Gogol story.

The main action takes place in the temple. Here the author allowed himself to fall into doubt: can evil spirits be defeated? Is faith capable of resisting this demonic revelry, when neither the word of God nor the performance of special sacraments helps?

Even the name of the main character, Khoma Brut, was chosen with deep meaning. Homa is a religious principle (that was the name of one of Christ’s disciples, Thomas), and Brutus, as you know, is the killer of Caesar and an apostate.

Bursak Brutus had to spend three nights in the church reading prayers. But the fear of the lady who had risen from the grave forced him to turn to non-God-pleasing protection.

Gogol's character fights the lady with two methods. On the one hand, with the help of prayers, on the other hand, with the help of pagan rituals, drawing a circle and spells. His behavior is explained by philosophical views on life and doubts about the existence of God.

As a result, Home Brutus did not have enough faith. He rejected the inner voice telling him: “Don’t look at Viy.” But in magic he turned out to be weak compared to the surrounding entities, and lost this battle. He was a few minutes short of the last rooster crow. Salvation was so close, but the student did not take advantage of it. But the church remained desolate, desecrated by evil spirits.

The story of how Ivan Ivanovich quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich

A story about the enmity of former friends who quarreled over a trifle and devoted the rest of their lives to sorting things out.

A sinful passion for hatred and strife - this is the vice the author points out. Gogol laughs at the petty tricks and intrigues that the main characters plot against each other. This enmity makes their whole life petty and vulgar.

The story is full of satire, grotesque, irony. And when the author says with admiration that both Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich are both wonderful people, the reader understands all the baseness and vulgarity of the main characters. Out of boredom, landowners look for reasons to litigate and this becomes their meaning of life. And it’s sad because these gentlemen have no other goal.

Petersburg stories

The search for a way to overcome evil was continued by Gogol in those works that the writer did not combine into a specific cycle. It’s just that the writers decided to call them St. Petersburg, after the place of action. Here again the author ridicules human vices. The play “Marriage”, the stories “Notes of a Madman”, “Portrait”, “Nevsky Prospekt”, the comedies “Litigation”, “Excerpt”, “Players” deserved particular popularity.

Some works should be described in more detail.

The most significant of these St. Petersburg works is considered to be the story “The Overcoat”. No wonder Dostoevsky once said: “We all came out of Gogol’s Overcoat.” Yes, this is a key work for Russian writers.

“The Overcoat” shows the classic image of a little man. The reader is presented with a downtrodden titular adviser, insignificant in the service, whom anyone can offend.

Here Gogol made another discovery - the little man is interesting to everyone. After all, problems of the state level, heroic deeds, violent or sentimental feelings, vivid passions, and strong characters were considered worthy depictions in the literature of the early 19th century.

And so, against the backdrop of prominent characters, Nikolai Vasilyevich “releases into the public” a petty official who should be completely uninteresting. There are no state secrets here, no struggle for the glory of the Fatherland. There is no place for sentimentality and sighs into the starry sky. And the most courageous thoughts in Akaki Akakievich’s head: “Shouldn’t we put a marten on the collar of our overcoat?”

The writer showed an insignificant person whose meaning in life is his overcoat. His goals are very small. Bashmachkin first dreams of an overcoat, then saves money for it, and when it is stolen, he simply dies. And readers sympathize with the unfortunate adviser, considering the issue of social injustice.

Gogol definitely wanted to show the stupidity, inconsistency and mediocrity of Akaki Akakievich, who can only deal with copying papers. But it is precisely compassion for this insignificant person that gives rise to a warm feeling in the reader.

It is impossible to ignore this masterpiece. The play has always been a success, including because the author gives the actors a good basis for creativity. The play's first release was a triumph. It is known that the example of “The Inspector General” was Emperor Nicholas I himself, who perceived the production favorably and assessed it as a criticism of bureaucracy. This is exactly how everyone else saw the comedy.

But Gogol did not rejoice. His work was not understood! We can say that Nikolai Vasilyevich took up self-flagellation. It is with “The Inspector General” that the writer begins to evaluate his work more harshly, raising the literary bar higher and higher after any of his publications.

As for “The Inspector General,” the author had long hoped that he would be understood. But this did not happen even ten years later. Then the writer created the work “Decoupling to The Inspector General,” in which he explains to the reader and viewer how to correctly understand this comedy.

First of all, the author states that he is not criticizing anything. And a city where all the officials are freaks cannot exist in Russia: “Even if there are two or three, there will be decent ones.” And the city shown in the play is a spiritual city that sits inside everyone.

It turns out that Gogol showed the soul of a person in his comedy, and called on people to understand their apostasy and repent. The author put all his efforts into the epigraph: “There is no point in blaming the mirror if your face is crooked.” And after he was not understood, he turned this phrase against himself.

But the poem was also perceived as a criticism of landowner Russia. They also saw a call to fight serfdom, although, in fact, Gogol was not an opponent of serfdom.

In the second volume of Dead Souls, the writer wanted to show positive examples. For example, he painted the image of the landowner Kostanzhoglo as so decent, hardworking and fair that the men of the neighboring landowner come to him and ask him to buy them.

All the author’s ideas were brilliant, but he himself believed that everything was going wrong. Not everyone knows that Gogol burned the second volume of Dead Souls for the first time back in 1845. This is not an aesthetic failure. The surviving rough works show that Gogol's talent has not at all dried up, as some critics try to claim. The burning of the second volume reveals the author's demands, not his insanity.

But rumors about Nikolai Vasilyevich’s mild insanity quickly spread. Even the writer’s inner circle, people who were far from stupid, could not understand what the writer wanted from life. All this gave rise to additional fictions.

But there was also an idea for the third volume, where the heroes from the first two volumes were supposed to meet. One can only guess what the author deprived us of by destroying his manuscripts.

Nikolai Vasilyevich admitted that at the beginning of his life, while still in adolescence, he was not easily worried about the question of good and evil. The boy wanted to find a way to fight evil. The search for an answer to this question redefined his calling.

The method was found - satire and humor. Anything that seems unattractive, unsightly or ugly should be made funny. Gogol said: “Even those who are not afraid of anything are afraid of laughter.”

The writer has so developed the ability to turn a situation around with a funny side that his humor has acquired a special, subtle basis. The laughter visible to the world hid in itself tears, disappointment, and grief, something that cannot amuse, but, on the contrary, leads to sad thoughts.

For example, in a very funny story, “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich,” after a funny story about irreconcilable neighbors, the author concludes: “It’s boring in this world, gentlemen!” The goal has been achieved. The reader is sad because the situation played out is not funny at all. The same effect occurs after reading the story “Notes of a Madman,” where a whole tragedy is played out, although it is presented from a comedic perspective.

And if early work is distinguished by true cheerfulness, for example, “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka,” then with age the author wants deeper investigations, and calls on the reader and viewer to this.

Nikolai Vasilyevich understood that laughter could be dangerous and resorted to various tricks to circumvent censorship. For example, the stage fate of The Inspector General might not have worked out at all if Zhukovsky had not convinced the emperor himself that there was nothing unreliable in mocking untrustworthy officials.

Like many, Gogol’s road to Orthodoxy was not easy. He painfully, making mistakes and doubting, searched for his path to the truth. But it was not enough for him to find this road himself. He wanted to point it out to others. He wanted to cleanse himself of everything bad and suggested that everyone do this.

From a young age, the boy studied both Orthodoxy and Catholicism, comparing religions, noting similarities and differences. And this search for truth was reflected in many of his works. Gogol not only read the Gospel, he made extracts.

Having become famous as a great mystifier, he was not understood in his last unfinished work, “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends.” And the church reacted negatively to “Selected Places,” believing that it was unacceptable for the author of “Dead Souls” to read sermons.

The Christian book itself was truly instructive. The author explains what happens at the liturgy. What symbolic meaning does this or that action have? But this work was not completed. In general, the last years of a writer’s life are a turn from external to internal.

Nikolai Vasilyevich travels a lot to monasteries, especially often visiting the Vvedenskaya Optina Hermitage, where he has a spiritual mentor, Elder Macarius. In 1949, Gogol met a priest, Father Matvey Konstantinovsky.

Disputes often occur between the writer and Archpriest Matvey. Moreover, Nikolai’s humility and piety are not enough for the priest; he demands: “Renounce Pushkin.”

And although Gogol did not commit any renunciation, the opinion of his spiritual mentor hovered over him as an undeniable authority. The writer persuades the archpriest to read the second volume of “Dead Souls” in its final version. And although the priest initially refused, he later decided to give his assessment of the work.

Archpriest Matthew is the only lifetime reader of the Gogol manuscript of the 2nd part. Returning the clean original to the author, the priest did not easily give a negative assessment of the prose poem; he advised it to be destroyed. In fact, this is who influenced the fate of the work of the great classic.

The conviction of Konstantinovsky, and a number of other circumstances, prompted the writer to abandon his work. Gogol begins to analyze his works. He almost refused food. Dark thoughts overcome him more and more.

Since everything was happening in the house of Count Tolstoy, Gogol asked him to hand over the manuscripts to Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow. With the best of intentions, the count refused to fulfill such a request. Then, late at night, Nikolai Vasilyevich woke up Semyon’s servant so that he would open the stove valves and burn all his manuscripts.

It seems that it was this event that predetermined the imminent death of the writer. He continued to fast and rejected any help from friends and doctors. It was as if he was purifying himself, preparing for death.

It must be said that Nikolai Vasilyevich was not abandoned. The literary community sent the best doctors to the patient's bedside. A whole council of professors was assembled. But, apparently, the decision to begin compulsory treatment was belated. Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol died.

It is not surprising that the writer, who wrote so much about evil spirits, delved into faith. Everyone on earth has their own path.