1. The place and significance of N.V. Gogol in Russian culture.
2. “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka.”
3. "Taras Bulba".
4. Comedy "The Inspector General".
5. Poem " Dead Souls».
6. The significance of N.V. Gogol’s creativity.
“I know that after me my name will be happier than me,” wrote N.V. Gogol. And he was right. 2009 was recognized by UNESCO as the Year of Gogol. Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is one of the few Russian writers whose fame went far beyond the Russian borders cultural space. Gogol's work was of exceptional importance in the history of Russian literature. According to Belinsky and Chernyshevsky, Gogol became the founder of a whole movement in Russian literature, the so-called “ natural school» 40s of the 19th century. Gogol created works that were a true discovery in artistic culture, had a great influence on the development of Russian literature and art in general. Gogol is not just a writer, but an exceptional person, tragic fate, thinker and prophet who stood on the threshold of a true solution historical destinies Russia, in whose fate one way or another the fate of literature and social thought of that time. Gogol - the beginning new era in the artistic consciousness of Russia in the 19th century.
A writer is born April 1(March 20, old style) 1809 in the town Velikie Sorochintsy, Mirgorod district, Poltava province in the family of a landowner. The writer was named Nikolai in honor of the miraculous icon of St. Nicholas, kept in the church of the village of Dikanka.
The Gogols had over 1000 acres of land and about 400 serfs.
The writer's ancestors on his father's side were hereditary priests, but his grandfather left the spiritual career and entered the office; it was he who added to his surname Yanovsky another - Gogol, which was supposed to demonstrate the origin of the family from the 17th century known in Ukrainian history. Colonel Gogol.
The writer's father Vasily Afanasyevich Gogol-Yanovsky, served at the Little Russian Post Office, retired with the rank of collegiate assessor and married Maria Ivanovna Kosyarovskaya, who came from a landowner family. According to legend, she was the first beauty in the Poltava region. She married Vasily Afanasyevich at the age of fourteen. In addition to Nikolai, the family had five more children.
Gogol spent his childhood years on his parents' estate - Vasilievka. Together with his parents, the boy often traveled to the estates of surrounding landowners, who turned out to be quite enlightened people. Particularly attractive were Kibintsy, where the owner of the estate kept a huge library and home theater, for which Gogol's father wrote comedies, being also its actor and conductor. They also involved in the productions little Nicholas. Historical legends and biblical stories told by his mother also served as a source of strong impressions for the boy.
In 1818-1819, Gogol, together with his brother Ivan, studied at Poltava district school. In May 1821, the writer entered the Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences. Gogol was a fairly average student, but distinguished himself in the gymnasium theater as an actor and decorator. The first literary experiments in poetry and prose date back to the gymnasium period, for example, the satire “Something about Nezhin, or the law is not written for fools” (not preserved).
WITH teenage years Nikolai Gogol dreamed of a legal career. In December 1828
a year after completing his studies at the gymnasium, he moved to St. Petersburg. Experiencing financial difficulties, worrying about a place, he made his first literary attempts: at the beginning of 1829, the poem “Italy” appeared, and in the spring of the same year, under the pseudonym "Alov" Gogol published the “idyll in pictures” “Hanz Küchelgarten”. The poem received harsh and mocking reviews from critics. In July 1829, Gogol burned unsold copies of the book and left to travel to Germany.
Upon returning to Russia, Gogol manages to decide to serve as an official in the Department of State Economy and Public Buildings, and then in the Department of Appanages. Official activity does not bring Gogol satisfaction; but his new publications (the story “Bisavryuk, or the Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala”, articles and essays) are paying more and more attention to him. The writer makes extensive literary acquaintances: with V. A. Zhukovsky, P. A. Pletnev, A. S. Pushkin. Gogol often visited Pushkin in Tsarskoye Selo and carried out assignments for the publication of Belkin's Tales. Pushkin valued Gogol as a writer, “gave” the plots of “The Inspector General” and “ Dead souls".
in autumn 1831 year, the 1st part of the collection of stories from Ukrainian life "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka." It included “Sorochinskaya Fair
", "The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala", "May Night, or the Drowned Woman", "The Missing Letter". A year later, the 2nd part appeared, enthusiastically received by Pushkin. It included “The Night Before Christmas”, “Terrible Revenge”, “Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and His Aunt”, “ Enchanted place" The stories in this cycle are also called Ukrainian stories, as they clearly reflect national character, life and customs of the Ukrainian people. “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka” are characterized by what triumphs in them popular consciousness, all serious problems are solved from the standpoint of popular morality. Gogol paints liberty folk life, its festive character, fair spirit, true fun. Distinctive features The stories of this cycle are musicality, the fusion of epic and lyricism, comic and tragic, folk humor and heroic pathos, as well as folklorism and fantasy. Gogol uses folk tales and legends. The stories contain a lot of mythological and fairy tale characters: sorcerers, witches, werewolves.
In the early 1830s, Gogol was engaged in teaching, giving private lessons, and later taught history at the St. Petersburg Patriotic Institute. In 1834 he was appointed associate professor in the department general history at St. Petersburg University.
IN 1835 collections were published "Arabesque" And "Mirgorod"."Arabesques" contained several articles of popular scientific content on history and art and the stories "Portrait", "Nevsky Prospect" and "Notes of a Madman". In the first part of “Mirgorod” “Old World Landowners” and “Taras Bulba” appeared, in the second - “Viy” and “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich.
"Taras Bulba"- This historical story. In the background historical events that really happened in the 15th-17th centuries is described daily life Zaporozhye Cossacks. Events of more than two centuries are recreated in the fate of one hero and his sons. Plays an important role folklore basis stories, descriptions of landscapes, interiors. The plot of the work is the meeting of Taras Bulba with his sons Ostap and Andriy, who came home for the holidays. Taras decides to check them out and goes with them to the Zaporozhye Sich. The climax of the story is the scene of the murder by Taras Bulba youngest son Andria for betrayal and revenge on enemies for the death of his eldest son Ostap. The denouement of the story is the execution of Taras Bulba himself. Gogol considers the Cossacks not a historical or national class, but an expression of one of the sides of the “Russian spirit.” The main idea of the story is the unity of the people, based on faith, patriotism, camaraderie and freedom.
The pinnacle of Gogol's work as a playwright was comedy "Inspector" published and simultaneously staged in 1836 year. The comedy talks about how county town a random passer-by is mistaken for an auditor from the capital. According to the writer himself, in “The Inspector General” he “decided to collect in one pile everything bad in Russia, all the injustices that are done in those places and in those cases where justice is most required from a person, and at one time laugh at everything.” . The action of the comedy "The Inspector General" takes place in Gogol's contemporary society, and almost all the vices of this society are clearly reflected in this work. Proof of this can be the fact that for a long time they did not want to stage the play. It took the intervention of Zhukovsky, who personally convinced the emperor that “there is nothing unreliable in comedy, that it is only a cheerful mockery of bad provincial officials.”
"The Inspector General" is a truly folk comedy. Its nationality lies primarily in its ideological content. The comedy is permeated with the writer’s deepest hatred of the bureaucratic-bureaucratic system that reigned in Russia of his time. Gogol shows bureaucracy as an anti-people power. The images of the comedy are typical, the behavior of each character is vitally motivated, their words and actions reveal their characters. And although Gogol depicted the world of provincial officials in The Government Inspector, the depth of the writer’s penetration into reality was so amazing that viewers and readers of the comedy immediately saw in it an image of all of Russia - its feudal-bureaucratic system.
IN 1836-1848 years, Gogol lived abroad and came to Russia only twice. In 1842 came out this year "The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls" a significant circulation for that time of 2.5 thousand copies. Work on the book began back in 1835, the first volume of the poem was completed in August 1841 in Rome.
“Dead Souls” gives a broad and truthful picture of Russian life in the 20s and 30s of the last century. With its content, the poem denied the evil and vile world of “Dead Souls” of slave owners and royal officials. Gogol, as if in a mirror, reflected the entire disgusting essence of the noble-bureaucratic system with its police orders, the morality of the serf-owners and the arbitrariness of the landowners. The plot of "Dead Souls" is opposed in the poem lyrical image people's Russia, about which Gogol writes with love and admiration. The author acts as a patriot, which reflects faith in the future of the Motherland, where there will be no Sobakevichs, Manilovs, Plyushkins and Chichikovs. For strange world Gogol felt landowner Russia living soul people. The poem speaks with enthusiasm and admiration about his courage and love for a free life. Image of the Motherland N.V. Gogol portrayed it realistically. Serfdom slowed down the development of Russia. The author saw a different Russia in his dreams. The image of the three-bird is a symbol of the power of his homeland. She owns it main role in world development. "Dead Souls" is an encyclopedia of the life of serf Rus'. Belinsky wrote: “Gogol was the first to look boldly at Russian reality.”
IN 1842 year, edited by the writer, the first collected works of Gogol were published, where the story was published "Overcoat".
IN 1842-1845 years, Gogol worked on the second volume of Dead Souls, but in July 1845 year, the writer burned the manuscript. At the beginning 1847 Gogol's book was published "Selected passages from correspondence with friends", which many, including close friends, perceived negatively.
winter 1847-1848 Gogol spent years in Naples. In April 1848, after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Gogol finally returned to Russia, where most of spent time in Moscow, visited St. Petersburg, as well as in his native places - Little Russia.
Back to top 1852 In 2010, the edition of the second volume of Dead Souls was re-created, chapters from which Gogol read to close friends. However, the feeling of creative dissatisfaction did not leave the writer; on the night of February 24, 1852, he burned the manuscript of the second volume of the novel. Only five chapters have survived in incomplete form, relating to various draft editions that were published in 1855.
March 4 (February 21, old style) 1852 Nikolai Gogol died in Moscow. He was buried in the Danilov Monastery. In 1931, Gogol's remains were reburied at Novodevichy Cemetery.
Gogol's immortal creativity enriched the principles of artistic reflection of reality, revealed inexhaustible possibilities for use in realistic literature grotesque, fantasy, symbolism.
N.V. Gogol had a strong influence on the development satirical creativity Herzen, Nekrasov, Chernyshevsky and especially Saltykov-Shchedrin.
The great importance of Gogol in the development of Russian literary language. Following Pushkin, he turned to the speech of the people. He fought for the purity and originality of the Russian language. With this quality of his language, Gogol influenced both Turgenev as the author of “Notes of a Hunter,” Ostrovsky, and Nekrasov.
Gogol's work inspired Russian composers and artists. Mussorgsky wrote the opera “Sorochinskaya Fair” based on Gogol’s plot, Rimsky - Korsakov- “May Night”, “The Night Before Christmas”, Tchaikovsky- “Cherevichki”. Repin created his own famous painting“Cossacks” is not without the influence of “Taras Bulba.
The influence of Gogol’s creativity on the development of Russian literature.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol - the most mysterious star in the Russian sky literature of the 19th century and the 20th century - to this day amazes the reader and viewer with both the magical power of depiction and the most unusual originality of its path to the Motherland, to the solution and even... the creation of a future for it. A bias towards the Future... Gogol - let us remember once again Pushkin’s dream “The rumor about me will spread throughout Great Rus'”, and Mayakovsky’s bashful hope that sounded a hundred years later “I want to be understood” home country“- completed the idea of moving into the Future, into the alarming and, as many believed, into the “beautiful Dapyoko”, which will not only be cruel to people. And in this regard, it is closest to much in Russian folklore, in folk songs
“It is impossible to forget anything that Gogol said, even little things, even unnecessary things,” noted F. M. Dostoevsky. “Gogol had the chisel of Phidias,” wrote the philosopher and critic of the 20th century V.V. Rozanov. - How many words are dedicated to Petrushka, Chichikov’s lackey? And I remember no less than Nikolai Rostov. And Osip? In fact... The melancholy Osip, Khlestakov’s servant in “The Inspector General,” says just that, warning his master, the inspired writer of the poem about his own importance: “Leave from here. By God, it’s time,” and accepts gifts from merchants, including... a commemorative rope (“give me a rope, and the rope will come in handy on the road”). But this “string in reserve” was remembered by many generations of Russian viewers.
And with what supernatural completeness were combined in Gogol two of the most beautiful qualities that live separately in many, with the exception of Pushkin: exceptional vital observation and an equally rare power of imagination. If artistic image as the main exponent of the spiritual life of Russia, the concentration of its spiritual life was, before Gogol, as if distant from facts, from factuality, then in Gogol’s work - long before M. Gorky! — the fact seemed to have moved deeper into the image, sharpened the image, made it heavier.
From Gogol’s reality, incredibly wide trousers, the fatal pipe, Taras Bulba’s “cradle,” and the dried-out “singing doors” in the idyllic house of “old-world landowners” will forever appear in memory. And the mysterious melody of “a string ringing in the fog,” from Poprishchin’s St. Petersburg fantastic dreams (“Notes of a Madman”), which amazed even A. Blok.
To this day it is difficult to decide whether we “remember” in detail even the magical bird-three itself, this “simple, it seems, road projectile”? Or, each time, together with Gogol, do we “compose” this winged troika in our own way, “complement” it, decipher the transcendental mystery of the indomitable, terrifying movement? The immense mystery of the “smoking road”, the secret of horses unknown to the world with incredible, but seemingly visible “whirlwinds in their manes”? Probably, Gogol’s contemporary I. Kireevsky was right when he said that after reading“Dead souls” give us “hope and thought about the great purpose of our fatherland.”
But to this day the unanswered question remains mysterious - the epigraph to all post-Gogol literature - “Rus, where are you rushing to? give me the answer. Doesn't give an answer! And what could be the answer if the Rus'-troika rushes “through Korobochek and Sobakevich” (P.V. Palievsky)? If two most famous writer beginning of the twentieth century, creating their own image of Gogol, close to symbolism, they made up this Rus'-troika “of the crazy Poprishchin, the witty Khlestakov and the prudent Chichikov” (D.S. Merezhkovsky) or?. “Gogol the rich: not one, but two troikas - Nozdryov - Chichikov - Manilov and Korobochka - Plyushkin - Sobakevich... Nozdryov - Chichikov - Manilov soar through the forests and mountains of life under the clouds - an airy troika. It’s not the owners who build life, but the other three: Box-Plyushkin- Sobakevich."
What did Gogol teach all subsequent Russian literature?
The usual answer is that he brought Laughter as an element of life to the fore, that viewers and readers in Russia have never laughed so much - after D. Fonvizin’s “The Minor” with his Prostakovs, Skotinins and Mitrofanushka, after A. Griboyedov’s “Woe from Wit”, - how they laughed along with Gogol, is hardly accurate in everything. Gogol’s laughter in “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” (1832) is still bright, light, and sometimes funny, although often the appearances of all kinds of sorcerers, sorcerers, and moon thieves alternate with continuous dances that are frightening in their automatism, with “hopak”, as if protecting this optimism . An uncontrollable surge of some kind of desperate mischief holds together the ideal and idyllic world.
And what is the laughter in the “Petersburg stories”, in the entire Gogolian demonology of Petersburg, this most fatal, deliberate city in Russia? Gogol removes in these stories the funny or scary figures of the bearers of evil, all the visual mischievous fantasy and devilry, removes somewhere Basavryuk, the witch lady, mermaids, sorcerers - but some kind of faceless, boundless evil reigns in his Petersburg. For the first time in Russian prose, that “diabolism” is born, that world evil, which will later be “disenchanted” by Bulgakov in “The Master and Margarita” with his Satan Woland, and Platonov in many plays, and of course, A. Bely in “Paterburg” ", F.K. Sologub in "The Little Demon" and even Shukshin in his phantasmagoria "Until the third roosters" and "In the morning they woke up...". Even Dostoevsky, and Sukhovo-Kobylin with his dramatic trilogy “The Wedding of Krechinsky”, “The Affair”, “The Death of Tarepkin”, as well as Gogol’s “The Nose” with its deceptive figurativeness, false concreteness, terrible ghostliness, came out of more than one “Overcoat”. fear of space, the desire to shield oneself from the encroaching emptiness... Squares of hypertrophied sizes in St. Petersburg... reflect incomplete habitability, little processing of space in early St. Petersburg (it is no coincidence that Shoes are not robbed in a wide square, whereas in Moscow this was done in narrow alleys). The fear of St. Petersburg, the evil itself in Gogol’s “Petersburg tales”, is no longer a nasty neighbor-devil, a sorcerer, or Basavryuk. The writer does not see the carriers of living evil, the carriers of witchcraft. The entire Nevsky Prospect is a continuing phantasmagoria, a deception: “Everything is a deception, everything is a dream, everything is not what it seems!” With this spell, Gogol concludes Nevsky Prospekt, an alarming story about the tragic death of the idealist artist Piskarev and the happy “enlightenment”, deliverance from the thirst for revenge of the vulgar lieutenant Pirogov, flogged by German craftsmen. From this Petersburg, together with Khlestakov, it is fear, the companion and shadow of Petersburg, that will come to the prefabricated provincial city in The Inspector General.
Gogol “sang” (didn’t he sing the funeral service?) of St. Petersburg in such a unique way that many historians later unfairly blamed and reproached him: with him, Gogol, begins the well-known “tarnishing”, the darkening of the image of St. Petersburg, the clouding of its royal beauty, the protracted era of the tragic twilight of Petropol.
It was after Gogol that the tragic Petersburg of Dostoevsky appeared, and the entire disturbing silhouette of the ghost city in the novel “Petersburg” by A. Bely, and that city of A. Blok, where “Above the bottomless pit into eternity, / A trotter flies, gasping for breath...”. Gogol's Petersburg became in the twentieth century the prototype, the basis of that grandiose stage platform for the multi-act action of revolutions, became a city “familiar to tears” (O. Mandelstam), for A. Blok in the poem “The Twelve” and many others.
The scope and depth of contradictions in an artist are often evidence of the greatness of his quest, the transcendence of his hopes and sorrows. Did Gogol, who created the comedy “The Inspector General” (1836), together with the future Khlestakov (he was called Skakunov in the first edition) understand this new, mirage space, full of echoes of the future, did he understand the whole meaning of “The Inspector General,” his brilliant creation?
The funny heroes of “The Inspector General” - extremely distinct, like sculptured figures of officials, inhabitants of a prefabricated city - seem to be drawn into the field of action of forces alienated, even from the author, into a field of absurdity and delusion. They are wrapped up in some kind of impersonal carousel. They even burst onto the stage, literally squeezing out, tearing down the door, just as Bobchinsky burst into Khlestakov’s room, knocking down the door to the floor, from the corridor. Gogol himself seems to be alienated from comedy, where the element of laughter, the element of action and expressive language reigns. Only at the end of the comedy does he seem to “come to his senses” and tries to attribute both to the audience and to himself a very edifying and sad doubt: “Why are you laughing? You’re laughing at yourself!” By the way, in the text of 1836 this significant remark, a signal to stop the “carousel”, to general petrification, the transformation of sinners into a kind of “pillars of salt”, was not there. Are they, the funny heroes of The Inspector General, really villainous? Such truthful, frank, trusting “villains”, as if begging to soften the punishment, rushing about with their vices, as if laying out everything about themselves in confession, did not exist before Gogol. They behave as if walking under God, convinced that Khlestakov (the messenger of the terrible, St. Petersburg higher power) knows their thoughts and deeds in advance...
“Dead Souls” (1842) is a lonely, even more difficult attempt by Gogol, the direct predecessor of Dostoevsky’s prophetic realism, to express in the most conceptual way the “Russian point of view” on the fate of man in the world, on all his irrational connections, to express through analysis the feelings of conscience and voice vices. The immortal poem is a synthesis of the entire artistic spiritual experience of the writer and at the same time - a sharp overcoming of the boundaries of literature, even foreshadowing Tolstoy's future renunciation of artistic word. Leo Tolstoy, by the way, will speak almost like Gogol about the spiritual exhaustion, the supertension of the cognizing thought of the Russian writer, about his suffering conscience and the torment of the word: for him in later years, on the threshold of the twentieth century, all creativity is the knowledge of the Motherland “at the limit of thought and at the beginning of prayer.”
Gogol is the founder of a great series of grandiose ethical attempts to save Russia by turning it to Christ: it was continued in the sermons of L. Tolstoy, and in S. Yesenin’s often woeful attempts to understand the fate, the whirlwind of events, the actions of those who in Russia in 1917 only “ They sprayed it all around, piled it up / And disappeared under the devil’s whistle.” And even in some kind of sacrifice of V. Mayakovsky: “I will pay for everyone, I will pay for everyone”... The death of A. Blok in 1921 at the moment when music disappeared in the era is also a distant version of “Gogol’s self-immolation.” Gogol “gogolized” many of the decisions and thoughts of writers. It was as if he was trying to move the most motionless, petrified thing, to call everyone along the path of the Rus' Troika. And the mystery of “Dead Souls,” that is, the first volume, with Chichikov’s visits to six landowners (each of them is either “dead” or more alive than the previous one), with the wreckage of the second volume, is most often solved by focusing on the image of the road, on the motives movements. As in “The Inspector General,” Gogol’s thought in “Dead Souls” seems to be rushing through sinful Rus', past the pile of junk in Plyushkin’s house to holy, ideal Rus'. The idea of God-forsaken Rus' is refuted by many insightful, mournful views in the biographies of heroes, including Chichikov. Often the writer hears and sees something that comes to the aid of his despair, his melancholy: “It is still a mystery - this inexplicable revelry, which is heard in our songs, rushes somewhere past life and the song itself, as if burning with the desire for a better homeland.” . His Chichikov, who laughed at Sobakevich’s “comments” on the list of dead souls, suddenly himself creates entire poems about the carpenter Stepan Probka, about the barge hauler Abakum Fyrov, who went to the Volga, where “the revelry of a broad life” and a song “infinite as Rus'” reign.
Gogol's works
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was born on March 20 (April 1), 1809 in the village of Bolshie Sorochintsy, Mirgorod district, Poltava province. The future writer spent his childhood years on his parents' estate Vasilyevka. He received his education at the Gymnasium of Higher Sciences in the city of Nezhin, Chernigov province (1821 - 1828). In 1828 he went to St. Petersburg to “look for places” as an official. The main reason for leaving for the capital was the desire to establish himself on the literary Olympus.
The first period of creativity (1829 - 1835) In June 1829, Gogol published with his own money the poem “Ganz Küchelgarten”, written in Nizhyn, under the pseudonym V. Alov. Reviews of the publication were sharply negative. Gogol takes all copies of the poem from bookstores and burns them, and then leaves for Germany. Returning from abroad, Gogol enters the service and becomes an ordinary St. Petersburg official. The pinnacle of his bureaucratic career was as an assistant to the head of the Department of Appanages.
The first period of creativity (1829 - 1835) In 1831, Gogol published Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, which made his name famous. The collection consists of eight stories, united by the location of the action (Dikanka and its environs) and the figure of the “publisher” (beekeeper Rudy Panko). Gogol appears in “Evenings...” as a romantic writer. He turns to the fabulous, mythological past of his people, “to the indigenous, national fundamental principles of the Slavic world” (Yu. Mann).
The first period of creativity (1829 - 1835) “Evenings...” brought Gogol success, but this success became an indirect reason creative crisis writer. The reason for the writer’s dissatisfaction with himself was that in Little Russian stories he laughed “to amuse himself,” in order to brighten up the gray “prose” of St. Petersburg life. A real writer, according to Gogol, must do “good”: “laughing for nothing” without a clear moral goal is reprehensible.
The first period of creativity (1829 - 1835) In 1835, the collection “Mirgorod” was published. All the stories in the collection are permeated with the author’s thoughts about the polar possibilities of the human spirit. A person’s life can be like in Taras Bulba, or it can be like in “The Tale of How Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich.” There is a natural evil in the world that man cannot cope with: looking into Viy’s eyes, Khoma Brut dies of fear. All the more acute is the task facing people to unite in the face of world evil.
Second period of creativity (1835 - 1842) In the second half of the 30s. appears in Gogol's works new topic- the theme of St. Petersburg. Five stories written by Gogol in different times, critics combine them into the “St. Petersburg” cycle. (“Nevsky Prospekt”, “Nose”, “Portrait”, “Overcoat”, “Notes of a Madman”). Gogol's Petersburg is a city of incredible incidents, ghostly and absurd life, fantastic events. The city depersonalizes people, distorts their good qualities, highlights their bad ones, and changes their appearance beyond recognition.
The second period of creativity (1835 - 1842) The plans for the comedy “The Inspector General” and the poem “Dead Souls” date back to 1835. It is known that during one of the meetings in October 1835, Pushkin conveyed to Gogol the plot of The Inspector General. The first draft was written in two months. On April 19, 1836, the premiere of The Inspector General took place in Alexandrinsky Theater. In total, Gogol worked on the text of the comedy for 17 years. A year before his death, in 1851, he contributed latest changes in one of the lines of the fourth act. The final edition is considered to be the text of 1842.
The second period of creativity (1835 - 1842) In 1836, Gogol went abroad with the intention of “deeply thinking about his duties as an author, his future creations.” Gogol's main work during his stay abroad, which lasted for 12 years, was Dead Souls. In letters to friends, defining the scale of his work, Gogol argued that “all of Rus' will appear in it.” After Pushkin’s death, Gogol began to perceive “Dead Souls” as a “sacred testament” of his teacher and friend. In May 1842, the first volume of the poem was published under the title “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls.”
The third period of creativity (1842 -1852) After the publication of the first volume of “Dead Souls,” Gogol went abroad and began creating the second volume of the poem. The first edition of the second volume was completed in 1845, but did not satisfy Gogol: the manuscript was burned. In 1846, Gogol published the book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” his religious, moral, aesthetic manifesto. Gogol the writer gradually turns into Gogol the preacher. In his opinion, a writer cannot be just an artist, he must be a teacher, moralist, preacher.
The third period of creativity (1842 -1852) recent years Gogol “passionately desired life, but was never able to transform the spiritual truths that were revealed to him into artistic values.” In April 1848, after traveling to Jerusalem, to the Holy Sepulcher, Gogol returned to Russia, where he continued to work on the second volume of Dead Souls. A few days before his death, in February 1852, Gogol burned the manuscript of the second volume of Dead Souls. On February 21 (March 4) Gogol died.
Born in the town of Velikiye Sorochintsy, Mirgorod district, Poltava province, in the family of a landowner. They named him Nicholas in honor of the miraculous icon of St. Nicholas, kept in the church of the village of Dikanka.
The Gogols had over 1000 acres of land and about 400 serfs. The writer's ancestors on his father's side were hereditary priests, but his grandfather Afanasy Demyanovich left the spiritual career and entered the hetman's office; It was he who added another name to his Yanovsky surname - Gogol, which was supposed to demonstrate the origin of the family from the 17th century, known in Ukrainian history. Colonel Evstafy (Ostap) Gogol (this fact, however, does not find sufficient confirmation).
The writer's father, Vasily Afanasyevich Gogol-Yanovsky (1777-1825), served at the Little Russian Post Office, in 1805 he retired with the rank of collegiate assessor and married Maria Ivanovna Kosyarovskaya (1791-1868), who came from a landowner family. According to legend, she was the first beauty in the Poltava region. She married Vasily Afanasyevich at the age of fourteen. In addition to Nikolai, the family had five more children.
Gogol spent his childhood years on his parents' estate Vasilievka (another name is Yanovshchina). Cultural center the region was Kibintsy, the estate of D. P. Troshchinsky (1754-1829), a distant relative of the Gogols, a former minister elected to the district marshals (district leaders of the nobility); Gogol's father acted as his secretary. In Kibintsy there was a large library, there was a home theater, for which Father Gogol wrote comedies, being also its actor and conductor.
In 1818-19, Gogol, together with his brother Ivan, studied at the Poltava district school, and then, in 1820-1821, took lessons from the Poltava teacher Gabriel Sorochinsky, living in his apartment. In May 1821 he entered the gymnasium of higher sciences in Nizhyn. Here he is engaged in painting, participates in performances - as a set designer and as an actor, and with particular success he plays comic roles. Tries himself in various literary genres(writes elegiac poems, tragedies, historical poem, story). At the same time he writes the satire “Something about Nezhin, or the law is not written for fools” (not preserved).
However, the thought of writing has not yet “come to mind” for Gogol; all his aspirations are connected with “public service”; he dreams of a legal career. Gogol’s decision to make this was greatly influenced by Prof. N. G. Belousov, who taught a course in natural law, as well as a general strengthening of freedom-loving sentiments in the gymnasium. In 1827, the “case of freethinking” arose here, which ended with the dismissal of leading professors, including Belousov; Gogol, who sympathized with him, testified in his favor during the investigation.
Having graduated from the gymnasium in 1828, Gogol, together with another graduate A. S. Danilevsky (1809-1888), went to St. Petersburg in December. Experiencing financial difficulties, unsuccessfully fussing about a place, Gogol made his first literary attempts: at the beginning of 1829 the poem “Italy” appeared, and in the spring of the same year, under the pseudonym “V. Alov”, Gogol published “an idyll in pictures” “Hanz Küchelgarten”. The poem evoked harsh and mocking reviews from N. A. Polevoy and later a condescending and sympathetic review from O. M. Somov (1830), which intensified Gogol’s difficult mood.
At the end of 1829, he managed to decide to serve in the department of state economy and public buildings of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. From April 1830 to March 1831 he served in the department of appanages (first as a scribe, then as an assistant to the clerk), under the command of the famous idyllic poet V.I. Panaev. His stay in the offices caused Gogol deep disappointment in the “state service,” but it provided him with rich material for future works that depicted bureaucratic life and the functioning of the state machine.
During this period, “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” (1831-1832) was published. They aroused almost universal admiration.
The pinnacle of Gogol’s fiction is the “St. Petersburg story” “The Nose” (1835; published in 1836), an extremely bold grotesque that anticipated some trends in twentieth-century art. In contrast to both the provincial and metropolitan world was the story "Taras Bulba", which captured that moment in the national past when the people ("Cossacks"), defending their sovereignty, acted integrally, together and, moreover, as a force that determined the nature of pan-European history.
In the fall of 1835, he began writing “The Inspector General,” the plot of which was suggested by Pushkin; the work progressed so successfully that on January 18, 1836, he read the comedy at an evening with Zhukovsky (in the presence of Pushkin, P. A. Vyazemsky and others), and in February-March he was already busy staging it on stage Alexandria Theater. The play premiered on April 19. May 25 - premiere in Moscow, at the Maly Theater.
In June 1836, Gogol left St. Petersburg for Germany (in total, he lived abroad for about 12 years). He spends the end of summer and autumn in Switzerland, where he begins to work on the continuation of Dead Souls. The plot was also suggested by Pushkin. The work began back in 1835, before the writing of The Inspector General, and immediately acquired a wide scope. In St. Petersburg, several chapters were read to Pushkin, causing him both approval and at the same time a depressing feeling.
In November 1836, Gogol moved to Paris, where he met A. Mickiewicz. Then he moves to Rome. Here in February 1837, in the midst of work on " Dead souls", he receives the shocking news of Pushkin's death. In a fit of "inexpressible melancholy" and bitterness, Gogol feels the "present work" as the poet's "sacred testament."
In December 1838, Zhukovsky arrived in Rome, accompanying the heir (Alexander II). Gogol was extremely educated by the poet's arrival and showed him Rome; I drew views with him.
In September 1839, accompanied by Pogodin, Gogol came to Moscow and began reading the chapters of “Dead Souls” - first in the Aksakovs’ house, then, after moving to St. Petersburg in October, at Zhukovsky’s, at Prokopovich’s in the presence of his old friends. A total of 6 chapters have been read. There was universal delight.
In May 1842, “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls” was published.
After the first, brief, but very commendable reviews, the initiative was seized by Gogol’s detractors, who accused him of being a caricature, a farce and slandering reality. Later, N.A. Polevoy came up with an article that bordered on denunciation.
All this controversy took place in the absence of Gogol, who went abroad in June 1842. Before leaving, he entrusts Prokopovich with the publication of the first collection of his works. Gogol spends the summer in Germany; in October, together with N. M. Yazykov, he moves to Rome. He is working on the 2nd volume of Dead Souls, which apparently began back in 1840; He devotes a lot of time to preparing his collected works. “The Works of Nikolai Gogol” in four volumes was published at the beginning of 1843, since censorship suspended the two volumes that had already been printed for a month.
The three years (1842-1845), which followed the writer's departure abroad, was a period of intense and difficult work on the 2nd volume of Dead Souls.
At the beginning of 1845, Gogol showed signs of a new mental crisis. The writer goes to Paris to rest and “recuperate”, but returns to Frankfurt in March. Is the streak of treatment and consultations with various medical celebrities, moving from one resort to another beginning? then to Halle, then to Berlin, then to Dresden, then to Carlsbad. At the end of June or beginning of July 1845, in a state of sharp exacerbation of the disease, Gogol burns the manuscript of the 2nd volume. Subsequently (in "Four Letters to to different persons regarding “Dead Souls” - “Selected Places”) Gogol explained this step by saying that the book did not clearly show “paths and roads” to the ideal.
Gogol continues to work on the 2nd volume, however, experiencing increasing difficulties, he is distracted by other matters: he composes a preface to the 2nd edition of the poem (published in 1846) “To the reader from the author”, writes “The Inspector's Denouement” (published 1856 ), in which the idea of a “prefabricated city” in the spirit of the theological tradition (“On the City of God” by St. Augustine) was refracted into the subjective plane of a “spiritual city” individual person, which brought to the fore the requirements of spiritual education and improvement of everyone.
In 1847, “Selected Places from Correspondence with Friends” was published in St. Petersburg. The book performed a dual function - both an explanation of why the 2nd volume has not yet been written, and some compensation for it: Gogol proceeded to present his main ideas - doubt about the effective, teaching function fiction, a utopian program for all “classes” and “ranks” to fulfill their duty, from the peasant to the highest officials and the king.
The release of Selected Places brought a real critical storm upon its author. All these responses overtook the writer on the road: in May 1847, he headed from Naples to Paris, then to Germany. Gogol cannot recover from the “blows” he received: “My health... was shaken by this devastating story for me about my book... I marvel at how I was still alive.”
Gogol spends the winter of 1847-1848 in Naples, intensively reading Russian periodicals, new fiction, historical and folklore books - “in order to plunge deeper into the indigenous Russian spirit.” At the same time, he is preparing for a long-planned pilgrimage to holy places. In January 1848 he went to Jerusalem by sea. In April 1848, after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Gogol finally returned to Russia, where he spent most of his time in Moscow, making visits to St. Petersburg, as well as in his native places - Little Russia.
In mid-October, Gogol lives in Moscow. In 1849-1850, Gogol reads individual chapters of the 2nd volume of Dead Souls to his friends. General approval and delight inspire the writer, who now works with redoubled energy. In the spring of 1850, Gogol makes the first and last attempt to organize his family life- makes an offer to A. M. Vielgorskaya, but is refused.
In October 1850 Gogol arrived in Odessa. His condition is improving; he is active, cheerful, cheerful; willingly gets along with the actors of the Odessa troupe, to whom he gives lessons in reading comedy works, with L. S. Pushkin, with local writers. In March 1851 he left Odessa and, after spending the spring and early summer in his native places, returned to Moscow in June. A new round of readings follows of the 2nd volume of the poem; In total, up to 7 chapters were read. In October he attended “The Inspector General” at the Maly Theater, with S. V. Shumsky in the role of Khlestakov, and was pleased with the performance; in November he reads “The Inspector General” to a group of actors, including I. S. Turgenev.
On January 1, 1852, Gogol informs Arnoldi that the 2nd volume is “completely finished.” But in the last days of the month, signs of a new crisis were clearly revealed, the impetus for which was the death of E. M. Khomyakova, sister of N. M. Yazykov, a person spiritually close to Gogol. He is tormented by a premonition near death, aggravated by newly intensified doubts about the beneficialness of his writing career and the success of the work being carried out. On February 7, Gogol confesses and receives communion, and on the night of 11 to 12 he burns the white manuscript of the 2nd volume (only 5 chapters have survived in incomplete form, relating to various draft editions; published in 1855). On the morning of February 21, Gogol died in his last apartment in the Talyzin house in Moscow.
The writer's funeral took place with a huge crowd of people at the cemetery of the St. Daniel's Monastery, and in 1931 Gogol's remains were reburied at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was born in 1809 in the village of Bolshie Sorochintsy, into a family of poor landowners - Vasily Afanasyevich and Maria Ivanovna Gogol-Yanovsky. The writer's father was the author of several comedies in Ukrainian. From 1821 to 1828, Nikolai Vasilyevich studied at the Nezhin Gymnasium of Higher Sciences. Interest in literature and painting, as well as acting talent, appeared already during the years of study. The great hobby of many students at the gymnasium was amateur theater, one of the creators of which was Gogol. He was a talented performer of many roles, as well as a director and artist, the author of funny comedies and scenes from folk life.
In the gymnasium, the future writer began to compile the “Little Russian Lexicon” (Ukrainian-Russian dictionary) and write down folk songs. Remarkable monuments of oral poetic creativity the writer collected throughout his life. Gogol's first literary experiments date back to 1823-24. Two years after entering the gymnasium, he became one of the active participants literary circle, whose members published several handwritten magazines and almanacs at once: “Meteor of Literature”, “Star”, “Northern Dawn”, etc. The first stories were published in these publications, critical articles, plays and poems by an aspiring writer.
After graduating from high school, Gogol went to St. Petersburg and a year later entered the public service, and then began teaching history at one of the educational institutions. During this period, Nikolai Vasilyevich met V.A. Zhukovsky, P.A. Pletnev and A.S. Pushkin, who had a huge influence on his work. Gogol considered himself a student and follower of the great poet. Along with Pushkin, the romantic poetry and prose of the Decembrists had a great influence on the formation of the literary tastes of the future writer.
In 1831-32, Gogol’s book “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” was published, based on Ukrainian folk art - songs, fairy tales, folk beliefs and customs, as well as the personal impressions of the author himself. This book brought Gogol great success. The appearance of “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka,” according to Pushkin, was an extraordinary phenomenon in Russian literature. Gogol revealed to the Russian reader amazing world folk life, imbued with the romance of folk legends and traditions, cheerful lyricism and playful humor.
1832-33 appeared turning point in the life of a writer. It was a time of persistent search for new themes and images suggested by life. In 1835, two collections were published: “Mirgorod” and “Arabesques”, which brought Gogol even greater recognition. The collection “Mirgorod” includes the stories “Old World Landowners”, “Taras Bulba”, “Viy” and “The Story of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich”. At the same time, work continued on “Petersburg Tales” - a cycle of works devoted to St. Petersburg themes. The first sketches of the cycle date back to 1831. The most significant story in the St. Petersburg cycle, “The Overcoat,” was completed in 1841.
In 1836, at the Alexandrinsky Theater, the first performance of the comedy “The Inspector General” took place, in which the author mercilessly ridicules officials and landed nobility. The characters in the comedy were typical for all of Russia at that time, and many viewers who saw the comedy for the first time believed that the author was making fun of their city, its officials, landowners and police officers. But not everyone received the comedy favorably. Representatives of the bureaucracy saw comedy as a threat. Articles began to appear on the pages of the magazine accusing the author of the comedy of distorting reality. Those who recognized themselves in the heroes of the comedy argued that its content boiled down to an old empty joke.
Critical reviews deeply traumatized Gogol. In subsequent years, he continued to work hard on the composition of the play and the images of the characters. In 1841, the comedy, in a significantly revised form, was published a second time as a separate book. But this edition also seemed imperfect to the writer. Gogol included only the sixth version of The Inspector General in the fourth volume of his Works in 1842. But in this form, the comedy, due to censorship obstacles, was staged only 28 years later.
Almost simultaneously with the first edition of The Inspector General, the first issue of Pushkin’s journal Sovremennik was published, in the preparation of which Gogol took an active part. In one of his articles, he criticized editorial publications, after which attacks from the ruling classes noticeably intensified.
In the summer of 1836, Gogol decided to temporarily go abroad, where he spent a total of more than 12 years. The writer lived in Germany, Switzerland, France, Austria, the Czech Republic, but most of all in Italy. In subsequent years, he returned to his homeland twice - in 1839-40. and in 1841-42. Death of A.S. Pushkin deeply shocked the writer. The beginning of his work on the poem “Dead Souls” dates back to this time. Shortly before the duel, Pushkin gave Gogol his own plot, and the writer considered his work the “sacred testament” of the great poet.
At the beginning of October 1841, Gogol arrived in St. Petersburg, and a few days later he left for Moscow, where he continued to work on “Dead Souls.” In May 1842, the first volume of Dead Souls was published, and at the end of May Gogol went abroad again. Russian readers, who became acquainted with Gogol's new creation, were immediately divided into his supporters and opponents. Heated debates erupted around the book. Gogol at this time was resting and receiving treatment in the small German town of Gastein. The unrest associated with the publication of Dead Souls, material need, and attacks from critics became the cause of a spiritual crisis and nervous illness.
In subsequent years, the writer often moved from one place to another, hoping that a change of environment would help him restore his health. By the mid-40s, the spiritual crisis deepened. Under the influence of A.P. Tolstoy, Gogol became imbued with religious ideas and abandoned his previous beliefs and works. In 1847, a series of articles by the writer in the form of letters was published entitled “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends.” Main idea This book is the need for internal Christian education and re-education of each and every one, without which no social improvements are possible. The book was published in a heavily censored form and was considered weak in artistically work. At the same time, Gogol also worked on works of a theological nature, the most significant of which is “Reflections on the Divine Liturgy” (published posthumously in 1857).
The last years of his life N.V. Gogol lived alone. In 1848, the writer intended to fulfill his main dream - to travel around Russia. But there was no longer any money or physical strength for this. He visited his native places and lived in Odessa for six months. In St. Petersburg he met Nekrasov, Goncharov and Grigorovich, in April 1848 he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to the Holy Sepulcher, but spent most of his time in Moscow. Despite his illness, the writer continued to work, as he saw the meaning of his life in literature.
In recent years, all of Gogol's thoughts were absorbed in the second volume of Dead Souls. At the beginning of 1852, the writer showed signs of a new mental crisis; he refused food and medical care. His health condition worsened every day. One night, during another attack, he burned almost all of his manuscripts, including the completed edition of the second volume of Dead Souls (only 7 chapters survived in incomplete form). Soon after this, the writer died and was buried in the St. Daniel Monastery. In 1931, the writer’s remains were reburied at the Novodevichy cemetery. Shortly before his death, Gogol said: “I know that after me my name will be happier than me...”. And he was right. About two hundred years have passed since the death of the great Russian writer, but his works still occupy an honorable place among the masterpieces of world classics.
