Fantastic in the early prose of N.V. Gogol.

First, let's set up the optics, focus. The more distant the author from us, the greater the risk of combining his own life with the life of his characters.

Perhaps, in a hundred years, "War and Peace" will be presented to readers as an artistic document of the era, written by an eyewitness, and the sixteen years that have passed from the day of the Battle of Borodino to the birthday of Count Leo Tolstoy will simply fall into historical sediment.

With Gogol's Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, optical aberration also sometimes occurs. And the point here is not only that the evening air lubricates the contours and repaints all cats in gray. The things of the mature Gogol are contemporary to himself, and the reputation of the acutely modern writer, which Gogol was, affects our perception of his early work. There is another reason for the historical blurring of "Evenings". For the Russian and, more broadly, the Russian reader, the color of these stories is determined primarily by the place, in the geographical, regional, ethnographic sense, and not by time, era. Roughly speaking, "Evenings" is Ukraine, Little Russia, and not the 19th, 18th, or 17th centuries. Ukraine in Russian perception seems to be something timeless, non-historical. At the level of everyday life, language, material culture, and finally, folklore, Ukraine exists in the Russian mind. On a historical level, no. Meanwhile, Gogol in an unobtrusive form makes it clear in what decade the events described in Evenings take place. "A minute later, - this is from The Night Before Christmas," came in, accompanied by a whole retinue of majestic growth, a rather stout man in a hetman's uniform, in yellow boots. His hair was disheveled, one eye was slightly crooked, some kind of arrogant majesty ... - Is this the king? - the blacksmith asked one of the Cossacks. - Where do you want the king! This is Potemkin himself, - he answered. Then Empress Catherine herself appears. In the course of a conversation with the Cossacks, she throws to one of the courtiers: "- I'll tell you in honor: I'm still without a memory of your" Brigadier "". If we take into account that the Zaporizhian Sich was abolished in 1775 on the initiative of Potemkin, and Fonvizin's "Brigadier" was installed in 1770, then it is possible to determine the time of the action of "The Night Before Christmas" with an accuracy of five years. In "May Night" it is already said about Catherine: "The great queen of blessed memory." Catherine's trip to the Crimea is mentioned more than once in the book. The Empress made this trip from St. Petersburg to the Crimea via Ukraine in 1787. This simple digression into the chronology was needed only to clarify the genre of "Evenings".

So, we have before us not just a fantastic or romantic narrative, but historical-fiction stories. (In "Sorochinsky Fair" and "May Night" events take place in the present, but the plot of both stories is in the past.) Moreover, the author needs the historical in order to give credibility to the fantastic: what has not happened in the past! Books clear intention only give pleasure when you clearly understand them. Such, for example, is the prose of Thomas Mann. The early stories of N. Gogol give pleasure when they are perceived synthetically, and not analytically. The darkness is inexplicable. They are equal only to darkness. At best, they can be described. The path to understanding N. Gogol is the path of even greater darkening, thickening of his darkness. Naturally, to achieve this goal, clarifications, interpretations, and comparisons are necessary. For the more we appeal to meaning, knowledge, logic, the further we are from Gogol and closer to achieving the goal: darkening the darkness. N. Gogol came to literature ready-made. Luck of this kind does not accompany all geniuses. The geniuses of virgin cultures are forced to spend their energy on creating or introducing genres, sizes, laws of versification, and language norms. Their national literature benefits from this, but personally they remain the losers. By the time N. Gogol entered literature, a group of former Tsarskoye Selo lyceum students had already established their school jargon as the norm of the Russian literary language.

Aspiring writers could follow this norm or, conversely, resist it. By the beginning of the thirties, the romantic school, which migrated with some delay from Germany to Russia, not only substantiated itself theoretically, but also showed the product in poetry and prose. National color, historical and folklore motifs, dreamers-individualists have lost the properties of overseas currency and have become a common coin. Moreover, the aesthetic concept of the German school of romantics by the end of the thirties of the XIX century evolved in Russia into the historical and philosophical concept of Slavophilism, the followers of which called their teaching "truly Russian". Already by the very title of the stories - "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka" - Gogol quite consciously enters himself into a certain literary context. Little Russian flavor, thanks to A.S. Pushkin, K.F. Ryleev, V.T. Narezhny, even before Gogol was not a novelty to the Russian reader. In 1817, eleven years ahead of Gogol, the Ukrainian nobleman Orest Somov arrived in St. Petersburg from Little Russia. He soon becomes an influential journalist, publishing prose and literary criticism. In 1823, in the journal "Competitor of Enlightenment and Charity", in the article "On Romantic Poetry", Somov, as if referring to the then very young Gogol, writes: "But how many different peoples have merged under the same name of Russians or depend on Russia, without separating from either space of foreign lands, nor distant seas! How many different looks, customs and customs appear to the inquisitive eye in one volume of Russia as a whole! Not to mention Russian proper, Little Russians appear here with their sweet songs and glorious memories. And below: "But how many places and objects scattered across the face of the Russian land still remain for contemporary singers and future generations! Flowering gardens of fruitful Ukraine, the picturesque banks of the Dnieper, Psla and other rivers of Little Russia ... are waiting for their poets and demand tribute from talents domestic". Arriving in Petersburg, Gogol became close friends with Somov. Judging by the review of O. Somov on the first book of "Evenings", the venerable writer (now a deservedly forgotten writer) perceived Gogol as a planet predicted by him. The fantastic in "Evenings" coexists and intersects with the folklore and fabulous. Gogol literally collects his stories from folklore blocks. Dozens, if not hundreds, of studies have been devoted to this topic.

In The Missing Letter, for example, the legend of a sold soul is used, for which they go to hell. (Gogol, deliberately confusing the fantastic and the comic, replaces the "soul" in the story with the "hat".) At the heart of "Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala" is the legend about Ivan Kupala, and "Sorochinsky Fair" is the legend of the devil, driven out of hell, and about searching for the devil of his property. How did Gogol dispose of his folklore economy? "The next night, some friend from the swamp comes to visit, with horns on his head, and let's strangle his neck when there is a monisto on his neck, bite his finger when he has a ring on it, or pull his braid when a ribbon is woven into it ". Even this single passage from "The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala" shows how far the author's prose is from the original source. Firstly, Gogol uses a close-up (monisto on the neck; a ribbon woven into a braid). Secondly, it gives what is happening a concrete-sensual character. Thirdly, it introduces an element of parody ("biting the finger when it has a ring on it"). In each story of "Evenings" several folklore plots interact at once. The concentration of fairy-tale material in them is enormous. Gogol compresses entire fairy tales to the size of an episode. At the Sorochinskaya Fair, the grumpy Khivrya, hearing a knock on the door, hides the coquettish priest on boards under the ceiling. This fragment is a truncated plot of the folk tale "Pop". By the way, in the fairy tale, the concrete-sensual beginning, despite the playfulness of the situation, is completely absent. In Gogol, it plays no less a role than the plot itself: “Here are your offerings, Afanasy Ivanovich!” she said, putting the bowls on the table and coyly buttoning up her sweater, which seemed to be accidentally unbuttoned. "

Folklore fiction is presented in Gogol's prose not only at the plot level - the most obvious one. Water, fire, forest play the same role in "Evenings" as in folklore. A.N. Afanasyev in his article "Vedunas, witches, ghouls and werewolves" notes that in different regions suspected witchcraft were tortured in different ways: they burned them with a red-hot iron, they hung them on trees. In Lithuania, sorceresses were lured to jelly, which was boiled in holy church water. “In Ukraine,” writes A.N. Afanasiev, “until later, witches were recognized by their ability to stay on the water. they took them to bathe in the river or in the pond.They twisted them with ropes, tied heavy stones around their necks and then threw the unfortunate prisoners into deep pools: the innocent in sorcery immediately sank to the bottom, and the real witch floated on top of the water along with the stone. with the help of ropes and set free; those who were recognized as witches were beaten to death and drowned by force ... "In May Night, Gogol, remaining true to Ukrainian custom, turns the witch into a drowned woman who lives in a pond. In The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala, girls throw demonic gifts - rings, monisto - into the water: "If you throw it into the water, a damn ring or monisto floats on top of the water, and into your hands ..." Did Gogol perceive folklore as folklore, t .e. philologically? In a way, yes. In letters, he asked his mother and relatives to send him folklore materials to St. Petersburg. The writer of Pavlovsky's "Grammar of the Little Russian Dialect" studies in the most attentive way. He writes down dozens of Ukrainian names from there and, as G. Shapiro notes, 136 proverbs and sayings. Some of them Gogol uses in "Evenings".

And yet, the writer's approach to folklore can be considered philological only with great reservations. In the twenties years XIX centuries in Ukraine, legends, fairy tales, thoughts were still a part of living literature, and not just a tradition. They did not need to be discovered and revived, in romanticism as a school and program. In wide cultural sense Gogol was no less a contemporary of F. Rabelais than a contemporary of A. S. Pushkin or our contemporary, the primitive artist Maria Priymachenko. Personally, Gogol, open to two cultures at once - Ukrainian and Russian, benefited from the patriarchal and peripheral nature of Little Russia, which was assigned the role of a province in the empire. What the St. Petersburg, lake, Jena, Heidelberg romantics perceived as fantastic, supernatural, for Gogol was natural, not out of the ordinary, worldly. The "romanticism" of Gogol's early prose is just as "natural" as his mature prose, which falls into the category of the "natural school". The subject - the author's vision - did not change. The object has changed. Attempts to replace the subject, himself, led Gogol to clinical consequences. Theatricalization of prose, staging of novels and stories - the genre has long been legalized, they will not surprise or outrage anyone. Gogol's "Evenings" is, relatively speaking, a "prosaicization" of the theatre. The fantastic in them has the character of vaudeville. "My God! What is there at this fair! Wheels, glass, tar, a belt, a sybula, all sorts of merchants ... so if I had at least thirty rubles in my pocket, then I would not have bought up the entire fair." It's impossible to make a mistake. This is Gogol. But not Nikolai Vasilyevich, but Vasily Afanasyevich. A quote from his father's vaudeville "The Simpleton, or the Cunning of a Woman Outwitted by a Soldier", written in Ukrainian, Gogol used as an epigraph in "Sorochinsky Fair". On the vaudeville of his father, Nikolai Gogol not only grew up. Already at a mature age in St. Petersburg, he tried to stage them.

In 1818, young Gogol moved to Poltava, where he studied at the district school for three years. It was during this period that a theater was opened in Poltava, which was directed by the founder of Ukrainian dramaturgy Ivan Kotlyarevsky. "Petro! Petro! Where are you now? Maybe you are wandering somewhere in need and grief and you curse your share; you curse Natalka because she left you homeless; or maybe (crying) you forgot that I live on this light." Ivan Kotlyarevsky's play "Natalka-Poltavka" was staged at the Poltava Theater in 1819. And here is N. Gogol, "May Night": "Galya! Galya! Are you sleeping or don't you want to come out to me? Are you afraid, right, that someone didn’t see, or don’t want to, maybe show a white face to the cold! Like Vasyl Gogol and Ivan Kotlyarevsky, Nikolai Gogol understands the word and the phrase not literally, but on the stage. The speech of his characters is designed not for the reader, but for the theatrical audience. That is why Gogol's prose is so booming, loud, loud. In 1821, twelve-year-old Gogol was admitted to the Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences. Gogol plays comic roles in the school theater. A whole generation of Nizhyn high school students grows up on the crib drama, on vaudeville, on the plays of I. Kotlyarevsky. Together with Gogol, Nestor Kukolnik and Evgen Grebenka studied in Nizhyn. The first made his debut in literature with the dramatic play "Torquato Tasso" and historical plays. The second - Comb - became famous for fables - an intermediate genre close to dramaturgy - and texts of popular romances. But not only the sound, the echo of the word betrays N. Gogol's predilection for the theater. The situations in which his characters find themselves also unfold according to the laws of classical vaudeville. “Meanwhile, the devil really grew soft at Solokha ... When suddenly the voice of a hefty head was heard. Solokha ran to open the door, and the nimble devil climbed into the lying bag. that he did not go to the deacon's because a snowstorm had risen, and when he saw the light in her hut, he turned to her with the intention of spending the evening with her. Before the head had time to say this, a knock was heard at the door and the deacon's voice. - Hide me somewhere ", - whispered the head. - I don’t want to meet the deacon now. Solokha thought for a long time where to hide such a dense guest; finally she chose the largest bag of coal; poured the coal into a tub, and a hefty head got into the bag with a mustache and droplets. The deacon entered , groaning and rubbing his hands, and said that he had no one and that he was heartily glad of this opportunity to walk a little with her and was not afraid of a snowstorm. Then he came closer, coughed, grinned, touched his long fingers up to her bare arm and said with an air that showed both slyness and self-satisfaction: - And what do you have, magnificent Solokha? - and having said this, he jumped back a little. - Like what? Hand, Osip Nikiforovich! - answered Solokha. - Hm! hand! heh! heh! heh! said the clerk, cordially pleased with his beginning, and walked up and down the room. - And what do you have, dearest Solokha? - he said with the same look, approaching her again and grabbing her lightly by the neck with his hand, and jumping back in the same order. - As if you do not see, Osip Nikiforovich! - answered Solokha. - Neck, and on the neck monisto ... ... It is not known what the clerk would now touch with his long fingers, when suddenly a knock was heard at the door and the voice of the Cossack Chub ... - They are knocking, by God, they are knocking! Oh, hide me somewhere!” Gogol’s vaudeville is not only dynamic and witty, but also fantastic. night" turns into a cat, and then a drowned woman. Another witch from "Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala" turns into a black dog, a cat, an old woman. In the "Sorochinsky Fair" N. Gogol describes the dancing old women as theatrical puppets: "Careless! even without childish joy, without a spark of sympathy, which only drunkenness, like a mechanic of his lifeless automaton, forces to do something similar to a human, they quietly shook their tipsy heads .... Some descriptions in "Evenings" are distinguishable from remarks except perhaps lexical expressiveness: "Thunder, laughter, songs were heard quieter and quieter. The bow was dying, weakening and losing indistinct sounds in the void of air. There was still some trampling somewhere, something like the roar of the sea, and soon everything became empty and muffled.

Theatrical convention presupposes a counter effort by the spectator, and in Gogol's case, by the reader. If this effort is not made, then the solid scenery of "Evenings" may seem like miserable cardboard, and the vociferous and lively extras - painted peyzan. The genre - a romantic story - is determined by Gogol not only by the traditional literary and romantic set of miracles, but also by the type of storyteller. In "The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala," the beekeeper Rudy (i.e., Red) Panko reads a story once told by the sexton Foma Grigorievich. The deacon indignantly asks: "- What are you reading? - What am I reading, Foma Grigoryevich? Your story, your own words. <...>- Spit on the head of the one who printed this! Breshe, bitch Muscovite. Is that what I said? What the hell, like who the hell has staves in his head! Listen, I'll tell it to you now. "The deacon, speaking philologically, is indignant at the substitution of oral speech - written. He does not want to recognize his words, not because they were replaced, but because they were transferred from the sound element to the typographic standard. In "Evenings "several narrators: the beekeeper Rudy Panko himself, the deacon of the Dikansky church Foma Grigorievich, the panich in a pea caftan, and the stranger who did not appear, who "digs up such horror stories that the hair walked on his head. "But they all belong to the same type of storytellers. Reading - listening - to them, you are tempted to give extra-textual definitions to some established genres. Let's succumb to this temptation. Have you had to stay up late, until the last visitor in a restaurant , a tavern, a trattoria, so that, after waiting for everyone, to drink vodka, raki or grappa with the waiter? If only because you are foreigners to each other, and the feeling of closeness, warmth is not fraught for both of you with a protracted stuffy friendship... Over whiskey, oruho or cognac, he tells you, his best friend, his life, his son, love, fatherly drama "You understand," he says at the end, "this is not life, but a novel! What a book you can write!" A similar situation with the same final phrase is possible, for example, on a train, with a random passenger in the role of a frank interlocutor. The entourage can change, only two conditions are required: the intimacy of the conversation and its randomness, originality. definition: an epic novel is the perception, understanding and retelling of one's own life as literary work.

And here is another situation. Evening. A dozen sleeping bags. Pioneer or scout campground. However, it can be a barracks of convicts or prisoners. All but one are silent. One tells, the rest listen, empathize. The story may be a retelling of Arthur Conan Doyle, Poe, or one's own adventures. There is only one condition: we should talk about the supernatural, which does not happen in life and cannot be. Let's try to formulate the second definition: the flight of a midnight fantasy in a tent or in a barrack to the accompaniment of deathly silence - this is a romantic story. Let's go back to Gogol. He never wrote an epic novel. In the place of a frank waiter (passenger), it is simply impossible to imagine him. Not the character, not the nature. The limit of Gogol's epicness is a poem in prose. At the same time, he is a natural narrator, and stories of the supernatural. So it is not for nothing that pioneers or boy scouts from intelligent families tell their fellow prisoners or cellmates not only about Dr. Moriarty or the golden bug, but also about the drowned woman or Via. As for deathly silence, here with Gogol it is not as simple as with Arthur Conan Doyle or Edgar Allan Poe, because now and then it cracks and collapses with laughter. In Gogol's prose, laughter nullifies everything macabre. Macabre parodies himself, thanks to which he only gains strength. Here is an example from May Night. The mother-in-law of the distiller, the storyteller, feeds her large family with dumplings. Suddenly, out of nowhere, an uninvited guest, a stranger. In the blink of an eye, he eats one cauldron, then another. “And so that you choke on dumplings,” the mother-in-law thinks. The guest immediately choked, fell down and expired. But from that time on, there was no peace. A little more than a month, the dead man is dragging along. He sits astride a pipe, damned, and holds a dumpling in his teeth. In a real macabre, everything would be serious. There would be an uninvited guest, but there would be no frivolous dumplings on the table. Most likely, the owners would be sleeping or going to bed. There would be a mysterious creak, a rustle, shadows would rush about. And the guest would be given a bucket of water, and suddenly the hostess would see the reflection of the devil's horns in the bucket and swear, squeal: "Stay away from me, unclean power, perish!" The devil would have perished, disappeared, but after every night he would have appeared in the house with the creak of the floorboard, the howling of the wind in the chimney, the hooting of an owl, the moan of a hawker. In Gogol, everything is reduced to nothing by dumplings. You believe in a ghost with a dumpling in your teeth, that is, thanks to the dumpling, you believe in a ghost. So the element of parody helps out, draws out an entire literary school. M. Bakhtin rightly draws a parallel between Gogol and Rabelais. Both choose their own gods who have a sense of humor. For both Rabelais and Gogol, what is funny is sublime. Gogol schoolboys-bursaks or vagrant clerks insert into their speech latin expressions and words only to demonstrate a heavy khokhlatsky accent. The seriousness is unconvincing and pale. A ghost, the essence of which is incorporeality, is realized in the mind of the reader only when it is extremely dense, tangible, carnal. The publicist and writer V.V. Rozanov, a preacher of nepotism and intimacy, and therefore the opposite of Gogol, more than once in his hearts called the author of "Evenings" a devil, Satan, a terrible Ukrainian, an idiot. Thanks to this touching and true dislike, Rozanov made many curious observations about Gogol's prose. For example, he wittily remarked that only the dead in Gogol are femininely attractive. Rozanov sees this as evidence of the perverted nature of the writer, a penchant for necrophilism.

Meanwhile, the explanation here should be sought not psychological, but purely literary, formal. Drowned women and the dead should be appetizing, and living girls should be slightly ephemeral, painted, otherwise the text ceases to be artistic. This principle, which might be called the "principle of negativity", is one of the most productive in the literature. The real, material enters the reader's consciousness only when it is translated into another series of materiality, thingness. Let's say the word "forest" flashes past the eyes, without hurting, without scratching, without tickling the imagination. But if without the word "forest" the text makes a noise, sways and clings to the hair with branches, then the lost reader will no longer get out of this forest. In Gogol's method of "negativity" in various modifications occurs all the time. In order to achieve the presence of snow, he writes not about the snow itself, which you can take in your hand, but about the frost that can be heard half a verst away. Ghosts, devils, all evil spirit he materializes, reifies. Is what we call a principle or technique, for the writer himself, a "technique"? Here is an excerpt from Gogol's article "On Little Russian Songs", which testifies to the writer's completely conscious attitude to poetics: nowhere to be found in them such a phrase: it was evening, but instead they say what happens in the evening, for example:

There were cows from the oak forest, and lambs from the field. She cried out brown eyes, the edge of a sweet standing.

Perhaps only A.P. Chekhov, more than sixty years later, gave in The Seagull an equally intelligible definition of metonymy: mill wheel - here the moonlit night is ready ... ". Actually, the fantastic, the supernatural is furnished with Gogol's fantastic in the figurative sense of the word, with what, vulgarly speaking, it is customary to express with the phrase "It's fantastic!" Gogol is the champion of Russian prose in exclamation marks. The point here is not statistics, but the fact that exclamatory intonation creates an atmosphere of exaltation, electrification. Exclamation mark, like a miracle, suggests an open mouth, flapping eyes. Gogol is "fantastic" not only on the intonational, but also on the semantic and punctuation levels. The phrases he invented are “intricate girls”, “he started running in circles with indirect steps”, “sabers sounded terribly”, etc. - blatantly wrong, but organic. The point separating one sentence from another, in Gogol is often conditional, fictitious. "Some strange, intoxicating radiance was mixed with the brilliance of the moon ... A silver mist fell on the surroundings. The smell of blooming apple trees and night flowers poured all over the earth "(" May Night "). Here our perception works over dots. The verb" poured "is easily transferred from the smell of apple trees to the shine of the month. And the month migrates from" Evenings "to books about" Evenings ":" The melody of Gogol's prose, like the radiance of the moon, flows in a variety of verbal variations "(Andrey Bely. "Gogol's Mastery"). The time of the very first story - "Sorochinsky Fair" - is noon. Then sunlight fades. Evening comes. Night. Above all other pages, the moon and stars shine, or a black, starless, moonless sky hangs. "The moon looks from the middle of the sky. The boundless vault of heaven resounded, parted even more immensely. It burns and breathes. The earth is all in silver light; and the wonderful air is both cool and stuffy, and full of bliss, and moves an ocean of fragrances ... Motionless, inspired steel forests full of darkness, and cast a huge shadow from themselves. Night becomes not only time, but also a scene of action, if you like, a theater of events. As befits a place, it is limited in space. Its ceiling is the sky, its lower limit is the earth. Gogol's night also has a backdrop: a certain sphere, something like the edge of the earth, as the medieval scholastics imagined it to be. Not enough - such is the intention of the creator - only the walls. But their absence only facilitates the work of the draft: to bring and carry away, as in the theater, goblin, Cossacks, schoolchildren, witches, ghouls, villagers. The fabric from which this night is sewn can be judged by comparison, by contrast. Silk is silky insofar as it is rough Cheviot. If we compare the Ukrainian night with the Persian or Turkish one, then it will seem pale-faced, anemic, almost odorless. The Turkish night challenges the Ukrainian one not only because it is stellar, spicy and velvety. IN Ukrainian folklore XVI- XVII century Turks are also invited to play the role of an enemy force along with Poles, Muscovites, and Jews. Moreover, judging by the ballads and legends, Ukraine and Turkey clash and clash not only on the battlefield. Raids and massacres are not the only way for two peoples to communicate. In a popular folklore story about a sister who fell into Turkish captivity, the lad Ivan not only feasts with the Turks, but also sells his sister to them, sells them for "penny". Drinking and bargaining is a form of dialogue at the level of everyday life. Those elements of the everyday culture of Ukraine, which in Russia are most often perceived as typically Ukrainian - sedentary, mustache shape, Cossack clothes - were borrowed by Ukrainians from the Turks. Even the standard of Cossack beauty in the Zaporizhian Sich is not much different from the Turkish one. At the linguistic level, Ukraine also intersects with the East. Such savory Ukrainian words as melon, kilim, kavun, bloomers are of Persian origin, kobza - the musical symbol of Ukraine - is Turkic. At the same time, a lively literary dialogue - for many reasons - did not start between Ukraine and Turkey. So Gogol's Ukrainian night is starry, fragrant and velvety in contrast to the faded northern Petersburg night. In contrast to these nights, Pushkin was the first to work. In the poet's prose, night, as such, is purely descriptive: "The weather calmed down, the clouds dispersed, before us lay a plain covered with a white wavy carpet. The night was quite clear" ("Snowstorm"). "... by evening everything worked out and went home on foot, dismissing the cab. It was a moonlit night" ("The Undertaker"). "He woke up at night: the moon illuminated his room. He looked at his watch: it was a quarter to three" ("The Queen of Spades"). But on the other hand, in poetry, Pushkin gives free rein to both language and breath:

Quiet Ukrainian night. The sky is transparent. The stars are shining. The air does not want to overcome its drowsiness.

("Poltava")

Gogol did not pass by the description of this night, densely mixed with "u", "z", "h", "x". Gogol's "Do you know the Ukrainian night?.." is a reciprocal gesture. And even Gogol's "Wonderful Dnieper in calm weather" intonationally and lexically inspired by the same "Quiet Ukrainian Night". Gogol was the first Russian prose writer who perceived language primarily sensually. He strives for the reader, together with the writer, to touch, hear, and see. The "metaphysical" transparency of Pushkin's prose is alien to him. Appeal to the senses requires the utmost linguistic expression. Apart from Ukrainian words, taken out by Gogol in dictionaries-applications, there are many Ukrainianisms in Gogol's language. The Russian reader perceives them not so much with the mind as with the great memory. Therefore, reading Gogol causes linguistic dizziness. The intonation, the structure of phrases in his prose suggests pulmonary, physiological empathy. Gogol's prose differs from pre-Gogol's, like color cinema from black and white. Moreover, Gogol's color is not necessarily expressed by an epithet. The word "eyes" - and "eye" in "Evenings" is almost never seen - is definitely black. Eyes with an "h" in the middle cannot be any other color. The novelty of Gogol, his "fantasticism" lies in the fact that he inoculated Russian prose with Ukrainian linguistic sensibility. The point here is not in Ukrainian realities: names, catchphrases, humor, folklore, but in a fundamental reorientation of the literary language. Alien writers, or, if you like, priimaks, can thank the literature that adopted them not only by what they bring into it from outside. Thanks to a fresh perception of their new linguistic homeland, they sometimes sharply see what, having become familiar, was not evident to anyone before. This is how the discoveries of individual words, intonations, parts of speech are made. If Gogol had not become a linguistic defector, then his prose would have been perceived tautologically in his homeland. Once Pushkin remarked: "From the coachman to the first poet, we all sing sadly." At the heart of Russian literary thinking is the idea. And the more the idea is in a fever, the more wonderful the prose is. Sometimes this idea can be framed with a modest pattern. Ukrainian literary thinking, with rare exceptions, is baroque and ornamental. Its meaning is in the interweaving and rhythm of various ornaments, as in the phrase about Katerina from "Terrible Revenge": "Unbraided black braids darted around the white neck." Gogol suffered defeat ("Selected passages from correspondence with friends") when he betrayed his own nature and tried to be more Russian than Russians. Gogol's attitude towards Russia is a typical reaction of a hysterical emigrant to a foreign country. For him, the natives are non-Christians, Germans, non-humans, in the current aliens, whom it is not a sin to kill. Gogol does just that, putting his crime in the title "Dead Souls". After that, he repents and executes himself: he burns the second part of the poem.

And in conclusion about the main thing. The heroes of "Evenings", as befits the left-bank Ukrainians, are dressed in trousers. These bloomers, like airships, fly in the air space of the night. If Gogol had spent his childhood and adolescence in Western, right-bank Ukraine, where narrow trousers-pipes are in use, then he would hardly have written prose of such a flight, scope, such voluminous generosity. On whatever page you open "Evenings", harem pants sway, hover, soar, flutter in the air. However, if you take a good look, putting on the nose, on the advice of Rudy Pank, instead of glasses, the wheels from the commissar's britzka, you notice that it sways, flies, soars, the night air itself, with which giant-sized trousers are pumped up, swells. But the deeper Gogol takes root in Petersburg life, the more decisive are the changes in the wardrobe of his characters. Bloomers, casings, plakhtas, cloths, and slippers give way to frock coats, overcoats, uniforms, and shoes. But this is a different topic, which has only an indirect relation to the young prose of a young but promising author from Little Russia.

Lessons 52–53 N. V. GOGOL – “FATHER OF RUSSIAN REALISTIC PROSE” (V. G. BELINSKY) (AN OUTLINE OF N. V. GOGOL’S LIFE AND WORKS)

Lessons 52–53
N. V. Gogol - "the father of the Russian
realistic prose" (V. G. Belinsky)
(Essay on the life and work of N. V. Gogol)

Goals: arouse interest in the personality and work of N.V. Gogol, a versatile talented writer, independent and firm in his convictions; to show the role of the great Pushkin in Gogol's realization of his writing vocation; expand and deepen students' ideas about the previously studied works of the writer, help to feel their originality and beauty; work on the formation of skills to analyze episodes (or stories) from read works.

Visual aids: portraits of the writer; photo album N. V. Gogol.

Course of lessons

Epigraph to the lesson:

He will be a great talent.

V. V. Kapnist

I. introduction about Gogol, a younger contemporary of Pushkin and his great successor.

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809–1852) was a satirist and realist writer, a gentle lyricist and romantic, a bold critic and publicist.

Turning to the most important social problems of his time, Gogol became one of the greatest realist writers in Russian and world literature (the great Gogol in his work went from a romantic to a realistic depiction of life). Admiring his talent, Chernyshevsky wrote: "For a long time there has not been a writer in the world who would be as important for his people as Gogol is for Russia."

II. Working on illustrations and photographs from the album “N. V. Gogol.

Consider portraits and photographs, illustrations from the photo album “N. V. Gogol.

Question: What kind of writer do you imagine?

This is how famous novelists saw Gogol.

S. T. Aksakov:“Gogol’s appearance has changed so much that one could not recognize him: there were no traces of the former, smoothly shaven and cropped dandy in a fashionable tailcoat! His beautiful blond thick hair lay almost to his shoulders; a beautiful mustache ... completed the change; all the features of the face took on a completely different meaning; especially in the eyes, when he spoke, kindness, gaiety and love for everyone were expressed; when he was silent or thoughtful, they now depicted a serious striving for something lofty ... The very figure of Gogol in a frock coat became more handsome. Gogol's jokes, which there is no way to convey, were so original and funny that uncontrollable laughter overcame everyone who listened to him; he himself always joked without smiling.

G. P. Danilevsky:“Medium height, stout and with a perfectly healthy complexion, he was dressed in a dark brown long coat and a dark green velvet waistcoat, tightly buttoned to the neck, which, over a satin black tie, showed white, soft shirt collars. His long brown hair fell in straight tufts below his ears, curving slightly above them. A thin, dark, silky mustache slightly covered his full, beautiful lips ... Small brown eyes looked kindly, but cautiously and not smiling, even when he said something cheerful and funny. A long, dry nose gave this face and these cautious eyes that sat on its sides something birdlike, observing and at the same time good-naturedly proud ... "

III. Student performances.

1. Childhood and youthful years of N. V. Gogol.

Born on March 20, 1809 in the town of Sorochintsy, Mirgorodsky district, Poltava province, in the family of a poor landowner Vasily Afanasyevich Gogol-Yanovsky, and spent his childhood years in the estate of his parents Vasilyevka, Mirgorodsky district. The father of the future writer - Vasily Afanasyevich - one of the founders of the Ukrainian comedy. Gogol's mother, Maria Ivanovna, loved and sang folk songs well.

Dikanka was located not far from Vasilievka (to which the writer later dated the origin of his stories). The land was covered with traditions and legends. The center of the region is Kibintsy, the estate of a wealthy landowner D. P. Troshchinsky, a relative of the Gogols. The Troshchinsky estate had an excellent library, as well as a fortress theater and an orchestra. It was there that the young Gogol first got acquainted with the theater, listened to music, saw a noisy society, and later played in home performances.

From 1818 to 1819 young Gogol studies at the Poltava district school.

2. At the Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences (1821–1828). Service in Petersburg.

On May 1, 1821, Gogol was appointed to the Gymnasium of Higher Sciences, which opened in the city of Nizhyn, one of the best in the Ukrainian provinces. The gymnasium was somewhat reminiscent of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. Progressive teachers had a huge impact on the gymnasium students: the inspector of the Gymnasium, professor of political sciences N. G. Belousov (in the classroom he inspired the gymnasium students with thoughts about freedom, equality and inviolability of the human person), the director of the Gymnasium, professor of mathematics K. V. Shapalinsky (later accused of creating a secret society ), professor of literature and French I. Ya. Landrazhin, professor of German literature F. I. Singer. The teachers gave their pupils to read the works of the French enlighteners, as well as the forbidden works of K. F. Ryleev, A. N. Radishchev, A. S. Pushkin.

The years of Gogol's teaching at the Gymnasium coincided with major social and political events in Russia and Ukraine: the defeat of the Decembrist uprising in St. Petersburg and the brutal reprisals against its participants; the performance of Ukrainian peasants against enslavement in the White Church; uprising of the Chernigov regiment.

In 1827, a “case of free-thinking” arose in the Gymnasium, in which Gogol's favorite teachers were accused. (During the interrogation, Gogol testified in favor of Belousov.) The "case of free-thinking" ended with the "removal from office" and the expulsion of the progressive professors of the Gymnasium from the city of Nizhyn.

In the last years of his studies, Gogol's versatile artistic talent is manifested: he reads a lot, writes, paints, learns to play the violin, is fond of the theater, brilliantly performs comic roles in performances.

Sixteen-year-old Gogol dreamed of devoting his life to state activity (and not to literature!). Here is what he wrote in a letter to his uncle P.P. Kosyarovsky: “... I went over in my mind all the states, all the positions in the state and settled on one. In justice ... Injustice, the greatest misfortune in the world, most of all tore my heart.

In December 1828, Gogol went to St. Petersburg to fulfill his plans: to serve the people and the state. But disappointment awaited him: he could not find a suitable place of service. The poem "Hans Küchelgarten" (Gogol published it under the pseudonym V. Alov) was not successful. Failure befell the writer when trying to enter the Alexandrinsky Theater. And only at the end of 1829 Gogol got a job in one of the departments as a copyist of papers. Then he served for about a year as an assistant clerk in the Department of Appanages.

N. V. Gogol about the service: “... Everyone is talking about their departments and colleges, everything is suppressed, everything is mired in idle, worthless labors ...”. He hated the service and, at the first opportunity, forever parted with the career of an official.

In 1830, Gogol met A. Delvig, V. Zhukovsky, P. Pletnev, and on May 20, 1831, at an evening at Pletnev's, he was introduced to Pushkin.

3. "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka"(1831–1832).

Students' analysis of the stories they read from the collection "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", reading their favorite episodes.

Creating a story, Gogol widely used works of folk art, drawing from them incredible plots, images, characters, well-aimed folk words, songs, and legends. In letters to his mother, he asked her to describe dance games, national costumes, weddings, and customs.

But not fiction, not folk tales, but life and character of the Ukrainian people- the main content of "Evenings ...".

“Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” is valuable because Gogol showed in them the beauty of the spiritual essence of the people, their dreams of a free and happy life. In numerous characters, he captured such features of the national character as intelligence, nobility, sharpness, and daring.

Pushkin gave a high rating to "Evenings ...": "I just read "Evenings near Dikanka". They amazed me. Here is real gaiety, sincere, unconstrained, without affectation and stiffness. And what poetry! What sensitivity! All this is so unusual in our current literature that I have not yet come to my senses.

4. Collection "Mirgorod"(1835).

A collection of stories called "Mirgorod" has a subtitle: "The stories that serve as a continuation of" Evenings on a farm near Dikanka ".

I part of the collection - the story "Old-world landowners", "Taras Bulba".

Part II of the collection - the story "Viy", "The Tale of how Ivan Ivanovich quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich."

Student presentations on readings.

The Mirgorod collection is a new phenomenon in Russian literature. Depth of denial contemporary to him vulgar life and the affirmation of positive civic-patriotic ideas made it possible for Belinsky to call Gogol "the head of literature" and Pushkin's successor.

5. N. V. Gogol - playwright.

Gogol loved the theatre. The theater, in his opinion, is a great school, its purpose is deep, “it reads to a whole crowd, a whole thousand people at a time live and useful lesson» .

"Marriage"(began writing in 1833, final version was created in 1842) is one of the best comedies on a family and everyday theme. Gogol showed the vulgarization of love and marriage, characteristic of the merchant environment.

"Inspector"(1836). On October 7, 1835, Gogol turned to Pushkin: “Do me a favor, give me a plot; the spirit will be a comedy of five acts, and I swear it will be funnier than the devil. Pushkin shared one of his stories with Gogol.

The premiere of The Inspector General took place on April 19, 1836 in St. Petersburg on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theatre. The comedy caused a lot of noise and furious controversy.

Conversation with students (or short reports) on:

1) How is the province depicted in the comedy The Inspector General?

2) What are the main features of the bureaucracy of tsarist Russia?

3) What brings Khlestakov closer to the mayor and his family?

5) Tell us about the features of the composition of the comedy "The Government Inspector".

6) What is the immortality of Gogol's comedy?

Everything that happens in a provincial town, lost in the wilderness (“if you ride for three years, you won’t reach any state”) is familiar to all of Russia. Modern world appears in the comedy not only funny, but also scary. The arbiter of fate is the mayor Anton Antonovich Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky. A convinced bribe taker and embezzler, a notorious swindler and an ignoramus, he personifies in the city law.

Gogol's heroes do not commit any "chilling deeds." They just do not even suspect that it is possible to live differently. They do not know that there are such concepts as honor, dignity, truth.

The world of bureaucracy and the townsfolk exposes by myself with your actions and words...

The depth of penetration of the writer into reality is amazing!

6. The last years of the life of N. V. Gogol.

From June 1836 to April 1848, Gogol lives abroad (in Rome, Paris), but does not lose touch with his compatriots and the Motherland (he comes to Russia twice).

1837. In Paris, Gogol learns of the death of the great Pushkin. (Gogol in a letter to a friend: “All my highest pleasure disappeared with him ... When I created, I saw only Pushkin in front of me ... Several times I took up the pen - and the pen fell from my hands. Inexpressible longing!”)

1847. Gogol publishes Selected passages from correspondence with friends.

1851. Finishes the second volume of Dead Souls.

Gogol cannot understand the meaning of the social struggle that is taking place in Russia. Physical and creative forces leave the writer. On the night of February 11, 1852, Gogol destroys the manuscript of the second volume of Dead Souls.

On February 21, 1852, Gogol died in the morning in his last apartment, in the house of Talyzin (a friend) on Nikitsky Boulevard (Moscow).

N. V. Gogol:“I know that my name after me will be happier than me, and the descendants of the same fellow countrymen, perhaps with eyes wet with tears, will pronounce the reconciliation of my shadow.”

The tragedy and comedy of the transformations of Gogol's heroes is unquestionably social. Almost every one of them bears the imprint of the class or everyday life of a miserable white youth, these are people who are either very poor (like Bashmachkin), or of average income. If they live in St. Petersburg, they live, as a rule, on the fourth floor, where they have to drag themselves along the back staircase, doused with slops, where, like honeycombs in beehives, rooms with low ceilings and small windows overlooking the courtyard are stuck.

And only in a dream can he dream of a brilliant mezzanine, with mirrored glass: windows overlooking the avenue or the Neva, a wide (perhaps even marble) staircase, a porter in the entrance, I myself am the entrance, illuminated by lights. If: their destiny is to live outside the capital, then this is some kind of deep wilderness, where the sounds of the postal route do not reach, newspapers and news do not reach, where you can sleep, drink and eat without interruption, without thinking about anything or anything not -hoping. These are some Ivan Fyodorovich's Vytrebenki, or the estate of Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna, or, at best, Mirgorod, over which a sleepy world reigns.

Gogol, always describing in detail the life of the heroes, will not join in mentioning their condition or rank. The rank is especially important. Determining the rank of an actor is already his characterization: in Russia, where all people, except for serfs, are divided into ranks, this is of decisive importance.

Gogol often flashes the image of a ladder, which now and then doubles: on the one hand, this is a hierarchical ladder that the hero would like to climb, on the other, it is a ladder of spiritual elevation and enlightenment. The table of ranks, in which almost every mortal (whether military or civilian) is doomed to be listed, is essentially a ladder, for any step in it is higher or lower than another. The narrow staircase leading to the fourth floor (which Gogol also calls the “attic”) is replaced by a gilded staircase in the house of some nobleman (“Nevsky Prospekt”), Piskarev runs up the stairs after the stranger (runs towards his death), climbs up to "significant person" (also going to his death) Bashmachkin trembling with fear. All of them are at the bottom of the hierarchical Russian ladder and all look at its top. Gogol's Piskarev is just a nobody, an artist, Poprishchin is a titular adviser; titular adviser and Bashmachkin, Shponka lieutenant, lieutenant and Pirogov, only Platon Kuzmich Kovalev (and even then in the Caucasus) managed to break out into collegiate assessors (eighth grade). The ranks of Gogol's heroes will range from the fourteenth (the lowest) to the sixth grade, but none of them will jump above the sixth (military or state generals). That is, he will jump, but in the imagination, in a dream or in madness, and not in reality. In reality, this low position will constantly disturb them, cause the thought of trampled pride, of the insult that circumstances and nature inflicted on them. Social injustice is mixed with the injustice of nature, which gave them neither the strength nor the time to rise. All of them, if not exceeded average age, then approached the middle age. Only Piskarev, Chartkov and lieutenant Pirogov are young, Kovalev, Bashmachkin, Polrshdin, Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich, the heroes of "Old World Landowners" can only recall their youth and her dreams. The “witch of old age” is approaching all of them, withering, fading, the cold of life, which seems to Gogol even more terrible than social vegetation.

Belinsky called the story of Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich a comedy of life. " funny comedy, which begins with stupidities, - he wrote, - continues with stupidities and ends in tears, and which, finally, is called life.

This is also the horror of the position of Gogol's "dreamers." Life, as it were, laughs at them, letting them go too short term and giving only a moment to wake up and be known, yourself and what is the use of this moment of insight? Life has been lived, there will be no second, and nothing can be changed in this rigidly appearing truth. Ivan Nikiforovich will not become a slender fellow, his neighbor, Afanasy Ivanovich will not shoot from a gun, he will not return to those years of his youth when he served in the cavalry, twirled his mustache and once took young Pulcheria Ivanovna away. "It's boring in this world, gentlemen!" - this exclamation of Gogol at the end of "To bear about how Ivan Ivanovich quarreled with Ivan Prokofiech" refers not only to the boredom and longing of life, but also to the inexorability of the law, which makes people first dream, hope, believe, and then prepares them disappointing end. Even the first lines of the story, which tells about Ivan Ivanovich's bekesh, about eating melons and producing numerous children with the help of the yard girl Gapka, give off some kind of abundance of life, some kind of fullness of it, still unaware of exhalation and old age. Even the thickness of Ivan Nikiforovich, his rude gluttony, bloomers, in which the whole yard with barns and buildings could be placed, his habit of drinking tea, sitting up to his neck in water, like the Mirgorod puddle itself, spilling without edges over the square of the town, is manifestation of the power of physical existence, which, although meaningless, is not defective. And only Ivan Ivanovich’s question: “What else do I not have? .. I would like to know what I don’t have?” - a question that will make him pay attention to the gun hanging in the neighbor's yard - will bring this life out of balance. And then its disintegration will begin, the rapid fading and waste of strength will begin, and the satiety of the Little Russian summer noon, where everything - even empty pots on the stakes of the hedge - it screams about excess, about prosperity, about a kind of health - will be replaced by the fading of autumn fields, where the grass looks like dead, where the sky does not shine and does not warm, and impassable dirt champs sadly underfoot. Sadness over the unfortunate fate of two Mirgorod "husbands" who put all their "genius" on litigation and squabbles, dried up from these litigations and mutual hatred, will be combined with sadness over the fate of a person who, one way or another, must enter his autumn, and after it and in winter.

Gogol, it seems, gives his heroes the last chance to be saved - he brings them to church, where it is easiest to forgive each other and forget insults. But they diverge different sides Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich, the former enmity devours them - and the hopeless author leaves the town, a troika of courier takes him away from Mirgorod.

This departure is not only Gogol's artistic device, but also an attempt, at least in motion, to overcome the deadness of everyday life. That is why the heroes of Gogol, having lost their peace, strive to leave their homes, to be transported to some other countries - and at a different time - and get ahead of impending old age. That's why Poprishchin rushes first to Spain, and then back to childhood, to his mother's window. That's why Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov will think about returning at the end of his journey - this is he, who is used to driving his troika only forward! Major Kovalev will also want to return (return his nose, human face), and Piskarev (in whom, - in the moments of his mad love - Gogol sees a "child"), and Bashmachkin, in whose intonations the "voice of a child" is heard, and the artist Chartkov. After visiting the academy, where he, already a venerable maestro, will see a picture of his peer who created a masterpiece in the silence of solitude, he will stand in front of the canvas and, forgetting stencils and stamps, will try to portray the “fallen angel”. But his hand will move down to the "hardened forms", the brush, weaned from freedom, will become like a stone, and he will understand that the passage of time is irreversible for him.

Only love can overcome physical aging and turn the clock. Only she is able to trample on the law, time and rankings. At its height, “laughter is bright”, it does not burn, does not cut, but rejoices in the fullness of being. So he rejoices in "Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and His Aunt", when the hero enters his native estate, where he is met by the barking of heterogeneous dogs, he rejoices so much in "The Carriage", which is all a game with reality, in "Old World Landowners", when Gogol describes the singing doors in the house of Pulcheria Ivanovna and Afanasy Ivanovich, in the scene of the feast of Hoffmann and Schiller in Nevsky Prospekt - and where the nose of Major Kovalev rises to its feet all of Petersburg. Here the element of laughter seems to overcome Gogol's deepest sadness.

“Laughter is bright” - these are the words of the author from “Theatrical Journey”. Gogol more than once had to make excuses for his laughter. IN " Theatrical junction"- this big stage excuse, where all sections of society resolutely attack his laughter - Gogol directly goes to the viewer at the end of the performance and utters a monologue about "fables". He had made similar moves before. The figure of the author also appears in The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich and in The Old World Landowners. The author is not just their good friend, but also a countryman: the places he describes are close to him, and in the description one feels the indifference of a loving eye. Gogol goes with his heroes to Nevsky Prospekt in Nevsky Prospekt, he accompanies Bashmachkin from beginning to end on his arduous path. His presence here is not allegorical, not conventionally literary, when the author appears as a narrator, as a certain Rudy Panko, who collects various stories and writes them down. He - actor story, a suffering face, and the sorrowful questions of the characters (“Why are they torturing me? What do they want from me, poor guy?” - Poprishchin. “Leave me, why do you offend me?” - Bashmachkin. “My God! my God! Why is this such a misfortune?” - Kovalev) - these are his questions, they are his questions, and because he, like these dreamers, is doomed to misunderstanding.

Immeasurable melancholy is accompanied by the author's departures in the story about Ivan Ivanovich Ivan Nikiforovich and in "Old World Landowners", sad irony emanates from his remarks about the "lie" of Nevsky Prospekt, just as sad is Gogol's irony in "Dead Souls". “We all have a lot of irony,” he wrote in the article “What, finally, is the essence of Russian poetry and what is its peculiarity.” “It is visible in our proverbs and songs and, most amazingly, often where the soul apparently suffers and not disposed at all to gaiety. The depth of this original irony has not yet been exposed before us ... "

All this also applies to Gogol's irony and laughter. Their punishing power is undeniable. But she is merciful and herself, perhaps, appeals to mercy. Gogol's tears do not follow laughter (as V. Rozanov wrote), but appear simultaneously with it, they are not directed into the void (V. Rozanov's same reproach, but at a person. In Gogol's prose, speaking in his own words, "the ability to laugh" connected with "the ability ... to truly be kind."

Gogol's laughter is always moral, always creative. He, as an artist-restorer, destroys only what is layered on the soul, what has grown on it for years, like a “bark”, like a kind of distortion that disfigures the face of the original. To get to its original freshness is a dream, Gogol's laughter, That's why he trembles at the thought that he will damage the original, damage it, not brighten it to the end. As in ancient paintings, smeared with the latest paint, he sees something “wonderful”, unprecedented, “the ideal of a beautiful person” in the depths of the layers.

Even in the most hopeless situations for the hero, Gogol ... hopes. Telling in Dead Souls an anecdote about "black and white" - an anecdote that causes laughter in General Betrishchev, sadness in Ulinka and complacency in Chichikov, rejoicing that he managed to amuse the general - Gogol remarks "There was not only a fourth who would have thought over these words, which produced laughter in one and sadness in the other. What does it mean, however, that even in his fall a perishing man demands love for himself? Is it animal instinct? or a weak cry of the soul, muffled by the heavy oppression of vile passions, still breaking through the woody bark of abominations, still crying out: “Brother, save me!”

Gogol not only searches for the high in the low, but also mounts the low with the high, in contrast to their neighborhood, revealing both the ridiculous sides of the high and the high sides of the low. So he mounts the past of the hero with his present inside one thing or inside one collection - the feat of Bulba and the feat of love of old-world landowners. "Arabesques" are built in the same way. They open with the article "Sculpture, Painting and Music" - a hymn to the ideal in art and man - and end with "Notes of a Madman". Under the cover of "Mirgorod" the valiant Cossacks from "Taras Bulba" and Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovnch coexist. This idea of ​​the closeness of the two sides of life, the idea of ​​their reunion dominates in Dead Souls, where the first volume was to be followed by a second balancing it, and in the new edition of the Portrait, and in Selected passages from correspondence with friends. For this book, on the one hand, is Gogol's reproach, and on the other, Gogol's anthem. “Compatriots are scared! The spiritual blackness of a person is terrible - this is one of her motives. “Let's get together, like the Russians in 1812, let's all the people become like“ one person ”- the second.

Gogol's prose fluctuates on these scales. She either seems to be leaning towards laughter, then towards tears, but the image of the author standing in the middle evens out the scales. Moreover, in Selected Places (1847) it is already Gogol himself, this is his life and his confession. Gogol creates here the image of himself - the image of a genius, keenly feeling split - split in society, in man, in himself. The gap between dreams and materiality seems to go through his soul, and he strives to reunite them, at least at the cost of his own life. Here it is no longer literature, but going beyond its limits, here is the "soul" and "the work of life." On this path of self-expression, Gogol is even ready ... to overcome Pushkin. “... Everything is still under the strong influence of Pushkin's harmonic sounds,” he writes, “no one can break out of this enchanted circle outlined by him ...”

“Overcoming of Pushkin” is connected not with the insufficiency of Pushkin (who, according to Gogol, most fully embraced the Russian person), but with the insufficiency of the means of poetry for open contact with the reader. It is this contact, which implies open influence, that Gogol is looking for. For his sake, he goes to break the vicious circle of art, in which he is cramped. Gogol takes a step towards overcoming the distance between the "matter of literature" and the "matter of life", mixing poetry with prose, "lesson and teaching" with "living images", the fate of Russia with his own fate.

The attempt to break the "vicious circle" turned out to be tragic. Exaggerations and strains of sincerity were mistaken for insincerity; the comedian's desire to act as a prophet was not understood. In the "Author's Confession", written as a justification for the justification of "Selected Places", Gogol admitted: "... I thought, to a child (my discharge. - I. 3.); I was deceived by some: I thought that there was some kind of love in some part of the readers. I did not know even then that my name was used only to reproach each other and laugh at each other ... "

The experience of "Selected Places" made him go back to "living examples" and "living images". But he returned enriched. The way out, taken by him in his “unfortunate book” (he himself called it that), far away is the feeling of the right of art to remain art. Already in the second volume of "Dead Souls" (1841-1851), this freedom of Gogol is felt in his native element of the image, acquired at the cost of staying outside the "circle" of poetry. The circle is no longer a circle, it is opening, it goes to infinity with its open ends.

So you go to infinity, trying to explore Gogol's prose. Gogol often called it "a riddle". He talked about his writings: they contain the riddle of my existence and the riddle of Russia. In fact, the Russian trait of publicity, the thirst for public incarnation and revelation, was most strongly expressed in Gogol. Russian maximalism and the impulse to embrace all life and the whole person are heard in his quest and loss. Gogol is all in sight and Gogol is all inside, approaching, he leaves, receding, brings us closer to him more than ever. In one dimensional flow of his speech there is some kind of mystery, an unsolved truth about the Russian people. There is something fantastic in the very omissions, stuttering, dots in his dialogues. One “poof-poof-poof” of the general in “The Carriage” is worth something: there is no person (not a word about his face, habits, gestures) - he is not captured head to toe, I’m not talking about the speech of the postmaster, who tells in Dead Souls » about captain Kopeikin. Again, this name: Kopeikin. A funny name, but at the same time, the hero of Gogol cannot do without it, A penny is a small coin, a penny can be in the hands of everyone, rubles add up from kopecks, thousands. A penny has no hope of becoming a ruble, but even without a penny a ruble is not a ruble and the state is not a state. Chichikov starts with a penny, and Poprishn counts the pennies in his pockets. Bashmachhin lives on these pennies. All of them are pennies, captains are pennies, and one of them (Kopeikin himself) raises confusion throughout Russia and forces the emperor himself to correspond with him.

Or Vytrebenki. This is the name of the farm of Ivan Fedorovich Shponkn. The name as a name, it seems, is even funny. - And “vytrebenki” is Ukrainian quirks. A whim, and Shponka himself, I am Gogol's world, inhabited by such splines. If you try to look deeper into Gogol's story and connect the hero's fear of marriage with the story of his birth, then I will explain this fear differently, and the story itself will expand its boundaries.

After all, Ivan Fedorovich, in fact, is unknown from whom he was born: either from his father, or from a neighbor who, in the absence of a father, ran into his mother. In addition, this neighbor before his death, for some reason, bequeathed his village to Ivan Fedorovich. So guess what Shponka is afraid of - the future of his wife or insulting his dreams in the form of betrayal, in the form of a ghost and cheating marriage? Perhaps the horror of this insult plunges him into nightmares?

Provo Gogol is unexpected in his revelations, in his poetic insight into the essence of reality and its paradoxes. We have already talked about how Gogol relates to history. Everywhere it is present as a background to the ongoing action, throwing its reflections on it. In turn, what is happening before her eyes does not remain in debt And pays her the same coin. Gogol's historical background is, as a rule, comical, historical names and faces are commemorated in the most inappropriate cases for them - when something very prosaic and unhistorical happens in a story or poem. So, Chichikov is bargaining with Sobaksvnch in the mind of the heroes of the Greek uprising, depicted on the paintings hanging on the walls, and “little Bagration”, who was crushed by the foot of some also historical Greek heroine. In the house of Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna there are portraits of the Duchess de La Valliere and Peter III, infested with flies. In "Dead Souls" the name of Napoleon is played many times. Now city officials mistake Chichikov for Napoleon, who escaped from the island of St. Helena, then Chichikov's coachman Selifan calls in his hearts his lazy harness "Bonaparte", Bonaparte harnessed to a rogue's cart!

The year 1812 is also ironic in the story about Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Npkiforovich, and in the Notes of a Madman there is a real struggle in Spain for the throne. No matter how reverently Gogol treated 1812, he still used it as the closest to him. historical event in order to set off the significance of one person in the face of great upheavals.

Jokingly calling Nozdrsva a “historical person” in the sense that he often got into various kinds of stories, Gogol quite seriously considered Shponka, Poprishchin, and all his heroes to be historical (in the poetic sense of the word). There is no history of a nation without a history of personality , in whatever "lower classes" it may be found, this historical truth was affirmed in Russian literature by "The Overcoat" and "The Nose".

Somehow, wanting to annoy the name of Gogol, Thaddeus Bulgarin, his eternal envious and ill-wisher, called the author of these stories "Raphael of vulgarities." He had no idea how he flattered Gogol, how, without knowing it himself, he raised his name high. It's one thing to be "Raphael", working on ideal material, cleansed of the vanity and "dirt" of life, another - where, it seems, only this filth and vanity reign, where not a single bright ray flies through the window, where it smells of cheap tallow candles and official paper for rewriting, "The higher the poet needs to be ..." - wrote Gogol.

As a manuscript

Katsadze Kristina Georgievna

MULTI-DIMENSIONALITY OF N. V. GOGOL'S PROSE:

OUTSIDE CHARACTERS

AND UNREAL FORCES

Specialty 10. 01. 01 - Russian literature

dissertations for a degree

candidate of philological sciences

Ivanovo-2011

The work was done in GOU VPO

"Ivanovo State University"

Scientific director: Doctor of Philology, Professor Kapustin Nikolai Venalievich

Official Opponents: Doctor of Philology, Professor Kholodova Zinaida Yakovlevna Ivanovo State University

candidate of philological sciences Vysotskaya Yuliya Vladimirovna GOU VPO "Shui State Pedagogical University»

Lead organization: GOU VPO "Kostroma State Pedagogical University. N. A. Nekrasov»

The defense will take place on June 9, 2011 at 10 o'clock at a meeting of the dissertation council D 212.062.04 at

Ivanovo State University at:

153025, Ivanovo, st. Ermaka, 39, room. 459.

The dissertation can be found in the library of Ivanovsky state university.

Scientific Secretary of the Dissertation Council Tyuleneva E.M.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF WORK

The multidimensionality of Gogol's text is created in different ways, but one of the most important is the references scattered throughout the author's texts. A special place in the work of N.V. Gogol belongs to the references to characters who are not directly involved in the action, as well as to the references to sacred (divine) and infernal forces.

Persons who are not acting “here and now”, denoting their own phenomenon “ Parallel Worlds, receive various definitions. V. V. Nabokov called them “secondary”, E. A. Smirnova offers the definition “secondary characters, or characters of the second order”, L. A. Sofronova uses the designation “background”. By analogy with the drama, they are called "off-stage" (L. V. Chernets). But in relation to narrative creativity, the definition of "out of plot" seems to be preferable.

It was used in the work based on the definition of the plot in the studies of B. V. Tomashevsky, V. Kaiser and V. V. Kozhinov.

Relevance the topic is determined by the insufficient study of the problem of the functioning of the system of references to non-fable characters and unreal forces in Gogol's works. Extra-fable characters and unreal forces, the mention of which appears in the speech of the narrator (narrator) or heroes, still remain without due attention, which is why many systemic connections in the text, as a rule, go out of sight of researchers. Meanwhile, non-fable characters who are not “persons” acting “here and now”, as well as numerous references to unreal forces not only expand the spatio-temporal boundaries of a particular work, but also turn out to be the most important semantic and plot-forming factor that reveals the specifics of Gogol’s creative method. , his view of the world. Thus, the study of the place and role of these references provides an opportunity to more accurately and comprehensively describe the structure of the writer's literary texts, the non-obvious laws of their organization, and the specifics of the author's concept of life.

Gogol's work opens up great opportunities for clarifying many of the identified aspects, since his works are full of references to characters and forces that are not participants in the immediate plot action. At the same time, it is important to emphasize that these characters make up different typological groups, which allows, on the one hand, to talk about their different functional load, and on the other hand, makes Gogol clarify their specificity.

The problematics of the proposed research implies an appeal to the phenomenon of an unconventional word, characterized by the identity of the signified, the signifier and the named object. The study of this type of word is intended to clarify both the phenomenon of Gogol's "magic realism" and to focus on the need for its further study in the verbal culture of the New Age. The system of references to non-fable characters and unreal forces can be presented as a new tool for comprehending the depths of the writer's artistic space, the semantic completeness of his works.

The degree of development of the problem. Almost all Gogol scholars touch on certain types of non-fable characters in one way or another. A whole group of generalized characters is made up of Gogol's well-known detailed metaphors and comparisons of Dead Souls. They were noticed even by the first reviewer K. P. Masalsky, however, he saw in them only a shortcoming of the poem. They were evaluated differently by other contemporaries (K. S. Aksakov, S. P. Shevyrev, V. G. Belinsky) and later researchers (A. Bely, I. E. Mandelstam and others). Later, G. A. Gukovsky wrote about the inclusion of all kinds of "digressions" (including those of a fantastic, mythical or religious nature) into a single layer of "real life" in Gogol's works. The non-fable narrators of "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", characters who appear in epigraphs, dreams, hallucinations (Yu. V. Mann, V. Sh. Krivonos) have not been ignored by researchers. References to unreal forces that appear in the speech of the narrator, narrator or heroes were also partly touched upon by researchers (A. Terts, K. V. Mochulsky).

We can say in the end that in the works on Gogol, enough has been accumulated big number observations on what is called in the dissertation "off-plot characters" and unreal forces. But all this is only part of a much more ramified system of references to non-fable characters and unreal forces. It has not yet been fully identified and described.

What researchers have done concerns either general provisions, fixing its presence, or with respect to particular aspects, closed to a separate work or to a separate character. At the same time, the main attention is paid, as a rule, to "Dead Souls" (without correlation with what was created by Gogol earlier).

In this regard, the purpose of the work is to determine the specific ways of creating capacity, the diversity of Gogol's prose through the functioning of a system of references in it: non-fable characters and unreal forces.

Accordingly, tasks:

Collect in full the references to non-fable characters and unreal forces in Gogol's narrative work;

Find the grounds for dividing non-fable characters into different types and identify the main types of references to non-fable characters and unreal forces in Gogol's prose;

Identify the functions assigned to them;

Consider the ratio of non-fable and plot characters in Gogol's prose works;

Show the dialectic of stable and changeable (with an emphasis on stability) in the system of references to non-fable characters and unreal forces in Gogol's work.

Subject of research are the relationships of non-fable characters and the unreal forces of Gogol's prose with other components of the texts. The object is the whole set of non-fable characters and unreal forces mentioned in the speech of the narrator (narrator) or heroes in Gogol's prose. The material is the entire artistic prose of Gogol: from "Evenings" to the second volume of "Dead Souls".

The methodology of the study is based on the theoretical and literary and historical and literary works of Russian and foreign researchers (B. V. Tomashevsky, V. V. Kozhinov, V. Kaiser, Yu. M. Lotman, E. Faryno, L. V. Chernets, Yu V. Mann, V. Sh. Krivonos, etc.), devoted to the structure of a work of art, the relationship between the terms "plot" and "plot", the study of the ontological status of the word, and the characteristics of Gogol's artistic world. Actually, the study used mainly historical-genetic, typological, mythopoetic and systemic methods for studying works of art.

Basic provisions submitted for defense:

1. Numerous references to non-fable characters and unreal forces are one of the most important ways to create the multidimensionality of Gogol's fiction.

2. The main functions of references to non-fable characters and unreal forces are characterizing and plot-forming. They can highlight the obvious or for the time being hidden qualities of the hero, situation, space, initiate the plot dynamics of a single episode or the entire work as a whole, and acting in the form of an alternative naming of a character, correct and even radically change the plot movement.

3. The functioning of unreal forces in texts, initiated by the mention of their names, is determined by the consciousness of the character calling to them: a sincere request for help, a curse, or a thoughtless confusion of God with the devil give a different plot result.

4. Generalized (collective) extra-plot characters set the norms of behavior, however, the given models are often debunked both by individualized extra-plot characters and plot heroes.

5. The system of references to characters and unreal forces has a pronounced stability: the themes of creativity, power, friendship, etc., revealed through it, reveal important and unchanging laws of human existence in Gogol's world, where there are sacred and infernal forces, the position in relation to which, as a rule, , depends on a person.

Scientific novelty The study carried out is as follows:

1. For the first time, the system of non-fable characters and unreal forces is considered in the full corpus of Gogol's artistic prose.

2. The whole variety of references to non-fable characters and unreal forces is analyzed for the first time in the systemic and typological terms.

3. For the first time, the interweaving of the functions of various references to non-fable characters and unreal forces has been demonstrated.

4. The introduced material corrects some of the prevailing ideas about the artistic world of Gogol.

5. For the first time, through the functioning of the system of references to non-fable characters and unreal forces, some features of the writer's worldview are revealed.

Theoretical significance research is to develop insufficiently clarified principles of analysis artistic text through the functioning of a system of references to non-fable characters in it.

Practical value research lies in the fact that its materials can be used in the preparation of university courses on the history of Russian literature of the nineteenth century, in special courses dedicated to the work of Gogol. The conclusions of the dissertation can also be used in the further study of the heritage of Gogol and other writers in terms of the functioning of the system of references to non-fable characters and unreal forces in their works.

Compliance of the content of the dissertation with the passport of the specialty for which it is recommended for defense.

The dissertation corresponds to the specialty 10.01.01 "Russian Literature". The dissertation research was carried out in accordance with the following points of the passport of specialties of the Higher Attestation Commission: point 3 - the history of Russian literature of the 19th century (1800-1890s); point 8 - the creative laboratory of the writer, individual psychological characteristics of the personality and its refraction in artistic creativity; point 19 - the interaction of literature with other forms of art.

Approbation of work. The concept of work and its main provisions were tested at the International scientific conferences: "Lomonosov". Section "Philology" (Moscow;

Moscow State University; 2009, 2010); interuniversity scientific conferences:

Medvedev's readings: scientific and methodological conference "Content and new technologies literary education at school and university” (Ivanovo; IvGU; 2010), “Young science in a classical university” (Ivanovo; IvGU; 2008, 2009, 2010). The chapters of the dissertation and the work as a whole were discussed at meetings of the Department of Russian Literature and Cultural Studies of the Ivanovo State University. The main provisions of the dissertation are reflected in eleven scientific publications.

Work structure. The dissertation research consists of an introduction, three chapters, a conclusion and a list of references.

The list of references includes 254 titles. The total amount of work is 201 pages.

BASIC THE CONTENT OF THE WORK

The Introduction substantiates the choice of the topic of the dissertation research, its relevance, determines the goal, objectives and methodological basis, gives the history of the issue and reveals the degree of its development.

Here one of the first tasks of the study is solved.

It turns out that all references to non-fable characters and unreal forces revealed in Gogol's fiction can be divided into types on different grounds:

according to the ways of including in the text, references to non-fable characters and unreal forces can be divided into those that arise 1) in the speech of the main subject of the narrative (narrator or narrator) and 2) in the speech of the heroes of the work.

In the first case, the forms of such inclusion can be: mentions of certain persons in the course of the presentation of the story being told; epigraphs to works or their parts; background; author's (or lyrical) digressions, etc. In the second case, the forms of their inclusion in the text are, first of all, the dialogues of the characters (that is, external speech), as well as their inner speech ( internal monologues, improperly direct speech), often realized in dreams, memories, hallucinations, etc .;

according to the degree of completeness and the nature of the depiction, the characters that are beyond the main action can be divided into those who are only mentioned and those who are described in sufficient detail (up to portrait characteristics, actions, conversations, etc.). Among them there can be both characters that are not similar to anyone else, as well as types that are carriers of universal, national or socio-professional qualities;

in relation to the characters of the main action, they may not be directly related to them, but they may also be closely correlated, turned into a kind of doubles (or antipodes).

These possible aspects of the analysis of the material are taken into account, but the main structure of the study is determined by the distinction in relation to the reality recreated by the writer. On this basis, they can be divided into three groups: those who belong to the sphere of society; related to the world of culture; belonging to the unreal world. This classification has become structure-forming, primarily on the basis of its visibility. In addition, Gogol's relationship with the world is kept precisely at these three levels, and, accordingly, the themes, objects, events of the works are properly refracted in social, creative and unreal spaces.

First chapter"Non-Fabulous Characters from the Sphere of Society" contains six paragraphs:

§ 1 “Carriers of generalized human qualities, “ours” and “strangers” in Gogol’s non-fabulous space”

substantiates the fact that generalized non-fable characters introduce the laws of existence of the described space into the text, characterizing it along the way: for example, the “good people” of “Evenings” are gradually replacing the “good people for communication” of “Dead Souls”. The plot characters are then tested for compliance with these laws, and, accordingly, for suitability for the described world. In "Dead Souls"

finds development, which declared itself in "Evenings" and most fully and vividly manifested itself in St. Petersburg stories: people are not what they are taken for, between formula, generalization and essence real person there is a gap, a discrepancy. The word fixing the generalizing concept and the real essence diverge, and if they coincide (as, for example, the mention of an aristocratic “sister”

Boxes), then only up to known limits.

The reasons for the discrepancy lie in the fundamental versatility of a person, the unexpected manifestations of the human essence in different cases, at different stages of life. Not corresponding to the specifics, the generalization creates the homonymy of concepts characteristic of Gogol, the multi-valued ambiguity.

Correspondences between the formula characterizing an extremely generalized type and specificity (truth) in Gogol's world arise more often in cases where negative phenomena are involved. It can be said that Gogol shows human nature in her sinfulness.

The discrepancy also extends to the category “ours” and “them”. The stereotypes revealed in the mouths of the characters often do not correspond to the behavior of non-fable characters and the narrator's assessment.

Thus, the generalized idea of ​​a person in Gogol's work, as a rule, is complicated:

Gogol's concrete person turns out to be more complicated than the extremely typologizing "models", especially in those cases when this model captures ideal or, at least, positive qualities.

In § 2 "Non-fabulous characters representing professions and estates, secular and church hierarchy"

reveals the importance for the writer of professional and estate categories. It is noteworthy that in his artistic world, even time appears in the form of an "inexorable hairdresser" who makes his hair gray.

Proverbs and sayings with the mention of professions are directly embodied in the text.

The definition of a storyteller/writer by profession points to his special place in the world:

for example, in the case of the beekeeper Rudy Pank, he demonstrates isolation from others, the role of an intermediary between the natural and human worlds. Through the attitude to this or that profession, which, in principle, for Gogol himself is not a determinant of human qualities or any detrimental position in the world, the plot characters are characterized. Often this is an indicator of intolerance of people of one profession or class to others.

One of Gogol's laws is that rank absorbs a person, which is especially pronounced in the world of St. Petersburg stories. In accordance with the realities of Russian life, the main estates that attracted Gogol's attention were the nobility and the peasantry. Moreover, in “Dead Souls” the master-servant relationship is elevated to the eternal Russian scene of “yard serf” and “master”, which enlarges the plot situation by transferring it into an off-plot plan. If we now leave aside the supposed plan to "resurrect" Chichikov and Plyushkin, then the real estate, expressing Gogol's hopes, turns out to be the peasantry. The peasants are the main subject of the poem, the progress of the plot depends on them (from the rise to the fall of the hero), Chichikov is characterized through the attitude towards them (and in the range from meanness to the scope of the soul).

The image of power carries a special semantic load in the writer's prose. According to Gogol, rulers of a relatively high rank are capable of positively influencing the fate of the heroes and changing the space around them for the better, since they have "sanctions" from above. The same regularity applies to the power of the church, however, persons outside the fable who have almost completely abandoned the worldly have a greater ability to do good. At the same time, the susceptibility to the messages emanating from them depends only on the heroes themselves who need help.

§ 3 "Non-fabulous relatives" proves that the theme of kinship is one of the central ones in Gogol's work.

Fathers and children, as well as grandchildren, godfathers, matchmakers, etc., who already appear in the Preface to Evenings, project it both on the family and on the clan. The importance of the category of kinship is postulated by heroes, narrators, and narrators who have a generic consciousness. Even with the loss of family ties, it retains its influence on the life path of Gogol's plot characters, which emphasizes the axiological significance of family ties for the author himself.

Gogol's heroes demonstrate the importance of kinship, in particular, through stable elements and naming using words from the family lexicon. The loss of kinship leads to defenselessness before the impure, which is expressed in stable speech constructions, naming. The significance of kinship in Gogol's world is set off by the fate of orphans. Gogol's heroes follow folklore ritual ideas, according to which the orphan was perceived as a flawed person.

The mention of the devil and the mention of "straight"

relatives in some cases become equivalent. Family relations with representatives of the "frontier profession" connect the characters and the narrator with the other world, reveal the permeability of boundaries and the naturalness of this permeability. The acquired kinship changes the relationship of those related, revealing the quality that was previously hidden.

But in Gogol's world, family ties are problematic not only for the reason that among the "relatives"

beings are infernal. They are also problematic when it comes to human relationships (although often people turn out to be carriers of infernal qualities). Often in the world of Gogol, heroes disdainfully refer to kinship by blood and brotherhood. The profanation of family ties leads to a tragic end to the character's life path or to a very unfavorable exposure for him. Moreover, in the latter case, most often associated with frivolously given names, both the one who names and the one who is named are exposed.

Overcoming a potentially dangerous situation of orphanhood (half-orphanhood) can occur due to the strength of the character of the hero. In addition, instead of a profaned kinship, Gogol presents a kinship of a different kind, creating such relations between people that, in the author’s eyes, are of greater value than blood kinship: brotherhood in spirit (“ Sorochinskaya Fair”, “The Night Before Christmas), by faith (“Taras Bulba”, “The Overcoat”), by conviction (the second volume of “Dead Souls”).

§ 4 “Non-Fabulous Images of Women” is devoted to the development of thought that is polemical in relation to the prevailing idea of ​​​​exclusive infernality female nature in Gogol's world: women appearing in Gogol's non-fable space are endowed with not only negative qualities. At the same time, in comparison with women of the main action, Gogol has more ideas about a bright and even world-building (in the Preface to Evenings) beginning, capable of having a beneficial transforming effect (in the second volume of Dead Souls), with a woman from an extra-fabulistic space.

§ 5 "Non-fable characters associated with the creative process" demonstrates that the chronotope, in which the narrator or narrator is involved, is expanding significantly, which is especially noticeable in Dead Souls, which has been written about many times. But the expansion of space and time is also observed in other Gogol's works, and in these cases, as in Dead Souls, Gogol raises the theme of creativity, the peculiarities of its perception.

The correlation of the narrator, the narrator with the image of a child, a young man, highlights the nature of creativity, which is especially clearly manifested in "Evenings": it is able to change a person, in particular, his age (the motif is revived in "Dead Souls").

Farm storytellers perform several functions at once: demonstrating the unique space of the Ukrainian cosmos (its rules, coordinates), creating the illusion of the authenticity of what is depicted, designating the main themes of the subsequent narration and removing them from the framework of a specific story. With the help of narrators, the problem of the terrible as such in the past and the terrible as funny in the present is stated, that is, the coordinates of evil are set for almost all of the writer's work.

Petersburg stories give birth to a narrator of a completely different kind - a writer. An illogical generalization, subsequent errors in the identification of writers devalue the works of fictional narrators of modern times. Their word is no longer valid.

The relationship of the narrator with the characters and readers is indicated as a list of his heroes (he "travels" after Chichikov, the ladies and Nozdryov prevent him from talking about what he wants), then readers (he calls the phenomena "to please" them).

But it is important to note that freedom is also initially postulated. In Evenings, this is freedom from the “bookish”, “tricky” word (its carrier is the “pea panich”). In The Overcoat, this is the freedom not to show interest in certain details of the biography of the characters (for example, the heirs of Bashmachkin). In The Nose, the narrator refuses to explain at all. In "Dead Souls"

statement is approved own nature talent, dependence on one’s own ailments (“having fallen ill with one’s own imperfection”) is ultimately affirmed as a vocation, as freedom of creativity, and is defended in polemics with “off-screen” reader opinions. The reader, who in Gogol's work always finds himself in a space outside the plot, acts as a powerful catalyst for Gogol's confirmation of his worldview and aesthetic position. This is also served by the "reversal" of literature and life. Through the mention of "secular" writers and their heroes in the speech of the narrator (Lidina, Gremina, etc.) or through the mention of the heroes of romantic stories, not only the dependence of provincial life on literature is characterized.

By correlating the figure of the narrator or the narrator with the named extra-fable images (the figure of the reader is especially important), Gogol, starting from "Evenings", reflects on the special status of the writer, defends his creative principles, opens the door to his creative laboratory, forms new ideas about the essence of writing .

§ 6 "Alternative naming of characters:

extra-fable phantoms" shows that Gogol has special laws: the naming, as it were, is separated from the one to whom it is given, and begins to live an independent life, sometimes influencing the fate of the named. It is also often observed that other plot characters are guided by the potential behavior of the phantom, and not the hero in his true form. In this case, unexpected plot twists and turns may arise, as well as the qualities of both the named person and those who give these alternative names can be revealed.

Alternative naming forces the plot characters to change their plot fate, trying on a different essence. Through naming, a new hypostasis is acquired (or a previously hidden quality of character is highlighted). In Gogol's world, this is due to the special status of the word, which turns what is called into reality (the basis of Gogol's "magical realism").

Second chapter"Non-Fabulous Characters of a Cultural-Historical Type" consists of two paragraphs:

§ 1 "Characters" real world”” is divided into three sections, the first of which is called “The Sovereigns”. It proves that, along with non-fable images of sovereigns (both Russian and foreign), the theme of power enters the pages of Gogol's works, the author's attitude to which has a shade of ambiguous irony, and in some cases is not devoid of open negativism, although it is not exhausted by either , nor others ("Notes of a Madman", "Rome"). One of the most interesting aspects of Gogol was the myth-making of his heroes, who create their own ideas about sovereigns, which by no means coincide with the author's in everything. As a rule, it is given in a comic light and in various versions determined by the worldview of different people.

The second section is called "Heroes of the Past". It shows that the appearance of real historical figures (almost all of them are somehow connected with the heroism of the past) on the pages various works Gogol is subordinated, in essence, to one artistic task: create contrast between past and present. This principle is maintained throughout creative way, although the sharpness of the contrast in "Dead Souls" may be complicated by other artistic settings, the complexity and whimsicalness of Gogol's associations, which imply a symbolic plan that has not yet been fully unraveled.

The third section is entitled "Writers and Painters". It postulates that the mentions of the names of writers and artists, first of all, expressively characterize the heroes of Gogol's works, and mainly serve as their ironic description. It is noteworthy that Gogol, who believes in the power of the artistic word, in its transformative power, on the pages of his works most often shows the opposite - how far from the world of art are the most different people: it is not art that influences them, but they subordinate art to their life attitudes. In the case of an artist (Piskarev from Nevsky Prospekt), this turns into a tragedy, but in other situations, no tragedy occurs: the vulgarization of art is a natural result of “civilization” and mass perception.

Finally, through references to writers, poets, and artists, Gogol forms his own ideas about the high place of art in the world, which complements the idea of ​​​​his aesthetic concept, which was expressed in articles and letters.

The discrepancy between the two levels of perception of art that Gogol recreates - the level of the majority (an exception in "Rome") and the level of the author's ideas about it, which turns out to be, in fact, a contrast, shows another contradiction, another side of Gogol's tragic worldview. The basis of this contradiction, which the writer could not help realizing, is the discrepancy between the idea of ​​the lofty mission of art and its profaned perception by the overwhelming majority, the purification of the soul and the transformation of which it is aimed at.

§ 2 "Characters of the "created world"" contains two sections:

The main thesis of the first section "World visual arts and crafts (icons, paintings, household items)":

sacred images on icons in Gogol's prose can be correlated with the impact of those works of art that are aimed at the good (although in both cases the personality of the perceiver, his will and choice are important). They are quite sharply opposed to those images that are associated with the world of civilization and testify to the spiritual fall of man.

In the second section "Biblical characters, heroes fiction and folklore" it is proved that those mentioned in Gogol's texts biblical names, the names of the heroes of works of art, folklore - one of the means of demonstrating the involvement of Gogol's heroes in the once existing, which, on the one hand, emphasizes the universality of the laws of being, and on the other hand, their eternal modification depending on time, personal qualities and priorities of one or another another person.

Third chapter"Surreal Forces" contains two paragraphs:

In § 1 "Divine Forces" the main idea is the complicity of God and man, which is quite stable in Gogol. But at the same time, the personal action or quality of Gogol's man is actualized through God. Petrus could be saved by a long day of God.

Narrators in "Evenings" and "Mirgorod", " Petersburg stories”, the narrator in Dead Souls is almost always under the protection of divine forces, as well as heroes honest with themselves and the world. Those who have lost divine protection due to a frivolous attitude to the name of God, pronouncing it in vain or purposefully using divine images for selfish purposes, fall under the blow. God is not the same for Gogol's heroes, and pronouncing his name postulates both their strength and weakness. In the world of Gogol there are characters who are associated with the bright, divine sphere of being, the consciousness of the narrators and the narrator is involved in this sphere. But many of the heroes of Gogol, of course, profane the name of God. Nevertheless, the plan of the author's consciousness, Gogol's axiology still rests not on the assertion of the idea of ​​the omnipotence of infernal forces, but on the implied or directly affirmed idea of ​​the divine basis of the world order, although often distorted by man § 2 "Infernal forces" reveals that various stable expressions using the name of the devil, they demonstrate both the present and the future of the word, which is under the influence of the impure at the moment and subordinate to it in the future (since it was sent to the devil).

Gogol's non-conventional perception of the word creates a base that "revives" phraseology, giving the word a real plot substance that extends to itself and its derivatives. The devil acts as an active figure, moving from the phraseological structure to the plot reality, that is, he moves the plot, outwardly remaining “behind the scenes”, but, in fact, being “here and now”. The devil that lives inside the heroes (“the devil sits in it”) is activated in borderline situations and transforms the heroes into doubles, after whom they are named.

The conclusion summarizes the results of the study, which are as follows:

On the pages of Gogol's artistic prose, there is a huge number of references to non-fable characters and unreal forces, which significantly expand the scale of the depicted world and thereby contribute to the creation of the work's capacity, its semantic richness, and ambiguity.

The creation of the capacity of the work, its ambiguous diversity due to the mention of extra-fable characters and unreal forces is achieved by their performance, first of all, characterizing and plot-forming functions (at the level of the plot as a whole or individual plot situations). Along the way, with their help, topics important to the author are raised and their solutions are given, reflecting the ideological component of the work, opening the author's view of the world.

The plot action is backed up by the foundation of the extra-fable one.

Generalized heroes give the laws of existence. Thus, the structure of, for example, a lyrical digression or a replica generalization presupposes the transfer of action to the speculative sphere of "models". In this case, the plot and non-plot characters change places and, if I may say so, it is the plot characters who take on the “auxiliary” function. But the type and the plot character never completely coincide, moreover, in Gogol's prose there is a tendency to debunk the stereotypes that exist in the described environment: an orphan is not always subject to infernal influences, a woman is far from always a witch, and strangers can turn out to be nobler and more honest than their own.

Mentions of the names of writers, artists expressively characterize the heroes of Gogol's works, these names are mentioned. It is very important to note here that Gogol, who believes in the power of the artistic word, in its transformative power, on the pages of his works most often shows how far from the world of art are the most diverse people: it is not art that influences them, but they subordinate art to their life attitudes.

Gogol's image of man constantly emphasizes his dual nature: involvement in both the infernal and the sacred. Gogol is surprisingly united. Analyzing various themes (authorities, relationships between estates, creativity, correlation of times, religious problems) through extra-fabulistic images and unreal forces, one cannot fail to notice that the arrangement of worldview accents remains constant. When reworking works, aspects of a different plan are corrected: the predominant theme (or its greater coverage), the degree of explanation of events by the nature of the character, etc. Evolution occurs not so much in terms of the loss of the "golden age" and the transition to the "realm of the impure"

The name of God in idiomatic constructions in the mouth of the narrator, the narrator clearly dominates the name of the unclean, not so much in frequency of use, but through the author's awareness of its power. But already on early stage creativity in Gogol, one can observe doubts about the divine patronage of the creative act - hence the constant reservations and references to God, actions on his behalf. Devils replace heroes, act as harbingers of troubles or their earthly deputies. The devil occupies a strong position in Gogol's works.

Nevertheless, in the world of Gogol there is a supreme authority:

a sincere appeal to God never goes unheeded.

Thus, non-fable characters and surreal forces not only perform poetological tasks (expanding the chronotope, defining the plot movement, performing a characteristic function), but also highlight the foundations of the writer's worldview.

The main provisions of the dissertation are reflected in the following publications:

1. Katsadze K. G. Two “Portraits”: changing Gogol’s world through the prism of extra-fabulous space // Personality. Culture.

Society. International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities. M., 2009 T.XI. Issue. 3 (#50). S. 480p.l.).

2. K. G. Katsadze, Non-Fabulous Characters and Non-Fabulous Space in N. V. Gogol’s Prose // Personality. Culture. Society. International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities. M., 2010 T.XII. Issue. 4 (#59-60). pp. 338-341. (0.25 p.l.).

3. Katsadze K. G. The system of non-fabulous characters in N. V. Gogol’s “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” // Young Science in a Classical University: Proceedings of scientific conferences of the festival of students, graduate students and young scientists. (April 21-25, 2008) at 8 o'clock: Part 6. Russian literature: text and context. Ivanovo, 2008, pp. 41-42.

4. Katsadze K. G. Systems of non-fabulous characters in two editions of N. V. Gogol’s story “Portrait”: differences in composition, stylistic environment, functions // Young science in a classical university: Proceedings of scientific conferences of the festival of students, graduate students and young scientists . (April 20-24, 2009) at 8 o'clock: Part 6. Russian literature: text and context. Ivanovo, 2009, pp. 48-49.

5. Katsadze K. G. Non-fabulous characters in the prose of N. V. Gogol: the role in the development of the main action // Proceedings of the II Interuniversity scientific conference of students, graduate students, young scientists (May 22, 2009). Moscow - Shuya,

2009. S. 174-176. (0.2 p.l.).

6. Katsadze K. G. Typology of non-fable characters in the prose of N. V. Gogol // Proceedings of the XVI International Scientific Conference of Students, Postgraduates and Young Scientists “Lomonosov”. Section "Philology" M., 2009. S.453-454. (0.13 p.l.).

7. Katsadze K. G. Non-fabulous characters in N. V. Gogol’s “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich” // Young Science in a Classical University: Proceedings of scientific conferences of the festival of students, graduate students and young scientists. Ivanovo, April 20-30, 2010: At 8 am Ivanovo: Ivan.

state un-t, 2009. Part 6. Russian literature: text and context.

Ivanovo, S. 75-76 (0.13 p.l.).

8. Katsadze K.G. Gogol: two rejected assistants // Proceedings of the XVI International Scientific Conference of Students, Postgraduates and Young Scientists "Lomonosov".

Section "Philology" M., 2010 (electronic version). (0.13 p.l.).

9. Katsadze K. G. Manifestations of the "speech line" in the prose of N. V. Gogol: representatives of state and military authorities // Bulletin of young scientists of the Ivanovo State University Issue 10 Ivanovo, 2010. P. 151p.l.).

10. Katsadze K. G. Non-fable characters of a cultural and historical plan in the fiction of N. V. Gogol:

representatives of state and military authorities // Competence approach in teaching Russian literature: a collection of scientific and methodological articles Ivanovo,

2010. S. 42-51. (0.6 p.l.).

11. Katsadze K. G. Clerics in the non-fabulistic space of N. V. Gogol’s fiction // Religious traditions of Europe and modernity: studying and teaching in Russian and foreign universities:

collection of scientific and scientific-methodical articles. Ivanovo,