The history of the creation of the story of the auditor gogol. The creative history of the play "Inspector

Gogol's element is laughter, through which he looks at life both in stories and in the poem " Dead Souls", however, in dramatic works("The Inspector General", "Marriage", "Players") the comic nature of Gogol's genius came to light especially fully. IN best comedy"Inspector" art world Gogol the comedian appears original, integral, animated by the clear moral position of the author.

Since working on The Inspector General, the writer has thought a lot about the deep spiritual conditioning of laughter. According to Gogol, the "high" laughter of a true writer has nothing in common with the "low" laughter generated by light impressions, quick witticisms, puns, or caricatured grimaces. "High" laughter comes "straight from the heart", its source is the dazzling brilliance of the mind, endowing laughter with ethical and pedagogical functions. The meaning of such laughter is to ridicule the "hidden vice" and maintain "lofty feelings".

In the writings that have become literary companions of The Inspector General ("Excerpt from a letter written by the author after the first presentation of The Inspector General to one writer", "Theatrical tour after the presentation of a new comedy", "Decoupling of the Inspector General"), Gogol, diverting accusations of unprincipled comedy, comprehended his laughter as “high”, connecting the sharpness of criticism with a high moral task that opened up to the writer and inspired him. Already in The Inspector General, he wanted to appear before the public not only as a comic writer, but also as a preacher and teacher. The meaning of comedy is that in it Gogol laughs and teaches at the same time. In Theatrical Journey, the playwright emphasized that the only “honest, noble face” in The Inspector General is precisely laughter, and specified: “... that laughter that all emanates from the bright nature of man, emanates from it because at the bottom its eternally beating spring is enclosed, which deepens the subject, makes something that would slip through brightly come out, without the penetrating power of which the trifle and emptiness of life would not frighten a person like that.

Comedy in literary work always based on the fact that the writer selects in life itself what is imperfect, low, vicious and contradictory. The writer discovers a “hidden vice” in the discrepancy between the external form and the internal content of life phenomena and events, in the characters and behavior of people. Laughter is the writer's reaction to comic contradictions that objectively exist in reality or created in a literary work. Laughing at social and human shortcomings, the comic writer establishes his own scale of values. In the light of his ideals, the imperfection or depravity of those phenomena and people who seem or pretend to seem to be exemplary, noble or virtuous is revealed. Behind the "high" laughter lies an ideal that allows you to give an accurate assessment of what is depicted. In "high" comedy, the "negative" pole must be balanced by the "positive". The negative is associated with laughter, the positive - with other types of evaluation: indignation, preaching, protection of genuine moral and social values.

In the "accusatory" comedies created by Gogol's predecessors, the presence of a "positive" pole was mandatory. The viewer found him on the stage, the reader - in the text, since among the characters, along with "negative" characters, there were always "positive" characters. The author's position was reflected in their relationships, in the characters' monologues, which directly expressed the author's point of view, and was supported by off-stage characters.

The most famous Russian comedies - "Undergrowth" by D.I. Fonvizin and "Woe from Wit" by A.S. Griboyedov - have all the signs of a "high" comedy. The "positive" characters in "Undergrowth" are Starodum, Pravdin and Milon. Chatsky is also a character expressing the author's ideals, despite the fact that he is by no means a “perfect model”. Chatsky's moral position is supported by non-stage characters (Skalozub's brother, Prince Fyodor, nephew of Princess Tugoukhovskaya). The presence of "positive" characters clearly indicated to readers what was due and what was deserving of condemnation. Conflicts in the comedies of Gogol's predecessors arose as a result of a clash between vicious people and those who, according to the authors, could be considered an example to follow - honest, fair, truthful people.

The Inspector General is an innovative work, in many respects different from the previous one and contemporary Gogol comedyography. The main difference is that in comedy there is no "positive" pole, "positive" characters expressing the author's ideas about what officials should be like, there are no reasoning heroes, "mouthpieces" of the author's ideas. The writer's ideals are expressed by other means. In essence, Gogol, having conceived a work that was supposed to have a direct moral impact on the public, abandoned the forms of expression of the author's position traditional for public, "accusatory" comedies.

Spectators and readers cannot find direct author's indications of what “exemplary” officials should be, and there are no hints of the existence of any other moral way of life than the one depicted in the play. It can be said that all Gogol's characters are of the same "color", created from a similar "material", and line up in one chain. The officials depicted in The Inspector General represent one social type- these are people who do not correspond to the "important places" that they occupy. Moreover, none of them ever even thought about the question of what an official should be like, how one should perform his duties.

The “greatness” of “the sins committed by everyone” is different. Indeed, if we compare, for example, the curious postmaster Shpekin with the obliging and fussy trustee of charitable establishments Strawberry, then it is quite obvious that the “sin” of the postmaster is reading other people’s letters (“death loves to know what is new in the world”) - it seems more lighter than the cynicism of an official who, on duty, should take care of the sick and the elderly, but not only does not show official zeal, but is generally devoid of signs of philanthropy (“A simple man: if he dies, then he will die; if he recovers, then he will recover anyway "). As Judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin thoughtfully remarked to the mayor’s words that “there is no person who does not have any sins behind him”, “sins are different for sins. I tell everyone openly that I take bribes, but why bribes? Greyhound puppies. It's a completely different matter." However, the writer is not interested in the scale of the county officials' sins. From his point of view, the life of each of them is fraught with a comic contradiction: between what an official should be and who these people really are. Comic "harmony" is achieved by the fact that there is no character in the play who would not even be ideal, but simply a "normal" official.

Depicting officials, Gogol uses the method of realistic typification: the general, characteristic of all officials, is manifested in the individual. Characters Gogol comedy possess unique human qualities inherent only to them.

The appearance of the mayor Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky is unique: he is shown as “a very intelligent person in his own way”, it is not without reason that all district officials, with the exception of the “somewhat free-thinking” judge, are attentive to his remarks about the disorder in the city. He is observant, accurate in his rough opinions and assessments, cunning and prudent, although he seems simple-minded. The mayor is a bribe taker and embezzler, confident in his right to use administrative power for his own interests. But, as he noted, parrying the judge’s attack, “he is firm in faith” and every Sunday he goes to church. The city for him is a family estate, and the colorful policemen Svistunov, Pugovitsyn and Derzhimorda do not so much keep order as they act as servants of the mayor. Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, despite his mistake with Khlestakov, is a far-sighted and insightful person who deftly uses the peculiarity of the Russian bureaucracy: since there is no official without sin, it means that anyone, even if he is a governor, even a “metropolitan thing”, can be “buyed” or “deceived ".

Most of the events in the comedy take place in the mayor’s house: it is here that it turns out who is holding “under the heel” of the luminary of the county bureaucracy - wife Anna Andreevna and daughter Marya Antonovna. After all, many of the "sins" of the mayor are the result of their whims. In addition, it is their frivolous relationship with Khlestakov that reinforces the comedy of his position, gives rise to completely ridiculous dreams of a general's rank and service in St. Petersburg. In "Remarks for gentlemen of the actors", preceding the text of the comedy, Gogol indicated that the mayor began "heavy service from the lower ranks." This important detail: after all, the "electricity" of the rank not only exalted Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, but also ruined him, making him a man "with roughly developed inclinations of the soul." Note that this is a comic version of Pushkin's captain Mironov, a straightforward and honest commandant Belogorsk fortress (« Captain's daughter"). The mayor is the exact opposite of Captain Mironov. If in the hero of Pushkin a person is above the rank, then in Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, on the contrary, bureaucratic arrogance kills the human.

There are bright individual traits in Lyapkin-Tyapkin and Strawberry. The judge is a county "philosopher" who has "read five or six" books and loves to talk about the creation of the world. 11 rand, from his words, according to the mayor, "the hair just rises on end" - probably not only because he is a "Voltarian", does not believe in God, allows himself to argue with Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, but also simply because of the absurdity and the absurdity of his "philosophizing". As the wise mayor subtly remarked, "well, otherwise a lot of intelligence is worse than it would not exist at all." The trustee of charitable institutions stands out among other officials with a penchant for flattery and denunciation. Probably not for the first time he did what he did during the "audience" with Khlestakov: violating the mutual responsibility of officials, Zemlyanika said that the postmaster "does absolutely nothing", the judge - "reprehensible behavior", the superintendent of schools - "worse than a Jacobin ". Strawberries, perhaps for real scary man, a werewolf official: he not only starves people in his charitable institutions and does not treat them (“we do not use expensive medicines”), but also destroys human reputations, interfering with truth with lies and slander. Luka Lukich Khlopov, superintendent of schools, is an impenetrably stupid and cowardly person, an example of a learned serf who looks into the mouth of any boss. “God forbid to serve in the scientific part! Khlopov complains. “You are afraid of everything: everyone gets in the way, everyone wants to show that he is also an intelligent person.”

The individualization of comic characters is one of the basic principles of Gogol the comedian. In each of them he finds a comic, "hidden vice", worthy of ridicule. However, regardless of their individual qualities, each official is a variant of "universal evasion" from true service to the tsar and the Fatherland, which should be the duty and honor of a nobleman. At the same time, it must be remembered that the socially typical in the characters of The Inspector General is only a part of their human appearance. Individual shortcomings become a form of manifestation of universal human vices in each Gogol character. The meaning of the depicted characters is much larger than their social position: they represent not only the county bureaucracy or the Russian bureaucracy, but also “a person in general” with his imperfections, who easily forgets about his duties as a citizen of heavenly and earthly citizenship.

Having created one social type of an official (such an official either steals, or takes bribes, or simply does nothing at all), the playwright supplemented it with a moral-psychological typification. Each of the characters has features of a certain moral and psychological type: it is easy to see in the mayor an imperious hypocrite who knows for sure what his benefit is; in Lyapkin-Tyapkin - a "philosopher" - a grumbler who loves to demonstrate his learning, but flaunts only his lazy, clumsy mind; in Strawberry - an earphone and a flatterer, covering up his "sins" with other people's "sins"; in the postmaster, who “treats” officials with a letter from Khlestakov, a curious, lover of peeping through a keyhole ... And of course, the imaginary “auditor” Ivan Alexandrovich Khlestakov himself is the embodiment of thoughtless lies, an easy attitude to life and widespread human weakness - to ascribe to oneself other people's affairs and other people's glory. This is a “labardan” man, that is, a mixture of stupidity, nonsense and nonsense, which pretend to be taken for intelligence, meaning and order. “I am everywhere, everywhere,” Khlestakov says about himself and is not mistaken: as Gogol noted, “everyone, even for a minute, if not for a few minutes, has been or is being made by Khlestakov, but, naturally, he just does not want to admit it ... ".

All characters are purely comic characters. Gogol does not portray them as some kind of extraordinary people - he is interested in what is found everywhere and what the ordinary, everyday life. Many minor characters reinforce the impression that the playwright portrays quite ordinary people, not higher than "ordinary height". The second spectator in "Theatrical Journey" in response to the remark of the First spectator "... Do such people really exist? And meanwhile, they are not exactly villains, ”he remarked:“ Not at all, they are not villains at all. They are exactly what the proverb says: "Not a bad soul, but just a rogue." The situation itself, caused by the self-deception of officials, is exceptional - it stirred them up, tore them out of the usual order of life, only by enlarging, in the words of Gogol, "the vulgarity vulgar person". The officials' self-deception caused a chain reaction in the city, making both the merchants and the locksmith with the non-commissioned officer, offended by the mayor, accomplices in the comic action. A special role in the comedy was played by two characters who are called "city landowners" in the list of actors - the "poster" of the comedy: Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky. Each of them is a simple doubling of the other (their images are created according to the principle: two people - one character). They were the first to report the strange young man seen at the hotel. These worthless people("city gossips, damned liars") and caused a commotion with the imaginary "auditor", purely comical persons who led the county bribe-takers and embezzlers to a tragic denouement.

The comedy in The Government Inspector, unlike the pre-Gogol comedies, is consistent and all-encompassing. Reveal the comic in public environment, in the characters of county officials and landowners, in the imaginary "inspector" Khlestakov - such is the principle of the author of the comedy.

The comic character in The Inspector General is revealed in three comedic situations. The first is a situation of fear caused by the received message about the imminent arrival of an auditor from St. Petersburg, the second is a situation of deafness and blindness of officials who suddenly ceased to understand the meaning of the words that Khlestakov uttered. They misinterpret them, they don't hear or see the obvious. The third situation is the situation of substitution: Khlestakov was mistaken for an auditor, the true auditor was replaced by an imaginary one. All three comedy situations are so closely interconnected that the absence of even one of them could destroy comic effect plays.

The main source of the comic in The Inspector General is fear, which literally paralyzes county officials, turning them from imperious tyrants into fussy, ingratiating people, from bribe takers into bribe givers. It is fear that deprives them of reason, makes them deaf and blind, of course, not literally, but in figuratively. They hear what Khlestakov says, how he lies improbably and every now and then “tricks”, but the true meaning of what was said does not reach them: after all, according to officials, in the mouth of a “significant person” even the most impudent and fantastic lie turns into truth. Instead of shaking with laughter, listening to stories about a watermelon "at seven hundred rubles", about "thirty-five thousand one couriers" galloping through the streets of St. Petersburg in order to invite Khlestakov "to manage the department", about how "in one evening" he wrote all the works of Baron Brambeus (O.I. Senkovsky), and the story "Frigate" Nadezhda "" (A.A. Bestuzheva) and even the magazine "Moscow Telegraph", "the mayor and others are shaking with fear", encouraging the intoxicated Khlestakov “to get excited more,” that is, to carry complete nonsense: “I am everywhere, everywhere. I go to the palace every day. Tomorrow they will make me into the field march ... ". Even during the first meeting with Khlestakov, the mayor saw, but did not “recognize” in him a complete insignificance. Both fear and the deafness and blindness caused by it became the soil on which a situation of substitution arose, which determined the “ghostly” nature of the conflict and the comedic plot of The Government Inspector.

Gogol used in The Inspector General all the possibilities of situational comedy available to a comedian. Three main comedy situations, each of which can be found in almost any comedy, in Gogol's play convince the reader with the whole "mass" of the comic that everything that happens on the stage is rigidly determined. “... Comedy should tie itself together, with all its mass, into one big, common knot,” Gogol noted in Theatrical Traveling.

There are many farcical situations in The Inspector General, which show the stupidity and inappropriate fussiness of county officials, as well as the frivolity and carelessness of Khlestakov. These situations are designed for 100% comic effect: they cause laughter, regardless of the meaning of what is happening. For example, feverishly giving the last orders before a trip to Khlestakov, the mayor "instead of a hat wants to put on a paper case." In Apparitions XII-XIV of the fourth act, Khlestakov, who had just declared his love to Marya Antonovna and was kneeling before her, as soon as she left, expelled by her mother, "rushes to her knees" and asks for a hand ... from the mayor's wife, and then, suddenly caught running in, Marya Antonovna, asks "mother" to bless them with Marya Antonovna "constant love." The lightning-fast change of events caused by Khlestakov's unpredictability ends with the transformation of "His Excellency" into a groom.

The comic uniformity of The Inspector General defines two key features works. Firstly, there is no reason to consider Gogol's laughter only "exposing", scourging vices. Gogol saw "cleansing", didactic and preaching functions in "high" laughter. The meaning of laughter for the writer is richer than criticism, denial or scourging: after all, laughing, he not only showed the vices of people and the imperfection of the Russian bureaucracy, but also took the first, most necessary step towards their deliverance.

In Gogol's laughter there is a huge "positive" potential, if only because those whom Gogol laughs at are not humiliated, but, on the contrary, are exalted by his laughter. The comic characters portrayed by the writer are not at all ugly human mutations. For him, these are, first of all, people, with their shortcomings and vices, "black ones", those who especially need the word of truth. They are blinded by power and impunity, they are used to believing that the life they lead is the real life. For Gogol, these are people who have lost their way, blinded, never knowing about their "high" social and human destiny. Can it be explained like this main motive Gogol's laughter in The Inspector General and in the works that followed it, including Dead Souls: only when they see themselves in the mirror of laughter, people are able to experience spiritual shock, think about new life truths, about the meaning of their "high" earthly and heavenly citizenship.

Secondly, Gogol's consistent comedy leads to an almost limitless semantic expansion of comedy. Not individual shortcomings are ridiculed individual people, whose life offends the moral sense of the writer and causes him bitterness and anxiety for the desecrated "title" of a person, but the whole system of relations between people. Gogol's "geography" is not limited to a county town, lost somewhere in the Russian outback. The county town, as the writer himself noted, is a “prefabricated city”, a symbol of Russian and general disorder and delusion. The county town, so absurdly deceived in Khlestakov, is a fragment of a huge mirror, in which, according to the author, one should look at oneself Russian nobility, Russian people in general.

Gogol's laughter is a kind of "magnifying glass", with which you can see in people what they themselves either do not notice or want to hide. In ordinary life, the "distortion" of a person, camouflaged by a position or rank, is not always obvious. "Mirror" of comedy shows true essence person, makes visible real-life shortcomings. Mirror reflection life is no worse than life itself, in which people's faces have turned into "crooked faces." This is what the epigraph to The Inspector General reminds of.

The comedy uses Gogol's favorite technique - the synecdoche. Having shown the "visible" part of the world of the Russian bureaucracy, having laughed at the unlucky "fathers" of the county town, the writer pointed to a hypothetical whole, that is, to the shortcomings of the entire Russian bureaucracy and to universal human vices. The self-deception of officials of the county town, due to specific reasons, primarily the natural fear of retribution for what they have done, is part of the general self-deception that makes people worship false idols, forgetting about true life values.

The artistic effect of Gogol's comedy is determined by the fact that the real world "participates" in its creation - Russian reality, Russian people who have forgotten about their duty to the country, about the importance of the place they occupy, the world shown in the "mirror" of laughter, and the ideal world, created by the height of the author's moral ideal. The author's ideal is expressed not in a head-on collision of "negative" (more precisely, denied) characters with "positive" (ideal, exemplary) characters, but in the entire "mass" of comedy, that is, in its plot, composition, in the variety of meanings contained in each comic character, in every scene of the work.

The originality of the plot and composition of The Inspector General is determined by the nature of the conflict. It is due to the situation of self-deception of officials: they take what they wish for reality. Allegedly recognized, exposed by them official - "incognito" from St. Petersburg - makes them act as if they were a real auditor. The resulting comic contradiction makes the conflict ghostly, non-existent. After all, only if Khlestakov was actually an auditor, the behavior of officials would be quite justified, and the conflict would be a completely ordinary clash of interests between the auditor and the “audited”, whose fate completely depends on their dexterity and ability to “splurge” .

Khlestakov is a mirage that arose because “fear has big eyes”, since it was the fear of being taken by surprise, not having time to hide the “disorder” in the city, that led to the emergence of a comic contradiction, an imaginary conflict. However, Khlestakov's appearance is quite concrete, from the very beginning (the second act) his true essence is clear to the reader or viewer: he is just a petty Petersburg official who lost at cards and therefore got stuck in the backwoods of the county. Only “uncommon lightness in thoughts” helps Khlestakov not to lose heart in absolutely hopeless circumstances, out of habit hoping for “maybe”. He is passing through the city, but it seems to the officials that he came precisely for their sake. As soon as Gogol replaced the real auditor with an imaginary one, the real conflict became also an imaginary conflict, a ghostly one.

The unusualness of the comedy is not so much that Gogol found a completely new plot move, but in the reality of everything that happens. Each of the characters seems to be in its place, conscientiously playing its role. The county town has turned into a kind of stage platform, on which a completely “natural” play is played, striking in its plausibility. The script and the list of actors are known in advance, the only question is how the "actors"-officials will cope with their "roles" in the future "performance".

In fact, one can appreciate the acting skills of each of them. The main character, the real "genius" of the county bureaucratic scene, is the mayor Anton Ivanovich Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, who successfully played his "role" three times in the past ("he deceived three governors"), the rest of the officials - who is better, who is worse - also cope with their roles , although the mayor sometimes has to prompt them, “prompt”, as if reminiscent of the text of the “play”. Almost the entire first act is like a "dress rehearsal" carried out in a hurry. It was immediately followed by an unplanned "performance". After the beginning of the action - the message of the mayor - a very dynamic exposition follows. It presents not only each of the "fathers" of the city, but also the county town itself, which they consider their fiefdom. Officials are convinced of their right to commit lawlessness, take bribes, rob merchants, starve the sick, rob the treasury, read other people's letters. The fussy Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky, who rushed to the "secret" meeting and alarmed everyone with a message about a strange young man they found in the hotel, hurried to push the "curtain" aside.

The mayor and officials try to “throw dust in the eyes” of an imaginary important person and tremble in front of her, sometimes losing the power of speech, not only out of fear of possible punishment, but also because one must tremble before any superiors (this is determined by the role of “audited”). They give bribes to Khlestakov when he asks for a "favor", because they should be given in this case, while usually they receive bribes. The mayor is kind and helpful, but this is just component his "role" caring "father" of the city. In a word, everything goes like clockwork with the officials.

Even Khlestakov easily enters the role of an important person: he meets officials, accepts petitions, and begins, as befits a "significant person", for no reason to "scold" the owners, forcing them to "shake with fear." Khlestakov is incapable of enjoying power over people, he simply repeats what he himself probably experienced more than once in his St. Petersburg department. An unexpected role transforms Khlestakov, elevating him above everyone, making him a smart, powerful and strong-willed person, and a mayor who really possesses these qualities, again in full accordance with his “role”, for a while turns into a “rag”, “icicle” , complete nothingness. The comic metamorphosis is provoked by the "electricity" of the rank. All the actors - both county officials who have real power, and Khlestakov, the "cog" of the St. Petersburg bureaucratic system - seem to be struck by a powerful discharge of current generated by the Table of Ranks, which replaced a person with a rank. Even an imaginary bureaucratic "value" is capable of leading the movement of generally intelligent people, making obedient puppets out of them.

Readers and viewers of the comedy are well aware that a substitution took place that determined the behavior of officials until the fifth act, before the appearance of the postmaster Shpekin with Khlestakov's letter. The participants in the “performance” are unequal, since Khlestakov almost immediately guessed that he was confused with someone. But the role of "significant person" is so well known to him that he brilliantly coped with it. Officials, fettered both by unfeigned and by the fear set by them according to the "scenario", do not notice the blatant inconsistencies in the behavior of the imaginary auditor.

The Inspector General is an unusual comedy, since comic situations do not exhaust the meaning of what is happening. Three dramatic plots coexist in the play. One of them - a comedic one - was realized in the second, third, fourth and at the beginning of the fifth act: the imaginary (Khlestakov) became a magnitude (auditor) in the eyes of officials. The plot of the comedy plot is not in the first, but in the second act - this is the first conversation between the mayor and Khlestakov, where they are both sincere and both are mistaken. Khlestakov, in the words of an observant mayor, "nondescript, short, it seems like he would have crushed him with a fingernail." However, from the very beginning, the imaginary auditor in the eyes of the frightened "mayor of the local city" turns into a gigantic figure: Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky "becomes shy", listening to Khlestakov's "threats" "stretching out and trembling with his whole body." The mayor is sincerely mistaken and behaves as one should behave with the auditor, although he sees that he is a nonentity. Khlestakov enthusiastically “whips”, putting on the appearance of a “significant person”, but at the same time he speaks the real truth (“I am going to the Saratov province, to my own village”). The mayor, contrary to common sense, takes the words of Khlestakov as a lie: “Nicely tied a knot! Lies, lies - and it will not break anywhere!

At the end of the fourth act, to the mutual satisfaction of Khlestakov and the officials, who are still unaware of their deceit, the imaginary "auditor" is carried away from the city by the fastest three, but his shadow remains in the fifth act. The mayor himself begins to "whipping", dreaming of a career in St. Petersburg. It seems to him that he received “what a rich prize” - “with what a devil they intermarried!” With the help of his future son-in-law, Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky hopes to “hit a big rank, because he is a friend of all ministers and goes to the palace.” The comic contradiction at the beginning of the fifth act reaches its peak.

The culmination of the comedy plot is the scene of the triumph of the mayor, who behaves as if he had already received the rank of general. He became above all, ascended above the county bureaucrats. And the higher he ascends in his dreams, taking what he wishes for reality, the more painful it is for him to fall when the postmaster "in a hurry" brings a printed letter - Khlestakov the writer, a scribbler appears on the stage, and the scribbler of the mayor cannot stand the spirit: for him they are worse than the devil . It is the position of the mayor that is especially comical, but it also has a tragic connotation. The unlucky hero of the comedy himself considers what happened as God's punishment: "Well, truly, if God wants to punish, he will first take away the mind." Add to this: and deprive irony and hearing.

In Khlestakov's letter, everyone finds even more "unpleasant news" than in the letter of Andrei Ivanovich Chmykhov, read by the mayor at the beginning of the play: the auditor turned out to be imaginary, "helicopter", "icicle", "rag". Reading the letter is the denouement of the comedy. Everything fell into place - the deceived side both laughs and is indignant, fearing publicity and, which is especially insulting, laughter: after all, as the mayor noted, now “you will go into a laughing stock - there will be a clicker, a paper maraca, they will insert you into a comedy. That's what's embarrassing! Chin, the title will not spare, and they will all bare their teeth and clap their hands. The mayor is most of all not saddened by his human humiliation, but outraged by the possible insult to his "rank, title." There is a bitter comic connotation in his indignation: a person who has soiled his rank and rank falls upon the “clickers”, “paper-scrapers”, identifying himself with the rank and therefore considering himself closed to criticism.

Laughter in the fifth act becomes universal: after all, every official wants to laugh at others, recognizing the accuracy of Khlestakov's assessments. Laughing at each other, savoring the jabs and slaps given in the letter by the exposed "auditor", the officials laugh at themselves. Laughing scene - laughing auditorium. The famous remark of the mayor - “What are you laughing at? - You are laughing at yourself!.. Oh, you!.. "- addressed both to those present on the stage and to the audience. Only Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky does not laugh: he is the most injured person in this whole story. It seems that with the reading of the letter and the clarification of the truth, the circle has closed, the comedic plot has been exhausted. But after all, the whole first act is not yet a comedy, although there are many comic incongruities in the behavior and words of the participants in the meeting with the mayor, in the appearance of Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky and in the hasty gathering of the mayor.

Two other plots - dramatic and tragic - are outlined, but not fully implemented. The first words of the mayor: “I invited you, gentlemen, in order to tell you the unpleasant news: an auditor is coming to us”, supplemented by clarifications that this auditor is coming from St. Petersburg (and not from the province), incognito (secretly, without publicity), “ and also with a secret order, ”caused a serious commotion. The task that arose before the county officials is quite serious, but doable: “take precautions”, how to prepare for a meeting with a formidable “incognito”: to cover up, patch up something in the city - maybe it will blow over. The plot of the action is dramatic, vital: the terrible auditor will not fall like snow on his head, the ritual of receiving the auditor and swindling him could be realized. There is no inspector in the first act yet, but there is a plot: the officials woke up from their hibernation, began to fuss. There is no hint of a possible substitution, only the fear that they might not be in time worries officials, especially the mayor: “So you are waiting for the door to open and - walk ...”

So, in the first act, the contours of the future drama are outlined, in which a favorable outcome of the audit could depend only on the officials. The message of the mayor about the letter he received and the possible arrival of the auditor is the basis for the emergence of a dramatic conflict, quite common in any situation associated with the sudden arrival of the authorities. From the second act to the finale of the play, a comedic plot unfolds. In a comedy, as reflected in a mirror real world official bureaucracy. In laughter, this world, shown from the inside, revealed its usual features: falsehood, show-off, hypocrisy, flattery and the omnipotence of the rank. Hurrying to the hotel where the unknown visitor from St. Petersburg was staying, the mayor hurried into the comedic "behind the mirror", into the world of false, but quite plausible ranks and relations between people.

If the action in The Inspector General had ended with the reading of Khlestakov's letter, Gogol would have accurately realized the "thought" of the work suggested to him by Pushkin. But the writer went further, completing the play with “The Last Appearance” and “A Silent Scene”: the finale of “The Inspector General” brought the heroes out of the “mirror room”, in which laughter reigned, reminding them that their self-deception did not allow them to “take precautions”, dulled their vigilance . In the finale, a third plot is planned - a tragic one. The suddenly appeared gendarme announces the arrival of not an imaginary, but a genuine auditor, terrible for officials not with his “incognito”, but with the clarity of the task set before him by the tsar himself. Each word of the gendarme is like a blow of fate, this is a prophecy about the imminent retribution of officials - both for sins and for carelessness: “An official who arrived by personal order from St. Petersburg demands you to himself this very hour. He stayed at a hotel." The fears of the mayor, expressed in the first act, came true: “That would be nothing, - damned incognito! Suddenly he looks: “Ah, you are here, my dears! And who, say, is the judge here? - Lyapkin-Tyapkin. - “And bring Lyapkin-Tyapkin here! And who is the trustee of charitable institutions? - "Strawberry". - “And bring Strawberries here!” That's bad!" The appearance of the gendarme is the imposition of a new action, the beginning of a tragedy that the author takes out of the scene. A new, serious "play", in which everyone will not be laughing, should, according to Gogol, not be played in the theater, but be accomplished in life itself.

Her three plots begin with messages: a dramatic one - with a message from the mayor, a comic one - with a message from Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky, a tragic one - with a message from a gendarme. But only the comic ghost plot is fully developed. In a dramatic plot that remained unrealized, Gogol discovered comic potential, demonstrating not only the absurdity of the behavior of fooled officials, but also the absurdity of the action itself, in which the roles are pre-scheduled: both the auditor and the auditees diligently throw dust in each other's eyes. The possibility of embodying the author's ideal is outlined in the finale of the comedy: the last and most important emphasis is made by Gogol on the inevitability of punishment.

The play ends with the "petrification" scene. This is a sudden stop of the action, which from that moment could turn from a comedy, ending with the exposure of Khlestakov, into a tragedy. Everything happened suddenly, suddenly. The worst happened: the officials were no longer hypothetical, but real danger. "Silent scene" - the moment of truth for officials. They are made to “petrify” by a terrible guess about imminent retribution. Gogol the moralist asserts in the finale of The Inspector General the idea of ​​the inevitability of the trial of bribe-takers and embezzlers of public funds who have forgotten their official and human duty. This court, according to the writer, should be carried out by personal command, that is, by the will of the king himself.

In the finale of the comedy "Undergrowth" by D.I. Fovizina, Starodum says, pointing to Mitrofanushka: "Here they are, worthy fruits of malevolence!" In Gogol's comedy there is no one who even remotely resembled Starodum. The “silent scene” is the pointing finger of the author himself, this is the “moral” of the play, expressed not by the words of the “positive” hero, but by means of composition. The gendarme is a messenger from that ideal world created by Gogol's imagination. In this world, the monarch not only punishes, but also corrects his subjects, wants not only to teach them a lesson, but also to teach them. The pointing finger of Gogol the moralist is also turned towards the emperor, not without reason that Nicholas I remarked, leaving the box after the performance on April 19, 1836: “Well, a play! Everyone got it, but I - more than anyone! ” Gogol did not flatter the emperor. Directly pointing out where retribution should come from, the writer, in essence, "taunted" him, confident in his right to preach, teach and instruct, including the king himself. Already in 1835, when the first edition of the comedy was being created, Gogol was firmly convinced that his laughter was laughter inspired by a high moral ideal, and not the laughter of a scoff or an indifferent critic of social and human vices.

Gogol's belief in the triumph of justice, in the moral effect of his play can be assessed as a kind of social and moral utopia generated by his enlightening illusions. But if it were not for these illusions, there would be no "Inspector General". In it, the comic and laughter turned out to be in the foreground, but behind them stands Gogol's belief that evil is punishable, and the punishment itself is carried out in the name of liberating people from the ghostly power of the rank, from the "bestial", in the name of their spiritual enlightenment. “Having seen his shortcomings and errors, a person suddenly becomes higher than himself,” the writer emphasized. “There is no evil that cannot be corrected, but you need to see what exactly the evil consists of.” The arrival of the auditor is not a “duty” event at all. The inspector is important not as a specific character, but as a symbol. It is, as it were, the hand of an autocrat, just and merciless to iniquities, reaching out to the backwaters of the county.

In The Denouement of The Inspector General, written in 1846, Gogol emphasized the possibility of a broader interpretation of the comedy's finale. The inspector is “our awakened conscience”, sent “by the Nominal Supreme Command”, by the will of God, reminding a person of his “high heavenly citizenship”: “Whatever you say, but the inspector who is waiting for us at the door of the coffin is terrible. As if you don't know who this auditor is? What to pretend? This auditor is our awakened conscience, which will make us suddenly and at once look with all eyes at ourselves. Nothing will hide before this auditor. ... Suddenly it will open before you, in you, such a monster that a hair will rise from horror. Of course, this interpretation is only one of the possible interpretations of the comedy's symbolically ambiguous finale, which, according to the author's intention, should affect both the mind and the soul of viewers and readers.

The idea of ​​writing a comedy came to Gogol while working on another no less famous work"Dead Souls". In correspondence with Pushkin, he asked him to write the plot of a five-act comedy.

It is clear that parallel work on Dead souls influenced the writing of comedy. In his confession, he reported that he had collected in one work all the worst in Russia and all the most injustice that he had ever seen.

It took him about two months to complete his idea, but even after writing and editing the comedy, work on it also continued. long time. The author made big changes to the works after the production at the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. The premiere took place in 1836. It was even Nicholas I himself - the emperor of Russia. The author was upset with the production, as the audience and actors did not understand the meaning of the author's idea. The actors noticed that some scenes were quite awkward, for example, when Khlestakov was the first to beg for a loan, the actor playing his role thought it would be better if they were the first to offer him money, so the author changed the scene, and the first four phenomena were also reworked.

The final version of the comedy was published in 1842. The Inspector General, which was staged on stage and published in print media many times, caused conflicting and ambiguous opinions. Polevoy in a newspaper called "Russian Messenger" wrote about the comedy that it was very ambiguous and criticized the plot for the lack of goals and "bad language".

And Belinsky, unlike Polevoy, praised the comedy and said that there are no better moments in the work, since there are no worse ones either.

But still, Gogol constantly had the feeling that his comedy was not always understood correctly, so he constantly wrote articles about how to play correctly and about what the meaning of comedy is correctly.

The history of the comedy Revizor in detail

Russian literature is rich in names prominent writers who worked at different times. Among them, N.V. Gogol (1809 - 1852) stands out, whose name is inscribed in golden letters in the history of world literature. Nature generously rewarded him creativity. He showed himself as an outstanding prose writer, an interesting artist, a talented publicist, and a wonderful playwright.

N. V. Gogol's play "The Inspector General" was published and first staged on the stage of the Alexandria Theater in the spring of 1836. Writer long years thought about creating a comedy on the theme of Russian life. In 1832, in a conversation with Sergei Aksakov, he spoke of the desire to "collect everything bad in Russia into one pile" and laugh at all the flaws of Russian life at once. To Aksakov's doubt that there is material in life for writing such a book, N.V. Gogol objected that "comic lies everywhere." One has only to describe it to the Master, "we ourselves will wallow with laughter."

A. S. Pushkin was a benevolent and open person, so other authors often turned to him for advice and support. In October 1835 N.V. Gogol, in a letter to him, asked him to suggest an interesting story from the life of Russian society. In response, A. S. Pushkin described an incident that happened to their mutual acquaintance. The presented plot was very much liked by N.V. Gogol. He quickly set to work on the creation of the play, which was written in two months. In Pushkin's letter, it was about the writer and publisher of the journal "Domestic Notes" Pavel Petrovich Svinin, whose figure is interesting because he was constantly mistaken for someone else. Being a gentle and accommodating person, he not only got used to confusion, but did not even resist it and skillfully used it for his own purposes. In St. Petersburg society, stories from his life were retold with laughter from mouth to mouth. So, A. S. Pushkin in his message told how P. P. Svinin in Bessarabia pretended to be some well-known official, but was stopped when he went far and, apparently, he himself believed in his miraculous reincarnation. Feeling that the hour of reckoning was near, he retreated.

N.V. Gogol's communication with him cannot be called pleasant. Having moved to St. Petersburg, the young writer began to collaborate with a popular magazine published by P. P. Svinin. In 1829, he brought his story "Basavryuk, or Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala" to the magazine. The work was published a year later, but without mentioning the name of the author. In 1830, an article by N.V. Gogol "Poltava" was published in the magazine, telling about his small homeland. The publisher not only distorted part of the author's text and inserted his own judgments there. The most offensive was that he put his name under someone else's work. Of course, any author would be outraged by such an attitude of the publisher. N. V. Gogol reacted to the behavior of P. P. Svinin by publishing the book Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka. It included "Evening on the eve of Ivan Kupala" as a separate chapter. Sochinite removed all Svinin's corrections and added an introduction about how the sexton Foma Grigoryevich listens to the publication of his story and scolds the publisher. But best of all, N.V. Gogol paid off his offender by creating a brilliant play about a man - a changeling Ivan Alexandrovich Khlestakov, the prototype of which was P.P. Svinin.

Of course, the author of The Inspector General had his own reasons to ridicule the shameless deceiver, but he never hid that the idea of ​​a comedy about an imaginary auditor belongs to A. S. Pushkin and was always grateful to him for this. This work has become one of the best creations of N.V. Gogol. Written almost two hundred years ago, the play does not leave us indifferent today. The Inspector General teaches us to fulfill all duties with dignity and responsibility, so that we are not ashamed of our work; be honest and sincere in relation to people, so that you do not have to hide, fearing exposure; to avoid flattery and kowtowing before anyone.

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• Evening on the eve of Ivan Kupala
• The history of the comedy Revizor
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The history of the comedy Revizor. Picture for the story

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Lesson Objectives:

• To acquaint students with the history of the creation of comedy.
• consolidate knowledge of the dramatic genre of literature.
• explain the nature of Gogol's laughter.
• cultivate interest in the works of the writer.
• develop presentation skills.
• develop skills expressive reading, text analysis.

Equipment: multimedia projector, theatrical masks, posters, illustrations for the play, textbook, portrait of N.V. Gogol.

During the classes

1. Teacher's word about Gogol's comedy "The Inspector General". The history of comedy.
2. On the genre of comedy.
3. Literary commentary (work with terms).
4. The composition of the play.
5. Commented reading of the poster, "Remarks for gentlemen of the actors."
6. Checking homework.
7. The nature of Gogol's humor. Laughter is "the only honest, noble face in comedy".
8. Homework (spreadsheet).

The course of the lesson is projected on the screen.

Teacher's word:

1. In the 30s XIX years century Gogol seriously thinks about the future of Russian comedy.

The writer believes that the comedy will fulfill its purpose only when the idea of ​​the work is revealed in the system of images, in the composition, in the plot, and not in direct verbal edification, with the punishment of vices in front of the audience.

Gogol turned to Pushkin: “Do yourself a favour, give some kind of plot, at least some kind, funny or not funny, but a purely Russian anecdote. The hand is trembling to write a comedy in the meantime.

In response to Gogol's request, Pushkin told him a story about an imaginary auditor, about a funny mistake that led to the most unexpected consequences. Based on this story, Gogol wrote his comedy The Inspector General. The writer worked on the text of the comedy for 17 years. The story was typical for its time. It is known that in Bessarabia they mistook the publisher of the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, Svinin, for the auditor. In the city of Ustyuzhna, at the other end of Russia, a certain gentleman, posing as an auditor, robbed the whole city. There were other similar stories told by Gogol's contemporaries. The fact that Pushkin's anecdote turned out to be so characteristic of Russian life made it especially attractive to Gogol. He wrote in "Petersburg Notes of 1836": "For God's sake, give us Russian characters, give us ourselves, our rogues, our eccentrics to their stage, for everyone to laugh!" The plot of the comedy is based on a commotion among officials, their desire to hide their “sins” from the auditor. The bureaucratic mass became the hero of the comedy. Gogol ridiculed dark sides Russian reality: arbitrariness of power, bribery, ignorance, rudeness, embezzlement.

The comedy also ridicules the everyday side of the life of the inhabitants of the city: the insignificance of interests, hypocrisy and lies, vulgarity, swagger, superstition and gossip. In the center of the comedy is a person who is least able to lead intrigues, a game. The hero does not lead the action, but the action leads the hero.

2. Perform creative groups : (students choose their own material).

Comedy genre conceived by Gogol as a genre public comedy touching on the most fundamental issues of the people's, public life. Pushkin's anecdote suited Gogol very well from this point of view. After all, the characters in the story about the alleged auditor are not private people, but official representatives of the authorities. The events associated with them inevitably capture many people: both those in power and those who are subject. The anecdote told by Pushkin easily succumbed to such artistic development, in which it became the basis of a truly social comedy. Gogol wrote in The Author's Confession: "In The Government Inspector, I decided to collect in one heap everything that was bad in Russia, which I then knew, all the injustices that are being done in those places and in those cases where justice is most required of a person, and laugh at everything at once."

Gogol was accused of distorting reality. But it wasn't. The events depicted in the comedy took place in St. Petersburg, and in Kazan, and in Siberia, and in Saratov, and in Penza. Khlestakov was everywhere, everywhere.

The Inspector General was completed by Gogol on December 4, 1835. Finished in the first edition, then there were more alterations. In April 1936, the comedy was staged. Few true connoisseurs- people educated and honest - were delighted. The majority did not understand the comedy and reacted to it with hostility.

“Everything is against me ... - complained Gogol in a letter to famous actor Shchepkin. “The police are against me, the merchants are against me, the writers are against me.” A few days later, in a letter to the historian M.P. Pogodin, he bitterly remarks: “And what enlightened people would accept with loud laughter and participation, that very thing revolts the bile of ignorance; and this ignorance is universal…”

After staging The Inspector General on stage, Gogol is full of gloomy thoughts. He was not entirely satisfied with the acting. He is frustrated by the general misunderstanding. In these circumstances it is difficult for him to write, it is difficult to live. He decides to go abroad, to Italy. Reporting this to Pogodin. He writes with pain: "A modern writer, a comic writer, a writer of morals should be away from his homeland." The Prophet has no glory in the Fatherland.” But as soon as he leaves the borders of his homeland, the thought of her, great love to her with new force and sharpness arises in him: “Now I have a foreign land in front of me, a foreign land around me, but in my heart is Rus', not nasty Rus', but only beautiful Rus'.”

3. Literary commentary.(teacher speaking)

In order to understand the work "The Inspector General", we will talk about what are the features of a literary work intended for the theater, for staging on stage (this work is called play).

In remarks, explanations for the directors of the performance and actors, it is reported which characters are involved in the play, what they are by age, appearance, position, what kindred relations are connected (these author's remarks are called poster); the place of action is indicated (a room in the mayor’s house), it is indicated what the hero of the play does and how he pronounces the words of the role (“looking around”, “to the side”).

Gogol was very attentive to his reader. With comments on the play, he sought to help perceive the comedy .

4. Composition of the play:

The action in the play develops through the following stages:

Screen Definitions. (notebook entry)

• exposition- the action of the play, drawing the characters and positions of the characters before the start of the action.
• tie- an event from which the active development of the action begins.

Development of the action of the play.

• climax– moment highest voltage in the play.
• denouement- the event that ends the action.

During the analysis of the play, students work on these concepts.

In terms of its volume, the play cannot be large, since it is designed for stage performance (for 2-4 hours). Therefore, the plays depict the most significant events, which develop rapidly, energetically, pushing the actors who are fighting, covert or overt.

5. Reading the poster and comments for the actors.

Remarks for gentlemen actors give a detailed description of the characters.

After reading the list of actors, we find that there is no auditor there. Is the title character an off-stage character?

We will answer this question in the course of the analysis of the comedy.

6. Checking homework.

Students perform with a presentation (theatrical poster), hand over illustrations for the play.

7. The nature of Gogol's laughter.

Laughter is the only "honest, noble face in comedy."

Creative team performing.

Gogol ridiculed the dark sides of Russian reality: the arbitrariness of the authorities, bribery, embezzlement. ignorance, rudeness. And the exposure of negative characters in comedy has long been not through a noble face, but through the action of deeds, dialogues of themselves. The negative heroes of Gogol themselves expose themselves in the eyes of the viewer.

But ... the heroes of N.V. Gogol are exposed not with the help of morality and moralizing, but by ridicule. "Only laughter strikes vice here." (Gogol).

The author chose to fight all the evil that was in tsarist Russia, tall, noble laughter, because he was deeply convinced that "even the one who is not afraid of anything is afraid of laughter." With faith in the healing power of laughter, he created his comedy.

Final word of the teacher: What is depicted is a mirror in which Gogol shows society to society.

Fear of exposure is the driving force behind the plot.

8. Homework.

1. Prepare a message. Description of one of the characters.

Table "Characteristics of the image"

2. How do you understand the epigraph: “There is nothing to blame on the mirror, if the face is crooked”?

Answer the question in writing.

Gogol's element is laughter, through which he looks at life both in the stories and in the poem "Dead Souls", however, it was in the dramatic works ("The Government Inspector", "Marriage", "Players") that the comic nature of Gogol's genius came to light especially fully. In the best comedy The Inspector General, the artistic world of Gogol the comedian appears original, integral, animated by the clear moral position of the author.

Since working on The Inspector General, the writer has thought a lot about the deep spiritual conditioning of laughter. According to Gogol, the "high" laughter of a true writer has nothing in common with the "low" laughter generated by light impressions, quick witticisms, puns, or caricatured grimaces. "High" laughter comes "straight from the heart", its source is the dazzling brilliance of the mind, endowing laughter with ethical and pedagogical functions. The meaning of such laughter is to ridicule the "hidden vice" and maintain "lofty feelings".

In the writings that have become literary companions of The Inspector General ("Excerpt from a letter written by the author after the first presentation of The Inspector General to one writer", "Theatrical tour after the presentation of a new comedy", "Decoupling of the Inspector General"), Gogol, diverting accusations of unprincipled comedy, comprehended his laughter as “high”, connecting the sharpness of criticism with a high moral task that opened up to the writer and inspired him. Already in The Inspector General, he wanted to appear before the public not only as a comic writer, but also as a preacher and teacher. The meaning of comedy is that in it Gogol laughs and teaches at the same time. In Theatrical Journey, the playwright emphasized that the only “honest, noble face” in The Inspector General is precisely laughter, and specified: “... that laughter that all emanates from the bright nature of man, emanates from it because at the bottom its eternally beating spring is enclosed, which deepens the subject, makes something that would slip through brightly come out, without the penetrating power of which the trifle and emptiness of life would not frighten a person like that.

The comic in a literary work is always based on the fact that the writer selects in life itself what is imperfect, low, vicious and contradictory. The writer discovers a “hidden vice” in the discrepancy between the external form and the internal content of life phenomena and events, in the characters and behavior of people. Laughter is the writer's reaction to comic contradictions that objectively exist in reality or created in a literary work. Laughing at social and human shortcomings, the comic writer establishes his own scale of values. In the light of his ideals, the imperfection or depravity of those phenomena and people who seem or pretend to seem to be exemplary, noble or virtuous is revealed. Behind the "high" laughter lies an ideal that allows you to give an accurate assessment of what is depicted. In "high" comedy, the "negative" pole must be balanced by the "positive". The negative is associated with laughter, the positive - with other types of evaluation: indignation, preaching, protection of genuine moral and social values.

In the "accusatory" comedies created by Gogol's predecessors, the presence of a "positive" pole was mandatory. The viewer found him on the stage, the reader - in the text, since among the characters, along with "negative" characters, there were always "positive" characters. The author's position was reflected in their relationships, in the characters' monologues, which directly expressed the author's point of view, and was supported by off-stage characters.

The most famous Russian comedies - "Undergrowth" by D.I. Fonvizin and "Woe from Wit" by A.S. Griboyedov - have all the signs of a "high" comedy. The "positive" characters in "Undergrowth" are Starodum, Pravdin and Milon. Chatsky is also a character expressing the author's ideals, despite the fact that he is by no means a “perfect model”. Chatsky's moral position is supported by non-stage characters (Skalozub's brother, Prince Fyodor, nephew of Princess Tugoukhovskaya). The presence of "positive" characters clearly indicated to readers what was due and what was deserving of condemnation. Conflicts in the comedies of Gogol's predecessors arose as a result of a clash between vicious people and those who, according to the authors, could be considered an example to follow - honest, fair, truthful people.

The Inspector General is an innovative work, which differs in many respects from comedyography that preceded and is contemporary with Gogol. The main difference is that in comedy there is no "positive" pole, "positive" characters expressing the author's ideas about what officials should be like, there are no reasoning heroes, "mouthpieces" of the author's ideas. The writer's ideals are expressed by other means. In essence, Gogol, having conceived a work that was supposed to have a direct moral impact on the public, abandoned the forms of expression of the author's position traditional for public, "accusatory" comedies.

Spectators and readers cannot find direct author's indications of what “exemplary” officials should be, and there are no hints of the existence of any other moral way of life than the one depicted in the play. It can be said that all Gogol's characters are of the same "color", created from a similar "material", and line up in one chain. The officials depicted in The Inspector General represent one social type - these are people who do not correspond to the "important places" they occupy. Moreover, none of them ever even thought about the question of what an official should be like, how one should perform his duties.

The “greatness” of “the sins committed by everyone” is different. Indeed, if we compare, for example, the curious postmaster Shpekin with the obliging and fussy trustee of charitable establishments Strawberry, then it is quite obvious that the “sin” of the postmaster is reading other people’s letters (“death loves to know what is new in the world”) - it seems more lighter than the cynicism of an official who, on duty, should take care of the sick and the elderly, but not only does not show official zeal, but is generally devoid of signs of philanthropy (“A simple man: if he dies, then he will die; if he recovers, then he will recover anyway "). As Judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin thoughtfully remarked to the mayor’s words that “there is no person who does not have any sins behind him”, “sins are different for sins. I tell everyone openly that I take bribes, but why bribes? Greyhound puppies. It's a completely different matter." However, the writer is not interested in the scale of the county officials' sins. From his point of view, the life of each of them is fraught with a comic contradiction: between what an official should be and who these people really are. Comic "harmony" is achieved by the fact that there is no character in the play who would not even be ideal, but simply a "normal" official.

Depicting officials, Gogol uses the method of realistic typification: the general, characteristic of all officials, is manifested in the individual. The characters of Gogol's comedy have unique human qualities inherent only to them.

The appearance of the mayor Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky is unique: he is shown as “a very intelligent person in his own way”, it is not without reason that all district officials, with the exception of the “somewhat free-thinking” judge, are attentive to his remarks about the disorder in the city. He is observant, accurate in his rough opinions and assessments, cunning and prudent, although he seems simple-minded. The mayor is a bribe taker and embezzler, confident in his right to use administrative power for his own interests. But, as he noted, parrying the judge’s attack, “he is firm in faith” and every Sunday he goes to church. The city for him is a family estate, and the colorful policemen Svistunov, Pugovitsyn and Derzhimorda do not so much keep order as they act as servants of the mayor. Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, despite his mistake with Khlestakov, is a far-sighted and insightful person who deftly uses the peculiarity of the Russian bureaucracy: since there is no official without sin, it means that anyone, even if he is a governor, even a “metropolitan thing”, can be “buyed” or “deceived ".

Most of the events in the comedy take place in the mayor’s house: it is here that it turns out who is holding “under the heel” of the luminary of the county bureaucracy - wife Anna Andreevna and daughter Marya Antonovna. After all, many of the "sins" of the mayor are the result of their whims. In addition, it is their frivolous relationship with Khlestakov that reinforces the comedy of his position, gives rise to completely ridiculous dreams of a general's rank and service in St. Petersburg. In "Remarks for gentlemen of the actors", preceding the text of the comedy, Gogol indicated that the mayor began "heavy service from the lower ranks." This is an important detail: after all, the "electricity" of the rank not only exalted Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, but also ruined him, making him a man "with a roughly developed inclination of the soul." Note that this is a comic version of Pushkin's captain Mironov, the straightforward and honest commandant of the Belogorsk fortress ("The Captain's Daughter"). The mayor is the exact opposite of Captain Mironov. If in the hero of Pushkin a person is above the rank, then in Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, on the contrary, bureaucratic arrogance kills the human.

There are bright individual traits in Lyapkin-Tyapkin and Strawberry. The judge is a county "philosopher" who has "read five or six" books and loves to talk about the creation of the world. 11 rand, from his words, according to the mayor, "the hair just rises on end" - probably not only because he is a "Voltarian", does not believe in God, allows himself to argue with Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, but also simply because of the absurdity and the absurdity of his "philosophizing". As the wise mayor subtly remarked, "well, otherwise a lot of intelligence is worse than it would not exist at all." The trustee of charitable institutions stands out among other officials with a penchant for flattery and denunciation. Probably not for the first time he did what he did during the "audience" with Khlestakov: violating the mutual responsibility of officials, Zemlyanika said that the postmaster "does absolutely nothing", the judge - "reprehensible behavior", the superintendent of schools - "worse than a Jacobin ". Strawberry, perhaps, is a truly terrible person, a werewolf official: he not only starves people in his charitable institutions and does not treat them (“we do not use expensive medicines”), but also destroys human reputations, interfering with truth with lies and slander . Luka Lukich Khlopov, superintendent of schools, is an impenetrably stupid and cowardly person, an example of a learned serf who looks into the mouth of any boss. “God forbid to serve in the scientific part! Khlopov complains. “You are afraid of everything: everyone gets in the way, everyone wants to show that he is also an intelligent person.”

The individualization of comic characters is one of the basic principles of Gogol the comedian. In each of them he finds a comic, "hidden vice", worthy of ridicule. However, regardless of their individual qualities, each official is a variant of "universal evasion" from true service to the tsar and the Fatherland, which should be the duty and honor of a nobleman. At the same time, it must be remembered that the socially typical in the characters of The Inspector General is only a part of their human appearance. Individual shortcomings become a form of manifestation of universal human vices in each Gogol character. The meaning of the depicted characters is much larger than their social position: they represent not only the county bureaucracy or the Russian bureaucracy, but also “a person in general” with his imperfections, who easily forgets about his duties as a citizen of heavenly and earthly citizenship.

Having created one social type of an official (such an official either steals, or takes bribes, or simply does nothing at all), the playwright supplemented it with a moral-psychological typification. Each of the characters has features of a certain moral and psychological type: it is easy to see in the mayor an imperious hypocrite who knows for sure what his benefit is; in Lyapkin-Tyapkin - a "philosopher" - a grumbler who loves to demonstrate his learning, but flaunts only his lazy, clumsy mind; in Strawberry - an earphone and a flatterer, covering up his "sins" with other people's "sins"; in the postmaster, who “treats” officials with a letter from Khlestakov, a curious, lover of peeping through a keyhole ... And of course, the imaginary “auditor” Ivan Alexandrovich Khlestakov himself is the embodiment of thoughtless lies, an easy attitude to life and widespread human weakness - to ascribe to oneself other people's affairs and other people's glory. This is a “labardan” man, that is, a mixture of stupidity, nonsense and nonsense, which pretend to be taken for intelligence, meaning and order. “I am everywhere, everywhere,” Khlestakov says about himself and is not mistaken: as Gogol noted, “everyone, even for a minute, if not for a few minutes, has been or is being made by Khlestakov, but, naturally, he just does not want to admit it ... ".

All characters are purely comic characters. Gogol does not portray them as some kind of extraordinary people - he is interested in what is found everywhere and what ordinary, everyday life consists of. Many secondary characters reinforce the impression that the playwright portrays quite ordinary people, no taller than "ordinary height." The second spectator in "Theatrical Journey" in response to the remark of the First spectator "... Do such people really exist? And meanwhile, they are not exactly villains, ”he remarked:“ Not at all, they are not villains at all. They are exactly what the proverb says: "Not a bad soul, but just a rogue." The situation itself, caused by the self-deception of officials, is exceptional - it stirred them up, pulled them out of the usual order of life, only enlarging, in the words of Gogol, "the vulgarity of a vulgar person." The officials' self-deception caused a chain reaction in the city, making both the merchants and the locksmith with the non-commissioned officer, offended by the mayor, accomplices in the comic action. A special role in the comedy was played by two characters who are called "city landowners" in the list of actors - the "poster" of the comedy: Dobchinsky and Bobchinsky. Each of them is a simple doubling of the other (their images are created according to the principle: two people - one character). They were the first to report the strange young man they saw at the inn. These insignificant people (“gossipers of the city, damned liars”) caused a commotion with the imaginary “auditor”, purely comical persons who led the county bribe-takers and embezzlers to a tragic denouement.

The comedy in The Government Inspector, unlike the pre-Gogol comedies, is consistent and all-encompassing. To reveal the comic in the public environment, in the characters of district officials and landowners, in the imaginary "auditor" Khlestakov - such is the principle of the author of the comedy.

The comic character in The Inspector General is revealed in three comedic situations. The first is a situation of fear caused by the received message about the imminent arrival of an auditor from St. Petersburg, the second is a situation of deafness and blindness of officials who suddenly ceased to understand the meaning of the words that Khlestakov uttered. They misinterpret them, they don't hear or see the obvious. The third situation is the situation of substitution: Khlestakov was mistaken for an auditor, the true auditor was replaced by an imaginary one. All three comedy situations are so closely interconnected that the absence of even one of them could destroy the comic effect of the play.

The main source of the comic in The Inspector General is fear, which literally paralyzes county officials, turning them from imperious tyrants into fussy, ingratiating people, from bribe takers into bribe givers. It is fear that deprives them of their reason, makes them deaf and blind, of course, not literally, but figuratively. They hear what Khlestakov says, how he lies improbably and every now and then “tricks”, but the true meaning of what was said does not reach them: after all, according to officials, in the mouth of a “significant person” even the most impudent and fantastic lie turns into truth. Instead of shaking with laughter, listening to stories about a watermelon "at seven hundred rubles", about "thirty-five thousand one couriers" galloping through the streets of St. Petersburg in order to invite Khlestakov "to manage the department", about how "in one evening" he wrote all the works of Baron Brambeus (O.I. Senkovsky), and the story "Frigate" Nadezhda "" (A.A. Bestuzheva) and even the magazine "Moscow Telegraph", "the mayor and others are shaking with fear", encouraging the intoxicated Khlestakov “to get excited more,” that is, to carry complete nonsense: “I am everywhere, everywhere. I go to the palace every day. Tomorrow they will make me into the field march ... ". Even during the first meeting with Khlestakov, the mayor saw, but did not “recognize” in him a complete insignificance. Both fear and the deafness and blindness caused by it became the soil on which a situation of substitution arose, which determined the “ghostly” nature of the conflict and the comedic plot of The Government Inspector.

Gogol used in The Inspector General all the possibilities of situational comedy available to a comedian. Three main comedy situations, each of which can be found in almost any comedy, in Gogol's play convince the reader with the whole "mass" of the comic that everything that happens on the stage is rigidly determined. “... Comedy should tie itself together, with all its mass, into one big, common knot,” Gogol noted in Theatrical Traveling.

There are many farcical situations in The Inspector General, which show the stupidity and inappropriate fussiness of county officials, as well as the frivolity and carelessness of Khlestakov. These situations are designed for 100% comic effect: they cause laughter, regardless of the meaning of what is happening. For example, feverishly giving the last orders before a trip to Khlestakov, the mayor "instead of a hat wants to put on a paper case." In Apparitions XII-XIV of the fourth act, Khlestakov, who had just declared his love to Marya Antonovna and was kneeling before her, as soon as she left, expelled by her mother, "rushes to her knees" and asks for a hand ... from the mayor's wife, and then, suddenly caught running in, Marya Antonovna, asks "mother" to bless them with Marya Antonovna "constant love." The lightning-fast change of events caused by Khlestakov's unpredictability ends with the transformation of "His Excellency" into a groom.

The comic homogeneity of The Inspector General determines two of the most important features of the work. Firstly, there is no reason to consider Gogol's laughter only "exposing", scourging vices. Gogol saw "cleansing", didactic and preaching functions in "high" laughter. The meaning of laughter for the writer is richer than criticism, denial or scourging: after all, laughing, he not only showed the vices of people and the imperfection of the Russian bureaucracy, but also took the first, most necessary step towards their deliverance.

In Gogol's laughter there is a huge "positive" potential, if only because those whom Gogol laughs at are not humiliated, but, on the contrary, are exalted by his laughter. The comic characters portrayed by the writer are not at all ugly human mutations. For him, these are, first of all, people, with their shortcomings and vices, "black ones", those who especially need the word of truth. They are blinded by power and impunity, they are used to believing that the life they lead is the real life. For Gogol, these are people who have lost their way, blinded, never knowing about their "high" social and human destiny. One can explain the main motive of Gogol's laughter in The Inspector General and in the works that followed it, including Dead Souls, as follows: only when they see themselves in the mirror of laughter, people are able to experience spiritual shock, think about new life truths, about the meaning of their "high" earthly and heavenly "citizenship".

Secondly, Gogol's consistent comedy leads to an almost limitless semantic expansion of comedy. It is not the individual shortcomings of individual people whose life offends the moral sense of the writer and causes him bitterness and anxiety for the desecrated “title” of a person, but the whole system of relations between people, that is ridiculed. Gogol's "geography" is not limited to a county town, lost somewhere in the Russian outback. The county town, as the writer himself noted, is a “prefabricated city”, a symbol of Russian and general disorder and delusion. The county town, so absurdly deceived in Khlestakov, is a fragment of a huge mirror, in which, according to the author, the Russian nobility, the Russian people in general, should look at themselves.

Gogol's laughter is a kind of "magnifying glass", with which you can see in people what they themselves either do not notice or want to hide. In ordinary life, the "distortion" of a person, camouflaged by a position or rank, is not always obvious. The “mirror” of comedy shows the true essence of a person, makes visible real-life flaws. The mirror reflection of life is no worse than life itself, in which people's faces have turned into "crooked faces." This is what the epigraph to The Inspector General reminds of.

The comedy uses Gogol's favorite technique - the synecdoche. Having shown the "visible" part of the world of the Russian bureaucracy, having laughed at the unlucky "fathers" of the county town, the writer pointed to a hypothetical whole, that is, to the shortcomings of the entire Russian bureaucracy and to universal human vices. The self-deception of officials of the county town, due to specific reasons, primarily the natural fear of retribution for what they have done, is part of the general self-deception that makes people worship false idols, forgetting about true life values.

The artistic effect of Gogol's comedy is determined by the fact that the real world "participates" in its creation - Russian reality, Russian people who have forgotten about their duty to the country, about the importance of the place they occupy, the world shown in the "mirror" of laughter, and the ideal world, created by the height of the author's moral ideal. The author's ideal is expressed not in a head-on collision of "negative" (more precisely, denied) characters with "positive" (ideal, exemplary) characters, but in the entire "mass" of comedy, that is, in its plot, composition, in the variety of meanings contained in each comic character, in every scene of the work.

The originality of the plot and composition of The Inspector General is determined by the nature of the conflict. It is due to the situation of self-deception of officials: they take what they wish for reality. Allegedly recognized, exposed by them official - "incognito" from St. Petersburg - makes them act as if they were a real auditor. The resulting comic contradiction makes the conflict ghostly, non-existent. After all, only if Khlestakov was actually an auditor, the behavior of officials would be quite justified, and the conflict would be a completely ordinary clash of interests between the auditor and the “audited”, whose fate completely depends on their dexterity and ability to “splurge” .

Khlestakov is a mirage that arose because “fear has big eyes”, since it was the fear of being taken by surprise, not having time to hide the “disorder” in the city, that led to the emergence of a comic contradiction, an imaginary conflict. However, Khlestakov's appearance is quite concrete, from the very beginning (the second act) his true essence is clear to the reader or viewer: he is just a petty Petersburg official who lost at cards and therefore got stuck in the backwoods of the county. Only “uncommon lightness in thoughts” helps Khlestakov not to lose heart in absolutely hopeless circumstances, out of habit hoping for “maybe”. He is passing through the city, but it seems to the officials that he came precisely for their sake. As soon as Gogol replaced the real auditor with an imaginary one, the real conflict became also an imaginary conflict, a ghostly one.

The unusualness of the comedy is not so much that Gogol found a completely new plot move, but in the reality of everything that happens. Each of the characters seems to be in its place, conscientiously playing its role. The county town has turned into a kind of stage platform, on which a completely “natural” play is played, striking in its plausibility. The script and the list of actors are known in advance, the only question is how the "actors"-officials will cope with their "roles" in the future "performance".

In fact, one can appreciate the acting skills of each of them. The main character, the real "genius" of the county bureaucratic scene, is the mayor Anton Ivanovich Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, who successfully played his "role" three times in the past ("he deceived three governors"), the rest of the officials - who is better, who is worse - also cope with their roles , although the mayor sometimes has to prompt them, “prompt”, as if reminiscent of the text of the “play”. Almost the entire first act is like a "dress rehearsal" carried out in a hurry. It was immediately followed by an unplanned "performance". After the beginning of the action - the message of the mayor - a very dynamic exposition follows. It presents not only each of the "fathers" of the city, but also the county town itself, which they consider their fiefdom. Officials are convinced of their right to commit lawlessness, take bribes, rob merchants, starve the sick, rob the treasury, read other people's letters. The fussy Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky, who rushed to the "secret" meeting and alarmed everyone with a message about a strange young man they found in the hotel, hurried to push the "curtain" aside.

The mayor and officials try to “throw dust in the eyes” of an imaginary important person and tremble in front of her, sometimes losing the power of speech, not only out of fear of possible punishment, but also because one must tremble before any superiors (this is determined by the role of “audited”). They give bribes to Khlestakov when he asks for a "favor", because they should be given in this case, while usually they receive bribes. The mayor is amiable and helpful, but this is just an integral part of his "role" of the caring "father" of the city. In a word, everything goes like clockwork with the officials.

Even Khlestakov easily enters the role of an important person: he meets officials, accepts petitions, and begins, as befits a "significant person", for no reason to "scold" the owners, forcing them to "shake with fear." Khlestakov is incapable of enjoying power over people, he simply repeats what he himself probably experienced more than once in his St. Petersburg department. An unexpected role transforms Khlestakov, elevating him above everyone, making him a smart, powerful and strong-willed person, and a mayor who really possesses these qualities, again in full accordance with his “role”, for a while turns into a “rag”, “icicle” , complete nothingness. The comic metamorphosis is provoked by the "electricity" of the rank. All the actors - both county officials who have real power, and Khlestakov, the "cog" of the St. Petersburg bureaucratic system - seem to be struck by a powerful discharge of current generated by the Table of Ranks, which replaced a person with a rank. Even an imaginary bureaucratic "value" is capable of leading the movement of generally intelligent people, making obedient puppets out of them.

Readers and viewers of the comedy are well aware that a substitution took place that determined the behavior of officials until the fifth act, before the appearance of the postmaster Shpekin with Khlestakov's letter. The participants in the “performance” are unequal, since Khlestakov almost immediately guessed that he was confused with someone. But the role of "significant person" is so well known to him that he brilliantly coped with it. Officials, fettered both by unfeigned and by the fear set by them according to the "scenario", do not notice the blatant inconsistencies in the behavior of the imaginary auditor.

The Inspector General is an unusual comedy, since comic situations do not exhaust the meaning of what is happening. Three dramatic plots coexist in the play. One of them - a comedic one - was realized in the second, third, fourth and at the beginning of the fifth act: the imaginary (Khlestakov) became a magnitude (auditor) in the eyes of officials. The plot of the comedy plot is not in the first, but in the second act - this is the first conversation between the mayor and Khlestakov, where they are both sincere and both are mistaken. Khlestakov, in the words of an observant mayor, "nondescript, short, it seems like he would have crushed him with a fingernail." However, from the very beginning, the imaginary auditor in the eyes of the frightened "mayor of the local city" turns into a gigantic figure: Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky "becomes shy", listening to Khlestakov's "threats" "stretching out and trembling with his whole body." The mayor is sincerely mistaken and behaves as one should behave with the auditor, although he sees that he is a nonentity. Khlestakov enthusiastically “whips”, putting on the appearance of a “significant person”, but at the same time he speaks the real truth (“I am going to the Saratov province, to my own village”). The mayor, contrary to common sense, takes the words of Khlestakov as a lie: “Nicely tied a knot! Lies, lies - and it will not break anywhere!

At the end of the fourth act, to the mutual satisfaction of Khlestakov and the officials, who are still unaware of their deceit, the imaginary "auditor" is carried away from the city by the fastest three, but his shadow remains in the fifth act. The mayor himself begins to "whipping", dreaming of a career in St. Petersburg. It seems to him that he received “what a rich prize” - “with what a devil they intermarried!” With the help of his future son-in-law, Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky hopes to “hit a big rank, because he is a friend of all ministers and goes to the palace.” The comic contradiction at the beginning of the fifth act reaches its peak.

The culmination of the comedy plot is the scene of the triumph of the mayor, who behaves as if he had already received the rank of general. He became above all, ascended above the county bureaucrats. And the higher he ascends in his dreams, taking what he wishes for reality, the more painful it is for him to fall when the postmaster "in a hurry" brings a printed letter - Khlestakov the writer, a scribbler appears on the stage, and the scribbler of the mayor cannot stand the spirit: for him they are worse than the devil . It is the position of the mayor that is especially comical, but it also has a tragic connotation. The unlucky hero of the comedy himself considers what happened as God's punishment: "Well, truly, if God wants to punish, he will first take away the mind." Add to this: and deprive irony and hearing.

In Khlestakov's letter, everyone finds even more "unpleasant news" than in the letter of Andrei Ivanovich Chmykhov, read by the mayor at the beginning of the play: the auditor turned out to be imaginary, "helicopter", "icicle", "rag". Reading the letter is the denouement of the comedy. Everything fell into place - the deceived side both laughs and is indignant, fearing publicity and, which is especially insulting, laughter: after all, as the mayor noted, now “you will go into a laughing stock - there will be a clicker, a paper maraca, they will insert you into a comedy. That's what's embarrassing! Chin, the title will not spare, and they will all bare their teeth and clap their hands. The mayor is most of all not saddened by his human humiliation, but outraged by the possible insult to his "rank, title." There is a bitter comic connotation in his indignation: a person who has soiled his rank and rank falls upon the “clickers”, “paper-scrapers”, identifying himself with the rank and therefore considering himself closed to criticism.

Laughter in the fifth act becomes universal: after all, every official wants to laugh at others, recognizing the accuracy of Khlestakov's assessments. Laughing at each other, savoring the jabs and slaps given in the letter by the exposed "auditor", the officials laugh at themselves. The stage laughs - the auditorium laughs. The famous remark of the mayor - “What are you laughing at? - You are laughing at yourself!.. Oh, you!.. "- addressed both to those present on the stage and to the audience. Only Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky does not laugh: he is the most injured person in this whole story. It seems that with the reading of the letter and the clarification of the truth, the circle has closed, the comedic plot has been exhausted. But after all, the whole first act is not yet a comedy, although there are many comic incongruities in the behavior and words of the participants in the meeting with the mayor, in the appearance of Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky and in the hasty gathering of the mayor.

Two other plots - dramatic and tragic - are outlined, but not fully implemented. The first words of the mayor: “I invited you, gentlemen, in order to tell you the unpleasant news: an auditor is coming to us”, supplemented by clarifications that this auditor is coming from St. Petersburg (and not from the province), incognito (secretly, without publicity), “ and also with a secret order, ”caused a serious commotion. The task that arose before the county officials is quite serious, but doable: “take precautions”, how to prepare for a meeting with a formidable “incognito”: to cover up, patch up something in the city - maybe it will blow over. The plot of the action is dramatic, vital: the terrible auditor will not fall like snow on his head, the ritual of receiving the auditor and swindling him could be realized. There is no inspector in the first act yet, but there is a plot: the officials woke up from their hibernation, began to fuss. There is no hint of a possible substitution, only the fear that they might not be in time worries officials, especially the mayor: “So you are waiting for the door to open and - walk ...”

So, in the first act, the contours of the future drama are outlined, in which a favorable outcome of the audit could depend only on the officials. The message of the mayor about the letter he received and the possible arrival of the auditor is the basis for the emergence of a dramatic conflict, quite common in any situation associated with the sudden arrival of the authorities. From the second act to the finale of the play, a comedic plot unfolds. In the comedy, as in a mirror, the real world of bureaucratic bureaucracy was reflected. In laughter, this world, shown from the inside, revealed its usual features: falsehood, show-off, hypocrisy, flattery and the omnipotence of the rank. Hurrying to the hotel where the unknown visitor from St. Petersburg was staying, the mayor hurried into the comedic "behind the mirror", into the world of false, but quite plausible ranks and relations between people.

If the action in The Inspector General had ended with the reading of Khlestakov's letter, Gogol would have accurately realized the "thought" of the work suggested to him by Pushkin. But the writer went further, completing the play with “The Last Appearance” and “A Silent Scene”: the finale of “The Inspector General” brought the heroes out of the “mirror room”, in which laughter reigned, reminding them that their self-deception did not allow them to “take precautions”, dulled their vigilance . In the finale, a third plot is planned - a tragic one. The suddenly appeared gendarme announces the arrival of not an imaginary, but a genuine auditor, terrible for officials not with his “incognito”, but with the clarity of the task set before him by the tsar himself. Each word of the gendarme is like a blow of fate, this is a prophecy about the imminent retribution of officials - both for sins and for carelessness: “An official who arrived by personal order from St. Petersburg demands you to himself this very hour. He stayed at a hotel." The fears of the mayor, expressed in the first act, came true: “That would be nothing, - damned incognito! Suddenly he looks: “Ah, you are here, my dears! And who, say, is the judge here? - Lyapkin-Tyapkin. - “And bring Lyapkin-Tyapkin here! And who is the trustee of charitable institutions? - "Strawberry". - “And bring Strawberries here!” That's bad!" The appearance of the gendarme is the imposition of a new action, the beginning of a tragedy that the author takes out of the scene. A new, serious "play", in which everyone will not be laughing, should, according to Gogol, not be played in the theater, but be accomplished in life itself.

Her three plots begin with messages: a dramatic one - with a message from the mayor, a comic one - with a message from Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky, a tragic one - with a message from a gendarme. But only the comic ghost plot is fully developed. In a dramatic plot that remained unrealized, Gogol discovered comic potential, demonstrating not only the absurdity of the behavior of fooled officials, but also the absurdity of the action itself, in which the roles are pre-scheduled: both the auditor and the auditees diligently throw dust in each other's eyes. The possibility of embodying the author's ideal is outlined in the finale of the comedy: the last and most important emphasis is made by Gogol on the inevitability of punishment.

The play ends with the "petrification" scene. This is a sudden stop of the action, which from that moment could turn from a comedy, ending with the exposure of Khlestakov, into a tragedy. Everything happened suddenly, suddenly. The worst happened: not a hypothetical, but a real danger hung over the officials. "Silent scene" - the moment of truth for officials. They are made to “petrify” by a terrible guess about imminent retribution. Gogol the moralist asserts in the finale of The Inspector General the idea of ​​the inevitability of the trial of bribe-takers and embezzlers of public funds who have forgotten their official and human duty. This court, according to the writer, should be carried out by personal command, that is, by the will of the king himself.

In the finale of the comedy "Undergrowth" by D.I. Fovizina, Starodum says, pointing to Mitrofanushka: "Here they are, worthy fruits of malevolence!" In Gogol's comedy there is no one who even remotely resembled Starodum. The “silent scene” is the pointing finger of the author himself, this is the “moral” of the play, expressed not by the words of the “positive” hero, but by means of composition. The gendarme is a messenger from that ideal world created by Gogol's imagination. In this world, the monarch not only punishes, but also corrects his subjects, wants not only to teach them a lesson, but also to teach them. The pointing finger of Gogol the moralist is also turned towards the emperor, not without reason that Nicholas I remarked, leaving the box after the performance on April 19, 1836: “Well, a play! Everyone got it, but I - more than anyone! ” Gogol did not flatter the emperor. Directly pointing out where retribution should come from, the writer, in essence, "taunted" him, confident in his right to preach, teach and instruct, including the king himself. Already in 1835, when the first edition of the comedy was being created, Gogol was firmly convinced that his laughter was laughter inspired by a high moral ideal, and not the laughter of a scoff or an indifferent critic of social and human vices.

Gogol's belief in the triumph of justice, in the moral effect of his play can be assessed as a kind of social and moral utopia generated by his enlightening illusions. But if it were not for these illusions, there would be no "Inspector General". In it, the comic and laughter turned out to be in the foreground, but behind them stands Gogol's belief that evil is punishable, and the punishment itself is carried out in the name of liberating people from the ghostly power of the rank, from the "bestial", in the name of their spiritual enlightenment. “Having seen his shortcomings and errors, a person suddenly becomes higher than himself,” the writer emphasized. “There is no evil that cannot be corrected, but you need to see what exactly the evil consists of.” The arrival of the auditor is not a “duty” event at all. The inspector is important not as a specific character, but as a symbol. It is, as it were, the hand of an autocrat, just and merciless to iniquities, reaching out to the backwaters of the county.

In The Denouement of The Inspector General, written in 1846, Gogol emphasized the possibility of a broader interpretation of the comedy's finale. The inspector is “our awakened conscience”, sent “by the Nominal Supreme Command”, by the will of God, reminding a person of his “high heavenly citizenship”: “Whatever you say, but the inspector who is waiting for us at the door of the coffin is terrible. As if you don't know who this auditor is? What to pretend? This auditor is our awakened conscience, which will make us suddenly and at once look with all eyes at ourselves. Nothing will hide before this auditor. ... Suddenly it will open before you, in you, such a monster that a hair will rise from horror. Of course, this interpretation is only one of the possible interpretations of the comedy's symbolically ambiguous finale, which, according to the author's intention, should affect both the mind and the soul of viewers and readers.

COURSE WORK

The history of the comedy "The Inspector General"

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

1 The birth and development of comedy

2 Draft editions of The Inspector General

3 First and second editions of The Inspector

Chapter 3

Conclusion

List of used literature

Introduction

The Inspector General was conceived by Gogol as a social comedy of the broadest generalization, which could turn serf society inside out and expose all of its most sore spots. Nikolai Vasilievich wrote in The Author's Confession that he tried to put together in the Inspector General all the most stupid and unfair things in Nicholas Russia and ridicule it all at once. Gogol's comedy shocked the civil servants who made up the bureaucratic-administrative caste.

The Inspector General is one of the most significant works of Gogol, which has been studied up and down from a variety of angles and sides. But the most obscure, fuzzy facet of what has been studied is the history of the creation of comedy. There are several theories, hypotheses about the appearance of the plot in the hands of Gogol, as well as several versions of how exactly the work was created. There are many ambiguities and inaccuracies in the study of this issue by researchers, the versions of which contradict each other. This is what constitutes the relevance of our work, associated with an attempt to understand and combine more real and reliable versions of the creation of a comedy.

The object of our research is the history of the comedy "The Government Inspector". The subject of the study is the individual stages of the creation of the work, which will make it possible to trace the history of the formation of comedy.

Our goals research activities is the consideration of several authoritative points of view regarding the issue of the history of the creation and formation of the comedy "The Inspector General", the analysis and generalization of these opinions and hypotheses.

To achieve these goals, we set the following tasks:

.Consider the various opinions of researchers about the creation of comedy;

.Analyze the views of scientists on this issue;

.Compare their reasoning with each other;

.Systematize reviewed versions;

In the course of our research work, we turned to various authors who raised the issue of interest to us, but we consider the books of such literary critics as E. L. Voitolovskaya, M. B. Khrapchenko, Yu. Mann, N. L. Stepanov to be the most authoritative works.

The practical significance of our work lies in the fact that we have combined various versions of the creation of a comedy, structured and summarized in a logical sequence, and also considered all the main stages creative development"Inspector". All this can, as well as possible, be used at school in a lesson devoted to the consideration of the comedy "The Government Inspector".

The structure of our research work consists of the following items:

· Introduction, which reveals the relevance of our work, the object and subject of research, identifies the goals and objectives of our work, indicates the main authors we addressed, as well as practical significance our work;

· Chapter 1. "In anticipation of writing a comedy." Where Gogol's works that preceded the writing of The Inspector General are considered, and it is also said what exactly prompted the playwright to write the famous comedy;

· Chapter 2 The chapter includes 3 paragraphs. This chapter examines the birth and development of comedy. Draft editions and the first and second editions of The Inspector General are also being studied.

· Chapter 3 Here, critical responses to the then new comedy are considered.

· In conclusion, we summed up the results of the study and made conclusions on the work done.

Chapter 1

The theater played a significant role in the life of N.V. Gogol, therefore, it is not surprising that the idea of ​​​​writing the first comedy came to him immediately after he completed Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, because it was nothing more than the writer’s first attempts to get away from fantastic stories to reality. Evidence of this can be found in a letter from Pletnev to Zhukovsky (dated December 8, 1832): “Comedy is spinning in Gogol’s mind, I don’t know if he will give birth to it this winter; but I expect extraordinary perfection from him in this way. After some time, Gogol himself will share his thoughts on his future comedy with Pogodin. “I didn’t write to you: I’m obsessed with comedy. She, when I was in Moscow, on the road, and when I arrived here, did not get out of my head, but so far I have not written anything. Already the plot had begun to be drawn up the other day, and the title was already written on a thick white notebook: “Vladimir of the 3rd degree”, and how much anger! laughter! salt!.. But suddenly he stopped, seeing that the pen was just pushing against such places that the censorship would never let through. What if the play is not being played? Drama lives only on the stage. Without it, she is like a soul without a body. What kind of master will carry an unfinished work for show to the people? There is nothing left for me but to invent the most innocent plot, which even a quarterly could not be offended by. But what is a comedy without truth and malice! So, I can’t take on comedy. ”

Nevertheless, Gogol managed to partially realize his plan and write several scenes of Vladimir of the Third Degree, although he said in a letter to Pogodin that he could not start writing a comedy. As conceived by the author himself, this work was supposed to touch upon the most important life problems: selfish thoughts and actions of officials, corruption, bribery, ambition. The writer intended to bring to clean water the entire bureaucracy, and based on this, he understood that complications with censorship could not be avoided. This is evidenced by the fact that one of the scenes of the play called "Litigation" was banned for staging on stage, and only after the petitions of MS Shchepkin was it allowed. Gogol understood that the problems with censorship had not been resolved, and it was precisely this circumstance that played an important role in the fact that “Vladimir of the Third Degree” was never completed.

In 1833, Gogol began work on a new comedy "Marriage", which in the original version was called "Grooms". The writer intended to create a work whose plot would not be so caustic, which is why he takes the family and everyday theme as a basis. The play went through a huge number of revisions before it went through the last revision in 1841. Initially, in the play "Grooms" the action took place in a landowner's estate (in contrast to the final text), and Avdotya Gavrilovna, the fighting, nimble mistress of the estate, sought to get married. In the original version of the comedy, there were no heroes such as Podkolesin, Kochkarev, who later became the main ones in the comedy "Marriage". In its complete and complete form, the first version of the play has not reached us, although, nevertheless, the researcher M. B. Khrapchenko suggests that the comedy was completed. As proof of this, he cites a letter from Gogol Maksimovich, dated 1934, in which Nikolai Vasilievich said: “I’m putting on a play at the theater here, which, I hope, will bring me something, and I’m also preparing another from under the floor.” According to M. B. Khrapchenko, Gogol did not have a finished play other than "Marriage", so he was going to stage it on the theater stage, no doubt, just her.

In the spring of 1835, Gogol began reworking the play, as the first edition did not satisfy him. "Marriage", in full measure, becomes a social comedy about merchant and bureaucratic life. The author tried to show in it all the exorbitant primitiveness of people's life. "Marriage" is a sharp satire that reveals all the emptiness and insignificance of the society of that time. The impoverishment of the spiritual world of man, the desecration of marriage and love. Thanks to the grotesque depictions of the characters of the main characters and their behavior, Gogol managed to emphasize all the truthfulness and authenticity of his creation.

Chapter 2

.1 The birth and development of comedy

Many books and articles have been written about how Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol created his comedy, but the most authoritative in our opinion are the works of M. B. Khrapchenko and E. L. Voitolovskaya.

In his letter, dated October 7, 1835, Gogol asks Pushkin for his opinion on "The Marriage", and for one thing, since he was looking for support and waiting for advice from Alexander Sergeevich, he asks him to suggest a plot, "... at least some funny or not funny, but purely Russian anecdote. The hand trembles to write a comedy in the meantime. If this does not happen, then my time will be wasted, and I don’t know what to do then with my circumstances ... 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 responded to Gogol's request and shared with him a story that worried him as well. Pushkin told him a story about Pavel Petrovich Svinin, who, during a trip to Bessarabia, began to pretend to be a very important and significant person, a Petersburg official, and was stopped only when he began to take petitions. Later, already in 1913, the literary historian N.O. Lerner in his work “Pushkin’s idea of ​​the Inspector General” // Speech. 1913." , after analyzing both Pushkin's letters and the text of The Government Inspector itself, he came to the conclusion that some features of Svinin and Khlestakov coincide. The prototype of Khlestakov turned out to be a painter, historian, well-known to his contemporaries, the creator of the Notes of the Fatherland. Lerner identified Khlestakov's lies with Svinin's lies, believed that their adventures were extremely similar.

After the plot was transferred by Pushkin to Gogol in 1835, Nikolai Vasilyevich began work on The Inspector General. The first version of the comedy was written quite quickly, this is evidenced by Gogol's letter to Pogodin dated December 6, 1835, in which the writer speaks of the completion of the first two draft editions of The Inspector General.

Researcher A. S. Dolinin in the “Scientific Notes of the Leningrad State. ped. in-ta still expresses doubt that Gogol could have done such a huge and painstaking work in a month and a half, because, according to him, the writer “honed” his works for a long time. Dolinin believes that Pushkin conveyed the plot to Gogol much earlier, perhaps in the first years of their acquaintance. The story of Svinin simply remained in the writer's memory, and he decided to realize the plot when the idea came to write latest comedy.

And yet, most researchers in the history of literature believe that Gogol always wrote rough sketches quickly enough, but it took much more time to “hone” them.

Voitolovskaya believes that a connection has been established between Pushkin's plot idea and Gogol's The Inspector General, although the exact date when work on the comedy began is not clear.

The first version of The Inspector General was significantly reworked, as a result of which the comedy acquired a more coherent structure. But even after the second edition, the writer again made a number of changes, after which the play was finally transferred to print and sent to theatrical censorship. But even after receiving permission for a theatrical production, which was given on March 2, Gogol did not stop improving his The Inspector General. The latest revisions were accepted by theater censors just a few days before the comedy hit the stage.

During the creation of The Inspector General, Gogol did not feel the difficulties that could accompany the writer's work on a large work. The images that run through the whole play were formed at once; already in the first edition we observe all the key events, all the main characters with their distinctive features. Therefore, the complexity creative process was not at all in search of storylines, but in a more vivid and accurate disclosure of the characters' characters.

Nikolai Vasilyevich attached great importance to this work, because it is precisely this that can explain the fact that he continued to work on the text even after the first edition of the play. When Pogodin asked Gogol about releasing the second edition of The Inspector General, the writer replied that he needed to wait a bit, as he began to redo some scenes that, in his opinion, were done carelessly. First of all, the scenes of the meeting of officials with Khlestakov at the beginning of the fourth act were corrected, they became more natural and energetic. After these changes, in 1841, the second edition of the comedy was published, but Gogol realized that his work on The Government Inspector had not yet been completed. And in the fall of 1842, the writer again polishes the entire play. All this is the process artistic processing the author of his work, as a result of which the expressiveness of every detail is noticeable. There were very few scenes in comedy that Gogol did not redo, trying to achieve depth in images and speech. Only the sixth edition of The Inspector General became final.

2.2 Draft editions of The Inspector

gogol inspector comedy dramaturgy

As you know, Nikolai Vasilievich painstakingly worked on the text of The Inspector General for about 17 years. Approximately a year before his own death, the writer read the proofs of Volume IV Complete collection of his own writings, where both preliminary editions of his comedy and printed versions of The Inspector General were printed, and, having reached one of the very final remarks of the fourth act of this work, he made some very significant changes.

The most recent edition of the Inspector General is considered to be the text printed in the first collection of 1842, which included all the corrections that Gogol made after this edition. The final edition of Volume IV of the Complete Works of N.V. Gogol included corrections that had not been read until that time. It also included corrections made by Gogol for the Second Collected Works, which was being prepared in 1851.

In total, Gogol wrote two non-final versions of the comedy, two editions - the first and second. During the life of N.V. Gogol, three editions of The Inspector General were printed:

.First edition. "Inspector". Comedy in five acts, Op. N. V. Gogol. SPb., 1836.

.The second, corrected, with applications. The Inspector General, a comedy in five acts, Op. N. Gogol. SPb., 1841.

.Third edition. Op. Nikolai Gogol, vol. IV. SPb., 1842, pp. 1-216, "Inspector" and applications. .

The foundation of the text of the comedy itself and its appendices already in the fourth edition, which was published in 1855, were the proofreadings corrected by the playwright himself in 1851.

As Voitolovskaya notes, Gogol worked especially hard on the auditor at the end of 1835 and at the beginning of 1836. After six months of diligent work on drafts, the text of the work was written, which was published in the first edition of The Government Inspector.

Creating a comedy, which has not yet been in Russia, drawing what was of an up-to-date nature, Nikolai Vasilyevich without regrets removes from The Inspector General everything that prevents, in his opinion, from realizing a large and serious plan. The playwright preferred to build a comedy without an unnecessary and banal love affair, without external and carefree comedy. He sought to free comedy from theatrical stereotypes, from the usual tradition of a love plot.

Thus, the following places were excluded from the Auditor:

.The mayor's dream about dogs "with inhuman muzzles." .

.Reflections of the mayor about the teacher who teaches rhetoric.

.The place where Khlestakov talks about how, together with the director of the school, he was trailing "for one pretty one." .

2.3 First and second editions of The Inspector General

On March 1836, the censor, literary historian A. V. Nikitenko allowed the publication of The Inspector General.

Gogol had to make several cuts in the stage and printed texts of the comedy. This was dictated by the requirements theater stage: limited time for the performance, as well as the gravitation to convey all the tension in the development of the plot.

In July 1841, censorship permission was received for the second edition of the work. Already in the fall, as the author of The Inspector General himself wanted, the comedy went on sale. Gogol nevertheless made a number of amendments to the second edition, they mainly concerned the beginning of the fourth act of The Inspector General. For example, in the first phenomenon of this action, the scene where Khlestakov is alone was replaced with the scene of a conversation between officials about how best to bribe Khlestakov. Without this lively, comical scene, where the characters of officials are drawn so clearly and truthfully, it is very difficult to imagine a comedy.

After the first performance of The Inspector General, Gogol realized that there was still much to be changed. These same changes are included in the second edition. In "An Excerpt from a Letter..." Nikolai Vasilyevich wrote: "Now it seems to be a little stronger, at least more natural and more relevant." .

If we talk about the "Excerpt from a letter ..." itself, then N. S. Tikhonravov, one of the most prominent historians of Russian literature, questions both the addressee of the letter, Pushkin, and the date of its writing, May 25, 1836. Archaeographer Tikhonravov believes that the drafts of the Fragment ... were written by Gogol abroad, at the same time when the writer, in 1841, was preparing the second edition of The Government Inspector. To prove his version, he emphasizes that "Excerpt ..." was written on paper marked London. . Tikhonravov also points out that some passages from the drafts of the letter resemble Gogol's letter to Shchepkin, written on May 10, 1836, which means that they could have been written earlier than the rest.

V. V. Gippius and V. L. Komarovich believed that Tikhonravov was able to prove the doubtfulness of the playwright’s story about the reason and date of writing the “Excerpt ...”, and also managed to convince them that this letter was written, only at the beginning 1841 in Italy, when Nikolai Vasilievich wrote additions to the comedy.

A. G. Gukasova in her work “An excerpt from a letter written by the author shortly after the first presentation "Inspector" to a writer" expressed disagreement with the point of view of Tikhonravov in 1957. She believes that the radical and incorrect evidence of the historian not only allows Gogol to be called an inventor, but also testifies to a “break in relations” between Gogol and Pushkin. . Gukasova, after analyzing all of Gogol's letters to Alexander Sergeevich, as well as their statements about each other, came to the conclusion that in the most difficult moments the playwright turned to Pushkin, so the "Excerpt ..." is addressed to him. The letter was written exactly on May 25, 1836, as Gogol indicated, and in 1841 he only gave it the appearance that was necessary for publication.

Tikhonravov criticizes N. Ya. Pokopovich, the editor of Nikolai Gogol's Works, because, in his opinion, he changed the author's text, changed the language and style of the playwright. Here Tikhonravov is supported by V. V. Gippius and V. L. Komarovich, who carefully studied all the corrections of Gogol, which he made on a copy of the comedy of the printed edition of 1836.

E. I. Prokhorov justifies the work of Prokopovich, citing a number of convincing arguments not in favor of Tikhonravov's point of view, considering the 1842 edition of the text of the Inspector General to be the main source of the text. .

Chapter 3

One of the first critical articles was published in 1836 in the Northern Bee (No. 97 and 98) under the authorship of Bulgarin, whose point of view quickly found support from O. Senkovsky, who published his article full of bile in the journal Library for readings ”(Vol. XVI, dated 1836). They argued that the comedy "Inspector General" is nothing more than a cynical slander of Russia, a funny vaudeville. That a single anecdotal incident Gogol turned into a picture depicting reality, that there is no such city in Russia that the playwright depicts, and never has been. According to Bulgarin, Gogol depicts the city not at all Russian, but Ukrainian or Belarusian, and to prove his version, he writes that in Russia the mayor could not have such power over employees and nobles.

The reviewer considers Gogol's comedy bad and poisonous, since a person who is not at all familiar with Russia can really “think that, in fact, there are such morals in Russia, as if there could be a city in which there is not even one honest and decent heads." .

Senkovsky in "Library for Reading" analyzes "The Government Inspector" following the analysis of Zagoskin's comedy "The Dissatisfied", which he contrasts with Gogol's. The work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Senkovsky considers unprincipled, in contrast to the work of Zagoskin. Osip Ivanovich the best scene considered Khlestakov's conversation with Marya Antonovna, and advised Gogol to write a new work, with the continuation and expansion of this love affair. .

Negative and rather rude reviews of the comedy, hatred for the writer himself greatly shocked Gogol, became a real torment for him. That is why the comedian was looking forward to feedback from the viewer.

First edition " Theatrical tour after the presentation of the new comedy" was created in the early summer of 1836. Nikolai Vasilievich wanted to show in it the attitude of different classes to the "Inspector General". But even here there were a lot of comments similar to the Bulgarin point of view, which deeply resented Gogol. But not without the defenders of the "Inspector". Thus, representatives of the merchant class confirm the veracity of Gogol's comedy and speak of its relevance.

In 1842, N. A. Polevoy wrote a new review of The Government Inspector and published it in Russkiy Vestnik. The article had a lot in common with Bulgarin's opinion, but this did not prevent Polevoy from appreciating the incredible talent of N.V. Gogol. .

Fortunately, the Inspector General also had ardent defenders.

One of the first can be considered V. P. Androsov, the author of "Economic Statistics of Russia", who considers "The Inspector General" a comedy of "civilization", which reflects a person who is more social than family. Androsov calls The Inspector General "the pinnacle of Russian comedy", and N. I. Nadezhdin, a journalist and literary critic, agrees with him in this opinion. Nikolai Ivanovich confidently says that such interest in The Inspector General is due to the fact that a very talented author created a modern and relevant comedy. Nadezhdin argues that this comedy can only be understood by those who themselves suffer from those people who are depicted in The Inspector General. This point of view almost instantly provoked outrage from the enemies of the comedy, who were not so few.

Conclusion

In the course of our research work, we managed to achieve the goals that we originally set for ourselves. Having considered the various opinions of literary critics that relate to the issue of creating the comedy "The Inspector General", we analyzed all possible versions and summarized them.

Having done this research work, we came to the conclusion that scientists considering the issue of interest to us did not come to a consensus. As for the time of the origin of the plot, and its source, as well as the process of creating a comedy, the final version does not exist. Quite a lot of inaccurate, and sometimes completely unknown details do not allow literary researchers to find answers to these questions. Scientists continue to this day to argue with each other about this, considering their version to be right and the only logical one. The most interesting thing is that almost every version can be called into question, having opposite facts, of which there are many.

Therefore, the question of creating a comedy is not yet resolved.

great writer, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, whose life and work has always been shrouded in some kind of mystery, and in this matter remained under a veil of secrecy.

Bibliography

1.Voytolovskaya E. L. N. V. Gogol's comedy "The Government Inspector". A comment. L., 2005.

.Voitolovskaya E. L., Stepanov A. N. N. V. Gogol: Seminary. - L., 2008.

.Gukasova A. G. An excerpt from a letter written by the author shortly after the presentation of The Inspector General to a writer. - "Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Department of Literature and Language." M., 1957, vol. XVI, no. 4, July - August, pp. 335-345.

.Danilevsky G.P. Ukrainian antiquity. Kharkov, 2006, p. 214.

.Dolinin AS From the history of the struggle between Gogol and Belinsky for ideological content in literature. - “Scientific notes of the Leningrad state. ped. in-ta”, vol. XVIII, Faculty of Language and Literature, vol. fifth, 1956, p.39.

.Lerner N. Pushkin's idea of ​​the "Inspector". - "Speech" 1913, No. 128.

.Mann Yu. V. Gogol's comedy "The Government Inspector". - M., 2006.

.Matskin A. On the themes of Gogol. M., 2005.

.Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol: Collection of articles. - M., 2009.

.Prokhorov K. I. Works of Nikolai Gogol, edition of 1842 as a source of the text. - In Sat: "Issues of textual criticism", m., Ed. AN SSSR, 1957, pp. 135-169.

.Stepanov N. L. N. V. Gogol. M., 2010.

.Khrapchenko M. B. Nikolai Gogol: Literary path: The greatness of the writer. - M., 2008.

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