Presentation: Gogol: Dead Souls. Summary: The gate of the hotel of the provincial city nn enters the chaise

At the gates of the student campus of the provincial city nn, a rather beautiful spring small chaise No. 210 entered, in which bachelors go: retired graduate students, staff masters, freshmen, bachelors with about a hundred academic debts - in a word, all those who are called students of a higher educational institution . In the britzka sat a gentleman, not handsome, but not bad-looking either, neither too fat nor too thin; one cannot say that he is old, but it is not so that he is too young ...

And now seriously ... No, of course, if the notorious Mr. Chichikov suddenly stopped by not to Manilov or Korobochka, but to PUNK or VONK (I'm sure the organization of our large village would have seemed very interesting to him), he would be somewhat surprised at what it means in the life of a modern student phraseologism "dead souls".

What are “dead souls”, is this phenomenon legal from the point of view of the Charter of the University and acts of residence?
We believe that everyone is well aware that this expression means a person who is a student of St. Petersburg State University, who has a room allocated to him in accordance with the order to move in, but does not actually live in it. That is, without living in a hostel, a person continues to take a place according to the documents.

Why is this usually done? Firstly, living in a dormitory in PUNK gives students a number of advantages, such as the return of part of the money for meals, various social benefits, and much more. In addition, for students living in the city in rented apartments, it is simply beneficial for students to be listed as residents for the sake of further relocation to VUNK.

The presence of such a person is also beneficial to his roommate and block. A hostel is a hostel, and as a rule, neighbors are not chosen here. And for the opportunity to live alone in your own room, for sure, there will be those who want to pay more. And indeed, the price of a monthly residence in a hostel costs 224 rubles, why not live in your own separate room, paying a little extra? If we bring this situation to the brink of absurdity, however, it is quite real, then two VUNK units will cost only 1000 rubles per month + additional payment to neighbors. Just a reminder that a two-room apartment in this area will cost at least 20,000 rubles a month.

Until recently, all this was done by the axis very simply. There was a "dead soul", moved to the room. Until 2014, the relocation of students between rooms at will was carried out according to a very simplified procedure, however, in accordance with order No. 225“On the suspension of the exchange of rooms in dormitories and relocation from one room to another,” you can do this only through an official statement and rather laborious and lengthy paperwork.

However, the number of dead souls in the dormitories of St. Petersburg State University is still significant. Is it legal? One-time no!

Two points of the form of the contract of employment answer this question most clearly. According to clause No. 5.6, when the Tenant and his family members leave for another place of residence, the Agreement is considered terminated from the date of departure. The departure of the Employer and members of his family to another place of residence is recognized as the absence from the residential premises for more than 60 calendar days in a row, except when the Employer is on a business trip, on vacation or for treatment in an organization providing medical services.

Why does the "dead soul" continue to live freely, not particularly worrying about the stability of its position? According to the same act, point 3.1.6, the Resident of St Petersburg University is obliged to "Timely and in full pay in the prescribed manner the payment for housing and utilities, in the amount established by the legislation of the Russian Federation, orders of St Petersburg University and this Agreement."

It turns out that if a person regularly pays for accommodation, and his pass works at the checkpoint at least once every 30 days, the University should not have any questions before him. And that's where most of the problems come from.

How can the university deal with this phenomenon? This question is perhaps the most difficult. Despite the University's serious concern about this issue, catching a "dead soul" by the hand is in fact extremely problematic. Regular payment for accommodation and even a one-time operation of a pass at the checkpoint, in fact, allows the "dead soul" to remain clean, creating the appearance of complying with the clauses of the above-mentioned agreement with the University acting as the owner. The complexity of the situation lies also in the fact that in fighting this phenomenon within the walls of the dormitories, the University needs to work out a clear balance between the "stick" and the "carrot". After all, it is possible to track the place of residence and movement of each student, tighten control at the checkpoint, demand access to students' personal data ... But will this work as it should? That is why at present the University is engaged in an effective search for a solution to this problem, which, at the same time, will not infringe on the rights and interests of ordinary students.
In the meantime, the university largely has to rely on the conscientiousness and consciousness of its students. And if this may not seem so important to someone, think about how many places in the dormitories of VUNK do not go to honest students because of this problem.

In any case, the "dead soul" is a malicious violator of the rules of living in a hostel and the charter of St. Petersburg State University, which means that if an imaginary one living in a hostel is found, a very real punishment awaits, up to expulsion.

Kozlov Gleb

1. Who is it about? ... not handsome, but ill-looking, neither too fat nor too thin; one cannot say that he is old, but it is not so that he is too young either.
2. Who is this? ...a short man in a sheepskin coat...
3. Who is this? ... a fellow about thirty, in a spacious second-hand frock coat ...
4. While the visiting gentleman was inspecting his room, his belongings were brought in ... What was brought in?
5. What rank did P.I. Chichikov have? . 6. What sign was in the provincial town on the store that sold caps and caps?
7. Above the entrance to which institutions hung images of double-headed eagles?
8. What two kinds of men were at the governor's house party?
9. Who is this about? ... with very black thick eyebrows and a somewhat winking left eye, as if saying: "Let's go, brother, to another room, there I'll tell you something."
10. Where and how did Chichikov meet Sobakevich?
11. What lay at the bottom of Chichikov's snuffbox?
12. Where did Chichikov meet Nozdrev?
13. Who is this about? ... even had a noble motivation for enlightenment, that is, reading books, the content of which was not difficult for him: it did not matter to him whether the adventure of a hero in love, just a primer or a prayer book ...
14. Who is this about? There is a kind of people known by the name: people are so-so, neither this nor that; neither in the city of Bogdan, nor in the village of Selifan ...
15. Who is this? ... he talked about how good it would be if all of a sudden to lead an underground passage from the house or build a stone bridge across the pond ...
16. Who is this about? Despite the fact that more than eight years of their marriage had passed, each of them still brought to the other either a piece of an apple, or a candy, or a nut and spoke in a touchingly tender voice, expressing perfect touching love: this piece."
17. Who is talking to whom? “But you finally honored us with your visit. Really such, right, they gave pleasure ... May day ... name day of the heart.
18. Manilov: “Sometimes you read.,.” What did Manilov sometimes like to read?
19. What were the names of Manilov's children?
20. At what price did Manilov give up dead souls to Chichikov?
21. Who is talking to whom? “You think you will hide your behavior. No, you live in truth when you want to be respected ... Here everyone respects our master, because, you hear, he performed the state service, he is a scole adviser.
22. Whose words? What situation are they in? “Why not cut, if for the cause, then the will of the master. It needs to be whipped, because the peasant is playing around, order must be observed. If for the cause, then cut; why don't you cut it?"
23. Whose portrait? “... the hostess entered, an elderly woman, in some kind of sleeping cap, put on hastily, with a flannel around her neck, one of those mothers, small landowners who cry for crop failures, losses.”
24. What was the name of the Box?
25. Whose men? Petr Savelyev, Disrespect-Trough, Wheel Ivan.
26. Who was Chichikov's guide from Korobochka to the main road?
27. Who is this about?

He was of medium height, a very well-built fellow, with full ruddy cheeks, teeth as white as snow, and jet-black sideburns.
28. By whom and for what purpose were the following words used? Shoot, scold, flutter, fire, scythe, draw, bake, bake, severga, killer whale, reward, guardian.
29. Who owned the Turkish dagger, on which "Master Saveliy Sibiryakov" was carved by mistake?
30. Who is talking about whom? - Well, yes, I do know you: after all, you are a big swindler, let me tell you this as a friend!
31. What saved Chichikov from being beaten in Nozdev's house?
32. Who is this about? "What a nasty sir! Selifan thought to himself. “I haven’t seen such a gentleman yet. That is, he would spit for it! You better not let a man eat, but you have to feed a horse ... "
33. In whose estate? Even the well was lined with such strong oak, which is used only for mills and ships.
34. About whose house? The architect was a pedant and wanted symmetry, the owner wanted convenience, and, apparently, as a result of this he boarded up all the corresponding windows on one side and turned in their place one small one, probably needed for a dark closet.
35. What was the name of Sobakevich?
36. Who is this about? It is known that there are many such faces in the world, over the decoration of which nature did not think for long ... grabbed with an ax once - the nose came out, grabbed in another - lips came out ...
37. What was the name of Sobakevich's wife?

38. About whom Sobakevich speaks so? One is the only decent person: ...; and that one, to tell the truth, is a pig.
39. Who is this about? It seemed that this body did not have a soul at all, or it did have one, but not at all where it should, but, like an immortal koshchey, somewhere beyond the mountains and covered with such a thick shell that everything that did not toss and turn at the bottom her, produced decidedly no shock on the surface.
40. How much did Chichikov buy dead souls from Korobochka?
41. Whose are these men? Karetnik Mikheev, Cork Stepan, Maxim Telyatnikov, Eremey Sorokoplekhin.
42. How much did Sobakevich take for a dead soul from Chichikov?
43. Whose house is this? In some places it was one story, in other places it was two; on the dark roof, which did not reliably protect his old age everywhere, two belvederes stuck out, one opposite the other, both already tottering, deprived of the paint that once covered them.
44. Who is this about? For a long time he could not recognize what gender the figure was: a woman or a man. Her dress was completely indefinite, very similar to a woman's hood, on her head was a cap, such as village yard women wear, only one voice seemed to him somewhat strong for a woman.
45. It was suddenly clear that he was a man of prudent years, not like a young chatterer and a helicopter dancer ... It seemed that he was well over forty years old; his hair was black and thick; the whole middle of his face protruded in front of him and went into his nose - in a word, it was a face that is called in society ... What is such a face called?
46. ​​For what amount, according to Ivan Antonovich Kuvshinnoye Rylo, did Chichikov buy peasants?

47. Who equipped his speech ... with many different particles, such as: “my sir, you are some kind, you know, you understand, you can imagine, relatively, so to speak, in some way”? ..
48. What act of Chichikov at the governor's ball against him restored the ladies' society of the city?
49. Who and where told the public that Chichikov was buying up dead souls?
50. Whom did Gogol play in his youth in D. I. Fonvizin's play "Undergrowth"?
51. What circus act did Pav-lusha Chichikov prepare?
52. The father of Alexander the Great said: "A donkey loaded with gold will take any city." What did his father say to Pavlusha Chichikov about the power of money?

ANSWERS "Dead Souls"

1. About Chichikov. At the entrance to the gate of the hotel.
2. Selifan coachman.
3. Footman Petrushka.
4. White leather suitcase, small mahogany chest, shoe lasts, fried chicken.
5. Collegiate adviser.
6. Foreigner Vasily Fedorov.
7. Drinking establishments.
8. Thin, thick or the same as Chichikov, that is, not so thick ...
9. About the prosecutor.
10. At the governor's party. Sobakevich... stepped on his foot the first time.
11. ... two violets put there for smell.
12. At the evening at the police chief.
13. About Petrushka.
14. About Manilov.
15. Manilov.
16. Manilov and Manilova,
17. Manilov to Chichikov.
18. Magazine "Son of the Fatherland".
19. The elder of eight years is Themistoclus, the younger of six years is Alkid.
20. ... I hand them over to you without interest and take over the bill of sale.
21. To a swarthy sworn horse harnessed from the right side.
22. Says Selifan, after dumping Chichikov into the mud.
23. Boxes.
24. Nastasya Petrovna.
25. Boxes.
26. Girl Pelageya.
27. Nozdrev.
28. Nozdrev gave such names to his dogs.
29. Nozdrev.
30. Nozdrev about Chichikov.
31. Arrival of the police captain.
32. About Nozdryov.
33. In the estate of Sobakevich.
34. House of Sobakevich.
35. Mikhail Semenovich Sobakevich.
36. About Sobakevich.
37. - This is my Feoduliya Ivanovna! Sobakevich said.
38. About the prosecutor.
39. About Sobakevich.
40. For fifteen rubles.
41. Sobakevich.
42. Two and a half.
43. Plushkin's house.
44. About Plushkin.
45. Pitcher snout.
46. ​​One hundred thousand.
47. Postmaster.
48. Chichikov began to look after the governor's daughter.
49. At the governor's ball, Nozdryov.
50. Mrs. Prostakov,
51. Pavlusha trained a mouse.
52. You will do everything and break everything in the world with a penny.

In the first paragraph of Dead Souls, a cart with Chichikov enters the provincial town of NN:

“His entry made absolutely no noise in the city and was not accompanied by anything special; only two Russian men who stood at the door of the tavern opposite the hotel, made some remarks ... "

This is clearly an unnecessary detail: from the first words it is clear that the action takes place in Russia. Why the clarification that the men are Russian? Such a phrase would sound appropriate only in the mouth of a foreigner describing his foreign impressions. The literary historian Semyon Vengerov, in an article titled “Gogol did not know real Russian life at all,” explained it as follows: Gogol really late learned the proper Russian (and not Ukrainian) way of life, not to mention the life of the Russian provinces — therefore, such an epithet for him was really significant. Vengerov was sure: “If Gogol had thought for at least one minute, he would certainly have crossed out this awkward epithet that says absolutely nothing to the Russian reader.”

But he did not cross out - and for good reason: in fact, this is the most characteristic technique for the poetics of Dead Souls, which the poet and philologist Andrei Bely called the "figure of fiction" - when something (and often a lot) is said, but nothing is actually said, definitions do not define, descriptions do not describe. Another example of this poetics is the description of the protagonist. He is “not handsome, but not bad-looking, neither too fat nor too thin; one cannot say that he is old, but not so that he is too young”, “a middle-aged man with a rank that is not too big and not too small”, “a gentleman of an average hand”, whose face we will never see, although he enjoy looking in the mirror.

2. The secret of the rainbow scarf

This is how we first see Chichikov:

“The gentleman threw off his cap and unwound it from his neck woolen, rainbow-colored scarf which the wife prepares with her own hands for the married, providing decent instructions on how to wrap up, and for the unmarried - probably I can’t say who does it, God knows them ... "

“... I have never worn such scarves,” continues the narrator of Dead Souls. The description is built in a very characteristic Gogolian way: the intonation of a know-it-all - "I know everything about such scarves" - abruptly changes to the opposite - "I'm single, I didn't wear anything like that, I don't know anything." Behind this habitual technique and in such a habitual abundance of details, a rainbow scarf is well hidden.

The memoirs of the writer Sergei Aksakov describe the following episode, which happened on November 27, 1839:

“... [Zhukovsky] quietly unlocked and opened the door. I almost screamed in surprise. Before me stood Gogol in the following fantastic costume: instead of boots, long woolen Russian stockings above the knees; instead of a frock coat, over a flannel jacket, a velvet spencer Spencer- a short, tight-fitting jacket.; wrap-around neck with a large multicolored scarf... Gogol wrote and was deep in his work, and we obviously interfered with him.

Chichikov's kerchief and the colorful scarf that Aksakov saw are undoubtedly relatives, even if this relationship is well hidden by the narrator, who is trying to keep a straight face. It turns out that in the hero there is something from the author. And we will be convinced of this more than once: it is in Chichikov's fantasies that bought dead souls come to life; it is he who makes some accusatory speeches that are easy to mistake for copyright; it is he who, finally, rides in that trio, the movement of which provides the basis for the final lyrical digressions of the first volume.

Chichikov is a very strange character. On the one hand, he is not able to win the reader's sympathy. On the other hand, great hopes and a huge responsibility are placed on him - responsibility for the further development of the novel in the second and third volumes, where we are promised "strings that have not yet been played", "the untold wealth of the Russian spirit" and so on. and so on. The motionless and, according to Gogol, “vulgar” world of the first volume of “Dead Souls” does not portend anything of the kind - in fact, we are promised a miracle, but how and why it will happen is a mystery:

“And, perhaps, in this same Chichikov, the passion that attracts him is no longer from him, and in his cold existence lies something that will later plunge a person to dust and knees before the wisdom of heaven. And another mystery is why this image appeared in the poem that is now being born.

In this miracle of the transformation of the world, Chichikov has an important role to play. The kinship between him and the narrator helps the reader feel a strange connection with the unsympathetic hero, and, therefore, subsequently participate in the miracle of transformation.

3. Mystery of the card game

At the governor's party, Chichikov sits down to play whist with the hosts and official guests:

“They sat down at the green table and did not get up until dinner. All talk ceased altogether, as always happens when at last indulge in practical work».

Of course, the author is ironic, calling the game of whist "a good job." The word “practical” in the text is generally shrouded in irony: the “practical remarks” that Chichikov is ready to give on almost any topic inevitably echo the “practical remarks” that the coachman Selifan releases to the chubar horse. But in this case, "business" is an expression from card jargon, meaning a game for money. Just in this sense, it is used, for example, in the epigraph to Pushkin's "Queen of Spades": "So, in rainy days, / They were engaged / in Business."

Gogol writes not about the distorted perception of the matter, inherent only to these particular officials, for whom the card game is the main interest, but about the language that has taken this distortion into itself. The word is actively used in the language, but loses its main meaning. Such "dead" words are a kind of "swamp lights" leading in the wrong direction:

“And how many times, already induced by the meaning descending from heaven, they [people] knew how to recoil and stray to the side, knew how in broad daylight to get back into impenetrable backwoods, knew how to cast again a blind fog into each other’s eyes and, dragging after the marsh lights, they knew how to get to the abyss, so that later they would ask each other with horror: “Where is the exit, where is the road?”

4. Mystery of the fly in the nose

Chichikov wakes up visiting Korobochka:

“He woke up the next day already quite late in the morning. The sun shone through the window straight into his eyes, and the flies that yesterday had slept peacefully on the walls and on the ceiling all turned to him: one landed on his lip, another on his ear, a third strove to land on his very eye, the same one that had the imprudence to sit close to the nasal nostril, he pulled sleepily in the very nose, which made him sneeze very hard- the circumstance that caused his awakening.

Interestingly, the narrative is overflowing with detailed descriptions of universal sleep. “The day, it seems, was concluded with a portion of cold veal, a bottle of sour cabbage soup and a sound sleep in the whole pump wrap, as they say in other places of the vast Russian state”; “Both fell asleep at the same moment, raising a snore of unheard-of density, to which the master from the other room answered with a thin, nasal whistle. Soon, after them, everything calmed down, and the hotel turned out to be a deep sleep., and only this awakening of Chichikov is an event about which Gogol tells in detail. Chichikov wakes up from a fly in his nose. His feelings are described almost in the same way as the shock of officials who heard about the Chichikov scam:

“The position of them [officials] in the first minute was similar to the position of a schoolboy, to whom the sleepy comrades, who got up early, put a hussar in the nose, that is, a piece of paper filled with tobacco. Waking up, pulling all the tobacco towards you with all the zeal of a sleeping, he wakes up, jumps up, looks like a fool, bulging his eyes in all directions, and cannot understand where he is, what he is, what happened to him ... "

Strange rumors aroused the city, and this excitement is described as the awakening of those who had previously indulged in "dead dreams on their side, on their backs and in all other positions, with snoring, nasal whistles and other paraphernalia", of the entire "hitherto dormant city ". Before us is the resurrection of the dead, albeit a parody. But all this had such an effect on the city prosecutor that he completely died. His death is paradoxical, since in a sense it is a resurrection:

“... They sent for a doctor to draw blood, but they saw that the prosecutor was already one soulless body. Then only with condolences did they learn that the deceased had, for sure, a soul, although, due to his modesty, he never showed it.

The opposition of sleep and awakening is connected with the key motifs of the novel - death and resurrection. The impetus for awakening can be the most insignificant trifle - a fly, tobacco, a strange rumor. The "resurrectionist", in the role of which Chichikov acts, does not need to possess any special virtues - it is enough for him to be in the role of a fly that got into his nose: to break the usual course of life.

5. How to do everything: the secret of Chichikov

Chichikov leaves Korobochka:

“Although the day was very good, the earth was so polluted that the wheels of the britzka, grabbing it, soon became covered with it, like felt, which greatly burdened the crew; besides, the soil was clayey and unusually tenacious. Both were the reason that they could not get out of the country roads before noon.

So, in the afternoon, the hero hardly gets out to the post Stolbovaya- a large road with milestones, a postal route.. Before that, after lengthy squabbles, he bought from Korobochka 18 revision revision- included in the census. shower and ate an unleavened egg pie and pancakes. Meanwhile, he woke up at ten. How did Chichikov manage to do everything in just over two hours?

This is not the only example of Gogol's free treatment of time. Departing from the city of NN to Manilovka, Chichikov gets into a britzka in an "overcoat on big bears", and on the way he meets men in sheepskin coats - the weather is clearly not summer. Arriving at Manilov, he sees a house on a mountain “dressed with trimmed turf”, “bushes of lilacs and yellow acacias”, birch trees with “small-leaved thin tops”, “a pond covered with greenery”, knee-deep in the pond wander women - already without any sheepskin coats. Waking up the next morning in Korobochka's house, Chichikov looks out of the window at "spacious vegetable gardens with cabbage, onions, potatoes, beets and other household vegetables" and at "fruit trees covered with nets to protect against magpies and sparrows" - the season is again changed. Returning to the city, Chi-chikov will again put on his "bear covered with brown cloth." “In bears covered with brown cloth, and in a warm cap with ears,” Manilov will also come to the city. In general, as it is said in another Gogol text: “I don’t remember the numbers. There was no month either.

In general, the world of "Dead Souls" is a world without time. The seasons do not replace each other in order, but accompany a place or character, becoming its additional characteristic. Time stops flowing in the expected way, freezing in an ugly eternity — “a state of continuous immobility,” in the words of the philologist Michael Weisskopf.

6. The secret of the guy with the balalaika

Chichikov orders Selifan to leave at dawn, Selifan scratches his head in response, and the narrator discusses what this means:

“Is it annoyance that the meeting planned for tomorrow with his brother in an unsightly sheepskin coat, girded with a sash, somewhere in the Tsar’s tavern, somewhere in the Tsar’s tavern, has not succeeded, or what kind of hearty sweetheart has already begun in a new place and you have to leave the evening standing at the gate and political holding on to white hands at the hour when twilight is piling on the city, a kid in a red shirt strums on a balalaika in front of the yard servant-dew and weaves quiet speeches of the raznochinny, worked-out people?<…>God knows, don't guess. Scratching in the back of the head means many different things among the Russian people.

Such passages are very characteristic of Gogol: to tell a lot of everything and come to the conclusion that nothing is incomprehensible, and indeed there is nothing to talk about. But in this next passage that explains nothing, the guy with the ball-like attracts attention. We've already seen it somewhere:

“As he drove up to the porch, he noticed two faces looking out of the window almost at the same time: a female in a cap, narrow, long, like a cucumber, and a male, round, wide, like Moldavian pumpkins, called gourds, from which balalaikas are made in Rus', two-stringed , light balalaikas, the beauty and fun of a quick-witted twenty-year-old guy, flashing and dandy, and winking and whistling at the white-breasted and white-necked girls who had gathered to listen to his quiet-stringed jingling.

You never know where Gogol's comparison will lead: the comparison of Sobakevich's face with a Moldavian pumpkin suddenly turns into a scene with the participation of our balalaika player. Such detailed comparisons are one of the methods by which Gogol further expands the artistic world of the novel, introduces into the text that which did not fit even in such a capacious plot as a journey, that which did not have time or could not to see Chichikov, something that may not fit at all into the general picture of the life of the provincial city and its environs.

But Gogol does not stop there, but takes the dandy with the balalaika who appeared in the detailed comparison - and again finds a place for him in the text, and now much closer to the plot reality. From a figure of speech, from a comparison, a real character grows, who wins a place for himself in the novel and, as a result, fits into the plot.

7. Corrupt secret

Even before the start of the events of Dead Souls, Chichikov was a member of the commission "for the construction of some kind of state-owned very capital structure":

“For six years [the commission] fussed around the building; but the climate, or something, interfered, or the material was already such, only the government building could not go higher than the foundation. Meanwhile, in other parts of the city, each of the members found himself in a beautiful house civil architecture: apparently, the soil of the earth was better there.

This reference to "civil architecture" as a whole fits into Gogol's redundant style, where definitions do not define anything, and the second element may easily be missing in opposition. But initially it was: "civil architecture" was opposed to the church. In the early edition of Dead Souls, the commission, which included Chichikov, is designated as "the commission for the construction of the temple of God."

This episode of Chichikov's biography was based on the well-known story of the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow by Gogol. The temple was founded on October 12, 1817, a commission was established in the early 1820s, and already in 1827 abuses were discovered, the commission was abolished, and two of its members were put on trial. Sometimes these numbers serve as the basis for dating the events of Chichikov's biography, but, firstly, as we have already seen, Gogol did not really bind himself with an exact chronology; secondly, in the final version, the mention of the temple is removed, the action takes place in a provincial town, and this whole story is reduced to an element of style, to “civil architecture”, in Gogol's way, it is no longer opposed to anything.

March 17th, 2017 06:57 am

Literary critic Boris Kurkin - about the hidden meanings of Gogol's work

“... In the britzka sat a gentleman, not handsome, but not bad-looking, neither too fat nor too thin; one cannot say that he is old, but it is not so that he is too young. His entry made absolutely no noise in the city and was not accompanied by anything special; only two Russian peasants, standing at the door of the tavern opposite the hotel, made some remarks, which, however, referred more to the carriage than to the person sitting in it. “You see,” one said to the other, “what a wheel! what do you think, will that wheel, if it happens, reach Moscow or not?” "He'll get there," replied the other. “But I don’t think he will reach Kazan?” “He won’t get to Kazan,” answered another. This is how the conversation ended."

With all his incredible imagination, the mystic and idealist Gogol could hardly predict how the first scene of his Dead Souls would respond in contemporary and later criticism. Particularly “lucky” were two Russian peasants discussing the question “whether the wheel will reach or not reach”: most of the domestic philologists have seen in them and still see the symbol of the alleged hopelessness and stupidity of Russian life, and in the idealist and mystic Gogol - a realist.

In domestic literary criticism this scene is traditionally considered in two aspects: in terms of discussing the question, what is the meaning of Gogol's expression "two Russian peasants", and in terms of "accusatory" terms. Moreover, each of these topics has its own rather extensive bibliography.

There were also those who saw in the first scene of the poem and Dead Souls in general slander against Russia. So, Count F. Tolstoy-American (the one who "was exiled to Kamchatka, a night robber, duelist, returned as an Aleut") openly called Gogol an enemy of Russia and said "that he should be sent in shackles to Siberia."

How S. Aksakov spoke about Gogol's heroes about the "gathering of freaks", considering the poem as an inadequate view of Russia. At the end of the century, but not as a hyperbole, but as a “fact”, I. Annensky will write: “What kind of country is this in essence? Is there at least some kind of faith in it, a fragment of historical memories, a custom, does any, albeit vague, ideal request live in its depths? ... And is it really that Mityai and Minyai really only differ from the dumb ones in that from time to time they get drunk to the point of insensibility?

In Soviet times The theme of "recrimination" was picked up and developed by V. Gippius: “It is unlikely that anyone, following Shevyrev, will be touched by the humanity of Selifan, and the smelly Petrushka and the idiots Mityai and Minyay, together with the two “Russian peasants” of the first chapter, complete the impression. And further: “Gogol’s artistic techniques turn the world of beings depicted by him into a real “gathering of freaks”.

The opening scene of Dead Souls has many layers. We will carefully shoot them one by one, and sometimes, in order to understand the situation in its entirety, we have to start from afar and explore completely unexpected topics. In our case, in order to learn more about the first man, we have to answer, for example, the following question: “Where is the city of NN?”.

Of course, we will keep in mind another topic, which I. Annensky attended to in his time: “Where, in fact, does the action of Dead Souls take place? From which strip of Russia are Korobochki, Mityai and Minyai taken? What environment, Ukrainian or Great Russian, released Chichikov?". And further: “And in what years does the action take place in Dead Souls?”

Thus, the critic raised the topic not in a narrowly sociological, but philosophical plane.

We will also remember the words of A.N. Veselovsky that Gogol's native country "was not only the long-suffering Rus' of Nikolaev times, but also the world of her dreams." The answer to the question, in which geographical point of Russia the action of "Dead Souls" takes place, is given by L. Moschenskaya, who quite reasonably asserts that the city NN, based on Gogol's text, there is Tver.

Further, she calculated what was the approximate value of the mileage of the Chichikovskaya britzka in the province and the city before the breakdown of its wheel and found that the mileage of the Chichikovskaya troika was not less than one hundred and seventy miles. If we take into account that from Tver to Moscow - 168 versts, and from Tver to Kazan - 995, it turns out that the wheel would have reached Moscow, but not Kazan.

The result obtained speaks of the high professionalism of the first man, especially when you consider that the chassis of the spring chaise is a relatively complex structure. Well, where is the "drunk stupid conversation"? This is a conversation between two pros who are able to determine its working life from the very first, moreover, intoxicated look at the product. In a word, the man turned out to be a much greater professional than many of those who wrote about him.

Nevertheless, Moshchenskaya herself, referring to Yu. Mann, emphasizes that from the very beginning Gogol wanted to avoid any linking of these events to real facts. And all this has a fundamental meaning, since "attempts to more or less accurately localize the action of the poem contradict its poetics."

And yet Gogol, albeit implicitly, tied the action of "Dead Souls" to a specific locality. In the same way, as it appears from the text of the comedy, he indicated the scene of the "Inspector General" in the city of Petrovsk, Saratov province, although, of course, the play is about a certain symbol city, and not about a specific county town.

If there were no such link, one would have to assume that all the details of Chichikov's business trips and descriptions of nature were created only to emphasize the deep professionalism of the first peasant! But such sophistication, in our opinion, would be astonishing even for Gogol.

Returning to the two Gogol peasants, let us ask ourselves and their detractors: “So what is the “idiocy of the situation” repeatedly mentioned in literary criticism? And what about the meaninglessness and stupidity of life? Yes, the peasants leave the tavern: at the entrance to the institution, a Russian person does not linger, and even more so is not distracted by the fleeting circumstances of time, place and mode of action, does not indulge in contemplation.

Upon exiting it - as much as you like. Let's keep in mind that unlike a tavern where you can dine and dine, a tavern is a special narrow-profile drinking establishment that is farmed out by the state, where they drink as much as they drink. However, the sobriety of the expert assessment of the first man allows us to conclude that the men were just tipsy.

Let us also pay attention to the fact that Gogol says that these were precisely peasants, that is, peasants. Most likely, the serfs of some of the surrounding landowners (the same Manilov, for example), since the number of free cultivators in the Alexander era - namely, at this time the action of Dead Souls takes place - was small. The fact that they were men is extremely important for us as readers. And that's why: a man, like no one else, is busy with a living and charitable work without which earthly life is impossible.

Chichikov, who arrived in the city, lives as dead. His occupation - speculation ghostly and non-existent - virtual objects. Moreover, this is speculation with "dead souls", i.e. the names of these men. It is significant that Chichikov stays at a hotel located opposite the tavern. In other words, Gogol symbolically and at the same time visibly contrasts the existential principle - the peasant - with the non-existent principle - Chichikov.

Here is the provincial town of NN, small, sleepy. It's evening. The wind blew (the young man barely keeps his cap on his head). Could it be that Chichikov had brought with him whirlwinds hostile to the world? Two men who left the institution only emphasize the routine or even the dullness of what is happening. What to talk about two tipsy men listening to the music of the universe? About the first thing that caught my eye; the wheel is an indispensable thing in the peasant economy. About bars - not interested. What have they not seen a middle-class bar? They exchanged a couple of remarks and fell silent. What to ask about if everything you need for life has already been revealed to you in the Gospel?

About the beginning and end of the Universe? The men leave this occupation to the bars. I remember that the freethinker Lyapkin-Tyapkin, who had read five or six books, “because of the wind of his head” philosophized to the point that the hair on the head of the mayor, who was firm in faith, stood on end: apparently, to heresy. But heresy is the destruction of the soul. But even then: "To the free - will, to the saved - paradise."

Therefore, Russian philosophy is - silence. So Gogol's men are silent. They look at the wheel with a sharp look and prophesy: ​​"It won't go far." Let us take the place of a peasant and ask ourselves: “What else can you learn, besides how to contrive in the knowledge of rough matter solely in order to make a new britzka, the wheel of which would reach further than before?” And not even in cognition, but in orientation in the world of rough matter, which boils down to the ability to find that cherished faucet, turning which, it remains only to wait a little for the matter necessary for the subject to flow from it, which will be used for the all-conquering cause of achieving comfort.

So what do you "know" in this case? “I know that I don’t know and won’t know anything”? That's the whole "progress": it all comes down to the quality of the new chaise. It is now that they make it so that it soon breaks to the ground, and then ... and then a new one is bought. This is how the living world is killed, and the living Cosmos turns into a dead space with its calculated luminaries. Gut it, eat it with sauce, using a knife and fork, gnaw and suck on its bones and throw it in the trash! That's all "progress"! Is this not the triumph of the ideas of Humanism and the Enlightenment?

Let us recall what the unforgettable Mikhail Semyonovich Sobakevich said about enlightenment, and how would not Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol himself?“They talk about enlightenment, enlightenment, and this enlightenment is poof! I would say another word, but that's just indecent at the table. "Enlightenment - fuk." What is a "fuck"? This is a breath. Something was indicated, they blew on it and it was gone, as if it had not existed at all.

A peasant lives in cyclical time and he doesn’t need Western “knowledge” at all (a good thing is always useful in the household), but he is arranged in such a way that such “knowledge” is deeply alien to him, because the structure of his thoughts and feelings is completely different. Chichikov, on the other hand, lives in linear time, striving from eternity to ANYWHERE, more precisely, to its end.

A man lives in eternity, abides in it, for he is busy with eternal and charitable work - work. Chichikov - exists in time, and the scope of his activity is virtual reality (scams with dead souls). Thus, the peasant is eternal and endless, Chichikov is fleeting and transient. Behind the man is the TRUTH, behind Chichikov is a lie.

He himself is a son of lies, and therefore he has many disguises, but no face. The face is carefully hidden. As A. Mikhailov rightly notes, "... the landlords of the first volume of the poem are characters, and he (Chichikov - Auth.) is not a character in comparison with them, but rather a creature playing character without personal traits."

The Pretender is depicted in the same way in Boris Godunov. Chichikov too - impostor, liar and therefore a priori connected with the infernal world. The man is being, Chichikov is non-being. It is devoid of beingness, because by its nature it is the embodiment and manifestation of impure power and, consequently, pure negativity. Chichikov - is NOTHING. A man is eternal like the earth, be it Mikula Selyaninovich or Cola Breugnon. Men are not interested in all these chichikovs. All gentlemen for a peasant look the same and are measured by a common arshin.

And now we will remove another layer and ask ourselves a question: Isn't Gogol's wheel some kind of symbol? The question of the meaning of the image of the wheel in the poem was considered by A. Bely, whom Nabokov called "the genius of corrosiveness." True, he studied it in a very specific way. Andrei Bely, this genius of corrosiveness, saw that the entire first part of Dead Souls is a vicious circle that rotates on an axis so rapidly that the spokes are not visible; at each turn of the plot around the person of Chichikov, an image of a wheel appears.

In this regard, it would be appropriate to consider whether what is the symbolism of the wheel. This is a symbol of the world, a symbol of the driving force of the cosmos as a living and organized being within itself, a symbol of the servants of God, symbols of eternal life, such as the wheel of visions of the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel. But if a man lives in cyclic time, in the eternal cycle of Being, then the Wheel becomes a symbol of the Man! And it is no coincidence that one of Korobochka's men is called "Wheel Ivan", and the man Plyushkin is called "Grigory Get there, you won't get there"! Where can you get to infinity, because the man is endless, Chichikov is finite.

However, the biblical symbolism of the wheel is dualistic: the wheel is at the same time an infernal symbol, a symbol of the devil. Such are the chariots of the Pharaoh, the commander of the Canaanite Sisera, the prototype of the Antichrist and Judah, Absalom, got himself chariots. God forbade King Solomon to start chariots.
The wheel also becomes a symbol of Chichikov.

But unlike the wheel-sun, the wheel is a symbol of the eternal and timeless man, a completely different wheel becomes the symbol of Chichikov - the Wheel of Fortune. And if the wheel of Genesis spins uniformly in the same direction, then the Wheel of windy pagan Fortune can spin in completely different directions.

Doesn't Chichikov know this! Trading in clerical images of the dead and plunging into gloomy symbolism (and symbols, as you know, are stronger than us!), Making lies his tool, he comes into direct contact with evil spirits, becoming part of it - a well-known theme of D. Merezhkovsky.

At the same time, the wheel is also an infernal symbol - a symbol of birth, death and rebirth. The wheel is, among other things, one of the incarnations of a kind of evil spirits - witches and sorcerers.

So the first scene of Dead Souls becomes a conceptual point from which the universe of Gogol's creation grows.

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“A rather beautiful spring-loaded small britzka, in which bachelors ride: retired lieutenant colonels, staff captains, landowners with about a hundred souls of peasants, drove through the gates of the hotel in the provincial city of NN - in a word, all those who are called gentlemen of the middle hand. In the britzka was a gentleman , not handsome, but not bad-looking, neither too fat nor too thin, one cannot say that he was old, but not so much that he was too young. His entry made absolutely no noise in the city and was not accompanied by anything special; only two Russian peasants, standing at the door of the tavern opposite the hotel, made some remarks, which, however, referred more to the carriage than to the person sitting in it. what do you think, will that wheel reach, if it happened, will it reach Moscow or not?" - "It will," answered another. "But I think it won't reach Kazan?" - "It won't reach Kazan, answered the other. And with that the conversation ended. Moreover, when the britzka drove up to the hotel, a young man met in white canine trousers, very narrow and short, in a tailcoat with attempts on fashion, from under which was visible a shirt-front, fastened with a Tula pin with a bronze pistol. The young man turned back, looked at the carriage, held his cap, which had almost flown off from the wind, and went on his way. "

No, it is not Chichikov, the gentleman of the middle class, who enters the heavenly city of N. at all. namely, the chaise, as a unit of artistic measurement and as an independent protagonist of the novel. From the very first lines of the poem, the whole world of things surrounding the hero begins to move, and he himself seems to remain under a bushel. Actually, Chichikov himself is not a person, but a thing among other things, like all the figures in Gogol's prose: neither too fat nor too thin; one cannot say that he is old, but it is not so that he is too young. Hidden among everyday things. Like ignoble worn wood of a dusty road locker.

We still do not quite see, but we already feel that the whole living world of the novel seems to be initially conspired, is in a deep swoon of exorcism. Gogol's world is the world of things in the last stage of a dream, just before their awakening to life and the expulsion of the devil of death from them. The entire material world is involved here in the action of the resurrection of man. In Gogol, it is not people and animals that enliven objects, but objects that inspire people and animals. In comparison with things, Gogol's people occupy a secondary order and are lower than animals. Even the existence of Chichikov's box looks more meaningful than the existence of its owner. The overcoat is more alive than Akaky Akakievich, and the tortoiseshell claw on the tailor Petrovich's finger is more spiritual than the tailor himself. Gogol seems to be afraid of endowing a person with humanity and humanity. In the whole novel, there is almost only one living character, a peasant girl who does not know where the right is, where the left is, and a young girl who met Chichikov on the road, shining her face against the sun, like a fresh egg, and then again both merge at the end in some kind of unfeeling humanoid idea. Everything else is some kind of uranium ore, not enriched with meaning and humanity. Living matter for Gogol is dead, but inanimate matter is alive, and nourishes man and beast, therefore Gogol's prose is an adventure of Platonic ideas, and not people, inanimate plasma, and not a man - a fallen thing among fallen things. He seemed to have come here to wake them up. But still pondering whether it is necessary.

Gogol distracts essences from dead half-living creatures and transfers them to things - stone, grass, road. Twice transformed, these entities again return to the living and here they turn into an archetype, a symbol. Gogol multiplies the neurons of decay in himself and crystallizes them in wax figures of characters. With a flick of the pen, an indirect encroachment of style, Chichikov's cramped crew is stuffed with bachelors, retired lieutenant colonels, landowners, hundreds of serfs, and hundreds of peasant souls completely separate from them; and also, in addition to everything, metaphysically abstract middle-class gentlemen who shun natural lieutenant colonels and staff captains. Why in the britzka it becomes unbearably crowded and astringent, and it sags with springs to the ground. And all this rabble of Gogol's half-things-half-people tumbles like a gypsy camp into the city, without making, you won't believe, any noise

The whole artistic world of Gogol indirect, exists in the imagination and in reality, as it were besides but beyond what, we'll never know. This heavy attraction of Gogol's something is constantly present in every word, but is found only occasionally, either in the form of a foamy crest of a river wave, silvering in the moonlight like a wolf's hair, or in the shape of a horse's head, sticking its head out of that world into this one to taste delicious senets stuck on the uniform of Akaky Akakievich. Only at the edge of the shadow it will sometimes step in here in the fog and drizzle of immeasurable extent and immediately hide, trembling with its skin. While nature, according to Gogol himself, sleeping with open eyes.

And this provincial town of NN., meek and nameless in itself, immediately fills the reader's imagination like a corncob with grains and becomes fat in body before our eyes. Actually, it is all already impaled on the author's fantasy, as if on a skewer, and passed through by the reader. Everything that happens to the city and its inhabitants in the future does not matter. The cart drove into the city and immediately left it, traced by the smirk of the transcendental contemplator. This is the finale, the unforeseen farewell not only to the novel, but to the very existence of this place - at the very beginning of the Book of Genesis. Before he has entered the life of the novel, the author is already saying goodbye to it, because the novel and life already preexist in the author, and this is deeply understandable to the reader. The reader, having barely touched the living water of the word being made, is already dead from its lightning-fast accomplishment. The power of Gogol's word is such that the poem simultaneously pre-exists in the reader, who has barely read the first lines of the poem, as if he is a co-author of the idea, and somewhere else, outside the book. The energy clot of the imaginary city will then unfold into the galaxy of Nozdryov, Sobakevich, Selifan, all the inhabitants of the novel, but even until then the reader has already been infected by the author’s craft and is living his last days in himself, in the natural shell of his hardiness. Although he doesn't know it yet.

Two Russian peasants stand with their backs to the open door of the Russian tavern and talk about the wheel, that is, they are immersed in the contemplation of perpetual motion. In this traditional peasant occupation, vodka is clearly contemptible. Wine is present here only as a natural activator, expanding consciousness, an accomplice of national self-consciousness. It is precisely that "two Russians" and not "two Russians" peasants stand akimbo before the Universum and the Fatherland, and this one difference in the letter opens the whole novel and all of Rus' wide open. There is no need to plow and sow, reap bread, there is no need for women and marriage. Even the sovereign and the state are superfluous, the letter says. Only the wheel and the Heavenly Emperor are important - what else matters? Two entities compared to each other, God and Man, destroying each other in contemplation of the other world. From the very beginning, it is clear that these two Russian peasants do not see the whole chaise, they do not even see the other wheels of the chaise, but they see only one of its wheels, or, to be more precise, the wheel in general, as a concept, as an emblem of the movement to nowhere. It is not the personal “to be or not to be” that is decided here at this world peasant consultation, as Nabokov believes, not even to be or not to be arable land, the Fatherland and the state, but the higher and transpersonal - why in general in this nature is the Wheel, the Movement, the Sovereign of Heaven, and whether there is movement of anything anywhere at all. Most likely not, and this is the opposition of imaginary movement and apparent nothingness.

A dazzling character in white canine trousers at the very beginning of "Dead Souls", looking after Chichikov's britzka and holding his cap from the otherworldly wind, came to us to confirm this. The author's double perspective smears the chaise and the viewer, and they instantly disappear in the reader's double imagination. The character's very tight and short pantaloons, along with the existential wind and the pin with the bronze pistol, can exhaust the reader's imagination, so don't stare at him too closely or you won't be able to see him, because if you stare at him too long, he will disappear again. , as on photographic paper overexposed in the developer. But it will get stuck in the reader's psyche like a splinter. As well as that Ryazan lieutenant, trying on boots outside the wall of Chichikov's room, who is still unable to part with them, but still looks at the wonderfully worn heel, smiling at the stars.

I have no doubt that this is one and the same person, a Ryazan lieutenant in white cannibal pantaloons, who has already tried on four pairs of boots and is planning a fifth, embraced by the same universal longing with him, but managed to quietly change clothes behind the scenes of our and Gogol's consciousness. To understand this, the aperture of the reader's imagination must be slightly opened to a microscopic gap, just necessary for shooting, and with a homeopathically adjusted exposure of perception. Otherwise, the reader will be left with nothing and will take out of this magic, like all criticism wasted by mediocrity, only some kind of "satirical" or "social" "idea".