Examples of the objective world in the works of N.V. Gogol

The image of a person surrounded by the world of things inevitably turns the object into an integral part of the character’s image: the image of the object in the reader’s mind accompanies the image of the hero or even becomes its figurative equivalent, a metaphorical replacement.

The very problem of the material world in the works of the named writer seems extremely important and significant, since the connection between a person and his surrounding objective environment is, on the one hand, extremely strong, on the other hand, mobile, since things often turn into a person, and a person - into things. In turn, the presence of such a connection constitutes an artistic feature of the writer’s style, thereby determining his originality and uniqueness.

From the collection “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” to “Petersburg Tales” and “Dead Souls”, Gogol’s material world undergoes an obvious artistic evolution: from the brightness of colors and patterned design to dullness of the image and color monotony. The national flavor inherent in the collection “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” is replaced by the prose of city life with its grotesque-realistic descriptions in “Petersburg Tales”; the material realities presented by the author come into closer contact with the inner world of the characters, reflecting the surrounding reality more fully and accurately. In Dead Souls, Gogol's talent is revealed as the talent of a grotesque writer of everyday life with his ability to show the inner world of a particular hero through the objects surrounding him.

The material world is interesting to Gogol both in itself, as independently living, having its own character and laws of development (an independent subject of depiction), and as a manifestation of the characteristics of the human world. Often it is these or those things that help reveal the essence of human relationships and reveal the peculiarities of the way of life as a whole.

The material world in the works of N.V. Gogol can rightfully be considered the most important subject of description and a means of revealing the inner world of characters, since Gogol’s thing becomes not only a means of social characterization of the hero, but also expresses his place in the moral world, position in society.

I believe that analyzing a literary text in lessons or extracurricular activities from this point of view (“Object-symbol and character.” “Object as a means of creating an image of a person”) will direct students to “reconsider” Gogol’s works read in the past and look at them in a new way , and when performing creative tasks, demonstrate your analytical abilities, abilities and skills of independent research work.

Assignments for the research lesson “The title image in N.V. Gogol’s story “The Overcoat”:

1. The place of the image of the overcoat in the system of images of the story.

2. Prove that in Gogol’s story the image of an overcoat plays a plot-forming role.

3. Find a description of the overcoat in the text of the story. What basic techniques does it use?

Gogol to create the image of an overcoat?

4. How does the image of an overcoat help in revealing the image of Akaki Akakievich?

5. What is the symbol of the overcoat in the story?

6. Why is the image of an overcoat included in the title of the story?

(Lesson materials)

Although the reader’s attention is drawn primarily to the image of Akaki Akakievich, the overcoat occupies a central place in the system of images of N.V. Gogol’s story. The overcoat is not only the most important means of creating the image of the “little man”, the petty official Bashmachkin, but also an object that plays a plot-forming role. And most importantly, this object becomes a symbol of the world that created Akaki Akakievich and which destroys him. Also, the image of the overcoat receives rich content and becomes one of the most important means of expressing the author’s position in relation to the bureaucratic and bureaucratic Russian reality of Gogol’s time, replacing true spiritual values ​​with imaginary values.

The appearance of the image of an overcoat is associated with the tie. “Akakiy Akakievich began to feel for some time that he was somehow getting particularly hot in the back and shoulder, despite the fact that he was trying to run across the legal space as quickly as possible. He finally wondered if there were any sins in his overcoat. Having examined it carefully at home, he discovered that in two or three places, namely on the back and on the shoulders, it had become like a sickle; the cloth was so worn out that it was leaking and the lining was unraveling.”

The image of the old overcoat was created by the author with the help of hyperbole and grotesque: “the cloth... was worn out, it was visible,” “the lining was spreading,” “it had a strange structure: the collar became smaller and smaller every year, because it served to undermine other parts of it.” On the play of two meanings of the word “undermining” (in the language of tailors - “hemming, repair”, and in Russian the verb “undermining” means “to damage, eroding or corroding from the inside” or “to weaken, to cause decay”), Gogol built the internal contradiction of the image : every attempt to bring the overcoat into decent shape and order means its greater destruction. Using the technique of personification, Gogol depicts the overcoat as a living creature: like a person, it has “sins”, a “noble name”, which Akaki Akakievich’s colleagues take away, calling it a “hood”. A miserable, shabby overcoat symbolizes poverty, the poverty of spirit of the pathetic official Bashmachkin.

There are two overcoats in the story: old and new. Constructing the image of an overcoat, Gogol, relying on the principle of contrast, uses epithets, details, comparisons in the description (“thin wardrobe”, “the thing is completely rotten”, “touch it with a needle and it’s crawling”, “blow the wind and it will fly apart”) " - “it doesn’t get any better than cloth,” good, thick calico “was even better than silk and even more beautiful and glossy in appearance”), organizes the plot around the subject (the old overcoat is the subject of ridicule and mockery of officials, the new one is the reason for congratulations, “a great ceremonial holiday, lunch). All this helps the reader understand the depth of the symbolic content of the image of the overcoat.

What does the new overcoat mean for Akaki Akakievich? What is the symbolic, generalizing meaning of the image of the overcoat in Gogol’s work?

The new overcoat is not only Bashmachkin’s protection from the northern frost, it is a sign of his belonging to the bureaucratic structure - corresponding to his title of titular adviser. Staying in this social environment kills all high feelings and creativity in an official. Akakiy Akakievich is hopelessly mediocre, unintelligent, he can’t even rewrite, having remade the paper a little. He lives not with people, but in his position. He serves with love, and in copying he sees his own, varied and pleasant world, he even had favorite letters. This is a dead world. Therefore, Bashmachkin’s life is filled with one passion. The passion for the overcoat becomes a substitute for the genuine spiritual craving for love inherent in every living person. The word “passion” is not Gogol’s, but it seems to quite accurately convey the tension and irresistibility of his hero’s desire to become the owner of a new overcoat. The author's irony lies in the very incommensurability of the object of the aspiration and the imperious force with which it is expressed. “From then on, it was as if his very existence became somehow fuller...”, “he became somehow more alive, even firmer in character, like a man who had already defined and set a goal for himself...”, “fire sometimes appeared in his eyes, The most daring thoughts even flashed through my head: should I really put a marten on my collar?” The solution to a simple everyday problem is placed on a high pedestal. The discrepancy between one and the other, creating a vivid comic effect, evokes in the reader bitter thoughts about the impoverishment and perversion of the hero’s soul, its insignificance and emptiness, leads to an understanding of the author’s position in relation to the modern Gogol of the bureaucratic world, in which the external and internal have swapped places: For some, the uniform replaced the personality, for others, the rank replaced the person. The value of a person is determined by rank, clothing, home, i.e. according to formal characteristics, which becomes a conventional expression of strict hierarchical ordering and impersonality of human existence.

The short-term possession of a new overcoat completely changed Bashmachkin’s position in the world of officials: “the whole day is like the biggest solemn holiday,” Akakiy Akakievich is in the spotlight, “in the happiest mood.”

The loss of his overcoat becomes for Akaki Akakievich tantamount to the loss of the meaning of life, the loss of himself. He is now defenseless against the frost and dies of a cold, but essentially because he has again become insignificant. This was emphasized by his visit to a “significant person.”

In the image of an overcoat, N.V. Gogol showed a characteristic detail of a Russian official of the middle

XIX century, and also expressed the idea of ​​​​the deep dependence of behavior and the inner world of a person on the structure of the social environment.

Lesson-excursion to the Museum of Literary Heroes

(materials for the lesson)

Topic: Object as a means of creating the image of a hero / based on N. V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” /

Goal: to implement the project, continue working in groups to identify details, artistic means, and techniques in the text of Gogol’s poem, with the help of which the author creates images of heroes; use detailed images of objects to characterize landowners; repeat about paradox, grotesque, oxymoron; help students prepare an exhibit for the museum of literary heroes and create its legend; to cultivate students' interest in the works of art being studied.

A non-standard lesson “Excursion to the Museum of Literary Heroes” will help the teacher bring the student closer to the work, hero, writer, “linger over the line.” This interesting form of lesson organization, the basis of which is the group project activity of students, the result is a presentation of the project, requires a lot of painstaking work and preparation. Children receive the task: to prepare a museum exhibition either based on a book, or a hero (heroes) of a book, i.e. exhibit detail, sound design of the excursion.

Group assignments:

Prove that N.V. Gogol uses a list of objects and detailed images of individual objects to create images of landowners and their houses.

Prove that in “Dead Souls” the object is a symbol of a person’s qualities and can symbolize the state of his soul (give examples of such details and reveal their meaning).

Prove that many images of objects are based on paradox - using the grotesque, oxymoron.

For the museum:

– prepare an exhibit for display (aesthetic design, labels in the spirit of the times)

– come up with a “legend” for each exhibit (why is this important for understanding the character of the hero, his role, the author’s intention, the idea of ​​the work)

– provide a “highlight” - a surprise (musical accompaniment, staging, special effects)

– time the presentation time - 3-5 minutes

Teacher's word. The image of the object is a symbol of the qualities of the character in Gogol’s poem.

N.V. Gogol, an unusually observant artist, knew how to find a reflection of a person’s character in the trifles of everyday life surrounding him. Man is entangled in the “mud of little things.” The spiritual world of Gogol's heroes is so shallow and insignificant that the thing bears the imprint of the character of the person to whom it belongs, and may well express their inner essence. Therefore, a person and an inanimate object often become close. One helps to better understand the other; and the object acts as a means of creating an image of a person, being a symbol of his qualities, his state of mind. Let us remember the first lines of “Dead Souls”. “A rather beautiful spring britzka, in which bachelors travel: retired lieutenant colonels, staff captains, landowners with about a hundred peasant souls, - in a word, all those who are called middle-class gentlemen, drove through the gates of the hotel in the provincial town of NN.” Nothing more is said about the britzka; it is characterized through people. But then the reflected beam seems to fall on them. However, much more often people reveal themselves through the things that belong to them. For example, Chichikov’s box helps to look into the inner world of Pavel Ivanovich. “Here is the internal arrangement: in the very middle there is a soap dish, behind the soap dish there are six or seven narrow partitions for razors; then square nooks for a sandbox and an inkwell with a boat hollowed out between them for feathers, sealing wax and everything that is longer; then all sorts of partitions with lids and without lids for something shorter, filled with business, funeral, theater and other tickets, which were folded up as souvenirs. The entire top drawer with all the partitions was removed, and under it there was a space occupied by piles of papers in a sheet, then there was a small hidden drawer for money, which pulled out unnoticed from the side of the box. He always pulled out so hastily and was moved back at the same moment by the owner that it’s probably impossible to say how much money was there.” This is how the secrets of the human soul of an enterprising businessman, an energetic acquirer with carefully hidden illegal intentions are revealed.

Many images of Gogol's poem are built on paradox using the grotesque, oxymoron. Today we will take an excursion to the museum of literary heroes of the poem “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol, the exhibits will be objects and things of the character, which became not only doubles of their owners, but also a tool for their satirical denunciation - this is a feature of N.V. Gogol’s poetics

Student performance. Presentations of exhibits. Project protection.

A distinctive feature of Manilov’s character is uncertainty, idle daydreaming, inactivity, mismanagement. Gogol ironically remarks: “Everyone has their own enthusiasm, Manilov had nothing.” This is a naive, complacent, sugary idle talker. And his things bear the imprint of the hero’s personality: there is something missing or something superfluous in them... The object symbolizing Manilov’s state of mind is piles of ashes lined up on the windowsill - the result of meaningless hours of dreams. And finally, a book, marked with a bookmark on page 14, which he, the most educated person, in his opinion, had been constantly reading for two years. Gogol used the technique of paradox.

The club-headed Korobochka is immersed in the world of household trifles, concerned with only one thing - a penny profit. And she doesn’t know how to handle a penny: the money lies like a dead weight in her colorful bags. Hoarding and petty hoarding are manifested in numerous thread bags, ripped open and preserved salop, and an old deck of cards. The clock seemed to be having difficulty keeping time, with a strange wheezing and hissing sound. Grotesque - time stops

Nozdryov is a man of broad nature. He loses a lot of money with a light heart or can buy a bunch of unnecessary things. This is a “historical person”, because many of his combinations end in “history” - a scandal, a fight. Nozdryov is a reckless braggart, a master of “casting bullets”, a liar. It seems that the object that characterizes the state of his soul is the immortal organ. She performs a mazurka, but the game is interrupted by the song “Malbrug went on a hike” and suddenly ends with a waltz. But the very lively pipe does not want to calm down and continues to whistle for a long time. The whole character of Nozdryov is captured here: restless, mischievous, violent, ready at any moment to cause mischief, mischief, and do something unexpected, inexplicable.

Sobakevich bears little resemblance to other landowners. He is a prudent owner, a cunning trader, a tight fist. He is a man of few words, has an iron grip, everything with him is durable - for centuries. Imagine a pot-bellied walnut bureau on absurd four legs, a table, a chair, armchairs, each of which seemed to say: “And I, too, are Sobakevich. And I also look like Sobakevich!” And the paintings that depict “heroes with such thick thighs and incredible mustaches that a shiver ran through the body.” The grotesque image of a cheesecake, larger than a plate, seems to personify Sobakevich’s bestial appetite and his power.

Plyushkin is the owner of a permanent amount of things, but the goods he accumulated did not bring him happiness and peace. Its reserves are rotting and becoming unusable. Constant fear for his property turns Plyushkin into a slave of things, “a hole in humanity.” His soul is personified with a dried cracker from an Easter cake brought by his daughter for Easter, which expresses senseless hoarding, stinginess, and suspicion. The hero drags everything into the house: an old rag, a bucket, a sole, a shard. Gogol grotesquely depicts “a clock with a stopped pendulum, to which the spider has already attached a web.” According to the symbol dictionary, a stopped clock means death. The spider in Christian symbolic thinking is the evil opposite of the good bee, and in most cases serves to depict sinful thoughts that will suck the blood out of a person. And people believe that a spider is the soul of a deceased person.

Here's another important item. To depict it, the author uses an oxymoron - the chandelier should illuminate, bring light, but it hung “in a canvas bag, the dust made it look like a silk cocoon in which a worm sits.”

The heroes of N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” are people devoid of spirituality, incapable of any high spiritual movement. They are limited and primitive in their aspirations. Their interests almost never go beyond the limits of vulgar materiality. Hence the writer’s special attention to depicting the life of these people. Things, furniture, and household items play a very active role in the narrative, helping to more clearly highlight certain character traits of the characters.

It seems that the work proposed above on the image of the character when studying Gogol’s works from this angle will help students further understand the depth of the symbolic content of the images of such objects as Oblomov’s robe and sofa in Goncharov’s novel, Belikov’s Chekhov “case,” Kuprin’s garnet bracelet, etc.

Literature

Galanov B.E. Painting with words: Portrait. Scenery. Thing. M.: Soviet writer. 1972. – 184 p.

Gogol N.V. Selected works. M.: Fiction. 1987. – 703. (B – ka teachers)

Dobin E.S. The art of detail. Observations and analysis. L.: Soviet writer. 1975. – 191.

Kislitsyna T.G. Orthodox culture at school. Lessons of Russian literature. M.: Spiritual origins. 2004. – 223.

Mashinsky S.I. The artistic world of Gogol. M.: Enlightenment. 1979. – 432.

Chertov V.F. Word – image – meaning: philological analysis of a literary work. M.: Bustard. 2006. – 444.

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

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

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

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

Start

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

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

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

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

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

Genius

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is a daily, deep feeling.

The story of Taras Bulba

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The story of how Ivan Ivanovich quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich

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

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

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

Petersburg stories

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

Some works should be described in more detail.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FEDERAL AGENCY FOR EDUCATION

STATE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

HIGHER PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

"TOMSK STATE PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY"

Faculty of Philology

Department of Literature

COURSE WORK

THE THEME OF THE LITTLE MAN IN THE WORK OF N.V. GOGOL

Performed:

Student of the 71st RY group

3rd year FF Guseva T.V.

Job evaluation:

____________________

"___" __________ 20__

Supervisor:

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor

Tatarkina S.V.

___________________

Introduction 3

Chapter 1 The theme of the “little man” in Russian literature of the 19th century 5

Chapter 2“Little Man” in Gogol’s story “The Overcoat” 15

2.1 History of the creation of “Overcoat” 15

2.2 “Little Man” as a social and moral-psychological concept in Gogol’s “The Overcoat” 16

2.3 Critics and contemporaries of Gogol about the story “The Overcoat” 21

Conclusion 22

Bibliography 23

INTRODUCTION

Russian literature, with its humanistic orientation, could not ignore the problems and destinies of the common man. Conventionally, in literary criticism it began to be called the theme of the “little man.” At its origins were Karamzin, Pushkin, Gogol and Dostoevsky, who in their works (“Poor Liza,” “The Station Agent,” “The Overcoat” and “Poor People”) revealed to readers the inner world of the common man, his feelings and experiences.

F.M. Dostoevsky singles out Gogol as the first to reveal to readers the world of the “little man.” Probably because in his story “The Overcoat” Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin is the main character, while the rest of the characters create the background. Dostoevsky writes: “We all came out of Gogol’s “The Overcoat.”

The story “The Overcoat” is one of the best in the work of N.V. Gogol. In it, the writer appears before us as a master of detail, a satirist and a humanist. Narrating the life of a minor official, Gogol was able to create an unforgettable, vivid image of a “little man” with his joys and troubles, difficulties and worries. Hopeless need surrounds Akaki Akakievich, but he does not see the tragedy of his situation, since he is busy with business. Bashmachkin is not burdened by his poverty, because he does not know any other life. And when he has a dream - a new overcoat, he is ready to endure any hardships, just to bring the realization of his plans closer. The author is quite serious when he describes his hero’s delight at realizing his dream: the overcoat is sewn! Bashmachkin is completely happy. But for how long?

The “little man” is not destined to be happy in this unjust world. And only after death is justice done. Bashmachkin’s “soul” finds peace when he regains his lost item.

Gogol in his “Overcoat” showed not only the life of the “little man”, but also his protest against the injustice of life. Even if this “rebellion” is timid, almost fantastic, the hero still stands for his rights, against the foundations of the existing order.

The purpose of this work- explore the theme of the “little man” in Gogol’s work based on Gogol’s story “The Overcoat”.

In accordance with the purpose, the main goals:

1. Consider the theme of the “little man” in the works of Russian classics (Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Chekhov);

2. Analyze Gogol’s work “The Overcoat”, considering the main character Akakiy Akakievich Bashmachkin as a “little man”, unable to resist brute force;

3. Explore the image of the “little man” as a school for Russian writers based on the material of the story “The Overcoat” by Gogol.

The methodological basis of the course work is the research of: Yu.G. Manna, M.B. Khrapchenko, A.I. Revyakin, Anikin, S. Mashinsky, which highlight the theme of the “little man”

CHAPTER 1. THE THEME OF THE LITTLE MAN IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE OF THE 19TH CENTURY

The work of many Russian writers is imbued with love for the ordinary person and pain for him. The theme of the “little man” in literature arose even before N.V. Gogol.

One of the first to put forward the democratic theme of the “little man” in literature was A.S. Pushkin. In “Belkin’s Tales,” completed in 1830, the writer paints not only pictures of the life of the nobility (“The Young Lady-Peasant”), but also draws the readers’ attention to the fate of the “little man.” This theme was first heard in “The Bronze Horseman” and “The Station Agent” by Pushkin. It is he who makes the first attempt to objectively and truthfully portray the “little man.”

In general, the image of a “little man”: this is not a noble, but a poor man, insulted by people of higher rank, a man driven to despair. This does not mean just a person without ranks and titles, but rather a socio-psychological type, that is, a person who feels powerless in front of life. Sometimes he is capable of protest, the outcome of which is often madness and death.

The hero of the story “The Station Agent” is alien to sentimental suffering; he has his own sorrows associated with the unsettled life. There is a small postal station somewhere, not at the crossroads of passing roads, where the official Samson Vyrin and his daughter Dunya live - the only joy that brightens up the difficult life of the caretaker, full of shouts and curses from passers-by. And suddenly she is taken away secretly from her father to St. Petersburg. The worst thing is that Dunya left with the hussar of her own free will. Having crossed the threshold of a new, rich life, she abandoned her father. Samson Vyrin, having failed to “return the lost sheep,” dies alone, and no one notices his death. About people like him, Pushkin writes at the beginning of the story: “We will, however, be fair, we will try to enter into their position and, perhaps, we will begin to judge them much more leniently.”

The truth of life, sympathy for the “little man”, insulted at every step by bosses higher in rank and position - this is what we feel when reading the story. Pushkin cares about this “little man” who lives in grief and need. The story, which so realistically depicts the “little man,” is imbued with democracy and humanity.

But Pushkin would not have been great if he had not shown life in all its diversity and development. Life is much richer and more inventive than literature, and the writer showed us this. Samson Vyrin's fears were not justified. His daughter did not become unhappy; the fate that awaited her was not the worst. The writer does not look for those to blame. It simply shows an episode from the life of a powerless and poor stationmaster.

The story marked the beginning of the creation in Russian literature of a kind of gallery of images of “little people”.

In 1833, Pushkin’s “The Bronze Horseman” appeared, in which a “little man” with a tragic fate expresses a timid protest against the inhuman autocracy.

In this work, the poet tried to solve the problem of the relationship between the individual and the state. Pushkin saw the possibility of achieving agreement, harmony between the individual and the state, he knew that a person could simultaneously recognize himself as part of a great state and a bright individuality, free from oppression. By what principle should the relationship between the individual and the state be built, so that the private and public merge into one whole? Pushkin's poem "The Bronze Horseman" was a unique attempt to answer this question.

The plot of Pushkin's poem is quite traditional. In the exhibition, the author introduces us to Evgeniy, a modest official, a “little man.” Eugene is one of the impoverished nobles, which Pushkin mentions in passing, saying that the hero’s ancestors were listed in the “History of Karamzin”. Evgeny’s life today is very modest: he serves “somewhere,” loves Parasha and dreams of marrying the girl he loves.

In The Bronze Horseman, private life and public life are presented as two closed worlds, each of which has its own laws. Eugene’s world – dreams of the quiet joys of family life. The world of the private individual and the world of the state are not just separated from each other, they are hostile, each of them brings evil and destruction to the other. Thus, Peter lays down his city “in spite of his arrogant neighbor” and destroys what is good and holy for the poor fisherman. Peter, who is trying to subdue and tame the elements, evokes its evil revenge, that is, he becomes the culprit for the collapse of all Eugene’s personal hopes. Evgeny wants to take revenge, his threat (“Too bad for you!”) is ridiculous, but full of desire for rebellion against the “idol.” In response, he receives Peter's evil revenge and madness. Those who rebelled against the state were terribly punished.

According to Pushkin, the relationship between the private and the public should be based on love, and therefore the life of the state and the individual should enrich and complement each other. Pushkin resolves the conflict between the individual and the state, overcoming the one-sidedness of both Evgeniy’s worldview and the view of life on the opposite side to the hero. The culmination of this clash is the rebellion of the “little” man. Pushkin, raising the poor madman to the level of Peter, begins to use sublime vocabulary. At the moment of anger, Eugene is truly terrible, because he dared to threaten the Bronze Horseman himself! However, the rebellion of Eugene, who has gone crazy, is a senseless and punishable rebellion. Those who bow to idols become their victims. It is possible that Eugene’s “rebellion” contains a hidden parallel with the fate of the Decembrists. This is confirmed by the ending of The Bronze Horseman.

Analyzing Pushkin's poem, we come to the conclusion that the poet showed himself in it as a true philosopher. “Little” people will rebel against a higher power as long as the state exists. This is the tragedy and contradiction of the eternal struggle between the weak and the strong. Who is to blame: the great state, which has lost interest in the individual, or the “little man”, who has ceased to be interested in the greatness of history and has fallen out of it? The reader's perception of the poem turns out to be extremely contradictory: according to Belinsky, Pushkin substantiated the tragic right of the empire with all its state power to dispose of the life of a private person; in the 20th century, some critics suggested that Pushkin was on Eugene's side; there is also an opinion that the conflict depicted by Pushkin is tragically insoluble. But it is obvious that for the poet himself in “The Bronze Horseman,” according to the formula of the literary critic Yu. Lotman, “the right path is not to move from one camp to another, but to “rise above the cruel age,” preserving humanity, human dignity and respect for the lives of other people."

Pushkin's traditions were continued and developed by Dostoevsky and Chekhov.

At F.M. Dostoevsky's theme of the “little man” is cross-cutting throughout his work. Thus, already the first novel of the outstanding master, “Poor People,” touched on this topic, and it became the main one in his work. In almost every novel by Dostoevsky we are faced with “little people”, “humiliated and insulted”, who are forced to live in a cold and cruel world.

By the way, Dostoevsky’s novel “Poor People” is imbued with the spirit of Gogol’s overcoat. This is a story about the fate of the same “little man”, crushed by grief, despair and social lack of rights. The correspondence of the poor official Makar Devushkin with Varenka, who has lost her parents and is being pursued by a pimp, reveals the deep drama of the lives of these people. Makar and Varenka are ready to endure any hardship for each other. Makar, living in extreme need, helps Varya. And Varya, having learned about Makar’s situation, comes to his aid. But the heroes of the novel are defenseless. Their rebellion is a “revolt on their knees.” Nobody can help them. Varya is taken away to certain death, and Makar is left alone with his grief. The lives of two beautiful people are broken, crippled, shattered by cruel reality.

It is interesting to note that Makar Devushkin reads “The Station Agent” by Pushkin and “The Overcoat” by Gogol. He is sympathetic to Samson Vyrin and hostile to Bashmachkin. Probably because he sees his future in him.

In the novel “Crime and Punishment” the theme of the “little man” is explored with special passion, with special love for these people.

I would like to note that Dostoevsky had a fundamentally new approach to depicting “little people.” These are no longer dumb and downtrodden people, as they were in Gogol. Their soul is complex and contradictory, they are endowed with the consciousness of their “I”. In Dostoevsky, the “little man” himself begins to speak, talk about his life, fate, troubles, he talks about the injustice of the world in which he lives and the same “humiliated and insulted” as he.

In the novel “Crime and Punishment”, the fate of many “little people”, forced to live according to the cruel laws of cold, hostile St. Petersburg, passes before the reader’s eyes. Together with the main character Rodion Raskolnikov, the reader meets the “humiliated and insulted” on the pages of the novel, and experiences their spiritual tragedies with him. Among them are a dishonored girl, who is being hunted by a fat front, and an unfortunate woman who threw herself from a bridge, and Marmeladov, and his wife Ekaterina Ivanovna, and daughter Sonechka. And Raskolnikov himself also belongs to the “little people,” although he tries to elevate himself above the people around him.

Dostoevsky not only depicts the misfortunes of the “little man”, not only evokes pity for the “humiliated and insulted,” but also shows the contradictions of their souls, the combination of good and evil in them. From this point of view, the image of Marmeladov is especially characteristic. The reader, of course, feels sympathy for the poor, exhausted man who has lost everything in life, so he has sunk to the very bottom. But Dostoevsky is not limited to sympathy alone. He shows that Marmeladov's drunkenness not only harmed himself (he is kicked out of work), but also brought a lot of misfortune to his family. Because of him, small children are starving, and the eldest daughter is forced to go out into the streets in order to somehow help the impoverished family. Along with sympathy, Marmeladov also arouses contempt for himself; you involuntarily blame him for the troubles that befell the family.

The figure of his wife Ekaterina Ivanovna is also contradictory. On the one hand, she is trying in every possible way to prevent a final fall, remembering her happy childhood and carefree youth when she danced at the ball. But in fact, she simply takes comfort in her memories, allows her adopted daughter to engage in prostitution and even accepts money from her.

As a result of all the misfortunes, Marmeladov, who has “nowhere to go” in life, becomes an alcoholic and commits suicide. His wife dies of consumption, completely exhausted by poverty. They could not bear the pressure of society, soulless St. Petersburg, and did not find the strength to resist the oppression of the surrounding reality.

Sonechka Marmeladova appears completely different to the reader. She is also a “little person”; moreover, nothing could be worse than her fate. But despite this, she finds a way out of the absolute dead end. She was used to living according to the laws of her heart, according to Christian commandments. It is from them that she draws strength. She reminds her that the lives of her brothers and sisters depend on her, so she completely forgets about herself and devotes herself to others. Sonechka becomes a symbol of eternal sacrifice; she has great sympathy for man, compassion for all living things. It is the image of Sonya Marmeladova that is the most obvious exposure of the idea of ​​blood according to Raskolnikov’s conscience. It is no coincidence that, together with the old pawnbroker, Rodion also kills her innocent sister Lizaveta, who is so similar to Sonechka.

Troubles and misfortunes haunt the Raskolnikov family. His sister Dunya is ready to marry a man who is disgusting to her in order to financially help her brother. Raskolnikov himself lives in poverty, he cannot even feed himself, so he is even forced to pawn the ring, a gift from his sister.

The novel contains many descriptions of the destinies of “little people.” Dostoevsky described with deep psychological accuracy the contradictions reigning in their souls, was able to show not only the downtroddenness and humiliation of such people, but also proved that it was among them that there were deeply suffering, strong and contradictory personalities.

Further, in the development of the image of the “little man,” a tendency toward “bifurcation” is emerging. On the one hand, common democrats emerge from among the “little people,” and their children become revolutionaries. On the other hand, the “little man” sinks, turning into a limited bourgeois. We observe this process most clearly in the stories of A.P. Chekhov's "Ionych", "Gooseberry", "Man in a Case".

A.P. Chekhov is a writer of a new era. His stories are realistic and convey to us the author’s disappointment in the social order and satirical laughter at the vulgarity, philistinism, servility, and servility that take place in society. Already in his first stories, he raises the issue of human spiritual degradation. In his works, images of so-called “case” people appear - those who are so limited in their aspirations, in the manifestations of their own “I”, so afraid to cross the boundaries established either by limited people or by themselves, that even a minor change in their usual life leads to sometimes to tragedy.

The character of the story “The Death of an Official” Chervyakov is one of the images of “case” people created by Chekhov. Chervyakov in the theater, captivated by the play, “feels at the height of bliss.” Suddenly he sneezed and - something terrible happens - Chervyakov sprayed the old general’s bald head. Several times the hero apologizes to the general, but he still cannot calm down; it constantly seems to him that the “offended” general is still angry with him. Having brought the poor fellow to an outburst of rage and having listened to an angry rebuke, Chervyakov allegedly gets what he has been striving for so long and persistently. “Coming home automatically, without taking off his uniform, he lay down on the sofa and...died.” Because of fear. “The Case” did not allow Chervyakov to rise above his own fears and overcome the slave psychology. Chekhov tells us that a person like Chervyakov simply could not live further with the consciousness of such a “terrible crime”, which he sees as an accidental act in the theater.

Over time, the “little man,” deprived of his own dignity, “humiliated and insulted,” arouses not only compassion but also condemnation among progressive writers. “You live a boring life, gentlemen,” Chekhov said through his work to the “little man” who had come to terms with his situation. With subtle humor, the writer ridicules the death of Ivan Chervyakov, from whose lips the lackey “Yourness” has never left his lips.

Another Chekhov hero, the Greek teacher Belikov (the story “The Man in a Case”) becomes an obstacle to the social movement; he is frightened by any movement forward: learning to read and write, opening a reading room, helping the poor. He sees “an element of doubt” in everything. He hates his own work, students make him nervous and frighten him. Belikov's life is boring, but it is unlikely that he himself is aware of this fact. This person is afraid of his superiors, but everything new scares him even more. In conditions when the formula was in effect: “If the circular does not allow, then it is not allowed,” he becomes a terrible figure in the city. Chekhov says about Belikov: “Reality irritated, frightened him, kept him in constant anxiety, and, perhaps, in order to justify this timidity of his, his aversion to the present, he always praised the past... For him, only circulars and newspapers were always clear.” articles that prohibited something.” But with all this, Belikov kept the entire city in obedience. His fear “that something might not work out” was transmitted to others. Belikov isolated himself from life; he stubbornly strived to ensure that everything remained as it was. “This man,” said Burkin, “had a constant and irresistible desire to surround himself with a shell, to create a case for himself that would seclude him and protect him from external influences.” Chekhov brings to the reader's attention the moral emptiness of his hero, the absurdity of his behavior and the entire surrounding reality. Chekhov’s work is filled with images of “case” people, whom the author both pities and laughs at at the same time, thereby exposing the vices of the existing world order. There are more important moral questions behind the author's humor. Chekhov makes you think about why a person humiliates himself, turning himself into a “small” person, unnecessary to anyone, becoming spiritually impoverished, but in every person “everything should be beautiful: face, clothes, soul, and thoughts.”

The theme of “little people” is the most important in Gogol’s St. Petersburg stories. If in “Taras Bulba” the writer embodied images of folk heroes taken from the historical past, then in the stories “Arabesque”, in “The Overcoat”, turning to modern times, he painted the disadvantaged and humiliated, those who belong to the lower social classes. With great artistic truth, Gogol reflected the thoughts, experiences, sorrows and suffering of the “little man”, his unequal position in society. The tragedy of the deprivation of “little” people, the tragedy of their doom to a life filled with worries and disasters, constant humiliations of human dignity comes out especially clearly in the St. Petersburg stories. All this finds its impressive expression in the life story of Poprishchin and Bashmachkin.

If in “Nevsky Prospect” the fate of the “little man” is depicted in comparison with the fate of another, “successful” hero, then in “Notes of a Madman” the internal conflict is revealed in terms of the hero’s attitude towards the aristocratic environment and at the same time in terms of the collision of the cruel truth of life with illusions and false ideas about reality.

Gogol’s “The Overcoat” occupies a special place in the author’s “Petersburg Tales” cycle. The story of an unhappy official overwhelmed by poverty, popular in the 1930s, was embodied by Gogol in a work of art that Herzen called “colossal.” Gogol’s “The Overcoat” became a kind of school for Russian writers. Having shown the humiliation of Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin, his inability to resist brute force, Gogol at the same time, by the behavior of his hero, expressed a protest against injustice and inhumanity. This is a riot on your knees.

CHAPTER 2. THE LITTLE MAN IN N.V.’S STORY GOGOL "OVERCOAT"

2.1 History of the creation of “Overcoat”

The story about the poor official was created by Gogol while working on Dead Souls. Her creative idea did not immediately receive its artistic embodiment.

The original concept of “The Overcoat” dates back to the mid-30s, i.e. by the time of the creation of other St. Petersburg stories, later combined into one cycle. P.V. Annenkov, who visited Gogol before his departure from St. Petersburg, reports: “Once, in Gogol’s presence, a clerical anecdote was told about some poor official, a passionate bird hunter, who, through extraordinary savings and tireless, intense work above his position, accumulated a sum sufficient to purchase a good Lepage gun worth 200 rubles. The first time he set off on his small boat across the Gulf of Finland for loot, putting his precious gun in front of him on the bow, he was, according to his own assurance, in some kind of self-forgetfulness and only came to his senses then, looking at his nose, he did not see his new thing. The gun was pulled into the water by thick reeds through which he was passing somewhere, and all efforts to find it were in vain. The official returned home, went to bed and never got up: he had a fever... Everyone laughed at the anecdote, which was based on a true incident, except Gogol, who listened to him thoughtfully and lowered his head. The anecdote was the first thought of his wonderful story “The Overcoat”.

The experiences of the poor official were familiar to Gogol from the first years of his life in St. Petersburg. On April 2, 1830, he wrote to his mother that, despite his frugality, “still ... was not able to make a new, not only a tailcoat, but even a warm raincoat necessary for the winter,” “and spent the whole winter wearing a summer overcoat "

The beginning of the first edition of the story (1839) was entitled “The Tale of an Official Stealing an Overcoat.” In this edition the hero did not yet have a name. Later he received the name “Akaky,” which means “kindly” in Greek, hinting at his position as a downtrodden official, and the surname Tishkevich (later replaced by Gogol with “Bashmakevich” and then with “Bashmachkin”).

The deepening of the plan and its implementation occurred gradually; Interrupted by other creative interests, work on completing “The Overcoat” continued until 1842.

While working on the story and preparing it for publication, Gogol foresaw censorship difficulties. This forced him to soften, in comparison with the draft edition, certain phrases of Akaki Akakievich’s dying delirium (in particular, the hero’s threat to a significant person was thrown out: “I will not see that you are a general!”). however, these corrections made by the author did not satisfy the censor, who demanded that from the final part of the story the words about misfortune befalling not only ordinary people, but also “kings and rulers of the world”, and about the theft by a ghost of the overcoats of “even the most secret ones” be deleted advisors."

Written at the time of the highest flowering of Gogol’s creative genius, “The Overcoat,” in its intensity of life and in the strength of its craftsmanship, is one of the most perfect and remarkable works of the great artist. Adjacent in its problems to the St. Petersburg stories, “The Overcoat” develops the theme of a humiliated person. This theme sounded acute both in the depiction of the image of Piskarev and in the mournful complaints about the injustice of the fate of the hero of “Notes of a Madman.” But it was in “The Overcoat” that it received its most complete expression.

2.2 “Little Man” as a social and moral-psychological concept in Gogol’s “The Overcoat”

The story “The Overcoat” first appeared in 1842 in the 3rd volume of Gogol’s works. Its theme is the position of the “little man”, and the idea is spiritual suppression, crushing, depersonalization, robbery of the human personality in an antagonistic society, as noted by A.I. Revyakin.

The story “The Overcoat” continues the theme of the “little man” outlined in “The Bronze Horseman” and “The Station Warden” by Pushkin. But in comparison with Pushkin, Gogol strengthens and expands the social resonance of this theme. The motif of isolation and defenselessness of man, which had long worried Gogol, in “The Overcoat” sounds on some kind of highest, poignant note.

For some reason, none of those around him see Bashmachkin as a person, but they only saw the “eternal titular adviser.” “A short official with a bald spot on his forehead,” somewhat reminiscent of a meek child, utters significant words: “Leave me alone, why are you offending me?”

Akaki Akakievich’s mother did not just choose a name for her son - she chose his fate. Although there was nothing to choose: out of nine difficult-to-pronounce names, she doesn’t find a single one suitable, so she has to name her son by her husband Akaki, a name that means “humble” in the Russian calendar - he is “the most humble” because he is Akaki “squared” .

The story of Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin, the “eternal titular adviser”, is the story of the distortion and death of a person under the power of social circumstances. Official - bureaucratic Petersburg brings the hero to complete stupor. The whole point of his existence is to rewrite ridiculous government papers. He was given nothing else. His life is not enlightened or warmed by anything. As a result, Bashmachkin turns into a writing machine and is deprived of all independence and initiative. For him, changing verbs “from the first person to the third” turns out to be an insoluble task. Spiritual poverty, humility and timidity are expressed in his stuttering, tongue-tied speech. At the same time, even at the bottom of this distorted, trampled soul, Gogol looks for human content. Akaki Akakievich is trying to find aesthetic meaning in the only miserable occupation that was given to him: “There, in this rewriting, he saw some kind of diverse and pleasant world of his own. Pleasure was expressed on his face; He had some favorite letters, which if he got to, he was not himself.” Gogol's hero experiences a kind of "illumination" in the story of the overcoat. The overcoat became an “ideal goal”, warmed him, filled his existence. Starving in order to save money to sew it, he “but nourished himself spiritually, carrying in his thoughts the eternal idea of ​​a future overcoat.” The author’s words sound with sad humor that his hero “somehow became more lively, even stronger in character... Fire sometimes appeared in his eyes, the most daring and courageous thoughts even flashed in his head: shouldn’t he put a marten on his collar?” . The extreme “grounding” of Akaki Akakievich’s dreams expresses the deepest degree of his social disadvantage. But the very ability to experience the ideal remains in him. Humanity is indestructible even in the most severe social humiliation - this is, first of all, the greatest humanism of “The Overcoat”.

As already noted, Gogol strengthens and expands the social resonance of the “little man” theme. Bashmachkin, a copyist, a zealous worker who knew how to be satisfied with his pitiful lot, suffers insults and humiliations from coldly despotic “significant persons” personifying bureaucratic statehood, from young officials mocking him, from street thugs who took off his new overcoat. And Gogol boldly rushed to defend his violated rights and insulted human dignity. Recreating the tragedy of the “little man,” the writer arouses feelings of pity and compassion for him, calls for social humanism, humanity, and reminds Bashmachkin’s colleagues that he is their brother. But the ideological meaning of the story is not limited to this. In it, the author convinces that the wild injustice that reigns in life can cause discontent and protest even from the quietest, humblest unfortunate.

Intimidated, downtrodden, Bashmachkin showed his dissatisfaction with significant persons who rudely belittled and insulted him, only in a state of unconsciousness, in delirium. But Gogol, being on Bashmachkin’s side, defending him, carries out this protest in a fantastic continuation of the story. Justice, trampled in reality, triumphs in the writer’s dreams.

Thus, the theme of man as a victim of the social system was brought by Gogol to its logical conclusion. “A creature disappeared and disappeared, not protected by anyone, not dear to anyone, not interesting to anyone.” However, in his dying delirium, the hero experiences another “insight”, utters “the most terrible words” never heard from him before, following the words “Your Excellency.” The deceased Bashmachkin turns into an avenger and tears off the overcoat from the most “significant person.” Gogol resorts to fantasy, but it is emphatically conventional, it is designed to reveal the protesting, rebellious beginning hidden in the timid and intimidated hero, a representative of the “lower class” of society. The “rebellion” of the ending of “The Overcoat” is somewhat softened by the depiction of the moral correction of a “significant person” after a collision with a dead man.

Gogol's solution to the social conflict in The Overcoat is given with that critical ruthlessness that constitutes the essence of the ideological and emotional pathos of Russian classical realism.

2.3 Critics and contemporaries of Gogol about the story “The Overcoat”

The theme of the “small”, powerless person, the ideas of social humanism and protest, which sounded so loudly in the story “The Overcoat”, made it a landmark work of Russian literature. It became a banner, a program, a kind of manifesto of the natural school, opening a string of works about the humiliated and insulted, unfortunate victims of the autocratic-bureaucratic regime calling for help, and paving the way for consistently democratic literature. This great merit of Gogol was noted by both Belinsky and Chernyshevsky.

The opinions of critics and the author's contemporaries about Gogol's hero differed. Dostoevsky saw in “The Overcoat” “a merciless mockery of man.” Belinsky saw in the figure of Bashmachkin a motive of social denunciation, sympathy for the socially oppressed “little man.” But here is the point of view of Apollon Grigoriev: “In the image of Akaki Akakievich, the poet outlined the line of shallowness of God’s creation to the extent that a thing, and the most insignificant thing, becomes for a person a source of boundless joy and destroying grief.”

And Chernyshevsky called Bashmachkin “a complete idiot.” Just as in “Notes of a Madman” the boundaries of reason and madness are violated, so in “The Overcoat” the line between life and death is erased.

Herzen in his work “The Past and Thoughts” recalls how Count S.G. Stroganov, trustee of the Moscow educational district, addressing journalist E.F. Korshu, said: “What a terrible story by Gogolev, “The Overcoat,” because this ghost on the bridge simply drags the overcoat off each of our shoulders.”

Gogol has compassion for each of the heroes of the story as God’s “shallow” creation. He makes the reader see behind the funny and ordinary behavior of the characters their dehumanization, the oblivion of what so pierced one young man: “I am your brother!” “Significant words” pierced only one young man, who, of course, heard in these words the commanded word about love for one’s neighbor, “many times later in his life he shuddered, seeing how much inhumanity there is in a person, even in that person whose light recognizes as noble and honest...”

The fantastic ending of the story “The Overcoat” is a silent scene. It is not confusion and frustration that Gogol instills in the soul of readers with the end of the story, but, according to literary scholars, he accomplishes it through the art of words “instilling harmony and order into the soul.”

CONCLUSION

The story “The Overcoat” concentrated all the best that is in Gogol’s St. Petersburg cycle. This is a truly great work, rightly perceived as a kind of symbol of the new realistic, Gogolian school in Russian literature. In a certain sense, this is a symbol of all Russian classics of the 19th century. Don’t we immediately think of Bashmachkin from “The Overcoat” when we think about the little man, one of the main characters of this literature?

In “The Overcoat,” we ultimately see not just a “little man,” but a person in general. A lonely, insecure person, without reliable support, in need of sympathy. Therefore, we can neither mercilessly judge the “little man” nor justify him: he evokes both compassion and ridicule at the same time.

In conclusion, I would like to say that a person should not be small. The same Chekhov, showing “case” people, exclaimed in one of his letters to his sister: “My God, how rich Russia is in good people!” The keen eye of the artist, noticing vulgarity, hypocrisy, stupidity, saw something else - the beauty of a good person, like, for example, Doctor Dymov from the story “The Jumper”: a modest doctor with a kind heart and a beautiful soul who lives for the happiness of others. Dymov dies saving a child from illness. So it turns out that this “little man” is not so small.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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dictionary. – Rostov n/d: Phoenix, 2007. – p. 102 – 113.

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12. Nikiforova S.A. Study of the story by N.V. Gogol’s “The Overcoat” // Literature at school. – 2004. - No. 4. – p. 33 – 36.

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UDC 1(091)

Bulletin of St. Petersburg State University. Ser. 17. 2015. Issue. 3

N. I. Bezlepkin

N.V. GOGOL AS PHILOSOPHER

The article examines the philosophical views of N.V. Gogol. Based on the analysis of the literary works of the great Russian writer, his philosophical-anthropological, historiosophical, aesthetic and moral-religious views in their evolution are highlighted. In his philosophical views, N.V. Gogol proceeded from the idea that the transformation of society is led not by changes in its external structure, but by internal changes in a person. Bib-liogr. 14 titles

Key words: historical individualism, aesthetic anthropology, Christian anthropology, historiosophy, aesthetic humanism, personalism, Church, social utopia, Western civilization.

N. V. GOGOL AS A PHILOSOPHER

The article investigates the philosophical views of Nikolai Gogol. Based on the analysis of literary works of the great Russian writer we explore the philosophical and anthropological, historiosophical, aesthetic, moral and religious views of the great Russian writer in their evolution. Gogol in his philosophical views proceeded from the belief according to which society is transformed not by change of its outer structure, but by internal changes in a person. Refs 14.

Keywords: Historic individualism, aesthetic anthropology, Christian anthropology, historical philosophy, aesthetic humanism, personalism, Church, social utopia, Western civilization.

In the works of N.V. Gogol (1809-1852), like most classics of Russian literature, there is an important layer of philosophical reflections aimed at comprehending in artistic form the main existential problems of existence. In the works of the great Russian classic, one can distinguish “two aspects: the first is the literary prose itself, the images and pictures it reveals; the other aspect is worldview, metaphysical, philosophical.” The identification of the world-contemplative, philosophical aspect in the literary heritage of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol in most studies comes down to either a religious-philosophical or an aesthetic analysis of his works. Meanwhile, the work of the great Russian writer should be considered as unified and holistic.

Gogol's philosophical quests were assessed by his contemporaries, for example V. G. Belinsky, as unfinished, not fully comprehended and sometimes contradictory, which, however, does not reduce their significance. Gogol did not have his own philosophical system, comprehensively and deeply thought out, but he was a thinker who managed to rise to deep ideological generalizations. Gogol did not allow himself to be content only with artistic success. His goal, as V.V. Zenkovsky emphasizes, was not “to create the most perfect work of art, but to produce a certain impact on Russian

Bezlepkin Nikolay Ivanovich - Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, North-West Open Technical University, Russian Federation, 195027, St. Petersburg, st. Yakornaya, 9 a; [email protected]

Bezlepkin Nikolay I. - Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, North-West Open Technical University, 9a, Yakornaya st., St. Petersburg, 195027, Russian Federation; [email protected]

society" . The public reaction to his works again and again forced Gogol to look for ways to correct morals in Russia, forced, as he himself noted, “to create with great deliberation.”

The philosophical aspect of N.V. Gogol’s work is clearly manifested primarily in the writer’s consistent interest in human problems. His philosophical anthropology evolves from “aesthetic anthropology” (V. Zenkovsky) to Christian. The first period of the formation of Gogol’s philosophical worldview was a time of aesthetic romanticism, a period of moral quests that took place under the influence of German romanticism, as well as the writer’s own thoughts about man. The beginning of this period was marked by the release of the poem “Hanz Küchelgarten” (1828), which was a stylization in the spirit of German romanticism, the purpose of which was a philosophical analysis of human aesthetic needs.

Gogol, professing the ideas of aesthetic humanism, proceeded from the utopian idea of ​​​​the possibility of transforming life under the influence of art. In the article “On the Architecture of Modern Times” (1831) he wrote: “Magnificence plunges the common man into a kind of numbness - and this is the only spring that moves the wild man. The extraordinary amazes everyone." The “virgin forces” inherent in man, according to the German romantics, are reinterpreted by the writer as those “primary” forces of the soul, thanks to which “all history works and all events take place.” Whether we are talking about Chertkov from the story “Portrait”, Andrie from “Taras Bulba”, Akaki Akakievich from “The Overcoat” or even Chichikov from “Dead Souls” - in each of them Gogol found “a poetic force living in every soul”, capable move a person to transform his life. The writer saw in the aesthetic responsiveness of the soul a creative force capable of changing both the person himself and his life.

After the release of The Inspector General, Gogol overestimates the role of the “primary” forces of the soul. The writer wanted to teach the public, to arm it with his ideals; it seemed to him that “The Inspector General” “would produce some kind of immediate and decisive effect! Russia will see its sins in the mirror of comedy and all, as one person, will fall to its knees, burst into tears of repentance and instantly be reborn!” . But that did not happen. “The Inspector General,” which was a resounding success, was taken for an ordinary farce and coexisted in the theater repertoire with those vaudevilles and plays that Gogol parodied in his play.

The aesthetic anthropology of the great Russian writer, based on faith in man and the search for beauty, was not only utopian, but also contradictory. On the one hand, Gogol believed in the healing power of love and beauty, on the other hand, he acutely felt the tragedy of love and the ambiguity of beauty in our world. What is the secret of beauty? - Gogol asks in Viya, and in Nevsky Prospekt he answers: beauty is of divine origin, but in our “terrible life” it is perverted by the “hellish spirit.” You cannot accept such a life. If you have to choose between “dream” and “essentiality,” then the artist chooses the dream. The evil beauty of our world, according to the writer, destroys, awakening in the hearts of people a “terrible, destructive” force - love.

We find variations of this theme in “Taras Bulba” and in “Notes of a Madman.”

descended." For Andriy, the call of beauty is stronger than honor, faith, and homeland. From one breath of a beautiful Polish woman, all his moral foundations collapse; Gogol shows that beauty by its very nature is immoral. As Yu. V. Mann notes, from a young age Gogol “was characterized by a keen sense of female beauty - a source of inspiration, violent experiences and at the same time a dangerous temptation and a disastrous threat. ...He was haunted by the feeling of a tragic discrepancy between beauty and moral truth, but at the same time, a painful need arose to overcome this collision. Support must be found in beauty itself, if you put at the service of high religious morality all the power of feminine charm, the abyss of sensuality, heavenly and at the same time completely earthly inspiration.”

The impossibility of transforming life through aesthetic experiences forced Gogol to abandon the exaltation of art and look for ways to subordinate it to higher religious tasks. According to V. Zenkovsky, it is the religious vocation of poetry and art in general that forces the writer to overcome the principle of autonomy of the aesthetic sphere and to establish its connection with the entire integral life of the spirit, that is, the religious sphere. Aesthetic anthropology in Gogol gives way to Christian anthropology, which is characterized by a combination of moralism and aestheticism, based on serving God. Aesthetic experiences combined with intense moral consciousness, according to the Russian classic, are the only ones capable of changing a person, helping him overcome the “disunity of beauty and goodness.”

In the article “Sculpture, Painting and Music,” Gogol emphasizes the impossibility of serving art without understanding the highest goal, understanding why art is given. The author saw the highest goal in serving God. Art is for him “steps to Christianity” - this, in his opinion, is the religious function of art. Literature for Gogol is a kind of religious teaching in which the struggle between good and evil takes place: Satan is bound and ridiculed (“The Night Before Christmas”), demons are put to shame (“Sorochinskaya Fair”), evil spirits are neutralized and vice is punished (“Viy” ). In the deviation from the Gospel covenant of love for one’s neighbor, Gogol saw both the tragedy of history and the anthropological catastrophe, the onset of which is opposed by Orthodox culture, the value meaning of which is shown by Gogol in the story “Old World Landowners” (1832-1835). In this story, Gogol writes: “...according to the strange structure of things, insignificant causes always gave birth to great events and, on the contrary, great enterprises ended in insignificant consequences. Some conqueror gathers all the forces of his state, fights for several years, his commanders become famous, and finally all this ends with the acquisition of a piece of land on which there is no place to sow potatoes; and sometimes, on the contrary, two sausage makers from two cities will fight among themselves over nonsense, and the quarrel will finally engulf the cities, then the towns and villages, and then the whole state.” The writer is ironic about such a story, about great historical events whose purpose is murder. Gogol sees the philosophical meaning of history in the idea of ​​peace, in the triumph of harmony and reconciliation. Reflections on the fundamental differences between the original (“old world”) culture of Russia and the latest European enlightenment of “civilized” St. Petersburg, between the “non-modern” but culturally valuable

Rome and the spiritually empty, bustling Paris in the story “Rome” (1842) lead Gogol to the conclusion that the spiritual degradation of the world can be stopped by love, which fulfills the mission of “retaining culture.”

Gogol believed in the possibility of transforming vulgar and low reality into a sublime world. All the dishonors that the writer so talentedly brought out in his works were associated “with the underdevelopment and undisclosed personality in Russia, with the suppression of the image of man.” As D. Chizhevsky accurately noted, no matter how insignificant the earthly world is, it is, according to Gogol, only “spoiled.” ““Abominations”, “rogues”, “vile”, “bribe takers” - in all of them the writer considers it necessary, first of all, to see the hidden or distorted good. And the main path is love for a person. Maybe someone else was not born a dishonest person at all, maybe one drop of love for him would be enough to return him to the straight path, N.V. Gogol believed.”

Following the traditions of Russian philosophy, the Russian classic saw the main goal in outlining ways of life based on comprehension of human nature. That is why the heroes of the works of the great Russian writer are social. Gogol's Chichikov has the “general formula” of a civilized person. The Chichikovs, notes N.A. Berdyaev, “buy up and resell non-existent wealth, they operate with fictions, not realities, they turn the entire economic life of Russia into fiction.” For the sake of his “overcoat” (Dutch shirts and foreign soap), Chichikov embarks on a scam. However, according to the fair remark of V.V. Nabokov, “by trying to buy dead people in a country where living people were legally bought and pawned, Chichikov hardly sinned seriously from a moral point of view.” Be that as it may, Chichikov is the only character in the poem who does something. Gogol discerns in him the future bourgeois, and he harnessed the Rus-troika to carry Chichikov - there were no others. From the distance of Italy, Gogol looked at his homeland with the gaze of a statesman. “For Russia to move, for “other peoples and states” to really stand aside, it is necessary for the allegorical troika to be controlled by Chichikov - an average, ordinary, petty person.” “Let’s harness the scoundrel,” says Gogol, attaching Chichikov to the bird-three, “but we’ll make sure that a man is born in the scoundrel.” So that he, realizing the baseness of his goal, directs his acumen, intelligence, and will towards the feat of Christian labor and state building.

Russian literature and philosophy have always been characterized by personalism, based on the conviction that without comprehending the essence of personality it is impossible to discuss other issues. That is why the focus of attention was constantly placed not so much on man as a natural being, but on the inexhaustible spiritual experience of the individual, the meaning of individual and collective existence. K. Mochulsky, exploring Gogol’s spiritual path, noted that the core of classical Russian culture is not connected with the image of the “external” person and the idea of ​​a radical transformation of society, as was seen, for example, by V. G. Belinsky, but with the motive of Christian personal improvement.

It is no coincidence that Christian anthropology occupies a significant place in the writer’s work, for Gogol’s spiritual path and his understanding of the meaning of “mental education” (a term first used by the author in 1842) are connected with it.

and became a favorite). Internal spiritual research forced him to some extent reconsider his views on writing. Gogol began to revise his views with himself: moralism, which grew out of increased personal self-awareness, increasingly pushes him towards spiritual self-education. In this case, the starting point is a new assessment by the writer of his inner world, a new self-awareness.

Gogol’s desire to present his new worldview was reflected in the publication entitled “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” (1847), which marked both the completion of the evolution of the writer’s philosophical views and his turn to a historiosophical analysis of the most significant aspects of world civilization and Russian society. According to E.I. Annenkova, this book represents “a kind of special phenomenon in which two leading trends of the time - interest in social issues and the search for the religious and spiritual content of life - appeared. in unity." Completing work on this book, Gogol noted: “I am printing it in the firm conviction that my book is needed and useful for Russia precisely at the present time.” From hidden reflection in his early works, the writer comes to an open sermon, the main issue of which is the problem of the development of Russia.

The book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” which became the fruit of eleven years of reflection by the Russian writer, presented a presentation of a social utopia, the main part of which was the project of a society with a total “Domostroevsky” regulation of all aspects of existence, in which the ideal state was conceived as an earthly likeness of the Heavenly Kingdom, and the ideal monarch is as a preacher of God's ideas. Hence the metaphysical and theological justification for royal power and social hierarchy. The main content of the book can be defined as a search for the future spiritual essence of Russia.

Gogol did not use any “correspondence with friends” in this book; only a very few articles vary individual thoughts that were previously included in actual letters. This is a purely literary work - a series of articles, which (and not all of them) are given only the form of letters, sometimes to real, and sometimes to imaginary addressees. Gogol's book is based on an analysis of the state of fiction, the social status of the landowner, the role of women in the creation and preservation of culture capable of influencing the world, and finally, the educational function of religion as the guardian of the spiritual culture of the people. Gogol revives the biblical tradition of prophetic denunciations and apostolic sermons and already in the first chapters declares his desire to influence society. The writer develops various forms of influence on society: the influence of women in society; the influence of the “governor”, ​​who drives out bribes and injustice; influence of the poet; the influence of “public reading”, from which “those who have never been shaken by the sounds of poetry will be shocked”; influence of playwrights; the influence of the Church on the flock; the influence on a person of “suffering and grief”, by which “it is determined for us to obtain grains of wisdom that cannot be acquired in books.” The program for fighting evil, according to Gogol, “should be the simplest, practical, utilitarian. Art, literature, aesthetics are not autonomous; their existence is justified only by the benefits they bring to humanity.”

“Selected passages from correspondence with friends” most fully express Gogol’s historiosophical views, which he expressed in the early period of his work, while teaching at the Patriotic Institute and St. Petersburg University. These views occupy an important place in his work and are a reflection of the writer’s interest in world history and the place of man in it.

In a lecture given at St. Petersburg University about the Baghdad caliph Al-Mamun, which was attended by A. S. Pushkin and V. A. Zhukovsky, Gogol characterized the caliph as a patron of the sciences, filled with a “thirst for enlightenment,” who saw in the sciences a “true guide” to happiness their subjects. However, the caliph, according to Gogol, contributed to the destruction of his state: “He lost sight of the great truth: that education is drawn from the people themselves, that superficial enlightenment should be borrowed to the extent that it can help its own development, but that the people must develop from their own national elements." Gogol expressed similar thoughts later. In his programmatic article “On Teaching World History” (1835), Gogol wrote that his goal was to educate the hearts of young listeners so that “they would not betray their duty, their faith, their noble honor and their oath - to be faithful to their fatherland and sovereign.” Gogol presents the history of mankind as the history of peoples, while historical individualism still dominates in its coverage. The role of peoples in Gogol is reduced to the role of inert masses who either follow the leaders or are suppressed by the iron will of individuals. Cyrus, Alexander, Columbus, Luther, Louis XIV, Napoleon - these, according to Gogol's scheme, are the milestones of world history.

Gogol's historical individualism stemmed from his philosophical anthropology, according to which man seems to renounce independent, conscious perception of reality, or rather, does not even suspect that this is possible. “Moreover,” notes P. M. Bicilli, “a Gogolian man sees, in the literal sense of the word, what is in front of him, as he is told to see... Without a push from the outside, a Gogolian man is in most cases unable to act.. All Gogol’s people are “dead souls”” (quoted from:).

Gogol's historiosophical views were formed during the period of cultural confrontation between Westerners and Slavophiles, so he showed special interest in the era of the decline of Ancient Rome and the advent of the barbarians to replace it. In the article “On the Movement of Nations at the End of the 5th Century” (1834), and then in the passage “Rome,” Gogol reveals the influence of Greco-Roman culture on the development of other peoples. He writes that this culture was able to recreate the barbarian tribes of Europe, pulling them out of savagery, because “Italy did not die. her irresistible eternal dominion over the whole world is heard, her great genius eternally blows over her, which already at the very beginning tied the fate of Europe in her chest, brought the cross into the dark European forests, captured the porcupine man with a civil hook on the far edge, boiled here for the first time with world trade , cunning politics and the complexity of civic springs, who later ascended with all the brilliance of his mind, crowned his brow with the holy crown of poetry and. arts. which until then had not risen from the bosom of his soul.” Gradually, this cultural movement is drawing all countries into its orbit, including Russia. However, further, with the aggravation of socio-economic and cultural contradictions in Russia,

so in Western Europe, the positive influence of European culture is questioned by Gogol.

Curious in this sense is the image of General Betrishchev, drawn in the second volume of Dead Souls, who believed that as soon as Russian men were dressed in German trousers, immediately “the sciences would rise, trade would rise and a golden age would come in Russia.” Western-oriented Russian intellectuals, according to Gogol, are among those home-grown wise men about whom Kostanzhoglo, another character in the second volume of Dead Souls, ironically remarked that they, “without first recognizing their own, become foolish of others.” It is necessary, Gogol emphasized, that a Russian citizen not only know the affairs of Europe, but above all do not lose sight of Russian principles, otherwise the “commendable greed to know foreign things” will not bring good: “Both before and now I was confident that it was necessary it is very good and very deep to know our Russian nature and that only with the help of this knowledge can we feel what exactly we should take and borrow from Europe, which itself does not say this.”

In the “Petersburg Tales” cycle, Gogol points out the internal devastation of Europe and the growing power of pragmatic philistinism in it, the refusal to search for “treasures in heaven” and the collection of “earthly treasures,” which is fraught with the threat of falling away from God. Most of all, this was expressed in the aesthetic decline of Europe and the birth of vulgarity. Behind the external splendor and improvement of the West, Gogol saw the beginnings of socio-political catastrophes. “In Europe, such turmoil is now brewing everywhere that no human remedy will help when it opens up, and the fears that you now see in Russia will be an insignificant thing.” Criticizing the Western civilization of his time, Gogol believed that only Orthodoxy preserved the full depth of Christianity, preventing humanity from moving away from God.

Gogol's understanding of Russia's historical place and the affirmation of its messianic role in the world are based not on external improvements, the international authority of the country or its military power, but on the spiritual foundations of the national character. Gogol's view of Russia is, first of all, the view of a Christian, aware that all material wealth must be subordinated to a higher goal and directed towards it. Comprehension of Russia, he believed, was possible through knowledge of the nature of the Russian national character. Gogol, wherever he could, wrote about Rus', Russian people, Russian land, Russian soul and spirit. His “Taras Bulba,” according to the correct observation of researchers, “turned out to be a pagan Russian epic, which was so lacking in Russian written literature and which produced the main deficiency of Russian literature - strong unreasoning heroes, beautiful, as in the Scandinavian sagas, in all dimensions.” From the heights of the history of Russian literature, Gogol’s “Taras Bulba” is assessed as an ideological, patriotic work of high quality, which has no equal.

According to Gogol, national character is not something given once and for all, immovable. Possessing some eternal, “substantial” features, it is formed and modified under the influence of certain geographical and historical conditions. Contrasting Russia with foreign countries, Gogol noted that Russia is still “melted metal, not cast into its national form,” it still has the opportunity to throw away, push away everything

indecent and to bring into oneself what is no longer possible for other peoples who have received the form and have been tempered in it.

Being influenced by the Slavophiles, Gogol considers Russia a country especially chosen by God's Providence. “Why is it that neither France, nor England, nor Germany are infected with this epidemic and do not prophesy about themselves, but only Russia prophesies? Because she, more than others, hears God’s hand on everything that happens in her and senses the approach of another kingdom: that is why the sounds become biblical among our poets.” Russia came closer to Christ than other countries; The truth of Christ lives unconsciously in the people's soul. The Russian state is Christian, moreover, a “heavenly state”, almost the kingdom of God. “Now each of us must serve not as he would have served in the former Russia, but in another heavenly state, the head of which is Christ Himself” (quoted from:). For Gogol, the concept of Christianity is higher than civilization. He saw the guarantee of Russia's identity and its main spiritual value in Orthodoxy. The Russian messianic idea is expressed in this hyperbolic form, characteristic of Gogol.

In “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” Gogol acted as a thinker striving to establish the best structure for the country, the only correct hierarchy of positions, in which everyone fulfills his duty in his own place and is more deeply aware of his responsibility the higher the position. Faith in a person, even if he is in a state of spiritual sleep, notes V. Zenkovsky, “is the principle on which Gogol stood, and, relying on it, he built his plan for a “common cause”, arranging life on Christian principles . It was this pathos of positive construction that determined Gogol’s criticism of modernity and his dreams of how “in every place” one can serve Christ and find the path of life.” All questions of life - everyday, social, state, literary - had a religious and moral meaning for him. Recognizing and accepting the existing order of things, he sought to change society through the transformation of man. What is important here is that Gogol no longer thinks only about the “Russian man,” as the Slavophiles did, in particular, but about man as such. And the writer called his book “a touchstone for recognizing a modern person.”

In Gogol's historiosophy, the fates of Russia, the Church and the autocracy are closely intertwined. His sovereign is the “image of God” on earth, embodying not only duty, but also love. “Only there will the people be completely healed, where the monarch will comprehend his highest meaning - to be the image of Him on earth, Who Himself is love.” Considering the future Russia as a theocratic state, Gogol did not hide his sympathy for the nobility as an educated class. In its “truly Russian core,” Gogol believed, this class is beautiful, it is the guardian of “moral nobility” and requires special attention from the Sovereign. Gogol set two tasks for the nobility: “to perform a truly noble and high service to the Tsar”, taking “unattractive places and positions, disgraced by low commoners,” and to enter into “truly Russian” relations with the peasants, “to look at them like fathers at their children.” ".

Gogol explained the reasons for Peter’s reforms by the need to “awaken” the Russian people, as well as by the fact that “European enlightenment was too mature, the influx of it was too great not to burst in sooner or later.”

from all sides into Russia and without such a leader as Peter was, it would not be possible to create much greater discord in everything than what actually occurred later.” He saw serfdom as a direct consequence of Peter’s reforms and called for thinking in advance so that “liberation would not be worse than slavery.” In the surviving chapters of the second volume of Dead Souls, the landowner Khlobuev says about his peasants: “I would have set them free long ago, but there would be no sense in that.” At the same time, Gogol tirelessly reminded of the sacred responsibilities of landowners towards the peasants. He saw the true abolition of serfdom not in the European proletarianization of the Russian peasantry, but in the transformation of noble estates into monastic ones in spirit, where the task of eternal salvation would take its rightful place.

N.V. Gogol’s historiosophical reflections were of a conservative-religious nature and fell out of the context of his contemporary socio-political situation, which caused a strong reaction to the publication of “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends.” Most of the reproaches concerned two subjects - distortion of Russian reality and slander against the Russian people. A negative reaction to the book followed both from the radical intelligentsia, for example A.I. Herzen and V.G. Belinsky, and from the clergy (in particular, Father Matvey Konstantinovsky, who played a role in the writer’s burning of the second volume, spoke very negatively about the book "Dead Souls") The most serious accusations came from V. G. Belinsky, who in his famous letter wrote: “Even people, apparently of the same spirit as its spirit, abandoned your book,” meaning Slavophiles who were ideologically and personally close to Gogol of that time .

The reaction to Gogol's book showed that Russian society fell apart into two camps, whose positions differed in their attitude to the problem of Russia's historical and religious vocation. Very few of the writer’s contemporaries were able to understand his state of mind. These include, first of all, P. Ya. Chaadaev and A. S. Khomyakov. Thus, Chaadaev, not completely agreeing with Gogol’s assessment of the Russian church and its position in society, in a letter to P. A. Vyazemsky supported the enthusiastic tone of his reasoning about Gogol: “...With some pages weak, and others even sinful, in his book there are pages of amazing beauty, full of boundless truth, pages such that, reading them, you rejoice and are proud that you speak the language in which such things are said.” Khomyakov, having read the book, spoke of Gogol as an independent thinker.

With the release of “Selected Places,” an era began in Russia, called by N. A. Berdyaev “the new Middle Ages,” and the confrontation between two thinkers - Gogol and Belinsky - marked the beginning of the secularization of Russian culture. D. Chizhevsky notes that Gogol’s book did not represent “glimpses of madness” and was by no means a reactionary political step, but the fruit of the influence of patristic literature and Protestant ideas on his work. This influence can be traced in Gogol’s proclamation of the need to “church” all Russian life as a condition for the spiritual revival of Russia.

Following the Slavophiles, Gogol sees in the Church a way of finding oneself. Close to Gogol is the Slavophiles’ understanding of human existence as “a created being illuminated by the Church as a source of light.” "Eat

the reconciler of everything within our land itself, which is not yet visible to everyone, is our Church. It contains everything that is needed for a truly Russian life, in all its relations, from the state to the simple family, the mood for everything, the direction for everything, the legal and right path for everything.” No good transformations in the country are possible without the blessing of the Church: “For me, the idea of ​​​​introducing some kind of innovation into Russia, bypassing our Church, without asking her blessing for it, is crazy. It is absurd even to instill any European ideas into our thoughts until she christens them with the light of Christ.”

The ideal of the churching of all Russian life, put forward by Gogol, is based on his deep conviction in the catholicity of the Church. People are brothers, living for each other, bound by a common guilt before the Lord, mutual responsibility and responsibility. All individualism and selfish isolation are from the devil. In the spiritual realm there is no private property: everything is God’s, all gifts are sent for everyone. Gogol writes with bitterness in “Selected Places” about the absence of such conciliar agreement, about the chaos and discord that reigns around and which Dostoevsky would later call “isolation”: “Now everyone is at odds with each other, and everyone lies and slanderes each other mercilessly . Everyone quarreled: our nobles are like cats and dogs among themselves; merchants are like cats and dogs among themselves; Philistines are like cats and dogs among themselves. Even honest and kind people are at odds with each other; only between the rogues is something resembling friendship and union seen at a time when one of them will be strongly persecuted.”

The main source of such disunity and hostility, Gogol believes, is luxury, which everyone must strive to eradicate: “Drive away this disgusting nasty luxury, this ulcer of Russia, the source of bribes, injustices and abominations that we have. If you manage to do just this one thing, then you will bring more significant benefit than Princess O herself. And this, as you can see for yourself, does not even require any donations, and does not even take time.” At the same time, Gogol calls not to despair and not to be embarrassed by external unrest, but to try to restore order in one’s own soul: “It’s not a bad idea for each of us to look into our own soul. Take a look at yours too. God knows, maybe you will see the same disorder there for which you scold others. “Do not flee on a ship from your land, saving your despised earthly property, but, saving your soul, without leaving the state, each of us must save ourselves in the very heart of the state.” The writer connects his hopes for the salvation of his soul with the nature of the Russian person, who, according to him, knows how to be grateful for every good thing and who, as soon as he notices that another is showing sympathy for him, is almost ready to ask for forgiveness.

The book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” did not become a spiritual manifesto of its time, although Gogol tried with its help to build a model of Russian development based on the values ​​of Orthodox culture. This book can be accepted or rejected, but its significance cannot be denied. "Selected places." is the fruit of many years of intense moral reflection and great spiritual experience. “In the moral field, Gogol was brilliantly gifted; he was

it is destined to turn all Russian literature abruptly from aesthetics to religion, to shift it from the path of Pushkin to the path of Dostoevsky. All the features that characterize the “great Russian literature”, which has become world literature, were outlined by Gogol: its religious and moral system, its citizenship and public spirit, its militant and practical character, its prophetic pathos and messianism.” N. G. Chernyshevsky emphasized at one time that works of art not only “reproduce life and explain it,” but also have a third meaning - “the meaning of a verdict about the phenomenon of life.” Gogol's works fully represented a verdict on the phenomena of Russian reality and had a prophetic meaning.

Turning to the philosophical aspects of the work of the great Russian writer N.V. Gogol allows us to significantly expand the horizons of understanding the writer’s works and become imbued with his prophetic ideas. Gogol not only pronounced a “sentence on the phenomena of Russian life,” but also managed to show ways of restructuring Russian life on the basis of beauty, love for people, and service to the Fatherland. Gogol’s call to himself to “create with great reflection” may well be perceived by everyone as an indispensable condition for a conscious lifestyle, the ability to reflect on the world around him and himself.

Literature

1. Voropaev V. A. Russian emigration about Gogol // Educational portal “Word”. URL: http:// www.portal-slovo.ru/philology/37129.php (access date: 10/05/2014).

2. Zenkovsky V.V. Russian thinkers and Europe. M.: Republic, 1997. 368 p.

3. Gogol N.V. Complete. collection cit.: in 14 volumes. M.: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1937-1952. T. II. 1937. 762 pp.; T. III. 1938. 726 pp.; T. V. 1949. 508 pp.; T. VIII. 1952. 816 pp.; T. XIII. 1952. 564 p.

4. Mochulsky K.V. Gogol. Soloviev. Dostoevsky. URL: http://www royallib.com/read/k_ mochulskiy/gogol_solovev_dostoevskiy.html 0 (access date: 10/05/2014).

5. Mann Yu. V. Gogol. Book three. Completion of the journey: 1845-1852. M.: Publishing house of the Russian State University for the Humanities, 2013. 497 p.

6. Berdyaev N. A. Spirits of the Russian Revolution. URL: http://www.elib.spbstu.ru/dl/327/Theme_9/Sources/Berdajev_duhi.pdf (access date: 10/05/2014).

7. Chizhevsky D.I. Unknown Gogol // Russian philosophers. Late XIX - mid XX century. Anthology / comp. A. Filonova. M.: Book Chamber, 1996. pp. 296-324.

8. Nabokov V.V. Lectures on Russian literature. M.: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 1996. 440 p.

9. Weil P., Genis A. Native speech: Lessons in fine literature. M.: Publishing House CoLibri; ABC-Atticus, 2011. 256 p.

10. Annenkova E.I. Gogol and Russian society. St. Petersburg: Rostock, 2012. 752 p.

11. Kantor V.K. Russian classics, or the Genesis of Russia. M.: Russian Political Encyclopedia, 2005. 768 p.

12. Gogol N.V. Collection. cit.: in 9 volumes. T. 9. M.: Russian Book, 1994. 779 p.

13. Belinsky V. G. Letter to Gogol. M.: Fiction, 1956. 29 p.

14. Chernyshevsky N. G. Aesthetic relations of art to reality. URL: http://www. smalt.karelia.ru/~filolog/lit/ch118.pdf (date of access: 10.10.2014).

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