THE PHENOMENON OF THE HORRIFIC IN THE LIFE-CREATING ACTIVITY OF M. GOGOL: A PHILOSOPHICAL-ANTHROPOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

This chapter discusses the “Gogolian province,” as epitomized in Dead Souls' Town of N, a place defined almost wholly by absence and lack. Gogol's provinces are not just philistine, not just behind the times, but seem instead to represent an unfillable cultural and psychic void. This chapter examines the historically shaped (but aesthetically transformed) meanings of “the provinces” that inform Gogol's thought, particularly in Dead Souls, The Inspector General, and Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends—texts that span much of his career but share almost identical concerns when it comes to provintsiia and its meanings. Provintsiia here takes on a function it is not consistently called upon to fulfill in the works of other authors considered thus far. In Gogol's works, the concept very clearly serves as a way of raising questions about Russian identity more broadly.

The writings of Nikolai Gogol' reflect the complexity of the author's world perception and, as such, contain many diverse elements. This diversity has made Gogols works a popular subject of literary criticism and scholarly research for more than one and a half centuries. Some Gogol' scholars, such as Adolf StenderPetersen, Viktor Vinogradov, and Iurii Mann, have sought to understand and interpret Gogols works by focusing on parallels between his literary creations and the writings of his contemporaries and immediate predecessors. ' A few scholars, however, have looked beyond Gogols immediate predecessors and have pointed out parallels between his literary style and baroque literary traditions. One of the first to note baroque elements in Gogols writings was Stepan Shevyrev. In his article on Dead Souls, Shevyrev did not mention the term baroque (the word was not yet in vogue among scholars) but did point to the highly colorful nature of Gogols style. Shevyrev also noted stylistic embellishments in Gogols language and the lushness and massiveness of his phrasing, a characteristic of the baroque.2 Shevyrev's observations, while they are valid as the first suggestion of baroque elements in Gogols poetics, do not reveal the origins of the baroque tradition in Gogols works. A connection between the works of Gogol' and baroque culture was established only in the twentieth century by Vladimir Rozov and, later, Vasilii Gippius, who linked Gogols writings to Ukrainian interludes and vertep-the Ukrainian puppet theater.3 The first scholar who used the term baroque in regard to Gogols works was Andrei Belyi. In his book, Masterstvo Gogolia, he compared Gogols phrasing to a highly ornate baroque building.4 Belyi was followed by Dmitrii Chizhevskii, who connected Gogols writings to the Ukrainian baroque literary tradition.5 A relation between Gogols works and Ukrainian and Italian baroque traditions was noted by Andrei Siniavskii in

The article deals with the concept of ‘tea’ in the poem by Nikolai Gogol Dead Souls. The main representations of this concept in the poem are identified, its influence on the plot and the composition is determined, conclusions about the symbolic meaning of tea in Dead Souls are provided. Representations of the concept of ‘tea’ in the text of the poem are compared with the representations of the studied concept in other works by Gogol such as The Government Inspector, Nevsky Prospekt, The Portrait, The Nose, The Overcoat and others, which made it possible to draw a conclusion about the special role of tea in Dead Souls. The actualization of the studied concept in the text is compared with the literary and historical context, it is shown what Gogol’s innovativeness lies in, the features of the Gogol literary tea drinking are identified. In Dead Souls, the author pays special attention to treats, with the role of tea still being more significant than the role of other treats. Tea emphasizes the contrasts in the text, allows the author to make the grotesque brighter, illustrates the motive of the road, and serves as a vivid household detail. Key representations of the concept of ‘tea’ in the poem are: ‘an element of hospitality’, ‘an attribute of friendship’, ‘tea as a commodity’, ‘tea as an element of luxury’, ‘tea as part of alcohol culture’. Tea is inextricably connected with the key symbolic leitmotive of the work – the motive of the road. The representation of ‘tea as an attribute of travel’ brings the Gogol’s poem closer to other texts of Russian literature where tea is part of the semantic field ‘road’, and the path itself is endowed with a symbolic meaning.

This article examines the influence of patristic writings, liturgical books, Holy Scripture on the spiritual life of N.V. Gogol. The writer's epistolary legacy, connected with spiritual problems, is analyzed. Examples are given of the artistic embodiment of patristic spirituality in his work. This article will be useful to specialists who study life and works of Gogol in the spiritual aspect.

<p>Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol is one of Russian writers who played important role in the Golden Age of Russian literature in the XIX century. He created a new writing style called critical realism where reality is represented as bad and negative, with an assumption that people through such representation will attain a new awereness of reality. This paper aims at exploring the idea of concept of critical realism through the examination of the characters in Gogol's works in Dead Souls. </p><p>An analysis of the characters in Dead Souls reveals an understanding of critical realism. Social critics in these works are presented in ironic humor that they do not appear too harsh. The conflict between the characters indicated by their humanization and desocialization which produce a condition where individuals oriented only to material concerns. There was a depersonalization process where a human being loses himself. There was also a description of how Russian values found in local wisdom (obchshina) that emphasizes communal life, familiarity of equality (obshestvo), simplicity and honesty (narodnicestvo) and non-religiousity (sveti lyudi) disappear, defeated by the increasing materialism.</p>

One of the “key” works of Gogol's heritage is analyzed ― the first prose work that appeared in print, the short novel (‘povest’) “Bisavryuk, or The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala” (1830). Gogol’s literary debut in prose is a key work in the sense that it opens the door to understanding the writer’s subsequent work. Based on numerous facts, it is established that since his very first steps in literature, Gogol played the role of a conscious spiritual mentor and preacher. His first prose work (Gogol began as the author of the poems “Italy” and “Gantz Kuchelgarten”) is a sort of literary ekphrasis, which is centered around the theme of spiritual discipline. The short novel (‘povest’) is “theology in images,” and the clergyman, a representative of the common man’s milieu, a rural deacon (church reader, psalm reader), on whose behalf the story is narrated, becomes the author’s alter ego. For the first time, an analytical comparison of two editions of “Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala” was undertaken: the original journal version on one side and the subsequent one included in the “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” collection (the first edition of the short novel (‘povest’) was called “Bisavryuk, or Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala”; in the second, Gogol dropped the beginning of the title, leaving only the second part, “Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala”). The comparison shows that the first edition is more frank in expressing the religious views of the author than the second one. In the second edition, Gogol tempered the excessive edification and categorical nature of the original version. It is emphasized that as early as in this short novel (‘povest’), Gogol separates himself from superstitions and “childish prejudices” inherent in popular consciousness and focuses his talent on exposing those phenomena that have survived in the public, folk life from the pagan era. As a faithful ethnographer, a deep connoisseur of folk psychology and folklore, in the first short novel (‘povest’), contrary to the widespread interpretations of his work in radical criticism, the writer already appears not only as an original writer of everyday life, but also an astute thinker and theologian, like his predecessor, St. Tikhon of Zadonsk. From the first “Little Russian” short novel (‘povest’) one can guess many features of the future creator of “Dead Souls”, “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends”, and “Reflections on the Divine Liturgy”.

In the aspect of the “scientific-research dialogue” of the author of this study with the writer of the twentieth century Sergei Nikolaevich Sergeev-Tsensky, his publicistic miniatures “Gogol as an artist of the word” (1952), “Talent and genius” (1957), included in the collection “Work hard and joyfully”. It is emphasized that the writer’s work the of the twentieth century Sergeev-Tsensky was written as a pedagogical parting word to future generations and as a call to cherish and study their native Russian language, to cherish the Russian word on the material of the “genius of artistic expression” Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. The stylistic and poetic findings of the writer in various stories, in the poem “Dead Souls” and in the dramatic work – the comedy “The Government Inspector” are considered. The ways of creating a literary portrait and landscape, the language system means in depicting the psychological details of the portrait and landscape characteristics of comic heroes (on the example of the portrait of Sobakevich), as well as the speech characteristics of the “The Government Inspector” are investigated. Attention is drawn to Gogol’s techniques of “style play” and some deliberate violations of lexical norms in the construction of portrait characteristics in order to emphasize very significant psychological details. As an addition to Sergeev-Tsensky’s reasoning, the specifics of Gogol’s descriptiveness in the real and the fantastic synthesis are specified on the example of significant details, for example, the story “Viy” from the “Mirgorod” cycle. The fear of the author of “Mirgorod” and “Taras Bulba” of confusion in the minds of the characters of Divine and demonic forces is emphasized.

This article is the first scholarly comprehensive study of the stage history and critical reception of Nikolai Gogol on the Lublin Stage (Poland) from 1869 up to 1939. The work fills a gap in theatrical research. The author describes unknown facts, Gogol’s unpublished stage history on the example of Lublin, within a historical and cultural context (the time of the Russian Partition of Poland), and then in the post-independence period in Poland (1918-1939). The study was based on source materials (press and archival materials). The following aspects are studied: artistic creations, the means of artistic expressions, audience reactions and critics’ opinions. The Government Inspector (Revisor) was mostly staged in The Lublin Theatre, although views on the work’s meaning changed. The subject of attention is both the stagings of Gogol’ plays in Polish (from the Lublin’s première of The Government Inspector in 1890) and performances in the original language: the same play by Russian amateurs (1869), of Imperial drama troupes (e.g., The Government Inspector directed by N. Arbenin in the late 19th century), and of the Stanislavsky Theatre (1931). Among Gogol’s plays and adaptations performed on the Lublin stage were The Marriage (at the School Theatre, 1900; a guest première of the Zelwerowicz ensemble, in Polish, 1909 and the Stanislavsky Theatre, in Russian, in 1931), Dead Souls (1897, in the original), as well as: Taras Bulba (1897), The Viy with supernatural elements (1901, 1902), A May Night (1902) staged as a guest performance by Ukrainian theatre companies.

For the first time, an analytical review of all, without exception, censorship stories of N.V. Gogol’s works is presented. An objective picture of Gogol's relationship with the censorship is being recreated. The findings of the study allow, with good reason, to judge about the interference of censors in the writer's works in a fundamentally different way, in comparison with the ideas offered by literary criticism of the previous period without solid evidence. Based on a thorough analysis, involving numerous archival sources, the common, stereotypical opinions about the extremely negative role of censorship in Gogol’s fate are being revised. The most significant negative result among all censorship interventions in Gogol's works was the activity of the censor of Westernizing views, opposed to the government, a professor at St. Petersburg University, A.V. Nikitenko. It is the numerous reductions of Nikitenko, И.А. Виноградов. Произведения Н .В. Гоголя и цензура 255 a friend of V.G. Belinsky, in Gogol's religious and patriotic book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” that the writer called “censorship murder”. No less significant was the intervention of the liberal censor in the texts of “Dead Souls”, “Theatrical Travel after the Presentation of a New Comedy” and other works of the writer. It is concluded that, with the exception of this “intrigue” against Gogol by the censor Nikitenko, on the whole Gogol's texts encountered relatively insignificant difficulties in censorship.

The Nationalism of Nikolai Gogol': Betwixt and Between?1Mr. Nicolas de Gogol, Ukrainien, etabli a Moscou, auteur de quelques comedies russes.Almanach de Carlsbad (1846)On lui reproche, m'a-t-on dit, certain patriotisme provincial. Petit-Russien, il auvrait je ne sais quelle predilection pour la Petite-Russie au prejudice du reste de l'empire.Prosper Merimee (1851)2Ever since his first stories were published in 1831-1832 much has been written about Gogol' as a Ukrainian and his relationship to Ukrainian culture. Nevertheless, s dominant image today remains that of the monolithic Great Russian Writer (velikii russkii pisatel'). It is amazing how many readers and students (especially Russians from the former Soviet Union) are unaware that Gogol' was a Ukrainian and that he had strong Ukrainian sympathies. Perhaps this should not be surprising given that much of Gogolian scholarship considers his Ukrainian origins to be no more relevant than, say, if he were bom in Tula or Kaluga. Studies of this kind give the impression of deliberately weaving a torturously complex thread tiirough the fabric of his life and work in order to avoid bumping into its Ukrainian aspects. The latter are regularly marginalized as sometiung insignificant and shortlived-or treated as a variant of an ill-defined Russianness. While tiiere has been serious scholarship, both Ukrainian and Russian, that has demonstrated the centrality of Gogof's Ukrainian background to an understanding of his life and work-one thinks of people as diverse as Panteleimon Kulish, Ievhen Malaniuk, George Luckyj, Iurii Barabash, Iosif Mandelshtam, Vasilii Gippius, to name a few-virtually no one today in mainstream criticism identifies him, as did, say, Piksanov in the 1930s, as a Ukrainian-Russian writer.3 The prevalent tendency is still to distance Gogol' from Ukraine and to place him in an unambivalently Russian national context. In 1999 Boris Gasparov expressed the view thatIt would be futile to characterize Gogol as an ardent Ukrainian patriot, a champion of its land and people. Such a depiction of Gogol shares the fate of other officious portraits of the writer that view him, for example, as a critical realist or as the defender of the small man.. .4Gasparov adds: Romantic mythologization of his double national allegiance offers little to those who would like to see him as a champion of Ukrainian history, language, and (p. 122). Clarence Brown, writing soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, expressed in a feuilleton die hope that ...perhaps Ukrainians will feel sufficiently secure in the possession of tiieir own state, their own language and tiieir own literature to cease claiming Nikolai Gogol' as an ornament of their national culture....5 The patronizing tone we see here is not untypical for those who see Gogol' as an archetypal Russian writer whose only natural place is in Russian literature and culture.It is precisely against such positions that Edyta M. Bojanowska's book Nikolai Gogol: Between Ukrainian and Russian Nationalism is written. Diplomatically, elegantly, and with sharp intelligence, she sets out to undermine this Russocentric view of (p. 5):The standard Russian view of Gogol holds that he was an ardent and sincere Russian patriot. His Ukrainian heritage, for all the fruit it provided his inspiration, amounted to no more than an accident of birth that he shed like a cocoon once he found his true place in Russian culture... Gogol's overriding allegiance to Russian nationalism, according to this canonical view, shines through brilliantly and unambiguously in his writings, which furnish ample 'proofs' for reconstructing the writer's national psyche. The artistic integrity of Gogol's works, their embeddedness in larger social and nationalist contexts, their irony, and the complex devices of narratorial misdirection and distancing that Gogol practiced with considerable skill can all be brushed aside in this grand project of nationalistic exegesis. …

The first substantial study of the Arabic autobiography, Franz Rosenthal's “Die arabische Autobiographie” appeared in 1937 and has yet to be superseded. Rosenthal mentions most of the autobiographies well known to historians and literary scholars of the Middle East, including al-Ghazāli's (d. 505/1111) spiritual biography, al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl, Usāmah ibn Munqidh's (d. 584/1188) Kitāb al-i'tibār, famous for its humorous anecdotes about the behavior of the Crusader Franks, Ibn Khaldūn's (d. 809/1406) autobiography, included at the end of his voluminous history Kitāb al-‘ibar and since published separately, al-Suyūṭī's (d. 911/1505) al-Taḥadduth bi-ni'mati ‘Llāh, and a number of others. The first autobiographical text known in Arabic is ascribed to Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq al-'Ibādī (d. 260/873), the famous translator of Greek scientific works. It is included in the biographical dictionary of Ibn Abī Uṣaybi'ah (d. 668/1270) and described as “Treatise on the Trials and Tribulations which Befell Him” (risālah fīmā aṣābahū min al-miḥan wa ‘sh-shadā'id).

The article examines two remarks to the article by N. N. Strakhov “The Fatal Question” (1863): “From Travel Memories of Polonism” (1867) and “Political Conversation with the Poles” (1870). Both texts appeared on the pages of the new periodicals “World Work” and “Zarya”, following the traditions of the magazines “Moskvityanin”, “Vremya” and “Epoch”. Despite the difference in editorial tactics and strategies, it can be stated that in both cases the monologue discourse of the original article was transferred into a dialogic channel and staged, arranged as a conversation on a train. Thus, the arguments presented by Strakhov were presented in essays, skits and impromptu interviews for propaganda purposes. At the end of the article, a hypothesis is put forward about the attribution of the two texts under consideration Strakhov, and also a hypothesis is put forward about the semiotics of behavior, determined by the addition and commenting on a previously completed work, which brought disappointment and trauma to its creator. In this case, the defining figure in this model was and remains Gogol, the author of The Government Inspector, who felt an urgent need to convey to the reader the innermost thing he was trying to express. Of course, with each new iteration, Gogol moved further and further away from the position of the author, expressing the voice of a non-trivial and exceptional reader. A similar paradox was associated with Dead Souls. Strakhov, as some pages of his biography show, was prone to resentment, and the ban on his article, as well as the closure of the “Vremya” magazine, was experienced by him as an insult to his honor and dignity, a doubt thrown into the public arena in his competence and objectivity. Using a stable plot situation of a conversation on a train, Strakhov, experiencing the catastrophe that befell the original text (in his eyes, practically The Government Inspector), created his variations of Theatrical Passage. However, the difference was that the critic and publicist Kositsa was never able to go beyond the limits of speculative journalism built on the manipulation of public opinion. In this he differed from his brilliant interlocutors – Dostoevsky and Tolstoy – whose artistic texts, by no means limited to roadside conversations about the fateful questions of modernity, demonstrated a breakthrough to the transcendental.

The method of constructing dialogical relations between the regional edition and the all-Russian cultural discourse is considered. On the material of the pre-revolutionary issues of the Kharkov newspaper “Southern Edge” (1900–1905; 1914–1917), conclusions are drawn about the poetics of the “anniversary cycles” dedicated to honoring the memory of N.V. Gogol, V.A. Zhukovsky, N.A. Nekrasov, A.P. Chekhov and other Russian and foreign writers. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the attempt to discover patterns in the coverage of literary celebrations on the pages of the provincial press. The relevance of the paper is due to the fact that the study of the representation of general literary phenomena in the “Southern Edge” makes it possible to identify forms of communication between Russian literature and journalism at the beginning of the 20th century. Particular attention is paid to the genres and speech design of the anniversary cycles. The classification and plots of materials that are receptive in relation to the literary canon of the 19th century are presented. The key substantive aspects in the actualization of the works are highlighted: “Demon”, “Who is happy in Russia”, “The Government Inspector”, “Dead Souls” etc. The functional nature of the interpretation of the classics and coverage of anniversary celebrations is determined: enlightening readers, building links with the capital's periodicals, entry into the common cultural space of Russia and Europe, the formation of historical and literary memory.

<p>The article for the first time raises a question about one of the profiles of Gogol’s activity as a “satirist”, a denouncer of morals. In his writings the author inevitably follows the laws of the Russian Empire, more than a hundred of volumes of which were published during his lifetime. It is emphasized that Gogol's desire to devote himself to justice, dated back to his school days, he carried through all his whole life. He considered his writings, as well as the legacy of Homer, Derzhavin, Fonvizin and Griboedov, as educational, “legislative” for contemporaries. The writer created every his writing, by his own admission, as a support for the “truthful laws” of the State and Church, the unity of which was determined by the peculiarities of the legislation of the Orthodox State. The work consistently traces reminiscences of <em>The Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire</em> contained in the first Gogol’s series <em>Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka</em>, the collection <em>Mirgorod</em>, St. Petersburg novels, <em>The Government Inspector</em>, <em>Dead Souls</em>, the comedy <em>The Gamblers</em>, etc. The government decrees were also mentioned in Gogol’s works, for example, Anti-Superstition laws, alcohol laws, wine tax and beverage production laws, tax arrears laws, “souls inspection” decrees and “documents audit”, prohibitive decrees on bribes, moneylending, harlotry, gambling and so forth. The connection of the “legislative” problems with the laws of Gogol’s poetics, their unity in the works of all genres and all periods of Gogol’s creative activity is emphasized.</p>

During the period from 1929 to 1936 when Bulgakov was working on Molière, two other writers also came particularly to occupy his attention. His 1930 stage adaptation of Gogol's Myortvye dushi (Dead Souls) was followed in 1934 by a film scenario of the same novel, as well as a second film scenario, this time of Revizor (The Government Inspector). And in 1934–5 he wrote his biographical play about Pushkin, Posledniye dni (The Last Days). But where Bulgakov's response to Molière had engendered a compact and coherent series of works, the return to the nineteenth century and to Russian subjects produced a rather more fragmented response. Pushkin is absent from the play which treats of his biography; and Bulgakov shied away from writing any works about Gogol, preferring instead to evoke his presence through lyrical narrative devices. The question naturally arises as to whether this is due to any particular feelings on Bulgakov's part about his Russian forebears, as opposed to the European tradition; whether he felt that in the Molière works he had expressed his views on the writer in such a comprehensive manner that there was now room to embrace new concerns as well as consolidating his earlier themes; or, indeed, whether the painful lessons he had learned from the hostile reception of his Molière works had not simply made him wary of treating too explicitly in print of his favourite theme of the writer.