Lesson 19 Romantic works.

The purpose of the lesson: acquaintance with the life and work of N.V. Gogol; repetition of previously studied works of the writer; strengthening note-taking skills.

Lesson objectives.

1. Continue acquaintance with the life and work of the great Russian writer; to show the originality and uniqueness, the significance of N.V. Gogol's work for Russian literature;
2. Develop the ability to choose the main thing, keep a short note of the lecture, take notes.
3. To educate moral qualities, aesthetic taste of students.

Lesson type: combined.

Equipment.

1. multimedia installation.
2. Presentation “N.V. Gogol”.

Epigraphs.

Gogol's influence on Russian literature was enormous. Not only all young talents rushed to the path indicated by him, but also some writers, who had already gained fame, went along the same path, leaving their former one.

V.G. Belinsky

He told us who we are, what we lack, what we should strive for, what we should abhor, and what we should love. And his whole life was a passionate struggle with ignorance and rudeness ... all was animated by one ardent, unchanging goal - the thought of serving the good of the motherland.

N. G. Chernyshevsky

During the classes

1. Organizational moment.

2. Learning new material.

Viewing the presentation is accompanied by a teacher's story and a conversation with students on the previously studied works of N.V. Gogol. (the presentation is prepared by the students)

During the teacher's lecture, the children make a brief summary of the lecture.

Childhood years were spent in the estate of parents Vasilievka, near the village of Dikanka, the land of legends, beliefs, historical traditions. In the upbringing of the future writer, his father, Vasily Afanasyevich, a passionate admirer of art, a theater lover, an author of poetry and witty comedies, played a certain role. .In 1818-19 Gogol, together with his brother Ivan, studied at the Poltava district school, and then, in 1820-1821, took private lessons.

In May 1821 he entered the gymnasium of higher sciences in Nizhyn. Here he paints, participates in performances - as a decorator and as an actor, and with particular success performs comic roles. He also tries himself in various literary genres (writes elegiac poems, tragedies, a historical poem, a story). Then he wrote the satire "Something about Nizhyn, or the law is not written for Fools" (not preserved).

After graduating from high school in 1828, Gogol went to St. Petersburg. Experiencing financial difficulties, unsuccessfully fussing about the place, Gogol makes the first literary tests: at the beginning of 1829, the poem "Italy" appears, and in the spring of the same year, under the pseudonym "V. Alov", Gogol prints "an idyll in pictures" "Hanz Küchelgarten". The poem evoked very negative reviews from critics, which increased the heavy mood of Gogol, who throughout his life experienced criticism of his works very painfully.

In July 1829, he burned unsold copies of the book and suddenly went abroad, to Germany, and by the end of September almost as suddenly returned to St. Petersburg. At the end of 1829, he managed to decide on a service in the department of state economy and public buildings of the Ministry of the Interior. From April 1830 to March 1831, he served in the department of appanages (at first as a clerk, then as an assistant clerk), under the supervision of the famous idyllic poet V.I. rich material for future works, depicting bureaucratic life and the functioning of the state machine.

In 1832, Gogol's book "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" was published, based on Ukrainian folk art - songs, fairy tales, folk beliefs and customs, as well as on the personal impressions of the author himself. This book brought Gogol great success. The appearance of Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, according toPushkin, was an unusual phenomenon in Russian literature. Gogol opened to the Russian reader the wonderful world of folk life, imbued with the romance of folk legends and traditions, cheerful lyricism and fervent humor.

At the end of 1832, Gogol arrived in Moscow as a well-known writer, where he became close to M.P. Pogodin, the family of S.T. Aksakova, M.N. Zagoskin, I.V. and P.V. Kireevsky, who had a great influence on the views of the young Gogol. In 1834, Gogol was appointed adjunct professor in the department of world history at St. Petersburg University. The study of works on the history of Ukraine formed the basis of the idea of ​​"Taras Bulba".

In 1835 he left the university and devoted himself entirely to literary creativity. In the same year, a collection of short stories "Mirgorod" appeared, which included "Old-world landowners", "Taras Bulba", "Viy" and others, and a collection of "Arabesques" (on the themes of St. Petersburg life).
In the autumn of 1835, he set about writing The Inspector General, the plot of which was prompted by Pushkin; the work progressed so successfully that on January 18, 1836, he read the comedy at an evening at Zhukovsky's (in the presence of Pushkin, P. A. Vyazemsky and others), and in February-March he was already busy staging it on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater. The play premiered on April 19. May 25 - premiere in Moscow, at the Maly Theatre.

Also in 1935, the work “The Nose” was completed - the top of Gogol's fantasy (published in 1836), an extremely bold grotesque that anticipated some trends in art of the 20th century.

Soon after the production of The Inspector General, harassed by the reactionary press and the "secular rabble," Gogol went abroad, settling first in Switzerland, then in Paris, and continued to work on Dead Souls, which had begun in Russia. The news of Pushkin's death was a terrible blow to him. In March 1837 he settled in Rome.

In September 1839, Gogol arrived in Moscow and began to read the chapters of Dead Souls, which caused an enthusiastic response. In 1940, Gogol again leaves Russia and at the end of the summer of 1840 in Vienna, he suddenly suffers one of the first bouts of severe nervous illness. In October, he comes to Moscow and reads the last 5 chapters of Dead Souls in the Aksakovs' house. However, in Moscow, censorship did not allow the novel to be published, and in January 1842 the writer sent the manuscript to the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee, where the book was allowed, but with a change in title and without The Tale of Captain Kopeikin. In May, "The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls" was published. And again, Gogol's work caused a flurry of the most controversial responses. Against the background of general admiration, sharp accusations of caricature, farce, and slander are heard. All this controversy took place in the absence of Gogol, who went abroad in June 1842, where the writer is working on the 2nd volume of Dead Souls.

The whole summer of 1842, Nikolai Vasilievich spent in Germany and only in October moved to Rome. It takes him a lot of time to prepare for the publication of the collected works, but he manages to work on the second volume of Dead Souls. "The Works of Nikol Gogol" began to appear in 1843, however, there was also some delay (for one month) due to censorship nit-picking. The beginning of 1845 is marked for Gogol by a new spiritual crisis. He begins to move from resort to resort in order to find peace of mind. At the end of June or at the beginning of July 1845, in a state of sharp exacerbation of his illness, Gogol burned the manuscript of the 2nd volume. Subsequently (in "Four Letters to different persons about "Dead Souls" - "Selected Places") Gogol explained this step by the fact that the book did not clearly show the "ways and roads" to the ideal. And he starts work anew.

In subsequent years, the writer often moved from one place to another, hoping that a change of scenery would help him restore his health. By the mid-1940s, the spiritual crisis deepened. Under the influence of A.P. Tolstoy Gogol was imbued with religious ideas, abandoned his former beliefs and works.

In 1847, a series of articles by the writer in the form of letters was published under the title "Selected passages from correspondence with friends." The main idea of ​​this book is the need for internal Christian education and re-education of everyone and everyone, without which no social improvements are possible. The book was published in a heavily censored form and was recognized as a weak artistic work. At the same time, Gogol also worked on works of a theological nature, the most significant of which is Meditations on the Divine Liturgy (published posthumously in 1857).

Religious feeling remained his refuge: he decided that he could not continue his work without fulfilling his long-standing intention to bow to the Holy Sepulcher. At the end of 1847 he moved to Naples and at the beginning of 1848 sailed to Palestine, from where he finally returned to Russia via Constantinople and Odessa.

Spring 1850 - Gogol makes a marriage proposal to A. M. Vielgorskaya, but is refused. 1852 - Nikolai Vasilievich regularly meets and talks with Archpriest Matvey Konstantinovsky, a fanatic and mystic.

At 3 o'clock in the morning from Monday to Tuesday, February 11-12, 1852, Gogol woke Semyon's servant, ordered him to open the oven valves and bring a briefcase with manuscripts from the closet. Taking out a bunch of notebooks from it, Gogol put them in the fireplace and burned them (only 5 chapters related to various draft editions of Dead Souls have been preserved in incomplete form). On February 20, the medical council decides on the compulsory treatment of Gogol, but the measures taken do not give a result. On the morning of February 21, N.V. Gogol died. The last words of the writer were: "Ladder, hurry, let's take the stairs!".

1. Remember what works of N.V. Have you read Gogol before?

"Evenings on a farm near Dikanka", told by the beekeeper Rudy Panko

"Mirgorod" ("Taras Bulba", "Old World Landowners", "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich")

Can these works be called romantic? Justify your answer.

4. Summing up the lesson.

1. What new did you learn today in the lesson from the life of N.V. Gogol?

2. How did you imagine the writer after listening to the story?

3. What personality traits of N.V. Gogol struck you, surprised you?

5. Explanation of homework.

talk about the cycle "Petersburg Tales"; the image of a little man; read Nevsky Prospekt..

The idea of ​​a cycle of stories about Ukraine arose from N.V. Gogol, apparently, in 1829. By this time, his letters to relatives with a request to report "about the customs of the Little Russians" date back. The information sent to him was recorded by Gogol in the notebook "The Book of All Things" and then used in his stories.
Work on "Evenings" continued for several years. First, the first book of stories appeared, Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, published by the beekeeper Rudy Pank, and then the second part came out.
Gogol's book was highly appreciated by A. S. Pushkin, which influenced the first critical reviews of "Evenings". Pushkin wrote to the publisher of Literary Supplements to the Russian Invalid: “I have now read Evenings near Dikanka. They amazed me. Here is real gaiety, sincere, unconstrained, without affectation, without stiffness. And what poetry! What sensitivity! All this is so unusual in our present-day literature that I have not yet come to my senses. I congratulate the public on a truly merry book, and I sincerely wish the author further success. For God's sake, take his side if the journalists, as usual, attack the indecency of his expressions, his bad taste, etc."
The humor and poetry of Gogol's stories were also noted by Pushkin in a review in Sovremennik of the second edition of Evenings: "Everyone rejoiced at this lively description of a singing and dancing tribe, these fresh pictures of Little Russian nature, this gaiety, ingenuous and crafty at the same time. How amazed we were Russian book that made us laugh, we who have not laughed since the time of Fonvizin! We were so grateful to the young author that we willingly forgave him for the unevenness and irregularity of his style, the incoherence and implausibility of some stories ... "
V. G. Belinsky in his reviews invariably noted the artistry, gaiety and nationality of "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka". In "Literary Dreams" he wrote: "Mr. Gogol, who so cutely pretended to be a beekeeper, belongs to the number of extraordinary talents. Who does not know his Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka? How much wit, gaiety, poetry and nationality are in them!"
In the article "On the Russian story and the stories of Mr. Gogol" Belinsky again returned to the assessment of "Evenings": "These were poetic sketches of Little Russia, essays full of life and charm. Everything that nature can have is beautiful, seductive rural life of the common people, everything that the people can have is original, typical, all this glitters with iridescent colors in these first poetic dreams of Mr. Gogol. It was poetry young, fresh, fragrant, luxurious, intoxicating, like a kiss of love.
Having familiarized himself with Arabesques and Mirgorod, Belinsky spoke of realism as a distinctive character of Gogol's work. Belinsky pointed out that krktika incorrectly drew readers' attention only to Gogol's humor, without touching on his realism. He wrote that in Gogol's "Evenings on a Farm", in the stories "Nevsky Prospekt", "Portrait", "Taras Bulba" funny is mixed with serious, sad, beautiful and lofty. Comedy is by no means the dominant and outweighing element of Gogol's talent. His talent lies in the amazing fidelity of the depiction of life in its subtly diverse manifestations. It is impossible to see in Gogol's creations one comic, one funny...
The realism of "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" was also noted by Belinsky later: "The poet, as it were, admires the originals he created. However, these originals are not his invention, they are not funny at his whim; the poet is strictly faithful to reality in them. And therefore every person speaks and acts with him in the sphere of his life, his character and the circumstances under the influence of which he is. And none of them is sentenced: the poet is mathematically faithful to reality and often draws comic features, without any pretension to make laugh, but only obeying his instinct, to his tact of reality."

Every great artist is a whole world. To enter this world, to feel its versatility and unique beauty means to bring oneself closer to some higher level of spiritual, aesthetic development. The work of every major writer is a precious storehouse of artistic and spiritual, one might say, "human" experience, which is of great importance for the progressive development of society.

Gogol's art arose on the foundation that was erected before him by Pushkin.

Gogol followed the trail laid by Pushkin, but he went his own way. Pushkin revealed the deep contradictions of modern society. But for all that, the world, artistically created by the poet, is full of beauty and harmony, the element of negation is balanced by the element of affirmation. The guise of social vices is combined with the glorification of the power and nobility of the human mind. The artistic world of Gogol is not so universal and comprehensive. His perception of modern life was also different.

Pushkin covered all aspects of Russian life, but already in his time there was a need for a more detailed study of its individual areas. The realism of Gogol, like that of Pushkin, was imbued with the spirit of a fearless analysis of the essence of the social phenomena of our time. But the originality of Gogol's realism consisted in the fact that he combined the breadth of understanding of reality as a whole with a microscopically detailed study of its most hidden nooks and crannies. Gogol depicts his heroes in all the concreteness of their social existence, in all the smallest details of their everyday way of life, their daily existence.

“Why, then, portray poverty, yes poverty, and the imperfection of our life, digging people out of the wilderness, from the remote nooks and crannies of the state?” These opening lines from the second volume of Dead Souls perhaps best reveal the pathos of Gogol's creativity. A significant part of it was focused on depicting poverty and the imperfection of life.

Never before have the contradictions of Russian reality been so exposed as in the 1930s and 1940s. Critical depiction of its deformities and ugliness became the main task of literature. And Gogol sensed this brilliantly. Explaining in the fourth letter concerning "Dead Souls" the reasons for the burning in 1845 of the second volume of the poem, he remarked that it was pointless now "to bring out a few beautiful characters that reveal the high nobility of our breed." And then he writes: “No, there is a time when it is impossible to direct society or even the entire generation towards the beautiful until you show the full depth of its real abomination.”

Enriching realism with the achievements of romanticism, enlightened absolutism, creating in his work a fusion of satire and lyrics of "an analysis of reality and dreams of a wonderful person and the future of the country", he

raised critical realism to a new higher level compared to his world predecessors.

Gogol was convinced that in the conditions of contemporary Russia, the ideal and beauty of life can be expressed, first of all, through the denial of ugly reality. This was his work, this was the originality of his realism. Artistic features in "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka" "Evenings ..." are conceived in the form of a tale, most likely, the sexton Foma Grigorievich. On his behalf, the narration of "Evenings on the Eve of Ivan Kupala", "The Missing Letter", "The Enchanted Place" is being conducted. Departing from this plan, Gogol gives the word to the “pea panich” (“Sorochinsky Fair”, “May Night, or the Drowned Woman”) and other storytellers. The image of the beekeeper Rudy Panko arose just before the publication of "Evenings ..." as their compiler and publisher. All the main storytellers, except for the "pea panich", ridiculed by Rudy Panko for pretentiousness, are representatives of the people, their views. Introducing common people's storytellers, Gogol wanted his "Evenings ..." to be folk in terms of language. The vocabulary and phraseology of these narrators, including Rudy Panko, are wonderful placers of a living folk-vernacular language, full of well-aimed words and phrases, original expressions, proverbs, sayings and proverbs. This is the first time in Russian literature that Ukrainians have spoken in such direct colloquial speech. It was news that attracted readers.

But the tale of the narrators, most of all sustained in the speech of the beekeeper and sexton, does not retain strict sequence and often turns into the "impersonal", more precisely, into the direct voice of the author, experienced in literary speech, excellently mastering the visual means of romanticism. The author's voice takes on a variety of intonations - sympathetic, ironic, sad, etc.

The subjective-lyrical introductions and subsequent digressions from the plot-skaz narration, which belong to the author, are most often sublimely pathetic in nature. Their rhythm is created by speech periods, the alternation of uniformly constructed phrases, beginnings or single words, the repetition of words within sentences, the condensation of exclamatory-interrogative syntagmas, and other techniques. In a number of cases, the lyrical wave that invades the narrative begins to sound like a prose poem: “Do you know the Ukrainian night?” ("May Night, or the Drowned Woman"); “The Dnieper is wonderful in calm weather” (“Terrible revenge”). Chernyshevsky drew attention to the lyricism of "Evenings ...", which manifests itself with greater ("May Night") or ("The Lost Letter") force, saying that they make "the strongest impression precisely with their sincerity and warmth."

But the author's voice, with all the diversity of its intonations, does not oppose the voices of the narrators from the people, but merges with them. The combination of the oral-folk tale of the main narrators and the literary speech of the author (often referring to the narrators, as in The Lost Letter, with irony), diversifying the style of "Evenings ...", gives it a bright variegation, spectacular multicolor.

"Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" is inhabited by a mass of characters - evil and kind, ordinary and extraordinary, vulgar and poetic. Before us is a gallery of people who clearly violate the moral laws of the people, spiritually limited, greedy, selfish, most often ruling: popovich (“Sorochinsky Fair”), the fist Korzh (“Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala”), the head of Makogonenko (“May Night, or the Drowned Woman"), bogoch Chub, clerk ("The Night Before Christmas").

But, recreating a motley crowd of characters, Gogol makes the center of "Evenings ..." not idle "existents" mired in the mire of money-grubbing, but the working people.

The protagonists of "Evenings ..." are more often depicted in a one-sided exaggeration of their psychological properties, in the sharply emphasized plasticity of their external appearances, in the emotional elation of their speech, coming from the folk song element. At the same time, the external portrait of the character is always in close connection with his internal appearance.

Evenings on a farm near Dikanka ”- the first book by N.V. Gogol, which immediately won success and recognition. A.S. Pushkin wrote: "... Everyone rejoiced at this lively description of a singing and dancing tribe, these fresh pictures of Little Russian nature, this cheerfulness, ingenuous and crafty at the same time ...". The author painted kind and attractive images of people from the people, at the same time, the writer's terrible indignation was caused by spiritual emptiness, petty interests, the stupidity of the bourgeoisie and landowners. This work contains a manner inherent only to Gogol - to notice the sad behind the funny, "through the laughter visible to the world ... tears invisible to him." Therefore, in scenes filled with lively humor, sunny laughter, disturbing notes are intertwined every now and then. The author tries to turn the unfair world upside down with the help of devastating satire. The name of the author was not on the book; instead, the title indicated: "Tales published by the beekeeper Rudy Pank." In appearance, a simpleton, but in fact a wise and crafty farmer chuckles at the rulers of power. For example, in The Night Before Christmas, the author, with the help of skillful satire, depicts a world dominated by callousness, self-interest, mental limitations, anger, ill will and lies. So, drawing the image of Solokha, the author ridicules cunning, hypocrisy, the desire to do meanness to people in order to satisfy their interests. She “bowed to everyone”, howled affably with everyone, but she was friendliest of all with the Cossack Chub, who had a lot of linen in his chests, “eight stacks of bread always stood in front of her hut”, there were a lot of different living creatures in the yard, and the garden was densely sown with vegetables , poppy, sunflower and tobacco. And so that her plans would not be destroyed in any way, she built all sorts of intrigues for the blacksmith Vakula, tried to quarrel him with Chub, so that “Vakula would not drive up to his daughter and not have time to clean up everything for himself.” In the story, we also see arrogant generals who obligingly fuss and bow to Potemkin, they "seemed to catch his every word and even the slightest movement, so that now they could fly to carry it out." The author in a satirical manner criticizes such human vices. At the same time, the story also contains good-natured laughter, which we instantly distinguish from caustic, scourging laughter. With the help of humor, the author does not criticize everything in the depicted person or phenomenon, but only certain aspects. Therefore, humor contains not only ridicule, but also the author's sympathy, sympathy. Most often, humor is built on a discrepancy between the external and the internal, for example, when the pan head, the rich Cossack Chub and the clerk want to be important persons, but end up in a comic situation. Reading the story, we laugh heartily at these "important" visitors to Solokha, who fell into one bag, over their heads, who could not restrain their hiccups and coughs and turned out to be exposed. In a humorous form, the author showed the weaknesses and shortcomings inherent in all people, which need to be disposed of, and reflected the problems that are relevant at all times, facing any society.

The origins of the romantic in Gogol's work

Gogol's main goal is to embody the beauty of the spiritual essence of the people, their dreams of a free and happy life. Following the romantic principle, the writer depicts the life of the Ukrainian peasantry and Cossacks primarily not in its everyday life, everyday life, versatility, but mainly in its festivity, unusualness, exclusivity.

In style, in artistic manner, the romantic principle of representation prevails in "Evenings ...", but with obvious realistic tendencies, winning in "The Tale of Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and His Aunt".

The poetry of folk life is fanned by Gogol with a burst of high romance. This poetry folk tale, legends in which the atmosphere of pure, ideal human relations prevails. Light easily overcomes darkness, good is always stronger than evil, love triumphs over hatred. Life, recreated in Gogol's stories, was very far from the real contradictions of contemporary reality for the writer. At one time, some researchers even reproached him for this, accusing the author of "Evenings ..." almost in the idealization of the feudal system. But they reproached, of course, in vain. Least of all did Gogol himself imagine that his romantic stories would be used to judge the true conditions of life of a serf. No, another world opened up to his romantic imagination, it was akin to the world of folk poetry - bright and pure, free from any kind of filth.

A reminder of this "real world" is the finale of the "Sorochinsky Fair". Suddenly, the illusion of the fairy tale composed by Gogol collapses. He seems to want to convince the reader that this is just a charming fairy tale created by the writer's imagination. And beyond its borders - a real, difficult life - a source of sadness. This is where the writer’s thoughts about joy as a “beautiful and fickle guest” and the phrases crowning the story are leading: “It’s boring for the abandoned one! And the heart becomes heavy and sad, and there is nothing to help it.

Gogol tried to use his main idea about the role of Providence in history to partially justify the First Rome. In his discussion “On the Middle Ages,” he writes about the rise of the Pope in the following way: “I will not talk about abuse and the severity of the shackles of a spiritual despot. Penetrating more into this great event, we will see the amazing wisdom of Providence: if this omnipotent power had not seized everything in its own hands ... - Europe would have crumbled ... ".

In the same 1834, Gogol allowed himself the only sharp attack in his life against Eastern Rome in its initial, subsequent existence: “The Eastern Empire, which very rightly began to be called Greek, and even more justly could be called the empire of eunuchs, comedians, favorites of the stadiums, conspiracies, low murderers and disputing monks ... ”(On the movement of peoples at the end of the 5th century), - an opinion clearly inspired by Western historiography.

However, even then, in Gogol's soul, the intuition of the artist contradicted the views of the scientist. He combined his historical articles and published them in 1835 as part of the collection Arabesques. The three fiction stories included in the same collection, written on behalf of different narrators who did not coincide in their views with Gogol himself, left a special imprint of detachment from the author's personality on the entire book, and therefore on the articles in it. On the whole, various shades of the magical worldview are reproduced, reflected, expressed in Arabesques, and some general “impurity” of the book is emphasized by the number of selected articles: there are 13 of them, and the one that contains an attack against Byzantium is placed precisely in 13th place - before eloquently closing the book "Notes of a Madman".

The unifying underlying basis of all the components of "Arabesques" was pantheism, directing the consciousness of narrators and heroes to self-deification, and in reality - to self-destruction, dissolution in the elements of natural existence. Gogol hinted at this already in the title, which was immediately noticed by the sensitive F.V. Bulgarin, who responded as follows: “Arabesques are called in painting and sculpture fantastic decorations made up of flowers and figures, patterned and wayward. Arabesques were born in the East, and therefore they do not include images of animals and people, which are forbidden to be drawn by the Koran. In this respect, the title of the book is aptly tidied up: for the most part, images without faces» .

The spirit of magical pantheism is imbued not only with the fictional stories of Arabesques, but also with articles where, for example, according to S. Karlinsky, bloody conquerors (Attila and the like) “are regarded as evil magicians who sometimes receive retribution from the hands of medieval popes and saints, depicted by good magicians ". As part of Arabesques, this acts in two ways: on the one hand, most of the articles in the collection are sustained in a magical spirit, and magic tends to see itself everywhere, including in Christianity; on the other hand, Gogol, hiding behind his magically minded narrators, points to signs of a real, from the Orthodox point of view, deviation of Catholicism towards magic.

Wanting to fully comprehend the essence of the First Rome, Gogol strives to Italy, as he once sought to Petersburg. Departing for Europe in July 1836, from March 1837 he begins his life in Rome. Now he completely indulges in the charm of Italian nature and the ancient city and finds himself more than ever far from Russia and Orthodoxy. It is noteworthy that along with sympathy for Catholicism in the letters of 1838-1839, Gogol also reveals a passion for paganism and magic. In April 1838, he writes from Rome to M.P. Balabina: “It seemed to me that I saw my homeland ... the homeland of my soul ... where my soul lived even before me, before I was born into the world.” The non-Christian idea of ​​the pre-existence of souls (internally connected with the pantheistic idea of ​​the reincarnation of souls) is supplemented in the same letter by a general equalization of the merits of Christianity and paganism. The first Rome, according to Gogol, “is already beautiful in that ... that on one half of it the pagan age breathes, on the other the Christian, and both are the biggest two thoughts in the world.” Such an equalization of the merits of essentially different types of spirituality is a sign of magical consciousness. Gogol seems to be trying to turn history back, to return to paganism, and therefore designates his letter not with Christian, but with Roman-pagan chronology: "the year 2588 from the founding of the city." The thought: "... in Rome alone they pray, in other places they show only the appearance that they are praying" - sounds in this letter not only pro-Catholic, but partly in paganism.

Catholic priests in Rome tried to convert Gogol to their faith. Rumors about that reached Russia. When Gogol justifies himself in a letter home on December 22, 1837, his words sound non-Orthodox: "... I will not change the rites of my religion ... Because both our religion and the Catholic one are exactly the same."

At the end of the 1830s, the writer sympathizes with the Catholic hope, learned from Judaism, in the “kingdom of God” (or “paradise”) on earth, which is allegedly possible to arrange by the will and forces of churched humanity. The seed of this "paradise", of course, was the First Rome. On January 10, 1840, Gogol, who returned to Moscow, writes to M.A. Maksimovich: “I can’t wait for spring and it’s time to go to my Rome, my paradise ... God, what a land! what a land of miracles! .

The Italians themselves admit that in Gogol's attitude to their capital, the ability to "love, admire, understand" this "luminous oasis of peace and tranquility" manifested itself. Like no one else among foreign writers, Gogol in the minds of Italians acquired an unparalleled right to speak in the name of Rome. T. Landolfi, having collected dozens of essays on the life of writers different countries in Rome, called the entire book "Gogol in Rome", although Gogol, like the others, is given only a few pages.

The turning point in the writer's "Roman" self-awareness, which took place in the autumn of 1840, seems all the more weighty. The external cause was a mysterious dangerous disease that happened in Vienna, shaking the soul and crushing the body. Barely recovering and arriving in Rome, Gogol confessed to M.P. Pogodin: “Neither Rome, nor the sky, nor that which would so enchant me, nothing now has an influence on me. I don't see them, I don't feel them. I would like a road now, but a road in the rain, slush, through forests, through the steppes, to the ends of the world ”-“ even to Kamchatka ”(letter dated October 17, 1840).

Since then, love for the First Rome has been supplanted by an attraction to the Third, to Moscow, so that in December 1840 Gogol wrote to K.S. Aksakov from the capital of Italy: “I send you a kiss, dear Konstantin Sergeevich, for your letter. It boils strongly with Russian feeling and smells of Moscow from it ... Your calls for snow and winter are also not without fascination, and why not get cold sometimes? This is often great. Especially when there is plenty of inner heat and hot feelings. It is noteworthy that this is written by a person, most of all, it seems, who was afraid of frost.

The failure of the Russian-Italian Catholics in converting Gogol to the Latin faith is also noteworthy: since 1839, the writer pointedly opposed their seductions. Many even the most fleeting acquaintances are mentioned in Gogol's Roman letters, but there is "not the slightest hint of such, in any case, close acquaintances of the poet as the young Semenenko and Kaisevich," priests who left Poland, strenuously trying to convert Gogol. This speaks of the writer's initially cautious attitude towards Catholic influences, of the initial internal rejection (despite the fact that in Rome it was very beneficial for him to maintain good relations with Catholics).

The change in consciousness, of course, was reflected in Gogol's artistic work. Moreover, initially, on a whim, feeling the deep foundation of his views and the coming manifestation of this foundation, he expressed his attraction to the First Rome not on his own behalf, but through the detached consciousness of the narrators and heroes. So, if in the "Portrait" (1834-1842) the narrator speaks of "wonderful Rome", and in "Rome" (1838-1842) another narrator develops this image in every possible way, then behind their voices one hears a more restrained judgment of the writer himself, who shows as, for example, in "Rome" main character and the narrator are carried away by the elements of pagan pantheism - it exudes from the ruins of ancient Rome and the surrounding nature and drowns the Christian face of the city along with the souls of its inhabitants.

The story "Rome" is dominated by the image of a fading, setting ( Western) of the sun. In its seductive, languorous, beckoning into darkness, ghostly light, souls dissolve with the features of the Roman world, pagan and Christian reflected in them: all these “tombs and arches” and “the most immeasurable dome” of the Church of the Apostle Peter. And then, "when the sun was already hiding ... everywhere the evening established its dark image." In this ghostly half-existence, "luminous flies" hover, like some fallen spirits, flickering with magical fire stolen from the sun. They surround the frenzied human soul, which has forgotten about God and about itself, and among them is “a clumsy winged insect, rushing upright, like a man, known under the name of the devil.”

In the syllable of "Rome" signs of ancient-pagan worship of beauty are stable. The story reveals the chaotic, elemental, pantheistic underlying basis of the outwardly decorous pagan veneration of the "divine" beauty of man and nature. The triumph of chaos over the seemingly bright orderliness of the pagan vision of beauty is emphasized in the story by images of ancient ruins swallowed up by violent nature, the image of sunset light drying up in darkness, and the most confusingly unexpected abruptness of the “excerpt”, given, nevertheless, by Gogol to print.

In "Rome", the young prince felt "some mysterious meaning in the word "eternal Rome"" after he looked at his Italian fatherland from afar, from vain Paris. Meanwhile, Gogol himself, working in Italian Rome on the story of the Roman prince, finally began to understand the Roman, world-sovereign dignity of his own homeland and its ancient capital - Moscow. This understanding was reflected in the first volume of "Dead Souls", completed simultaneously with the story "Rome": "Rus! Rus! I see you, from my wonderful, beautiful far away I see you: poor, scattered and uncomfortable in you ... But what kind of incomprehensible, secret force attracts you? And menacingly, a mighty space embraces me, reflecting with terrible power in my depths; My eyes lit up with an unnatural power: wow! what a sparkling, wonderful, unfamiliar distance to the earth! Rus'!..” The narrator, who argues in this way, is already extremely close to Gogol himself, and it is no coincidence that he is called the “author”. The first volume of “Dead Souls” ends with a direct proclamation of the unsurpassed sovereign power of Russia: “... the air torn to pieces rumbles and becomes a wind; everything that is on earth flies past, and, looking sideways, step aside and give it way to other peoples and states.

Chichikov, who, according to Gogol's plan, was supposed to be reborn in the Orthodox sovereign spirit, already in the first volume touches on the foundations of the corresponding teaching, although not very close to him yet: with great praise about its space, said that even the most ancient Roman monarchy was not so great, and foreigners are rightly surprised ... "

The change in consciousness of Gogol himself is evidenced by his observation made during the arrival of Nicholas I in Rome and immediately told in a letter to A.P. Tolstoy dated 2 January n. Art. 1846: “I will tell you little about the sovereign ... He was called simply by the people everywhere Emperor, without adding: di Russia so that a foreigner might think that this was the rightful sovereign of this land. Gogol wants to see that the Italian people themselves, the “Romans” (as a special indigenous part of this people) confirm the idea that has revived in Russia of the Orthodox Russian state as the only legitimate successor to the “Roman” power.

Returning from abroad to his homeland, Gogol prefers to live in Moscow, and since the end of the 1840s, after traveling to the Holy Places, a desire has been growing in his soul not to leave the Fatherland at all and even not to leave Moscow at all: “No way I would not leave Moscow, which I love so much. And in general, Russia is getting closer and closer to me. In addition to the property of the motherland, there is something in it even higher than the motherland, as if it were the land from where it is closer to the heavenly homeland ”(letter to A.S. Sturdze dated September 15, 1850).

Russia for the mature Gogol is precisely the Third Moscow Rome: not a sweet paradise on earth, but a harsh temporary fortress that protects souls faithful to Christ from visible and invisible enemies and allows you to safely move from a short earthly life to an eternal afterlife with a possible subsequent settlement (if Christ whatever you like) into the Kingdom of God, which is “not of this world.”

An ancient image of such a Christian fortress on earth is a monastery, and Gogol in Selected Places from Correspondence with Friends directly writes: “Your monastery is Russia!” The Christian humility of a Russia-monastery turns into militancy only when there is a threat to the sanctuary of faith: “... or you don’t know what Russia is for a Russian. Remember that when trouble came to her, then monks came out of the monasteries and stood in ranks with others to save her. The blacks of Oslyablya and Peresvet, with the blessing of the abbot himself, took a sword that was contrary to a Christian.

Moscow for the late Gogol is the holiest place in the Russia-monastery, and St. Petersburg is the furthest from holiness: “There will be a freer, more convenient time for our conversations than in dissolute Petersburg”; in Moscow conversations about “truly Russian goodness” “the stronghold of our character is brought up and the mind is illuminated with light” (letter to A.O. Smirnova dated October 14, 1848). Driven by this idea, Gogol in "The denouement of the Inspector General" (1846) puts into the mouth of the "first comic actor" the thought: "... we hear our noble Russian breed ... we hear the order from the Highest to be the best of others!" . In "Bright Sunday", the final chapter of "Selected Places ...", Gogol assures himself and his compatriots that it is in Russia that the purity of ancient Christianity, which was lost everywhere, will be restored sooner, and restored, since in Russia it is most preserved. The essence of Christianity is the belief in the incarnation of Christ God, His death on the cross for the sins of people and the Resurrection from the dead - so that the fallen people will be resurrected. About the Bright Sunday of Christ, Gogol writes: “Why does it still seem to one Russian that this holiday is celebrated as it should be, and is celebrated in this way in his own land? Is it a dream? But why does this dream not come to anyone other than the Russian?.. Such thoughts are not invented. By the inspiration of God, they are born at once in the hearts of many people ... I know for sure that more than one person in Russia ... firmly believes in this and says: “In our country, before any other land, the Bright Sunday of Christ will be celebrated!”

Each official of the Russian Orthodox state, according to Gogol, must at the same time be “an honest official of God’s great state” (Decoupling “”), which is displayed and preexisting on earth with its threshold - in the form of Russian: “We will together prove to the whole world that in the Russian land everything everything, from small to large, strives to serve the same, Whom everything should serve, everything on the whole earth, rushes there ... up, to the Supreme eternal beauty! , - expresses the "first comic actor" thoughts close to Gogol himself. Russia must show the erring world an example of sovereign worship.

IN<«Авторской исповеди»>Gogol sums up his sovereign teaching: “So, after many years and labors, and experiments, and reflections ... I came to what I already thought about during my childhood: that the purpose of a person is to serve and our whole life is a service. It is only necessary not to forget that a place in an earthly state was taken in order to serve the Heavenly Sovereign in it and therefore keep His law in mind. Only by serving in this way can one please everyone: the sovereign, and the people, and one's land. This is one of the possible definitions of the Orthodox-"Roman" symphony of Church and State. The Church and the service to God carried out through her is the content of state life, and the state is the fence of the Church as the people of God.

In the chapter “Selected Places…” “A few words about our Church and clergy”, Gogol reminds his compatriots and all mankind of the true essence of Orthodoxy and the role of Russia in its development: “This Church, which, like a chaste virgin, has survived alone from the time of the apostles in an its original purity, this Church, which ... alone is able to solve all the knots of perplexity and our questions, which can work an unheard-of miracle in the sight of all Europe, forcing us to enter into their legitimate boundaries and boundaries and, without changing nothing in the state, to give Russia the power to amaze the whole world with the harmonious harmony of the same organism with which it has hitherto frightened - and this Church is unknown to us! And this Church, created for life, we still have not introduced into our lives!” .

The focus of church life is worship, liturgy, and Gogol, reflecting on “our liturgy” ( . raise, angelic invisibly dorinosima chinmi, hallelujah!”): “The ancient Romans had the custom of bringing the newly elected emperor to the people, accompanied by legions of troops, on a shield under the fall of many spears bent over him. This song was composed by the emperor himself, who fell to the dust with all his earthly majesty before the majesty of the King of all, carried by spears by cherubim and legions of heavenly powers: in the original times, the emperors themselves humbly stood in the ranks of servants when carrying out the Holy Bread ... At the sight of the King of all, carried in a humble form The lamb, lying on a diskos, as if on a shield, surrounded by instruments of earthly suffering, as if by spears of countless invisible hosts and officials, all bow down their heads and pray with the words of the robber who cried out to Him on the cross: “Remember me, Lord, when you come to His kingdom."

Gogol n. V. - Romantic realism of the early works of n. V. gogol

The idea of ​​a cycle of stories about Ukraine arose from N.V. Gogol, apparently, in 1829. By this time, his letters to relatives with a request to report "about the customs of the Little Russians" date back. The information sent to him was recorded by Gogol in the notebook "The Book of All Things" and then used in his stories.
Work on "Evenings" continued for several years. First, the first book of stories appeared, Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, published by the beekeeper Rudy Pank, and then the second part came out.
Gogol's book was highly appreciated by A. S. Pushkin, which influenced the first critical reviews of "Evenings". Pushkin wrote to the publisher of Literary Supplements to the Russian Invalid: “I have now read Evenings near Dikanka. They amazed me. Here is real gaiety, sincere, unconstrained, without affectation, without stiffness. And what poetry! What sensitivity! All this is so unusual in our present-day literature that I have not yet come to my senses. I congratulate the public on a truly merry book, and I sincerely wish the author further success. For God's sake, take his side if the journalists, as usual, attack the indecency of his expressions, his bad taste, etc."
The humor and poetry of Gogol's stories were also noted by Pushkin in a review in Sovremennik of the second edition of Evenings: "Everyone rejoiced at this lively description of a singing and dancing tribe, these fresh pictures of Little Russian nature, this gaiety, ingenuous and crafty at the same time. How amazed we were Russian book that made us laugh, we who have not laughed since the time of Fonvizin! We were so grateful to the young author that we willingly forgave him for the unevenness and irregularity of his style, the incoherence and implausibility of some stories ... "
V. G. Belinsky in his reviews invariably noted the artistry, gaiety and nationality of "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka". In "Literary Dreams" he wrote: "Mr. Gogol, who so cutely pretended to be a beekeeper, belongs to the number of extraordinary talents. Who does not know his Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka? How much wit, gaiety, poetry and nationality are in them!"
In the article “On the Russian story and the stories of Mr. Gogol,” Belinsky again returned to his assessment of “Evenings”: “These were poetic essays from Little Russia, essays full of life and charm. that the people can have an original, typical, all this glitters with iridescent colors in these first poetic dreams of Mr. Gogol. It was poetry young, fresh, fragrant, luxurious, intoxicating, like a kiss of love. "
Having familiarized himself with Arabesques and Mirgorod, Belinsky spoke of realism as a distinctive character of Gogol's work. Belinsky pointed out that krktika incorrectly drew readers' attention only to Gogol's humor, without touching on his realism. He wrote that in Gogol's "Evenings on a Farm", in the stories "Nevsky Prospekt", "Portrait", "Taras Bulba" funny is mixed with serious, sad, beautiful and lofty. Comedy is by no means the dominant and outweighing element of Gogol's talent. His talent lies in the amazing fidelity of the depiction of life in its subtly diverse manifestations. It is impossible to see in Gogol's creations one comic, one funny...
The realism of "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" was also noted by Belinsky later: "The poet, as it were, admires the originals he created. However, these originals are not his invention, they are not funny at his whim; the poet is strictly faithful to reality in them. And therefore every person speaks and acts with him in the sphere of his life, his character and the circumstances under the influence of which he is. And none of them is sentenced: the poet is mathematically faithful to reality and often draws comic features, without any pretension to make laugh, but only obeying his instinct, to his tact of reality."