"The Tale of Captain Kopeikin" is one of the parts of the work of N. V. Gogol "Dead Souls", namely, the tenth chapter, and is a story of one of the heroes of this work about a certain soldier named Kopeikin. The postmaster came up with this story to explain to the frightened officials of the provincial town of N who Chichikov is, where he came from and for what purpose he bought dead souls. This is a story about a soldier who lost an arm and a leg in the war for the fatherland, but turned out to be unnecessary for his country, which led him to become the leader of a band of robbers.

The main idea of ​​this story is that indifference and ruthlessness sometimes knows no boundaries. The pochmeister, telling the story of a poor soldier who gave everything to his homeland, but could not get even the minimum content in return, wants to attract attention and show off his education and richness of the syllable. The officials, while listening to this tragic story, do not feel the slightest sympathy for the unfortunate captain.

Read in more detail the summary of the 10th chapter of Gogol's Dead Souls - The Tale of Captain Kopeikin

The story begins from the moment when officials, frightened and upset, come to the governor's house to decide who Chichikov really is and why he was buying up dead souls. All officials are very afraid of an audit, because there are unclean deeds behind each of them, and they really would not want inspectors to come to the city. After all, then they risk losing their positions, and maybe freedom.

Taking advantage of the general confusion, the postmaster, who considered himself a very extraordinary person, offers officials his version of who Chichikov could be. All the officials listen with interest, and the postmaster, enjoying everyone's attention, tells.

The postmaster, abundantly equipping his speech with various ornate phrases and sayings, says that during the war between Russia and Napoleon, a certain captain Kopeikin was seriously wounded, as a result of which he lost an arm and a leg.

Going to his father's house, the soldier was greeted by his father, who refused to feed him, as "he was barely getting his own bread." No help was provided to the disabled war veterans, so Kopeikin himself decided to get to St. Petersburg and there to ask the tsar for mercy.

Arriving in Petersburg, Kopeikin settled in the cheapest inn and the next day went to the general-in-chief.

The postmaster tells about what a rich reception this nobleman has, what a respectable doorman stands at the door, what important petitioners visit him, how dignified and proud he himself is. Officials of the city of N listen to the story with respect and curiosity.

After waiting for the general to leave, the captain began to ask for upkeep, since he lost his health in the war for the fatherland. The general-in-chief reassured him, saying that the monarch's mercy would not leave the heroes of the war, but since there is no order yet, we must wait.

Joyful and happy, the soldier decided that soon his fate would be decided in his favor, and that evening he went to bed. He went to a restaurant, to the theater, and even tried to court the woman of a certain behavior he met, but he came to his senses in time and decided to first wait for the promised pension.

Several days passed, but there was still no money. The postmaster in paints tells about all the temptations of St. Petersburg, about exquisite dishes that are inaccessible to Kopeikin, but tease his eyes through the window.

The captain comes to the nobleman again and again, and meanwhile the money melts. And from the nobleman he hears only the word "tomorrow". Kopeikin is almost starving, therefore, in despair, he decides to go to the general-in-chief again. The nobleman greeted him very coldly and said that as long as the emperor deigns to be abroad, the matter cannot be resolved.

Frustrated and offended, Kopeikin shouts that until there is a pension order, he will not leave his place. To which the general invites him to go to his home and wait for a decision there.

The unfortunate captain, in despair, forgets himself and demands a pension. Taking offense at this insolence, the general-in-chief proposes to send the captain "to the state account." And after that, no one else heard about the fate of the unfortunate soldier.

Soon after these events, a gang of robbers appeared in the Bryansk forests, and Captain Kopeikin, according to rumors, was their leader.

In the opinion of the postmaster, Chichikov was none other than the captain Kopeikin.

Picture or drawing The Tale of Captain Kopeikin

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Captain Kopeikin - the hero of the inserted short story about an officer, a hero Patriotic War 1812, who lost a leg and an arm on it and fell into robbers from lack of money. The versions of the "Tale" assumed the flight of K. K. to America, from where he sent a letter to Alexander I about the fate of the wounded and received a gracious rescript from the sovereign. The novella (in his "fairy tale", co-I-mically verbose style) is narrated in the 10th chapter of the poem by the postmaster Ivan Andreevich.

The reason for the story is simple. City officials, puzzled by rumors about Chichikov, the buyer of dead souls, discuss who he might be. Suddenly, after everyone's long bickering, the Postmaster exclaims with inspiration: "This, gentlemen, you are my judge, none other than Captain Kopeikin!" - and invites you to listen to a story about him, which is, "in a way, a whole poem." Gogol's novel is also named a poem; so the Postmaster involuntarily parodies the author himself “ Dead souls", And his" The Tale of Captain Kopeikin "is a novel as a whole. But this is a special parody, funny and serious at the same time; it connects into a single literary knot all the topics discussed by officials - about murder, about a "counterfeiter, about a runaway robber" and in many ways serves as a key to the entire text of Dead Souls.

It turns out that K.K. was wounded at Krasny or Leipzig (i.e., in one of the key battles great war) and became disabled until the post-war orders of Alexander I on the fate of the wounded. Father cannot feed KK; he goes to seek royal favor in St. Petersburg, which, in the description of the Postmaster, acquires half-fabulous features - "fabulous Scheherazade", "Semiramis". In the description of the royal luxury of St. Petersburg, shown through the eyes of a hero who saw it for the first time ("a noticeable vanity rushes through like some thin ether"), and especially in the description of the government building on the Palace Embankment, the image of St. Petersburg and the Palace is parodically repeated as Vakula the blacksmith sees them in the story "The Night Before Christmas". But if there the hero was accompanied by a truly fabulous success, then here a visit to the "minister or nobleman", in which the features of Count Arakcheev are easily guessed, gives KK only false hope.

To celebrate, having dined in a tavern, like "in London" (vodka, cutlets with capers, poulard) and having spent almost all the money, K.K. again appears at the Palace for the promised help - to hear what from now on he will hear every day: wait ... With one "cyanosis" in his pocket, desperate, humiliated, as only a beggar can be humiliated in the midst of universal luxury, KK "obsessively devil" breaks through to the Great Minister and impudently demands help. In response to this, “they seized him, the servant of God, you are my sir, and into the cart” - and they sent him out of the capital with the courier. Delivered to his distant province, KK, according to the Postmaster, exclaimed: "I will find the means!" - and sank into "a kind of oblivion." And two months later, a gang of robbers appeared in the Ryazan forests, whose chieftain was none other ... - and then the narrator is reminded that Chichikov has both hands and feet in place. The postmaster slaps his hand on the forehead, calls himself veal, tries unsuccessfully to wriggle out (in England such a perfect mechanic that wooden legs can do it) - all in vain. The story about K.K. seems to disappear into the sand, without clarifying anything about the question of who Chichikov is.

But the image of KK only seems accidental, "lawless", inserted, and the legend about him is in no way motivated by plot.
The theme of a beggar nobleman, a penniless captain, "God knows where" came from, arises already in the 6th chapter, where the greedy Plyushkin complains to Chichikov about his neighbor-captain, who likes to come to visit. “A relative says:“ There is probably nothing at home, and so he staggers. ” But even earlier, Chichikov himself, leaving Nozdryov, mentally "trims" him, like a rogue coachman is trimmed by "some traveling, experienced captain." Later, in Chapter 10, during his illness, Chichikov will grow a beard, like KK, in Chapter 11, KK's name seems to accidentally “backfire” in the life order of Chichikov's father: “save a penny”. As for the image of the "robber", even in the 9th chapter, "just a pleasant lady" and "a lady, pleasant in all respects" suggest in Chichikov someone "like Rinald Ri-naldin", the famous hero of X. Vulpius's novel about robber.

The military rank of captain on the table of ranks corresponded to the civilian rank of a titular adviser, and this simultaneously unites the unfortunate K.K. with other "humiliated and insulted" characters of Gogol's social science fiction stories, titular advisers Poprishchin ("Notes of a Madman") and Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin ("Overcoat"), and contrasts it with them. At least - "Bash-machkin. For in the civil service this rank did not give the nobility, and the military nobility was already provided with the first chief officer rank. The fact of the matter is that, unlike his folklore prototype, the hero songs about the "thief Kopeikin", and from numerous disabled characters of Russian post-war prose and poetry, and from their common literary predecessor - the Soldier from S. Gesner's idyll "Wooden Leg" - KK is a nobleman, an officer. This detail sharply enhances the tragedy of his story, it connects the image of K.K. with Pushkin's ideas of the novel about "Russian Pelam", about a gentleman-robber ("Dubrovsky"). the common denominator is all the many literary associations that surround the novel image of Chichikov.

In the story about KK, as in the focus, there are overly varied rumors about Chichikov; but from it, new, even more incredible versions of what happened are radiating out from it. The officials are wondering if Chichikov is Napoleon, who was deliberately released by the British from the island of St. Helena in order to anger Russia. (Again, the Postmaster, who served in the 1812 campaign and “saw” the French emperor, assures his interlocutors that Napoleon’s height “is not taller than Chichikov” and does not differ in any way from him in the shape of his figure.) to the topic of Chichikov-Antichrist; the officials stop at this and, realizing that they were lying, send for Nozdrev.

And the more absurd their comparisons become, the more inconceivable their assumptions and "historical parallels", the clearer the author's key idea of ​​the 1st volume of "Dead Souls" is exposed. The Napoleonic era was the time of the last triumph of romantic, powerful, impressive evil; the new, “monetary”, “penny” evil of unrighteous acquisitions, the personification of which was the emphatically average, “no” person Chichikov, may ultimately turn out to be invisible to the crumbling world, and therefore a particularly dangerous phenomenon of the Antichrist of the bourgeois era. And this will happen without fail, if the moral revival of each person individually and of humanity as a whole does not take place.

You can't say better than Korolenko. In the second volume of the poem "Dead Souls" one can see "the folded wings of Gogol's laughter." But, reading attentively, peering into the preserved pages, as if emerging from the flame, you intensely think about the word of the great writer, now really quite different, unusual, in places painfully humble, in places to tears (isn't it to tears through laughter?) , sometimes to the point of intolerance from the point of view of today's literature, pretentious, and sometimes frankly, to almost insanity, insolent. But isn't it bold, perhaps, with unheard-of denunciation, for example, the prince's speech, tragically ending the second volume, sounds: “I know that by no means ... untruths can be eradicated: it is already too deeply rooted. The dishonorable business of taking bribes has become a necessity and a necessity ... The fact is that it has come to save our land; that our land is already perishing not from the invasion of twenty foreign languages, but from ourselves; that already past the legitimate government, another government was formed, much stronger than any legal ... ".

"The Tale of Captain Kopeikin", in all its editions, is just an open protest against that "other rule". It is obvious. However, the solid internal communication the inserted novella with the second volume of the poem may have yet to be comprehended. The story about "some sort of, that is, Captain Kopeikin" was extremely important for Gogol not just as a separate episode interrupting the plot of the main action, but above all as part of a large-scale concept. "Whoever is an artist in his soul," wrote Gogol Nikitenko, sharing with him his thoughts about Captain Kopeikin, "he will understand that without him there is a strong gap."

The image of a war invalid of the twelfth year, who dared to seek justice, and who found a "bitter dish called tomorrow", and in addition, was escorted to his place of residence by a three-arterial courier, of course, gives the whole poem depth historical perspective... Gogol creates a new hero for himself. “Captain Kopeikin is not a timid and humiliated Akaky Akakievich,” a deep connoisseur of NL Gogol's work authoritatively concludes. Stepanov.

I wonder if Kopeikin, about whom the reader learns from the words of the stammering and yet very sharp-tongued postmaster, would fit a desperately spacious Pugachev sheepskin coat? Hard to say. However, Russian literature of that time was certainly not cramped until the gray cloth of Gogol's "Overcoat", and Chichikov's chaise, Chichikov's "sharper" (remember the sincere bewilderment of the Shukshin hero?), Still easily covered Russian roads and off-road. And here is what I would like to draw your attention to. Many "damned questions", invisibly hidden for everyone as a small grain in the soil of great doubts, were seen by Gogol as mighty, with a tree overgrown with a crown.

They walk inaudibly under it
foot
Shelves of centuries - and fall
powers,
And the tribes are replaced by succession
In his blessed shadow
glory.
And the corpses of the kingdoms underneath
lie exhausted
And new ones grow for new ones
goals,
And a million mourned
graves,
And a million merry
cradles.

The brilliant poems of Stepan Shevyrev would definitely illustrate the visionary power of Gogol's gaze. Gogol always saw, or rather, had a presentiment of the outcome of any undertakings, their final line. However, even what is beyond the line was revealed to Gogol, the only one, perhaps, among Russian writers. Who knows if this is why the continuation of the poem arose, was it not why it was destined to be on fire? "The very life of Gogol," wrote the cleverest critic Ivan Aksakov, shrewdly, "burned out ... from futile efforts to find the bright side he had promised."

So who is Captain Kopeikin? The hero of that same "bright side" or another shadow of Gogol's purgatory, the great rebel who dared to protest "in the very heart Russian empire", Or another brother of the undersized clan? Compare at least the illustrations: what different Kopeikins the artists produced - right down to the figurine, as it were, merged with the gray St. Petersburg background, performed by S. Brodsky!

“Gogol's influence on Russian literature was enormous. Not only all young talents rushed to the path indicated to them, but some writers who had already gained fame followed the same path ... ”. It is difficult to argue with the classical assessment of Belinsky. Gogol has always been ahead of his followers. Take, for example, the problem of crime, which is destined to take one of the central places in the register of the most important problems of Russian novelism, but which is only just beginning to be mastered in the forties of the 19th century. Raskolnikov's question about law was not even in the air, and the newspaper Golos, with its spread in the mid-sixties, would flash before Dostoevsky's eyes the "extremely sharp ax of Gerasim Chistov, impaled on a short handle", had not even begun to be published.

Nevertheless, it was Gogol who was one of the first in Russian literature to raise the issue of crime - with all its sharpness and tragedy. And how interesting it would be to compare the phenomenon of crime in two great writers with high school students! It goes without saying that Nozdrev's buzotry or Chichikov's cleverness has nothing to do with it, although, by the way, in the second volume of the poem Pavel Ivanovich will exclaim desperately: “Save me! lead to prison, to death! .. "No, of course, the ghost of the state house, which, together with Murazov's sermons, shook the protagonist so much that he almost embarked on the path of true correction, the problem outlined by the author is not exhausted.

Let's look (for the umpteenth time!) At Korobochka. And once again we note: a good hostess, caring, compassionate. The houses of the peasants are “well supported”, she has no ulterior motive in her conversation with Chichikov, the impression in the reader’s memory leaves the most favorable, if not cheerful. But "funny," as Gogol writes, "will instantly turn into sad, if you just stagnate in front of it for a long time ...". So a slightly more attentive look at the Box leads to the fact that the hair begins to move with horror.

“But how? - the collegiate secretary cannot understand Chichikov's intentions regarding the dead peasants. - I really don't understand. Do you want to dig them out of the ground? " But these are not the most scary words Nastasya Petrovna. When Chichikov promises her fifteen rubles from above in case of consent, Korobochka even remarks with some coquetry: "I really don't know ... I have never sold the dead before." Awesome self-character, just killer! At that moment, a real monster peeps out from behind the stooped back of the harmless Box.

And yet Korobochka is not a monster at all. She is not a heartless, not cruel person, and even more so she does not look like a violator of any law - human or higher. She is, as they say, in her own right. She is in the highest degree law-abiding, but the whole horror lies in the fact that the law that she obeys and by which she lives is fundamentally lawless. In other words, Gogol finds crime where no one was going to overstep the boundaries of the law, to break the legal framework. The very combination "serfdom" in this context shows its oxymoric sound. The habit of selling people, for the time being, however, only alive, well, the trouble is the beginning (“How do you buy, for clean ones?” - Plyushkin inquired with an unnatural liveliness for himself), turns out to be as natural and legal for landowners as the desire to wash in the morning or to talk about the improvement of some regular Manilovka.

And so, against such and such foundations, against such and such habits, against such and such laws that have determined the life of society for centuries, "some kind of ... Captain Kopeikin" dares to speak out. It is this circumstance that, quite possibly, explains the breadth of the social and historical context that inevitably arises when at least some detailed consideration of one of the most mysterious Gogol images.

But the centrifugal orientation of the image gives rise to its centripetal gravity. An interesting formula is used by Yu.M. Lotman defined the essence of Chichikov: "the hero of a penny." (“Hero of a Penny” - the original theme for the composition is emerging!) That is, the connection is obvious, and the connection is reciprocal, between Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov and the rebellious captain. And what if the moral degeneration of Chichikov, fragmentarily reflected in the surviving chapters of the second volume of the poem, the complication of his psychological portrait, the well-known contradiction of his thoughts and behavior are latently connected with the desperate step of Captain Kopeikin, with his small and yet great rebellion? Chichikov, in the end, also decides to rebel - against his former self, against himself, against his own Chichikov nature!

“It seemed that nature with his dark instinct began to hear that there was some kind of duty that a person on earth had to fulfill… despite all the circumstances, confusion and movements…”. And further. “I begin to feel, I hear what’s wrong, I’m going wrong, and that I have stepped far from the straight path ... My father kept repeating moral teachings to me ... and he himself stole the forest in front of me from the neighbors and forced me to help him. He struck up an unlawful lawsuit in front of me ... ”. Isn't Gogol talking about the law again, isn't it about the right, only about the other - the legal law, and the other - the right, according to which every person must live?

In the second volume of the poem Dead Souls, Gogol almost openly sets up the pulpit for preaching. The speech of his characters is sometimes simply overflowing with the author's intention. Well, isn't Gogol saying, for example, through the mouth of Kostanzhoglo: “Yes, for me, it's just that if a carpenter is good at using an ax, I'm ready to stand in front of him for two hours: work amuses me so much. And if you also see that all this is happening for what purpose ... but I can't tell you what is going on in you ... but how the ice breaks, let the rivers pass, let everything dry out and the earth goes to explode - a spade works in the gardens and gardens, fields of plow and harrow ... Do you understand? "

The intonation with which Gogol addresses the reader almost directly contradicts the voice of the faltering postmaster talking about Captain Kopeikin. And yet we have before us a single artistic tonality.

The grain has already been thrown into the soil. The question has been raised. Gogol foresaw the answer to him, he heard the noise of the forest where there was a plain. But he also discerned blackened stumps in the future in the place of a rustling forest. And the teacher in the school class, together with the children, will not only have to guess what awaits us tomorrow, but also change it for the better tomorrow. The image of Captain Kopeikin appeals to conscience, to justice. It is especially relevant in our time, when between what is legal and what is fair, it is necessary to put an equal sign once and for all.

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"The Tale of Captain Kopeikin"

Censored Edition

“After the campaign of the twelfth year, my judge, - so began the postmaster, despite the fact that there was not one sir, but as many as six in the room, - after the campaign of the twelfth year, Captain Kopeikin was sent along with the wounded. like the devil, visited the guardhouses and under arrest, tasted everything. Under Krasny, or near Leipzig, you can only imagine, his arm and leg were torn off. Well, then they had not yet had time to make any, you know, such orders about the wounded;

this some kind of invalid capital was already started up, you can imagine, in some way after. Captain Kopeikin sees: it would be necessary to work, only his hand, you know, is his left. I was about to visit my father's house, my father said: "I have nothing to feed you, I - you can imagine - I can hardly get bread myself." Now my captain Kopeikin decided to go, my sir, to

Petersburg, in order to bother with the authorities, will not there be any help ...

Somehow there, you know, with wagons or state-owned wagons - in a word, my sir, he somehow managed to drag himself to Petersburg. Well, you can imagine: some kind of, that is, captain Kopeikin, and suddenly found himself in the capital, which, so to speak, does not exist in the world! Suddenly in front of him is a light, relatively to say, a certain field of life, a fabulous Scheherazade, you know, such.

Suddenly some kind of, you can imagine, Nevsky prospect, or there, you know, some kind of Gorokhovaya, devil take it, or some kind of Liteiny there; there is some sort of spitz in the air; the bridges hang there like a devil, you can imagine, without any, that is, touch, - in a word, Semiramis, sir, and full of it! I had the urge to rent an apartment, but it all bites terribly: curtains, curtains, devilry, you know the carpets - Persia, my sir, is so ... in a word, relatively so to speak, you trample capital with your foot. We walk along the street, and the nose hears that it smells of thousands; and Captain Kopeikin will wash the entire bank note, you see, out of ten blue and silver coins. Well, you can't buy a village for that, that is, you can buy it, maybe if you put in forty thousand, but forty thousand you need to borrow from the French king. Well, somehow he took refuge in a Revel tavern for a ruble a day; lunch - cabbage soup, a piece of beef ... Sees: there is nothing to heal. I asked where to go. Well, where to go? Saying: there are no higher authorities in the capital now, all this, you say, is in Paris, the troops did not return, but there is, say the temporary commission. Try, maybe something there can. "I will go to the commission," says Kopeikin, and I will say: this way and that, shed, in a way, blood, relatively to say, sacrificed his life. " Here, sir, getting up early, he scratched his beard with his left hand, because paying the barber would, in a way, amount to a bill, dragged his uniform over himself and, you can imagine, went to the commission on his piece of wood. I asked where the boss lives. There, they say, is a house on the embankment: a hut, you know, a man's:

glass beads in the windows, you can imagine, one-and-a-half mirrors, marmoras, varnishes, my sir ... in a word, the mind is darkened! Some kind of metal handle at the door is the comfort of the first property, so first, you know, you need to run into the shop, and buy soap for a penny, and, in some way, rub your hands with it for about two hours, and after that, how can you take it ...

One doorman on the porch, with a mace: some kind of count's physiognomy, cambric collars, like some fat, fat pug ... My Kopeikin got up somehow with his piece of wood into the waiting room, huddled there in the corner of himself so as not to push with his elbow, you can yourself submit any

America or India - a kind of gilded, relatively speaking, porcelain vase. Well, of course, he drank enough there, because he came back at a time when the boss, in some way, barely got out of bed and the valet brought him some kind of silver tub for different, you know, such washings. My Kopeikin is waiting for four hours, when the officer on duty comes in, says: "The chief will be out now." And in the room there is already an epaulette and an excelbow, to the people - like beans on a plate. Finally, my sir, the boss comes out. Well ... you can imagine: the boss! in the face, so to speak ... well, in accordance with the rank, you know ... with the rank ... such an expression, you know. In all the metropolitan behavior; approaches one, to another: "Why are you, why are you, whatever you want, what is your business?" Finally, my sir, to Kopeikin. Kopeikin: “So and so, he says, he shed blood, lost, in some way, arms and legs, I can’t work, I dare to ask if there will be some kind of assistance, some such orders about, so to speak, remuneration, pension, or something, you know. " The chief sees: a man on a piece of wood and an empty right sleeve fastened to his uniform. "Okay, he says, look around one of these days!"

My Kopeikin is delighted: well, he thinks it's done. In the spirit, you can imagine, bouncing like this on the sidewalk; I went to the Palkinsky tavern to drink a glass of vodka, had lunch, my sir, in London, ordered myself to serve a cutlet with capers, a poulard with various finterleys, asked for a bottle of wine, in the evening went to the theater - in a word, he was full of it, so to speak. On the sidewalk, he sees some slender Englishwoman walking, like a swan, you can imagine, such. My Kopeikin - the blood, you know, was playing out - he was running after her on his piece of wood: trick-trick followed, -

"Yes, no, I thought, for a while to hell with red tape, even if later, when I get my pension, now I’m a little too different." And meanwhile, please note, he wasted almost half the money in one day! Three or four days later, he appears, my judge, to the commission, to the chief. "He came, he says, to find out: so and so, because of possessed diseases and wounds ... shed, in a way, blood ..." - and the like, you know, in the official language. “And what,” says the chief, “first of all I must tell you that we cannot do anything about your case without the permission of the higher authorities. You can see for yourself what time it is now. Military operations, so to speak, have not yet ended completely. Wait. the arrival of the minister, be patient. Then be sure - you will not be left behind. And if you have nothing to live with, so here you are, he says as much as I can ... "Well, you know, I gave him, - of course, a little, but with moderation would stretch to further permissions there. But my Kopeikin didn't want that. He already thought that tomorrow he would be given a thousandth of some kind of jackpot:

to "you, darling, drink and have fun; but wait instead. And, you know, he has an Englishwoman in his head, and souplets, and all kinds of cutlets. So he came out of the porch with an owl like a poodle, which the cook doused with water," - and his tail between his legs, and his ears drooped. The Petersburg life had already picked him up, he had already tried something. And here God knows how, sweets, you know, no. Well, but the man is fresh, alive , the appetite is just wolfish.

He passes by some kind of restaurant: a chef there, you can imagine, a foreigner, a Frenchman with a kind of open physiognomy, his underwear is Dutch, an apron, whiteness equal, in some way, to the snow, works some kind of fepzeri, cutlets with truffles, - in a word, a ration-delicacy such that I would simply eat myself, that is, with my appetite.

Whether it passes by the Milyutinsky shops, there looks out of the window, in some way, a kind of salmon, cherries - five rubles each, a huge watermelon, a stagecoach like that, leaned out of the window and, so to speak, looking for a fool who would pay a hundred rubles - in a word , at every step, the temptation, so to speak, drools, and he wait. So imagine his position here, on the one hand, so to speak, salmon and watermelon, and on the other hand - he is served a bitter dish called "tomorrow". "Well, he thinks how they want for themselves, and I will go, he says, I will raise the entire commission, I will tell all the chiefs: as you want." And in fact: the person is annoying, nayan is a kind of sense, you know, there is no sense in the head, but there are many lynxes. He comes to the commission:

"Well, they say, why else? After all, you've already been told." - "Why, he says, I can't, he says, interrupt somehow. I need, he says, to eat a cutlet, a bottle of French wine, to amuse myself too, to the theater, you know. "-" Well, - say the chief, - I'm sorry. On this account, there is, so to speak, in a way, patience. You have been given funds for feeding, while a resolution is issued, and, without an opinion, you will be rewarded , as follows: for there has not yet been an example that in our Russia a person who brought, so to speak, services to the fatherland, was left without charity.But if you want to feast yourself on cutlets and go to the theater now, you know, then excuse me In this case, look for your own means, try to help yourself. " But my Kopeikin, you can imagine, doesn’t blow his mustache.

These words to him are like peas against the wall. The noise raised such, fluffed everyone up! all these secretaries there, all of them began to splinter and nail: yes, vm, he says, then, he says! yes you, he says, it, he says! Yes, he says, you don’t know your duties! Yes, you, he says, are law sellers, he says! Spanked everyone. There, some official, you know, turned up from some even completely extraneous department - he, my judge, and his! A riot raised one like this. What do you want to do with such a devil? The boss sees: it is necessary to resort, so to speak, to measures of severity. “Well, he says, if you don’t want to be content with what they give you, and wait calmly, in some way, here in the capital of the decision of your fate, so I will escort you to your place of residence. Call, he says, a courier, to escort him to your place of residence. ! " And the courier is already there, you know, behind the door and stands:

A three-yard peasant, you can imagine, by its very nature it is arranged for the coachmen - in a word, a dentist of some kind ... Here is him, God's servant, in a cart and with a courier. Well, Kopeikin thinks, at least there is no need to pay runs, thanks for that. He goes, my sir, on a courier, but when he goes on a courier, in a way, so to speak, he argues to himself: “Well, he says, here you are, they say, you are saying that I should look for funds and help myself; well, he says , I, he says, will find the means! " Well, how they brought him to the place and where exactly they brought him, nothing of this is known. So, you see, the rumors about Captain Kopeikin have sunk into the river of oblivion, into some kind of Lethe, as the poets call it. But excuse me, gentlemen, this is where, one might say, the thread of the plot of the novel begins. So where Kopeikin went is unknown; but, can you imagine, two months have not passed since a gang of robbers appeared in the Ryazan forests, and the chieftain of this gang was, my sir, no one else ... "

Nikolai Gogol - The Tale of Captain Kopeikin, read text

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It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that The Tale of Captain Kopeikin is a kind of mystery within Dead Souls. It is felt latently by everyone. The first feeling that the reader experiences when meeting her is a feeling of bewilderment: why did Gogol need this rather lengthy and, apparently, in no way connected with the main action of the poem "anecdote" told by the hapless postmaster? Is it really only to show the absurdity of the assumption that Chichikov is "none other than Captain Kopeikin"?

Usually, researchers regard the Tale as a “plug-in novella” needed by the author to denounce the capital's authorities, and explain its inclusion in “Dead Souls” by Gogol's desire to expand the social and geographical framework of the poem, to give the depiction of “all Russia” the necessary completeness. "... The story of Captain Kopeikin<...>outwardly almost unrelated to the main storyline poems, - writes S.O. Mashinsky in his commentary. - Compositionally, it looks like a plug-in novel.<...>The story, as it were, crowns the whole terrible picture of the local-bureaucratic-police Russia, painted in Dead Souls. The embodiment of arbitrariness and injustice is not only the provincial government, but also the capital's bureaucracy, the government itself. " In the opinion of Yu. V. Mann, one of the artistic functions of the Tale is "interrupting the" provincial "plan with the Petersburg, capital, inclusion in the plot of the poem of the highest metropolitan spheres of Russian life."

This view of the Tale is generally accepted and traditional. In the interpretation of E. N. Kupreyanova, the idea of ​​her as one of Gogol's "Petersburg stories" is brought to its logical end. The story, the researcher believes, "was written as an independent work and only then was it inserted into Dead Souls." However, with such an "autonomous" interpretation, the main question remains unclear: what is the artistic motivation for including the Tale in the poem? In addition, the "provincial" plan is "interrupted" in "Dead Souls" by the capital city constantly. Gogol does not need anything to compare the thoughtful expression on Manilov's face with the expression that can be found “unless some too clever minister”, to note in passing that “even a state person, but in fact a perfect Korobochka comes out,” go from Korobochka to her “sister” is an aristocrat, and from the ladies of the city of NN to the ladies of St. Petersburg, etc. etc.

Emphasizing the satirical nature of the Tale, its critical orientation towards the "top", researchers usually refer to the fact that it was banned by the censorship (this, in fact, it largely owes its reputation to an acutely accusatory work). It is generally accepted that under the pressure of censorship, Gogol was forced to muffle the satirical accents of the Tale, weaken its political tendency and acuteness - “throw out all the generals,” make Kopeikin's image less attractive, and so on. At the same time, one can come across an assertion that the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee "demanded that significant corrections be made" to the Tale. “At the request of the censorship,” writes E.S. Smirnova-Chikina, “the image of a heroic officer, a rebel-robber was replaced by the image of an insolent brawler ...”.

This, however, was not quite the case. The censor A. V. Nikitenko, in a letter dated April 1, 1842, informed Gogol: "The episode of Kopeikin turned out to be absolutely impossible to pass - nobody's power could protect him from his death, and you yourself, of course, will agree that I had nothing to do here." ... In the censored copy of the manuscript, the text of the Tale is crossed out from beginning to end in red ink. The censorship banned the entire Story, and no one made any demands on the author to remake it.

Gogol, as you know, attached exceptional importance to the Tale and perceived its prohibition as an irreparable blow. “They threw away from me a whole episode of Kopeikin, which is very necessary for me, more even than they think (censors - V.V.). I decided not to give it up in any way, ”he informed N. Ya. Prokopovich on April 9, 1842. It is clear from Gogol's letters that the Story was not at all important to him what the St. Petersburg censors attached importance to. The writer does not hesitate to remake all the supposed "reprehensible" passages that could cause the displeasure of the censorship. Explaining the need for Kopeikin in the poem in a letter to A. V. Nikitenko dated April 10, 1842, Gogol appeals to the artistic instinct of the censor. “... I confess that the destruction of Kopeikin confused me a lot. This is one of best places... And I am unable to patch the gap that is visible in my poem. You yourself, gifted with aesthetic taste<...>You can see that this piece is necessary, not for the connection of events, but in order to distract the reader for a moment, so that one impression can be replaced by another, and whoever is an artist in his soul will understand that without him there is a strong gap. It occurred to me: maybe the generals were frightened by the censorship. I changed Kopeikin, I threw out everything, even the minister, even the word "excellency." In St. Petersburg, in the absence of all, there is only one temporary commission. I expressed Kopeikin's character more strongly, so now it is clear that he himself is the cause of his actions, and not a lack of compassion in others. The head of the commission even treats him very well. In a word, everything is now in such a form that no strict censorship, in my opinion, can find anything reprehensible in any respect ”(XII, 54-55).

Trying to identify the socio-political content of the Tale, researchers see in it an exposure of the entire state machine of Russia, up to the highest government spheres and the Tsar himself. Not to mention the fact that such an ideological position was simply unthinkable for Gogol, the Tale stubbornly “resists” such an interpretation.

As has been noted more than once in the literature, Gogol's image of Captain Kopeikin goes back to a folklore source - folk robber songs about the thief Kopeikin. Gogol's interest and love for folk songwriting is well known. In the aesthetics of the writer, songs are one of the three sources of the originality of Russian poetry, from which Russian poets should draw inspiration. In "Petersburg Notes of 1836", calling for the creation of a Russian national theater, the depiction of characters in their "nationalized form," Gogol expressed his opinion on the creative use of folk traditions in opera and ballet. “Guided by subtle legibility, the ballet creator can take from them (folk, national dances. - VV) as much as he wants to determine the characters of his dancing heroes. It goes without saying that, having grasped the first element in them, he can develop it and fly away incomparably higher than his original, like a musical genius from a simple song heard on the street creates a whole poem ”(VIII, 185).

“The Tale of Captain Kopeikin”, literally growing out of the song, was the embodiment of this Gogol thought. Guessing the "element of character" in the song, the writer, in his own words, "develops it and flies away incomparably higher than his original." Here is one of the songs in the cycle about the robber Kopeikin.

Going thief Kopeikin

On the glorious Karastan estuary.

He went to bed since the evening, thief Kopeikin,

By midnight the thief Kopeikin was up,

He washed himself with morning dew,

I wiped myself with a taffeta handkerchief,

I prayed to God on the east side.

“Get up, brothers are amicable!

It's not good for me, brothers, I had a dream:

As if I, a good fellow, walk on edge of the sea,

I stumbled with my right foot,

For a spongy tree, for a buckthorn.

Didn't you crush me, buckthorn:

Dries and destroys the good of the young man, sorrow-grief!

You throw, throw yourself, brothers, into the light boats,

Row, guys, do not be shy,

Whether under the same mountains, under the Serpents! "

Not a fierce snake here hissed,

The plot of the robber song about Kopeikin was recorded in several versions. As is usually the case in folk art, all known samples help to understand general character works. The central motive of this song cycle is the prophetic dream of Ataman Kopeikin. Here is another version of this dream, foreshadowing the death of the hero.

As if I was walking along the end of the blue sea;

Everything stirred like a blue sea,

Everything was mixed with the yellow sand;

I stumbled with my left leg,

He grabbed hold of a spongy tree with his hand,

For a spongy tree, for a buckthorn,

For the very top:

The top of the buckthorn has broken off,

The chieftain of the robbers Kopeikin, as he is depicted in the folk song tradition, "stumbled with his foot, grabbed hold of a spongy tree with his hand." This symbolic detail painted in tragic tones is the main distinguishing feature of this folklore image.

Gogol uses the poetic symbolism of the song in describing the appearance of his hero: "his arm and leg were torn off." Creating a portrait of Captain Kopeikin, the writer gives only this detail, which connects the character of the poem with his folklore prototype. It should also be emphasized that in folk art, tearing off someone's arm and leg is revered as a "joke" or "pampering". Gogolevsky Kopeikin does not at all evoke a pitying attitude towards himself. This face is by no means passive or passive. Captain Kopeikin is, first of all, a daring robber. In 1834, in his article "A Look at the Compilation of Little Russia," Gogol wrote about the desperate Zaporozhye Cossacks, "who had nothing to lose, whose life was a penny, whose violent will could not tolerate laws and power.<...>This society retained all the features that depict a gang of robbers ... ”(VIII, 46–48).

Created according to the laws of fairy tale poetics (orientation towards living colloquial, direct appeal to the audience, the use of vernacular expressions and narrative techniques), Gogol's Tale also requires an appropriate reading. Its fairytale form is clearly manifested in the fusion of the folk-poetic, folklore beginning with the real-event, concrete-historical. The popular rumor about the robber Kopeikin, going deep into the depths of folk poetry, is no less important for understanding the aesthetic nature of the Tale than the chronological fixation of the image for a certain era - the campaign of 1812.

In the postmaster's account, the story of Captain Kopeikin is least of all a retelling of a real incident. Reality is here refracted through the consciousness of the hero-storyteller, who embodies, according to Gogol, the peculiarities of folk, national thinking. Historical events of national and national importance have always given rise to all kinds of oral stories and legends among the people. At the same time, traditional epic images were especially actively creatively rethought and adapted to new historical conditions.

So, let's turn to the content of the Tale. The postmaster’s story about Captain Kopeikin is interrupted by the words of the police master: “Just let me, Ivan Andreevich, after all, Captain Kopeikin, you said yourself, without an arm and a leg, but Chichikov’s ...” To this reasonable remark, the postmaster “slapped his forehead with all his might , calling himself publicly veal. He could not understand how such a circumstance did not come to him at the very beginning of the story, and he confessed that the saying is absolutely true: a Russian is strong in hindsight ”(VI, 205).

Other characters in the poem, but above all Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov himself, are in abundance endowed with the "root Russian virtue" - a backward, "reckless", repentant mind. Gogol had his own special attitude to this proverb. Usually it is used in the meaning of "caught on, but late" and the fortress in hindsight is regarded as a vice or defect. IN Explanatory dictionary V. Dahl we find: "The Rusak is strong backward (hind mind)"; "Clever, but backwards"; "He is quick-witted in hindsight." In his "Proverbs of the Russian People" we read: "Everyone is smart: some first, some afterwards"; “You can't fix things with hindsight”; "If only I had that mind in advance that comes afterward." But Gogol knew another interpretation of this saying. Thus, the well-known collector of Russian folklore of the first half of the nineteenth century I. M. Snegirev saw in it an expression of the mentality characteristic of the Russian people: "That a Russian can catch his mind and come to his senses even after a mistake, this is what his proverb says:" Russian is strong in hindsight. " ; “This is how Russian proverbs proper express the mentality characteristic of the people, the way of judgment, the peculiarity of the view<...>Their root basis is the centuries-old, hereditary experience, this hind mind, with which the Russian is strong ... ".

Gogol showed constant interest in the works of Snegirev, which helped him to better understand the essence of the national spirit. For example, in the article "What finally is the essence of Russian poetry ..." - this kind of aesthetic manifesto of Gogol - Krylov's nationality is explained by the special nationally distinctive mentality of the great fabulist. In the fable, writes Gogol, Krylov “knew how to become a folk poet. This is our strong Russian head, the very mind that is akin to the mind of our proverbs, the very mind with which the Russian person is strong, the mind of conclusions, the so-called back mind ”(VI, 392).

Gogol's article on Russian poetry was necessary for him, as he himself admitted in a letter to P. A. Pletnev in 1846, "in explaining the elements of the Russian man." In Gogol's reflections on the fate of his native people, their present and historical future, "the hind mind or the mind of final conclusions, which is predominantly endowed with the Russian people in front of others," is the fundamental "property of Russian nature" that distinguishes Russians from other peoples. With this property of the national mind, which is akin to the mind of folk proverbs, “who were able to draw such great conclusions from their poor, insignificant time<...>and who only speak about what huge conclusions can be drawn by today's Russian people from the current wide time, in which the results of all centuries are drawn ”(VI, 408), Gogol linked the high destiny of Russia.

When the witty guesses and clever assumptions of officials about who Chichikov is (there is a "millionaire", and a "maker of counterfeit banknotes", and Captain Kopeikin), come to the ridiculous - Chichikov is declared to be Napo-Leon in disguise, - the author, as it were, takes under his protection their heroes. “And in the world chronicle of mankind, there are many whole centuries, which, it would seem, deleted and destroyed as unnecessary. Many delusions have been committed in the world, which, it would seem, even a child would not have done now ”(VI, 210). The principle of opposing "ours" and "others", clearly perceptible from the first to the last page of Dead Souls, is maintained by the author in the opposition of the Russian hind mind to the mistakes and delusions of all mankind. The possibilities inherent in this "proverbial" property of the Russian mind should have been revealed, according to Gogol, in the subsequent volumes of the poem.

The ideological and compositional role of this proverb in Gogol's idea helps to understand the meaning of the "Tale of Captain Kopeikin", without which the author could not imagine the poem.

The story exists in three main editions. The second is considered canonical, not passed by the censorship, which is printed in the text of the poem in all modern editions. The original edition differs from the subsequent ones primarily in its finale, which tells about Kopeikin's predatory adventures, his flight abroad and a letter from there to the Tsar explaining the motives of his actions. In two other versions of the Tale, Gogol limited himself to only a hint that Captain Kopeikin had become the chieftain of a gang of robbers. Perhaps the writer had a presentiment of censorship difficulties. But censorship, I think, was the reason for the rejection of the first edition. In its original form, the Story, although it clarified the main idea of ​​the author, nevertheless did not fully correspond to the ideological and artistic concept of the poem.

In all three well-known editions of the Tale, immediately after the explanation of who Captain Kopeikin is, there follows an indication of the main circumstance that forced Kopeikin to raise funds for himself: “Well, then no, you know, such orders were made about the wounded; this invalid capital was already started up, you can imagine, in a way, much later ”(VI, 200). Thus, the disabled capital, which provided for the wounded, was established, but only after Captain Kopeikin himself had found the means for himself. Moreover, as it follows from the initial edition, he takes these funds from the "state pocket". A gang of robbers, led by Kopeikin, are at war exclusively with the treasury. “There is no passage on the roads, and all of this, so to speak, is directed at only the government. If a traveler is passing by for some reason - well, they will only ask: “Why?” - and go your own way. And as soon as some government fodder, provisions or money - in a word, everything that bears, so to speak, the name of the treasury - there is no descent! " (VI, 829).

Seeing the "omission" with Kopeikin, the Tsar "issued the strictest order to form a committee solely in order to improve the lot of everyone, that is, the wounded ..." (VI, 830). The highest state authorities in Russia, and first of all the Tsar himself, are capable, according to Gogol, to draw the right conclusions, to make a wise, just decision, but that's just not right away, but "afterward." The wounded were provided as in no other "enlightened states", but only when the thunder had already struck ... Captain Kopeikin went into robbers not because of the callousness of high government officials, but because this is already the case in Russia everything is arranged, everything is strong in hindsight, starting with the postmaster and Chichikov and ending with the Emperor.

Preparing the manuscript for publication, Gogol focuses primarily on the "error" itself, and not on its "correction." Having abandoned the final of the original edition, he retained the meaning of the Tale he needed, but changed the accents in it. In the final version, the fortress in hindsight, in accordance with the artistic concept of the first volume, is presented in its negative, ironically reduced form. The ability of a Russian person, even after a mistake, to draw the necessary conclusions and correct himself, should, according to Gogol, be fully realized in subsequent volumes.

In the general concept of the poem, Gogol's involvement in folk philosophy was reflected. Popular wisdom is ambiguous. The proverb lives its real, genuine life not in collections, but in living folk speech. Its meaning can vary depending on the situation in which it is used. The truly popular character of Gogol's poem lies not in the fact that it contains an abundance of proverbs, but in the fact that the author uses them in accordance with their existence among the people. A writer 's assessment of this or that "property of Russian nature" entirely depends on the specific situation in which this "property" manifests itself. The author's irony is directed not at the property itself, but at its real being.

Thus, there is no reason to believe that, having remade the Story, Gogol made any significant concessions to the censorship. There is no doubt that he did not seek to present his hero only as a victim of injustice. If a "significant person" (minister, general, chief) is guilty of something before Captain Kopeikin, then only in the way Gogol said on another occasion, he failed to "get a good understanding of his nature and his circumstances." One of distinctive features poetics of the writer is a sharp definiteness of characters. The actions and external actions of Gogol's heroes, the circumstances in which they find themselves, are only an external expression of their internal essence, the properties of nature, and their temperament. When Gogol wrote on April 10, 1842 to P.A.Pletnev that he "meant Kopeikin's character more strongly, so that now it is clear that he himself was the cause of everything and that he was treated well" (these words are almost literally repeated in the quoted letter A V. Nikitenko), then he did not mean a radical reworking of the image for the sake of censorship requirements, but the strengthening of those character traits of his hero that were in him initially.

The image of Captain Kopeikin, which, like other Gogol images, has become a household name, has firmly entered Russian literature and journalism. In the nature of his interpretation, two traditions have developed: one in the works of M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin and F. M. Dostoevsky, the other in the liberal press. In Shchedrin's cycle "Cultured People" (1876) Kopeikin appears as a limited landowner from Zalupsk: “No wonder my friend, Captain Kopeikin, writes:“ Don't go to Zalupsk! we, brother, now have so many lean and hardened divorced - our entire cultural club is spoiled! "". FM Dostoevsky also interprets Gogol's image in a sharply negative spirit. In the "Diary of a Writer" for 1881 Kopeikin appears as a prototype of modern "pocket industrialists". “... Many captains of the Kopeikins were terribly divorced, in countless modifications<...>And they are sharpening their teeth for the treasury and the public domain. "

On the other hand, a different tradition existed in the liberal press - "a sympathetic attitude towards the Gogol hero as a person fighting for his well-being with an inert bureaucracy indifferent to his needs." It is noteworthy that writers so dissimilar in their ideological orientation as Saltykov-Shchedrin and Dostoevsky, who also adhered to a different artistic manner, interpret the image of Gogol's captain Kopeikin in the same negative way. It would be wrong to explain the position of the writers by the fact that their artistic interpretation was based on a version of the Tale softened by censorship conditions, that Shchedrin and Dostoevsky did not know its original edition, which, according to the general opinion of researchers, is distinguished by the greatest social acuteness. Back in 1857, N. G. Chernyshevsky, in a review of the posthumous Collected Works and Letters of Gogol, published by P. A. Kulish, completely reprinted the ending of the Tale for the first time published at that time, concluding it with the following words: “Yes, be that as it may, but great mind and high nature was the one who first introduced us to us in our present form ... ".

The point, most likely, is different. Shchedrin and Dostoevsky sensed in Gogol's Kopeikin those nuances and peculiarities of his character that eluded others, and, as happened more than once in their work, they "straightened" the image, sharpened its features. The possibility of such an interpretation of the image of Captain Kopeikin lies, undoubtedly, in himself.

So, the "The Tale of Captain Kopeikin" told by the postmaster, clearly demonstrating the proverb "The Russian man is strong in hindsight," naturally and organically introduced it into the narrative. By an unexpected change in the narrative manner, Gogol forces the reader to stumble, as it were, on this episode, to pay attention to it, thereby making it clear that it is here that is the key to understanding the poem.

Gogol's way of creating characters and pictures in this case echoes the words of L.N. Tolstoy, who also highly appreciated Russian proverbs, and, in particular, the collections of I.M.Snegirev. Tolstoy intended to write a story using the proverb as its grain. He talks about this, for example, in the essay "Who can learn to write from, to the peasant children with us, or we from the peasant children?": "For a long time already reading the collection of Snegirev's proverbs has been one of my favorite - not occupations, but pleasures. For each proverb, I imagine people from the people and their collisions in the sense of the proverb. Among the unrealizable dreams, I always imagined a number of stories, or pictures, written in proverbs. "

Artistic identity"The Tale of Captain Kopeikin", which, in the words of the postmaster, "is in some way a whole poem", helps to understand the aesthetic nature of "Dead Souls". In creating his creation - a truly folk and deeply national poem - Gogol relied on the traditions of folk poetry culture.