The life and creative path of N. V. Gogol. Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol: a list of works, descriptions and reviews Brief information about Gogol's work

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was born on April 1, 1809 in the town of Velikie Sorochintsy, Mirgorodsky district, Poltava province, in the family of a landowner. The Gogol family had a large property, about a thousand acres of land and about four hundred souls of peasants.

Gogol spent all his childhood in the Yanovshchina estate, which belonged to the parents of Nikolai Vasilyevich. His mother tried very hard to instill in her son a love of religion. Gogol was interested in this, but not so much religion as a whole, as prophecies about the Last Judgment and about the idea of the afterlife retribution.

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Also in childhood, Gogol began to write poetry.

Nikolai Vasilyevich began to study. At first it was the Poltava district school, then private lessons, and then Nikolai Vasilyevich entered the gymnasium higher sciences in Nizhyn. Here he begins to try himself in different literary genres, but he is not going to associate himself with this, because he dreams of a legal career.

After graduating from the gymnasium in 1828, Gogol went to St. Petersburg, but there he met with failure. The poem "Idyll in Pictures" written by him causes laughter and indulgence. Then Nikolai Vasilievich suddenly leaves for Germany, and just as suddenly he returns. But here again, failure, he does not enter the stage as a dramatic actor.

At the end of 1829, he served in the Department of State Economy and Public Buildings of the Ministry of the Interior. In the interval from 1830 to 1831, he served in the department of appanages.

This experience gave Gogol a disillusionment with public service and a craving for literature. He begins to spend a lot of time on this matter. His works are beginning to appear. Gogol begins to spend a lot of time in the circle of Pushkin and Zhukovsky. And, finally, in 1831-1832, Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka were published. After the release of the second part of this work, Gogol becomes famous, he goes to Moscow. But then he begins to have difficulties with censorship.

Gogol became more and more interested in history, and several times tried to teach at universities, but he was not accepted. A little later he became an adjunct professor in the department of world history.

In parallel with this, he writes stories that had their own style, a vivid example of this was the work "The Nose" and "Taras Bulba".

When Gogol wrote The Inspector General, the reaction to his work was ambiguous. The fact is that already two months after the completion of writing the comedy, Gogol already put it on stage. But after a while, criticism rained down on Nikolai Vasilyevich, which greatly upset Gogol. The deterioration of relations with Pushkin also added fuel to the fire.

Nikolai Vasilyevich begins to spend a lot of time abroad. He goes to Germany, then to Switzerland. And at the same time he is working on the work “Dead Souls”, the idea of which, as the idea of the “Inspector General”, was suggested by Pushkin. And being in France, Gogol learns about his death. Then Nikolai Vasilievich decided that this work was like a kind of "sacred testament" of the poet.

Since 1837, Gogol has been on the road again: Rome, Turin, Baden-Baden, Frankfurt, Geneva and again Rome.

Further, the life of Nikolai Vasilyevich is in full swing. He goes to Moscow, reads the chapters of the first volume of Dead Souls, receives good feedback, leaves again, burns some chapters of the work, finishes it and submits it for censorship. And when he decided to write the second volume, Gogol had a crisis. He travels a lot, but the work is very difficult to write. And in the end he burns it.

Nikolai Vasilyevich begins the first spiritual crisis, he is being treated, and only by the autumn of 1845 did he feel better. He goes back to the second volume of Dead Souls, but it's still difficult. Gogol is distracted a lot by other things. After writing the book "Selected passages from correspondence with friends", Gogol receives another blow. He is getting heavily criticized. This had a very bad effect on Nikolai Vasilyevich. After that, he reads a lot and decides to go on a pilgrimage to holy places. In 1849 - 1850, Nikolai Vasilyevich decided to read some chapters of the second volume of Dead Souls, and Gogol's friends liked them. Then he decides to finally think about family life and makes an offer to Anna Mikhailovna Vielgorskaya, but she refuses the writer.

Gogol continues to work on the second volume of Dead Souls. He leads enough active image life, and in 1852 he completes the second volume, but Gogol begins a crisis. He meets with Father Matthew, and on February 7 he confesses and takes communion. On the night of 11/12, he burns the entire second volume, leaving only drafts of five chapters. February 21, in the morning, Gogol died.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was born on March 20 (April 1), 1809 in the town of Velikie Sorochintsy, Mirgorodsky district, Poltava province. The writer came from a middle-class landlord family: they had about 400 souls of serfs and over 1000 acres of land. The writer's ancestors on his father's side were hereditary priests, but already his grandfather Athanasius Demyanovich left the spiritual field and entered the hetman's office; it was he who added to his surname Yanovsky another one - Gogol, which was supposed to demonstrate the origin of the family from Colonel Evstafiy (Ostap) Gogol, well-known in Ukrainian history of the 17th century (this fact, however, does not find sufficient confirmation).

The writer's father, Vasily Afanasyevich, served at the Little Russian Post Office. Mother, Marya Ivanovna, who came from the Kosyarovsky landowner family, was known as the first beauty in the Poltava region, she married Vasily Afanasyevich at the age of fourteen. In the family, in addition to Nikolai, there were five more children. The future writer spent his childhood in his native estate Vasilievka (another name is Yanovshchina), visiting with his parents the surrounding places - Dikanka, which belonged to the Minister of Internal Affairs V.P. Kochubey, in Obukhovka, where the writer V.V. Kapnist, but especially often in Kibintsy, the estate of a former minister, a distant relative of Gogol on his mother's side - D. P. Troshchinsky. The early artistic impressions of the future writer are connected with Kibintsy, where there was an extensive library and home theater. They were supplemented by historical traditions and biblical stories, in particular, the prophecy told by the mother about the Last Judgment and the inevitable punishment of sinners. Since then, Gogol, in the words of the researcher K. V. Mochulsky, constantly lived "under the terror of the afterlife retribution."

At first, Gogol studied at the Poltava district school (1818-1819), then he took private lessons from the Poltava teacher Gavriil Sorochinsky, living in his apartment, and in May 1821 he entered the newly founded Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences. Gogol studied rather mediocrely, but he distinguished himself in the gymnasium theater - as an actor and decorator. The gymnasium period includes the first literary experiments in verse and prose, mainly “in a lyrical and serious way”, but also in a comic spirit, such as, for example, the satire “Something about Nizhyn, or the law is not written for fools” (not preserved) . Most of all, however, Gogol was occupied at this time with the idea of public service in the field of JUSTICE; such a decision arose not without the influence of Professor N. G. Belousov, who taught natural law and was subsequently dismissed from the gymnasium on charges of “free-thinking” (during the investigation, Gogol testified in favor of the professor).

After graduating from the gymnasium, in December 1828, Gogol, together with one of his closest friends, A. S. Danilevsky, arrived in St. Petersburg. But only disappointments await him: he cannot get the desired place; the poem "Hanz Kühelgarten", written, obviously, back in the gymnasium time and published in 1829 (under the pseudonym V. Alov), receives deadly

responses from reviewers (Gogol immediately buys up almost the entire print run of the book and burns it); to this, perhaps, love experiences were added, which he spoke about in a letter to his mother (dated July 24, 1829). All this makes Gogol suddenly leave Petersburg for Germany.

Upon returning to Russia (in September of the same year), Gogol finally manages to enter the service - first in the Department of State Economy and Public Buildings, and then in the Department of Appanages. Bureaucratic activity does not bring satisfaction to Gogol, but new publications (the story "Bisavryuk, or Evening on the eve of Ivan Kupala", articles and essays) are attracting more and more attention to the reading Russian public. The writer makes extensive literary acquaintances, in particular, V. A. Zhukovsky, P. A. Pletnev, who introduced Gogol to A. S. Pushkin at home in May 1831 (obviously on the 20th).

In the autumn of the same year, the first part of the collection of short stories from Ukrainian life “Evening on a Farm near Dikanka” was published (the second part appeared next year), enthusiastically received by Pushkin: “Here is real gaiety, sincere, laid-back, without affectation, without stiffness . And in some places, what poetry! ..” At the same time, the “gaiety” of Gogol’s book revealed various shades - from carefree banter to gloomy comedy, close to black humor. With all the fullness and sincerity of the feelings of Gogol's characters, the world in which they live is tragically conflicted: natural and family ties are being terminated, mysterious unreal forces are invading the natural order of things (the fantastic is based mainly on folk demonology). Already in Evenings, Gogol's extraordinary art of creating an integral, complete and living artistic cosmos manifested itself.

After the release of the first prose book, Gogol becomes famous. In the summer of 1832, he was met with enthusiasm in Moscow, where he met M.P. Pogodin, S.T. Aksakov and his family, M.S. Shchepkin and other famous cultural figures. Gogol's next trip to Moscow, equally successful, took place in the summer of 1835. By the end of this year, he leaves pedagogy (from the summer of 1834 he held the post of adjunct professor of general history at St. Petersburg University) and devotes himself entirely to literary work.

The year 1835 was extraordinarily fruitful: the following two collections of prose works were published - Arabesques and Mirgorod (both in two parts), work began on the poem Dead Souls, the comedy The Inspector General was mostly completed, the comedy was written. Grooms" (the future "Marriage-ba"). Reporting on the writer's new achievements, including the forthcoming premiere of The Inspector General at the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg (April 19, 1836), Pushkin noted in Sovremennik: “Mr. Gogol is still moving forward. We wish and hope to have a chance to talk about him often in our magazine.” By the way, Gogol actively published in Pushkin's journal, in particular as a critic (the article "On the Movement of Journal Literature in 1834 and 1835").

"Mirgorod" and "Arabesques" marked new

artistic worlds on the Gogol map

universe. Thematically close to "Evenings"

("Little Russian" life), the Mirgorod cycle, which united the stories "Old-world landowners", "Taras Bulba", "Viy", "The Tale of how Ivan Ivanovich quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich", reveals a sharp change in perspective and pictorial scale: in a number of cases, instead of strong and harsh characteristics, there is the vulgarity and facelessness of the townsfolk, instead of poetic and deep feelings, there are sluggish, almost animal reflexes. The ordinariness of modern life was set off by the colorfulness and extravagance of the past, but the more strikingly manifested in it, in this past, deep internal conflict (for example, in "Tara-se Bulba" - a collision of an individualizing love feeling with communal interests).

The world of “Petersburg Tales” from “Arabes-Juice” (“Nevsky Prospekt”, “Notes of a Madman”, “Portrait”; they are adjoined by those published later, respectively in 1836 and 1842, “The Nose” and The Overcoat is the world of a modern city with its sharp social and ethical collisions, character breaks, disturbing and ghostly atmosphere.

Gogol's generalization reaches its highest degree in The Inspector General, where the "prefabricated city" seemed to imitate the life of any larger social association, up to the state, the Russian Empire, or even humanity as a whole. Instead of the traditional active engine of intrigue - a rogue or an adventurer - an involuntary deceiver (the imaginary auditor Khlestakov) was placed at the epicenter of the conflict, which gave everything that happened an additional, grotesque illumination, amplified to the limit by the final "not-my scene". Freed from the specific details of the "punishment of vice", conveying, first of all, the very effect of a general shock (which was emphasized by the symbolic duration of the moment of petrification), this scene left the possibility of a variety of interpretations, including the eschatological one - as a reminder of the inevitable Terrible court.

In June 1836, Gogol (again together with Danilevsky) went abroad, where he spent a total of more than 12 years, except for two visits to Russia - in 1839-1840 and in 1841-1842. The writer lived in Germany, Switzerland, France, Austria, the Czech Republic, but for the longest time in Italy, continuing to work on " Dead souls».

The generalization inherent in Gogol now received a spatial expression: as the Chichikov scam developed (purchasing the “reviz-sky souls” of dead people), Russian life was to open up in many ways - not only from the side of “its base ranks”, but also in higher, significant manifestations. At the same time, the whole depth of the key motif of the poem was revealed: the concept of "dead soul" and the antithesis "alive-dead" that flowed from STSYUDZ from the sphere of specific word usage (the deceased peasant, "revision soul") moved into the sphere of figurative and symbolic se-mantics. The problem arose of the mortification and revival of the human soul and, in connection with this, of society as a whole, the Russian world, first of all, but through it and everything modern humanity. The genre specificity of Dead Souls is connected with the complexity of the idea (the designation "poem" indicated the symbolic meaning of the work, the special role of the narrator and the author's positive ideal). After the publication of the first volume of Dead Souls (1842), work on the second volume (begun in 1840) proceeded with particular intensity and pain. In the summer of 1845, in a difficult state of mind, Gogol burned the manuscript of the second volume, later explaining his decision precisely by the fact that the “ways and roads” to the ideal, the revival of the human spirit, did not receive a sufficiently truthful and convincing expression. As if compensating for the long-promised second volume and anticipating the general movement of the meaning of the poem* Gogol in Selected passages from correspondence with friends (1847) turned to a more direct, journalistic explanation of his ideas. The need for internal Christian education and re-education of each and every one was emphasized with particular force in this book, without which no social improvements are possible. At the same time, Gogol is also working on works of a theological nature, the most significant of which is Reflections on the Divine Liturgy (published posthumously in 1857).

In April 1848, after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to the Holy Sepulcher, Gogol finally returned to his homeland. He spends many months in 1848 and 1850-1851 in Odessa and Little Russia, in the autumn of 1848 he visits St. Petersburg, in 1850 and 1851 he visits Optina Pustyn, but most of the time he lives in Moscow.

By the beginning of 1852, the edition of the second volume was re-created, chapters from which Gogol read to his closest friends - A. O. Smirnova-Rosset, S. P. Shevyrev, M. P. Pogodin, S. T. Aksakov and others. The Rzhev archpriest Father Matvey (Konstantinovsky), whose preaching of tireless moral self-improvement largely determined Gogol's state of mind in the last period of his life, disapproved of the work.

On the night of February 11-12, in the house on Nikitsky Boulevard, where Gogol lived with Count A.P. Tolstoy, in a state of deep spiritual crisis, the writer burns a new edition of the second volume. A few days later, on the morning of February 21, he dies.

The funeral of the writer took place with a huge gathering of people at the cemetery of the St. Danilov Monastery (in 1931, Gogol's remains were re-buried at the Novodevichy cemetery).

V historical perspective Gogol's creativity was revealed gradually. For its direct successors, representatives of the so-called natural school, social motives, the lifting of all prohibitions on the topic and material, everyday concreteness, as well as humanistic pathos in the depiction of the “little man” were of paramount importance. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Christian philosophical and moral problems of Gogol's works were revealed with particular force. Subsequently, the perception of Gogol's work was supplemented by a sense of the special complexity and irrationality of his artistic world and the visionary courage and non-traditionality of his pictorial manner. “Gogol's prose is at least four-dimensional. He can be compared with his contemporary, the mathematician Lobachevsky, who blew up the Euclidean world ... ”V. Nabokov appreciated the work of Gogol. All this determined special place Gogol's creativity in modern world culture.

"To be in the world and not signify one's existence in any way - that seems terrible to me." N. V. Gogol.

The genius of classical literature

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is known to the world as a writer, poet, playwright, publicist and critic. A man of remarkable talent and an amazing master of words, he is famous both in Ukraine, where he was born, and in Russia, where he moved over time.

Especially Gogol is known for his mystical heritage. His stories, written in a unique Ukrainian language, which is not literary in the full sense of the word, convey the depth and beauty of Ukrainian speech, known to the whole world. The greatest popularity of Gogol was given by his "Viy". What other works did Gogol write? Below is a list of works. These are sensational stories, often mystical, and stories from the school curriculum, and few famous works author.

List of writer's works

In total, Gogol wrote more than 30 works. Some of them he continued to finish, despite the publication. Many of his creations had several variations, including "Taras Bulba" and "Viy". Having published the story, Gogol continued to reflect on it, sometimes adding or changing the ending. His stories often have multiple endings. So, next we consider the most famous works of Gogol. The list is in front of you:

"Ganz Kühelgarten" (1827-1829, under the pseudonym A. Alov).
“Evenings on a farm near Dikanka” (1831), part 1 (“Sorochinsky fair”, “Evening on the eve of Ivan Kupala”, “Drowned woman”, “Missing letter”). The second part was published a year later. It includes the following stories: "The Night Before Christmas", "Terrible Revenge", "Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and his Aunt", "The Enchanted Place".
Mirgorod (1835). Its edition was divided into 2 parts. The first part included the stories "Taras Bulba", "Old World Landowners". The second part, completed in 1839-1841, included "Viy", "The Tale of how Ivan Ivanovich quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich."
"Nose" (1841-1842).
"Morning of a business man". It was written, like the comedies Litigation, Fragment and Lakeyskaya, from 1832 to 1841.
"Portrait" (1842).
"Notes of a Madman" and "Nevsky Prospekt" (1834-1835).
"Inspector" (1835).
The play "Marriage" (1841).
"Dead Souls" (1835-1841).
Comedies "Players" and "Theatrical tour after the presentation of a new comedy" (1836-1841).
"Overcoat" (1839-1841).
"Rome" (1842).

These are published works that Gogol wrote. The works (a list by year, to be more precise) indicate that the writer's talent flourished in 1835-1841. And now let's go through the reviews of Gogol's most famous stories.

"Viy" - the most mystical creation of Gogol

The story "Viy" tells about the recently deceased lady, the centurion's daughter, who, as the whole village knows, was a witch. The centurion, at the request of his beloved daughter, forces the funeral worker Khoma Bruta to be read over her. The witch, who died through the fault of Khoma, dreams of revenge...

Reviews of the work "Viy" - continuous praise for the writer and his talent. It is impossible to discuss the list of Nikolai Gogol's works without mentioning everyone's favorite Viy. Readers note bright characters, original, unique, with their own characters and habits. All of them are typical Ukrainians, cheerful and optimistic people, rude but kind. It is impossible not to appreciate the subtle irony and humor of Gogol.

They also highlight the unique style of the writer and his ability to play on contrasts. During the day, the peasants walk and have fun, Khoma also drinks, so as not to think about the horror of the coming night. With the advent of evening, a gloomy, mystical silence sets in - and Khoma again enters the circle outlined in chalk ...

A very short story keeps you in suspense until the last page. Below are stills from the 1967 film of the same name.

Satirical comedy "The Nose"

The Nose is an amazing story, written in such a satirical form that at first it seems fantastic absurdity. According to the plot, Platon Kovalev, a public person and prone to narcissism, wakes up in the morning without a nose - it is empty in its place. In a panic, Kovalev begins to look for his lost nose, because without it you won’t even appear in a decent society!

Readers easily saw the prototype of Russian (and not only!) Society. Gogol's stories, despite being written in the 19th century, do not lose their relevance. Gogol, whose list of works for the most part can be divided into mysticism and satire, very subtly felt modern society, which has not changed much since then. The rank, the external gloss are still held in high esteem, but the inner content of a person is of no interest to anyone. It is Plato's nose, with an outer shell, but without inner content, that becomes the prototype of a man richly dressed, rationally thinking, but soulless.

"Taras Bulba"

"Taras Bulba" is a great creation. Describing the works of Gogol, the most famous, the list of which is provided above, it is impossible not to mention this story. In the center of the plot are two brothers, Andrei and Ostap, as well as their father, Taras Bulba himself, a strong, courageous and utterly principled man.

Readers especially emphasize the small details of the story, on which the author focused, which enlivens the picture, makes those distant times closer and more understandable. The writer studied the details of the life of that era for a long time, so that readers could more vividly and vividly imagine the events taking place. In general, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, whose list of works we are discussing today, has always attached particular importance to trifles.

Charismatic characters also made a lasting impression on readers. The tough, merciless Taras, ready to do anything for the sake of the Motherland, the brave and courageous Ostap and the romantic, selfless Andrey - they cannot leave readers indifferent. In general, the famous works of Gogol, the list of which we are considering, have interesting feature- an amazing, but harmonious contradiction in the characters of the characters.

"Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka"

Another mystical, but at the same time funny and ironic work by Gogol. The blacksmith Vakula is in love with Oksana, who promised to marry him if he gets her little slippers, like the queen herself. Vakula is in despair... But then, quite by chance, he comes across evil spirits, having fun in the village in the society of a witch. It is not surprising that Gogol, whose list of works contains numerous mystical stories, involved a witch and a devil in this story.

This story is interesting not only for the plot, but also for the colorful characters, each of which is unique. They, as if alive, appear before the readers, each in his own way. Gogol admires some with slight irony, he admires Vakula, and teaches Oksana to appreciate and love. Like a caring father, he chuckles good-naturedly at his characters, but it all looks so soft that it causes only a gentle smile.

The character of the Ukrainians, their language, customs and foundations, so clearly described in the story, could only be described in such detail and lovingly by Gogol. Even joking about the "Muscovites" looks cute in the mouths of the characters in the story. This is because Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, whose list of works we are discussing today, loved his homeland and spoke of it with love.

"Dead Souls"

Sounds mystical, right? However, in reality, Gogol did not resort to mysticism in this work and looked much deeper - into human souls. Main character Chichikov seems to be a negative character at first glance, but the more the reader gets to know him, the more positive features he notices in him. Gogol makes the reader worry about the fate of his hero, despite his hard-hitting actions, which already says a lot.

In this work, the writer, as always, acts as an excellent psychologist and a real genius of the word.

Of course, these are not all the creations that Gogol wrote. The list of works is incomplete without the continuation of Dead Souls. It was his author who allegedly burned it before his death. Rumor has it that in the next two volumes, Chichikov was supposed to improve and become a decent person. Is it so? Unfortunately, now we will never know for sure.

3. Mirgorod

4. "Petersburg stories"

1. Characteristics of N.V. Gogol

The work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809-1852) represents an important stage in the development of Russian literature of the first half of XIX v. His work is very closely connected with Ukrainian culture, and its themes and plots prevail in it, since the writer was born in Ukraine. Gogol's work includes the following major works:

✓ a collection of stories "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka";

✓ collection of stories "Mirgorod";

✓ collection "Petersburg Tales";

✓ comedy "Inspector";

✓ novel-poem "Dead Souls".

2. "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka"

The collection "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" is the first in his work, and the stories included in this collection brought Gogol popularity. The collection consists of two books and includes the following stories:

✓ in the first book:

. "Christmas Eve";

. "May night";

. "Sorochinsky fair";

. "Missing Diploma";

✓ in the second book:

. "The Night Before Christmas" (transferred by the author from the first edition);

. "Terrible revenge";

. "Enchanted place";

. "Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and his aunt".

The collection "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" as a literary work can be characterized as follows:

✓ the poetic image of Ukraine, its nature is transmitted;

✓ Ukrainian folk tales, legends, traditions, traditions are used and presented in a new way;

✓ vividly and interestingly describes the folk Ukrainian village life;

✓ folklore techniques of artistic expression are used;

✓ the best features of the national character are embodied in the heroes, the appearance and moral health are harmoniously combined;

✓ awakens the interest of the Russian reader of that time to Little Russia;

✓ is an example of the romantic trend in Russian literature of that time, and romanticism in the collection is expressed as follows:

The real life of the people has the features of poetry, striving for the beautiful and sublime;

The ideal world is opposed to prose and the disorder of life;

Folklore and techniques used in the work have the following features of romanticism:

Fairy stories;

Poetics of the mysterious and enigmatic, filling the legends;

Appeal to the past of the country, which is filled with heroic deeds;

Reality is intertwined with fiction, and the epic with the lyrical;

✓ especially important place occupies the fantastic, which has the following features in the story:

Painted with household features;

Depicted as vulgar, petty;

Presented in a comic light;

✓ is comic in nature, which is expressed in humor, jokes and laughter that accompany the characters throughout the story.

3. Mirgorod

The collection "Mirgorod" (1835) combines a number of stories written in St. Petersburg, and includes the following stories:

✓ "Old-world landowners";

✓ "Taras Bulba";

✓ "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich";

✓ "Viy".

The collection "Mirgorod" as a literary work can be characterized as follows:

✓ The stories included in this collection are strikingly different from each other in the following points:

Content;

The tonality of the work;

Genre;

Art form;

✓ despite such obvious differences, the stories are united by the author's view of the purpose of a person, which is expressed in the subtext;

✓ each story is unique in its character and style: there is an idyllic shade, and heroic features, a satirical beginning, and fantastic elements;

✓ compilation is new phase the writer's work, in which the realistic method of depicting reality is actively developing, which is expressed in the stories as follows:

More voluminous and multifaceted characteristics of characters;

Convincingly realistic depiction of everyday life, the circumstances of the life of the characters and reality itself;

Rich speech characteristics of the characters, their dialogues;

✓ a deeper and more thorough insight into the historical past of the Ukrainian Cossacks (The Tale "Taras Bulba").

Tale " old world landowners

✓ the originality of the author's attitude to the characters, which lies in the duality of the assessment of the characters and the irony in relation to them;

✓ denial and condemnation of the patriarchal way of life, isolation from public life, lack of public interests.

Tale " Taras Bulba"has the following features:

✓ the heroic beginning, expressed in the description by the author of the struggle of the Ukrainian people for their freedom;

✓ historicism combined with fiction when events are described XV - XVII centuries, but the characters often do not have real historical prototypes;

✓ an element of idealization of democratic equality;

✓ the abundance of Ukrainian folklore, expressed in various folk legends, songs, depictions of battles in the spirit of the exploits of epic heroes;

✓ hyperbole, exaggeration in the construction of the image of Taras Bulba;

✓ genre of folk-heroic epic;

✓ the originality of the compositional structure, which is organized as an alternation of bright battle and peaceful scenes with a gradual separation from peaceful life and the transition of all participants in the narrative to the world of struggle;

✓ the dominance of the romantic method in the depiction of reality.

4. "Petersburg stories"

"Petersburg Tales" (1835-1842) by Gogol are an important type in the writer's work for the following reasons:

✓ it is in this collection that the author actively develops the method of realism, which later found its reflection in Gogol's great poem "Dead Souls";

✓ significantly expands the picture of the image Russian life, since the scene of the stories is transferred from the province to the capital of the Russian Empire.

The collection includes the following stories:

✓ "Nevsky Prospect";

✓ "Diary of a Madman";

✓ "Portrait";

✓ "Nose";

✓ "Stroller";

✓ "Overcoat";

✓ "Rome" (not finished by the author).

The collection "Petersburg Tales" can be characterized as follows:

✓ All stories are grouped according to the following criteria:

One scene (excluding "Rome");

General problems, the main motive of which is domination in modern world rank and money;

The relatedness of the activities and characteristics of the main characters, who, as a rule, appear as "little people";

A close ideological orientation, which is expressed in the disclosure of the injustice of those public relations that have developed in society;

Similar art style;

✓ they expose the life of St. Petersburg with all its social contradictions and injustice, the contrast of the spiritual and the material;

✓ in the image of the capital, many motifs of Pushkin's "Stationmaster" and "The Bronze Horseman" continue, when it is not the splendor of palaces that is depicted, but the wretchedness of the outskirts, not wealth, but poverty;

✓ have a new character of fantasy and grotesque, the use of which was due to Gogol's appeal to such methods of depicting Petersburg reality as fantastic metamorphoses, deceit and "miracles" in order to display it most accurately and truthfully.

Tale " Nose(1836) is a prime example of Gogol's talent and can be described as follows:

✓ a plot that is fantastic in nature and realizes rich artistic possibilities;

✓ external romanticism, due to fantastic elements, flows into the realistic nature of the story;

✓ fantastic elements are used for a realistic depiction and exposure of vices, the paradoxical nature of the surrounding world, and this is what distinguishes Gogol from his predecessors, for whom a fantastic plot is interesting in itself;

✓ techniques of satire and grotesque in the form of non-combination of elements necessary for each other - face and nose and their grotesque separation; many techniques precede the play "The Government Inspector", and such elements include:

Social description of the world of officials;

Acceptance of insignificance for an important significant person;

The inclusion of ordinary events in the world of the unusual.

Tale " overcoat"(1842) occupies a special place in the collection and has the following artistic features:

✓ the plot is based on an everyday anecdote, which was retold by Annenkov in "Literary Memoirs", but Gogol has a deep socio-psychological meaning, which consists in considering the psychology of a lonely "little" person, and this plot has been developed more than once by Gogol and other Russian writers of the first half of the 19th century (Pushkin, Lermontov);

✓ there is a sharp grotesque - the combination of the incompatible, when initially quiet hero after acquiring an overcoat, he begins to live actively and "noisily";

✓ features of the construction of the story provide it artistic originality, and the composition is characterized by the gradual disclosure of the character of the protagonist and the condensation of tragic situations around him;

✓ the genre is peculiar, which is ensured by the close connection in the story of the comic, tragic and lyrical, which is given by the author himself;

✓ the theme of the "little man" influenced many Russian writers, in particular Dostoevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Turgenev, Bunin, Chekhov.

Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich - the famous Russian writer, a brilliant satirist, was born on March 20, 1809 in the village of Sorochintsy, on the border of Poltava and Mirgorod districts, in the family estate, the village of Vasilievka. Gogol's father, Vasily Afanasyevich, was the son of a regimental clerk and came from an old Little Russian family, the ancestor of which was considered an associate of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, Hetman Ostap Gogol, and his mother, Marya Ivanovna, was the daughter of the court adviser Kosyarovsky. Gogol's father, a creative, witty man, who had seen a lot and was educated in his own way, who loved to gather neighbors in his estate, whom he entertained with stories full of inexhaustible humor, was a great lover of the theater, staged performances in the house of a wealthy neighbor and not only participated in them himself, but he even composed his own comedies from Little Russian life, and Gogol's mother, a housewife and hospitable hostess, was distinguished by special religious inclinations. (See article Gogol's Childhood.)

The innate properties of Gogol's talent and character and inclinations, partly acquired by him from his parents, were clearly manifested in him already in school years when he was placed in the Nizhyn Lyceum. He liked to go with close friends to the shady garden of the lyceum and there sketch out the first literary experiments, compose caustic epigrams for teachers and comrades, come up with witty nicknames and characteristics that clearly marked his outstanding powers of observation and characteristic humor. The teaching of sciences in the lyceum was very unenviable, and the most gifted young men had to replenish their knowledge through self-education and in one way or another satisfy their needs for spiritual creativity. They subscribed to magazines and almanacs, the works of Zhukovsky and Pushkin, staged performances in which Gogol, who played comic roles, took a very close part; published their own handwritten journal, whose editor was also chosen by Gogol.

Portrait of N. V. Gogol. Artist F. Müller, 1840

However, Gogol did not attach much importance to his first creative exercises. He dreamed at the end of the course to go to public service Petersburg, where, as it seemed to him, he alone could find both a wide field for activity and the opportunity to enjoy the true benefits of science and art. But Petersburg, where Gogol moved after completing his course in 1828, far from lived up to his expectations, especially at first. Instead of extensive activities "in the field of state benefit", he was offered to confine himself to modest studies in the offices, and his literary attempts were so unsuccessful that the first work he published - the poem "Hans Küchelgarten" - Gogol himself took away from bookstores and burned it after an unfavorable critical note. about her Field.

Unusual living conditions in northern capital, material shortcomings and moral disappointments - all this plunged Gogol into despondency, and more and more often his imagination and thought turned to his native Ukraine, where he lived so freely in his childhood, from where so many poetic memories were preserved. In a wide wave they poured over his soul and poured out for the first time into the direct, poetic pages of his Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, published in 1831 in two volumes. "Evenings" was very cordially welcomed by Zhukovsky and Pletnev, and then by Pushkin, and thus finally established Gogol's literary reputation and introduced him to the circle of luminaries of Russian poetry.

From that time on, Gogol's biography began a period of the most intense literary creativity. Proximity to Zhukovsky and Pushkin, before whom he revered, inspired his inspiration, gave him courage and energy. In order to become worthy of their attention, he began to look more and more at art as a serious matter, and not just as a game of mind and talent. The appearance, one after another, of such amazingly original works by Gogol as "Portrait", "Nevsky Prospekt" and "Notes of a Madman", and then "The Nose", "Old-world landowners", "Taras Bulba" (in the first edition), "Viy" and "The story of how Ivan Ivanovich quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich", - made a strong impression in the literary world. It was obvious to everyone that in the person of Gogol a great original talent was born, which was destined to give high examples of truly real works and thereby finally consolidate in Russian literature that real creative direction, the first foundations of which had already been laid by the genius of Pushkin. Moreover, in Gogol's stories almost for the first time (albeit still superficially) the psychology of the masses, those thousands and millions of "little people" whom literature has hitherto touched only in passing and occasionally, is touched upon (albeit still superficially). These were the first steps towards the democratization of art itself. In this sense, the young literary generation represented by Belinsky enthusiastically welcomed the appearance of Gogol's first stories.

But no matter how powerful and peculiar the writer’s talent was in these first works, imbued with either the fresh, charming air of poetic Ukraine, or the cheerful, cheerful truly folk humor, or the deep humanity and stunning tragedy of The Overcoat and The Madman’s Notes, - however, not in they expressed the main essence of Gogol's work, what made him the creator of The Inspector General and Dead Souls, two works that constituted an era in Russian literature. Ever since Gogol began to create The Inspector General, his life has been completely absorbed exclusively by literary creativity.

Portrait of N. V. Gogol. Artist A. Ivanov, 1841

As far as the external facts of his biography are simple and not varied, just as deeply, tragic and instructive is the inner spiritual process that he experienced at that time. No matter how great was the success of Gogol's first works, however, he was still not satisfied with his literary activity in that form of simple artistic contemplation and reproduction of life, in which it had hitherto been, according to the prevailing aesthetic views. He was dissatisfied with the fact that his moral personality, with this form of creativity, remained, as it were, on the sidelines, completely passive. Gogol secretly longed to be not only a simple contemplator of life's phenomena, but also their judge; he longed for a direct impact on life in the name of good, he longed for a civic mission. Having failed to carry out this mission in the official field, first as an official and teacher, and then as a professor of history at St. Petersburg University, for which he was little prepared, Gogol more passion turns to literature, but now his view of art is becoming more severe, more demanding; from a passive contemplative artist, he tries to transform into an active, conscious creator who will not only reproduce the phenomena of life, illuminating them only with random and scattered impressions, but will lead them through the “crucible of his spirit” and “bring to the eyes of the people” as an enlightened deep, penetrating synthesis.

Under the influence of such a mood that was developing in him more and more insistently, Gogol finishes and puts on stage, in 1836, The Inspector General, an unusually bright and caustic satire, which not only revealed the ulcers of the modern administrative system, but also showed to what extent vulgarization under the influence of this system, the most sincere warehouse of a good-natured, Russian person went down. The impression made by the Inspector General was unusually strong. Despite, however, the huge success of the comedy, it caused Gogol a lot of trouble and grief, both from censorship difficulties in staging and printing it, and from the majority of society, touched by the play for the living and accusing the author of writing lampoons on his own. fatherland.

N. V. Gogol. Portrait by F. Müller, 1841

Frustrated by all this, Gogol goes abroad, so that there, in the "beautiful far away", far from the hustle and bustle and trifles, take on Dead Souls. Indeed, the relatively calm life in Rome, among the majestic monuments of art, at first had a beneficial effect on Gogol's work. A year later, the first volume of Dead Souls was ready and printed. In this in high degree original and unique "poem" in prose, Gogol develops a broad picture of the serf way of life, mainly from the side as it was reflected on the upper, semi-cultural serf layer. In this capital work, the main properties of Gogol's talent - humor and an extraordinary ability to grasp and embody the negative aspects of life in the "pearl of creation" - reached their apogee in their development. Despite the relatively limited scope of the phenomena of Russian life he touched upon, many of the types he created can compete with the classical creations of European satire in terms of depth of psychological penetration.

The impression made by Dead Souls was even more amazing than from all other works of Gogol, but it also served as the beginning of those fatal misunderstandings between Gogol and the reading public, which led to very sad consequences. It was obvious to everyone that with this work Gogol dealt an unremovable, cruel blow to the entire serf-like structure of life; but while the younger literary generation drew the most radical conclusions on this subject, the conservative part of society was indignant at Gogol and accused him of slandering his homeland. Gogol himself seemed to be frightened by the passion and bright one-sidedness with which he tried to concentrate all human vulgarity in his work, to reveal "the whole mire of trifles entangling human life". To justify himself and express his real views on Russian life and his works, he published the book "Selected passages from correspondence with friends." The conservative ideas expressed there were extremely disliked by the Russian radical Westernizers and their leader Belinsky. Belinsky himself, shortly before this, had diametrically changed his socio-political convictions from ardent guardianship to nihilistic criticism of everything and everyone. But now he began to accuse Gogol of "betraying" his former ideals.

The Left circles fell upon Gogol with passionate attacks, which grew stronger with time. Not expecting this from recent friends, he was shocked and discouraged. Gogol began to seek spiritual support and calm in a religious mood, so that with new spiritual vigor he could begin to complete his work - the end of Dead Souls - which, in his opinion, should have finally dispelled all misunderstandings. In this second volume of theirs, Gogol, contrary to the wishes of the "Westerners", intended to show that Russia does not consist of only mental and moral monsters, he thought to portray the types of ideal beauty of the Russian soul. With the creation of these positive types, Gogol wanted to complete, as the last chord, his creation, Dead Souls, which, according to his plan, should not have been exhausted by the first, satirical, volume. But physical forces writers were already seriously undermined. Too long a closed life, away from his homeland, a harsh ascetic regime that he imposed on himself, his health undermined by nervous tension - all this deprived Gogol's work of a close connection with the fullness of life impressions. Suppressed by an unequal, hopeless struggle, in a moment of deep dissatisfaction and anguish, Gogol burned the draft manuscript of the second volume of Dead Souls and soon died of a nervous fever in Moscow on February 21, 1852.

House of Talyzin (Nikitsky Boulevard, Moscow). Lived here in last years and N. V. Gogol died, here he burned the second volume of "Dead Souls"

Gogol's influence on the work of the literary generation that immediately followed him was great and versatile, being, as it were, an inevitable addition to those great testaments that the untimely deceased Pushkin left far unfinished. Having brilliantly completed the great national cause firmly established by Pushkin, the work of developing a literary language and artistic forms, Gogol, in addition to this, introduced two deeply original streams into the very content of literature - humor and poetry of the Little Russian people - and a bright social element, which from that moment received in fiction undeniable value. He strengthened this meaning by the example of his own ideally high attitude to artistic activity.

Gogol raised the importance of artistic activity to the height of civic duty, to which it had not yet risen to such a vivid degree before him. The sad episode of the sacrifice by the author of his beloved creation in the midst of the wild civil persecution raised around him will forever remain deeply touching and instructive.