“Dead Souls” is a poem for the ages. The plasticity of the depicted reality, the comic nature of situations and the artistic skill of N.V. Gogol paints an image of Russia not only of the past, but also of the future. Grotesque satirical reality in harmony with patriotic notes create an unforgettable melody of life that sounds through the centuries.
Collegiate adviser Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov goes to distant provinces to buy serfs. However, he is not interested in people, but only in the names of the dead. This is necessary to submit the list to the board of trustees, which “promises” a lot of money. For a nobleman with so many peasants, all doors were open. To implement his plans, he pays visits to landowners and officials of the city of NN. They all reveal their selfish nature, so the hero manages to get what he wants. He is also planning a profitable marriage. However, the result is disastrous: the hero is forced to flee, as his plans become publicly known thanks to the landowner Korobochka.
History of creation
N.V. Gogol believed A.S. Pushkin as his teacher, who “gave” the grateful student a story about Chichikov’s adventures. The poet was sure that only Nikolai Vasilyevich, who has a unique talent from God, could realize this “idea”.
The writer loved Italy and Rome. In the land of the great Dante, he began work on a book suggesting a three-part composition in 1835. The poem was supposed to be similar to Dante's Divine Comedy, depicting the hero's descent into hell, his wanderings in purgatory and the resurrection of his soul in heaven.
The creative process continued for six years. The idea of a grandiose painting, depicting not only “all Rus'” present, but also the future, revealed “the untold riches of the Russian spirit.” In February 1837, Pushkin died, whose “sacred testament” for Gogol became “Dead Souls”: “Not a single line was written without me imagining him before me.” The first volume was completed in the summer of 1841, but did not immediately find its reader. The censorship was outraged by “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin”, and the title led to bewilderment. I had to make concessions by starting the title with the intriguing phrase “The Adventures of Chichikov.” Therefore, the book was published only in 1842.
After some time, Gogol writes the second volume, but, dissatisfied with the result, burns it.
Meaning of the name
The title of the work causes conflicting interpretations. The oxymoron technique used gives rise to numerous questions to which you want to get answers as quickly as possible. The title is symbolic and ambiguous, so the “secret” is not revealed to everyone.
Literally, " dead Souls“- these are representatives of the common people who have gone to another world, but are still listed as their masters. The concept is gradually being rethought. The “form” seems to “come to life”: real serfs, with their habits and shortcomings, appear before the reader’s gaze.
Characteristics of the main characters
- Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov is a “mediocre gentleman.” Somewhat cloying manners in dealing with people are not without sophistication. Well-mannered, neat and delicate. “Not handsome, but not bad-looking, not... fat, nor.... thin..." Calculating and careful. He collects unnecessary trinkets in his little chest: maybe it will come in handy! Seeks profit in everything. The generation of the worst sides of an enterprising and energetic person of a new type, opposed to landowners and officials. We wrote about him in more detail in the essay "".
- Manilov - “knight of the void”. A blond "sweet" talker with "blue eyes." He covers up the poverty of thought and avoidance of real difficulties with a beautiful-hearted phrase. He lacks living aspirations and any interests. His faithful companions are fruitless fantasy and thoughtless chatter.
- The box is “club-headed”. A vulgar, stupid, stingy and tight-fisted nature. She cut herself off from everything around her, shutting herself up in her estate - the “box”. She turned into a stupid and greedy woman. Limited, stubborn and unspiritual.
- Nozdryov is a “historical person”. He can easily lie whatever he wants and deceive anyone. Empty, absurd. He thinks of himself as broad-minded. However, his actions expose a careless, chaotic, weak-willed and at the same time arrogant, shameless “tyrant.” Record holder for getting into tricky and ridiculous situations.
- Sobakevich is “a patriot of the Russian stomach.” Outwardly it resembles a bear: clumsy and irrepressible. Completely incapable of understanding the most basic things. A special type of “storage device” that can quickly adapt to the new requirements of our time. He is not interested in anything except running a household. we described in the essay of the same name.
- Plyushkin - “a hole in humanity.” A creature of unknown gender. A striking example of moral decline, which has completely lost its natural appearance. The only character (except Chichikov) who has a biography that “reflects” the gradual process of personality degradation. A complete nonentity. Plyushkin’s manic hoarding “pours out” into “cosmic” proportions. And the more this passion takes possession of him, the less of a person remains in him. We analyzed his image in detail in the essay .
Genre and composition
Initially, the work began as an adventure - a picaresque novel. But the breadth of the events described and the historical truthfulness, as if “compressed” together, gave rise to “talking” about the realistic method. Making precise remarks, inserting philosophical arguments, addressing different generations, Gogol imbued “his brainchild” with lyrical digressions. One cannot but agree with the opinion that Nikolai Vasilyevich’s creation is a comedy, since it actively uses the techniques of irony, humor and satire, which most fully reflect the absurdity and arbitrariness of the “squadron of flies that dominates Rus'.”
The composition is circular: the chaise, which entered the city of NN at the beginning of the story, leaves it after all the vicissitudes that happened to the hero. Episodes are woven into this “ring”, without which the integrity of the poem is violated. The first chapter describes provincial town NN and local officials. From the second to the sixth chapters, the author introduces readers to the landowner estates of Manilov, Korobochka, Nozdryov, Sobakevich and Plyushkin. Chapters seven - ten - satirical image officials, registration of completed transactions. The string of events listed above ends with a ball, where Nozdryov “narrates” about Chichikov’s scam. The reaction of society to his statement is unambiguous - gossip, which, like a snowball, is overgrown with fables that have found refraction, including in the short story (“The Tale of Captain Kopeikin”) and the parable (about Kif Mokievich and Mokiya Kifovich). The introduction of these episodes allows us to emphasize that the fate of the fatherland directly depends on the people living in it. You cannot look indifferently at the disgrace happening around you. Certain forms of protest are maturing in the country. The eleventh chapter is a biography of the hero who forms the plot, explaining what motivated him when committing this or that act.
The connecting compositional thread is the image of the road (you can learn more about this by reading the essay “ » ), symbolizing the path that the state takes in its development “under the modest name of Rus'.”
Why does Chichikov need dead souls?
Chichikov is not just cunning, but also pragmatic. His sophisticated mind is ready to “make candy” out of nothing. Not having sufficient capital, he, being a good psychologist, having gone through a good life school, mastering the art of “flattering everyone” and fulfilling his father’s behest to “save a penny,” starts a great speculation. It consists of a simple deception of “those in power” in order to “warm up their hands”, in other words, to gain a huge amount of money, thereby providing for themselves and their future family, which Pavel Ivanovich dreamed of.
Names of those bought for next to nothing dead peasants were entered into a document that Chichikov could take to the treasury chamber under the guise of collateral in order to obtain a loan. He would have pawned the serfs like a brooch in a pawnshop, and could have re-mortgaged them all his life, since none of the officials checked the physical condition of the people. For this money, the businessman would have bought real workers and an estate, and would have lived in grand style, enjoying the favor of the nobles, because the nobles measured the wealth of the landowner in the number of souls (peasants were then called “souls” in noble slang). In addition, Gogol's hero hoped to gain trust in society and profitably marry a rich heiress.
main idea
Hymn to the homeland and people, distinguishing feature whose hard work sounds on the pages of the poem. The masters of golden hands became famous for their inventions and their creativity. The Russian man is always “rich in invention.” But there are also those citizens who hinder the development of the country. These are vicious officials, ignorant and inactive landowners and swindlers like Chichikov. For their own good, the good of Russia and the world, they must take the path of correction, realizing the ugliness of their inner world. To do this, Gogol mercilessly ridicules them throughout the entire first volume, but in subsequent parts of the work the author intended to show the resurrection of the spirit of these people using the example of the main character. Perhaps he felt the falseness of the subsequent chapters, lost faith that his dream was feasible, so he burned it along with the second part " Dead souls».
Nevertheless, the author showed that the main wealth of the country is the broad soul of the people. It is no coincidence that this word is included in the title. The writer believed that the revival of Russia would begin with the revival human souls, pure, untainted by any sins, selfless. Not just those who believe in the free future of the country, but those who make a lot of effort on this fast road to happiness. “Rus, where are you going?” This question runs like a refrain throughout the book and emphasizes the main thing: the country must live in constant movement for the better, advanced, progressive. Only on this path “do other peoples and states give her the way.” We wrote a separate essay about Russia’s path: ?
Why did Gogol burn the second volume of Dead Souls?
At some point, the thought of the messiah begins to dominate in the writer’s mind, allowing him to “foresee” the revival of Chichikov and even Plyushkin. Gogol hopes to reverse the progressive “transformation” of a person into a “dead man.” But, faced with reality, the author experiences deep disappointment: the heroes and their destinies emerge from the pen as far-fetched and lifeless. Did not work out. The impending crisis in worldview was the reason for the destruction of the second book.
In the surviving excerpts from the second volume, it is clearly visible that the writer portrays Chichikov not in the process of repentance, but in flight towards the abyss. He still succeeds in adventures, dresses in a devilish red tailcoat and breaks the law. His revelation does not bode well, because in his reaction the reader will not see a sudden insight or a hint of shame. He doesn’t even believe in the possibility of such fragments ever existing. Gogol did not want to sacrifice artistic truth even for the sake of realizing his own plan.
Issues
- Thorns on the path of development of the Motherland are the main problem in the poem “Dead Souls” that the author was worried about. These include bribery and embezzlement of officials, infantilism and inactivity of the nobility, ignorance and poverty of the peasants. The writer sought to make his contribution to the prosperity of Russia, condemning and ridiculing vices, educating new generations of people. For example, Gogol despised doxology as a cover for the emptiness and idleness of existence. The life of a citizen should be useful to society, but most of the characters in the poem are downright harmful.
- Moral problems. He views the lack of moral standards among representatives of the ruling class as the result of their ugly passion for hoarding. The landowners are ready to shake the soul out of the peasant for the sake of profit. Also, the problem of selfishness comes to the fore: nobles, like officials, think only about their own interests, the homeland for them is an empty, weightless word. High society doesn't care about common people, simply uses it for his own purposes.
- The crisis of humanism. People are sold like animals, lost at cards like things, pawned like jewelry. Slavery is legal and is not considered immoral or unnatural. Gogol illuminated the problem of serfdom in Russia globally, showing both sides of the coin: the slave mentality inherent in the serf, and the tyranny of the owner, confident in his superiority. All these are the consequences of tyranny that permeates relationships in all levels of society. It corrupts people and ruins the country.
- The author’s humanism is manifested in his attention to “ little man", critical exposure of vices government system. Political problems Gogol didn’t even try to get around. He described a bureaucracy that functioned only on the basis of bribery, nepotism, embezzlement and hypocrisy.
- Gogol's characters are characterized by the problem of ignorance and moral blindness. Because of it, they do not see their moral squalor and are not able to independently get out of the quagmire of vulgarity that drags them down.
What is unique about the work?
Adventurism, realistic reality, a sense of the presence of the irrational, philosophical reasoning about earthly good - all this is closely intertwined, creating an “encyclopedic” picture of the first half of the 19th century centuries.
Gogol achieves this using various techniques of satire, humor, visual arts, numerous details, richness vocabulary, features of the composition.
- Symbolism plays an important role. Falling into the mud “predicts” the future exposure of the main character. The spider weaves its webs to capture its next victim. Like an “unpleasant” insect, Chichikov skillfully runs his “business,” “entwining” landowners and officials with noble lies. “sounds” like the pathos of Rus'’s forward movement and affirms human self-improvement.
- We observe the heroes through the prism of “comic” situations, apt author’s expressions and characteristics given by other characters, sometimes built on the antithesis: “he was a prominent man” - but only “at first glance”.
- The vices of the heroes of Dead Souls become a continuation of the positive character traits. For example, Plyushkin’s monstrous stinginess is a distortion of his former thrift and thriftiness.
- In small lyrical “inserts” there are the writer’s thoughts, difficult thoughts, and an anxious “I.” In them we feel the highest creative message: to help humanity change for the better.
- The fate of people who create works for the people or not to please “those in power” does not leave Gogol indifferent, because in literature he saw a force capable of “re-educating” society and promoting its civilized development. Social strata of society, their position in relation to everything national: culture, language, traditions - occupy a serious place in the author’s digressions. When it comes to Rus' and its future, through the centuries we hear the confident voice of the “prophet”, predicting the difficult, but aimed at a bright dream, future of the Fatherland.
- Philosophical reflections on the frailty of existence, lost youth and impending old age evoke sadness. Therefore, it is so natural for a tender “fatherly” appeal to youth, on whose energy, hard work and education depends on which “path” the development of Russia will take.
- The language is truly folk. The forms of colloquial, literary and written business speech are harmoniously woven into the fabric of the poem. Rhetorical questions and exclamations, the rhythmic construction of individual phrases, the use of Slavicisms, archaisms, sonorous epithets create a certain system a speech that sounds solemn, excited and sincere, without a hint of irony. When describing landowners' estates and their owners use vocabulary characteristic of everyday speech. The image of the bureaucratic world is saturated with the vocabulary of the depicted environment. we described in the essay of the same name.
- The solemnity of comparisons, high style, combined with original speech, create a sublimely ironic manner of narration, serving to debunk the base, vulgar world of the owners.
To the question Who wrote the work "Dead Souls"? given by the author Natalya Tuktasheva the best answer is Gogol.
Answer from Accomplice[active]
Well, of course, Gogol, although the idea was suggested to him by A.S. Pushkin.
Answer from Beg[expert]
N.V. Gogol
Answer from Flush[expert]
gogol
Answer from Marquise of Angels[active]
282 - “People’s Rus'” in N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” Section: Works: Gogol. N.V.: Dead Souls Nikolai Vasilyevich GogolDead Souls is a brilliant work of Russian and world literature, written in 1841. It reflected the most important features of the era, contemporary writer, the era of crisis of the serfdom system. V. G. Belinsky called the poem a creation snatched from a hiding place folk life, mercilessly pulling back the veil from reality. The work realistically shows two Russias: bureaucratic-landlord Rus' and people's Rus'. Landowners and officials forgot their civic duty to society, their responsibilities to the people - and this, according to N.V. Gogol, is the main evil of the socio-political system of Russia. In the system of images of the poem, peasants do not occupy so much big place in comparison with the images of landowners and officials. Gogol's satire was directed precisely against these social groups, however, the theme of the people, the theme of the serf peasantry is organically included in the work. The author reflects on the tragic fate of the people, also exposing it satirically. Gogol laughs at the primitiveness, lack of development, and spiritual misery of the Russian peasants, but he laughs through his tears. Reason tragic fate The author sees the people in centuries-old slavery and arbitrariness on the part of the ruling classes. Such images include the image of the coachman Selifan, drunk, talking to the horse, the footman Petrushka, who, due to his extremely rare visits to the bathhouse, has a special smell, busy with his chaotic reading, or rather the process of reading, in which words are formed from letters. In addition to Chichikov’s people, the poem skillfully depicts images of men discussing whether the wheel of the master’s chaise will reach Moscow or Kazan. Such are Uncle Minyai and Uncle Mityai, stupidly helping Chichikov to leave the oncoming carriage, the black-legged girl Pelageya, accompanying Chichikov from the Korobochka estate to high road, unable to distinguish where the right is and where the left is. However, the author’s attitude towards the people in the poem is twofold. Here we also see the author’s thoughts about the living soul of the Russian people. The writer believes in him vitality, to his wonderful future. This ideological motive is expressed in the lyrical digressions that fill the work. One of them appears at the end of the fifth chapter regarding the nickname given by the peasants to Plyushkin. Admiring the accuracy of the Russian word, in which the nugget itself, the lively and lively Russian mind, was expressed, Gogol expresses the general opinion: ... every people that carries within itself a guarantee of strength... Each one is uniquely distinguished by its own word, with which, expressing any object, it reflects in its expression a part of its own character. The Russian people are one of these: they are full of creative abilities of the soul. In the sixth chapter, Sobakevich’s gallery of dead peasants flashes before the reader. This is the carpenter-hero Stepan Probka, and the skilled brickmaker Milushkin, and the miracle shoemaker Maxim Telyatnikov, and the skilled carriage maker Mikheev, and the merchant Eremey Sorokoplekhin, and hundreds of thousands of other workers who plowed, built, fed, and clothed all of Rus'. In this regard, the author’s reflections on the fate of the serfs in the seventh chapter, put into Chichikov’s mouth, acquire important significance. They all pull together under one endless song, like Rus'. The image of Abakum Fyrov, who fled from his master and fell in love with a free life, achieves special poetic power and expressiveness in the poem. This image is deeply symbolic: it clearly reflects the powerful, broad, freedom-loving soul of the Russian people. An important place in the poem is occupied by the pages where there is a conversation about the rebellion of the peasants. It appears three times in the work: when city officials advise Chichikov to take a convoy to escort the purchased peasants to the Kherson province, the men kill the zemstvo police in the person of assessor Drobyazhkin at night; Captain Kopeikin becomes the leader of a gang of robbers. Reflected in Dead Souls
Answer from Monster[active]
Gogol EPT
Answer from Andrey Petrenko[guru]
"Dead Souls" was written by Gogol.
Answer from Servilatus[active]
Gogol Nikolay
Answer from Irina Grunich[active]
Gogol
The plot of the poem was suggested to Gogol by Alexander Pushkin, presumably in September 1831. Information about this goes back to the "Author's Confession", written in 1847 and posted posthumously in 1855, and is confirmed by reliable, although indirect, evidence.
The documented history of the creation of the work begins on October 7, 1835: in a letter to Pushkin dated this day, Gogol mentions “Dead Souls” for the first time: “I began to write Dead Souls. The plot stretched out into a very long novel and, it seems, will be very funny.”
Gogol read the first chapters to Pushkin before his departure abroad. Work continued in the fall of 1836 in Switzerland, then in Paris and later in Italy. By this time, the creator had developed an attitude towards his own work as a “sacred testament of the poet” and a literary feat, which at the same time has patriotic significance, which should reveal the fate of Russia and the world. In Baden-Baden in August 1837, Gogol read an unfinished poem in the presence of the maid of honor of the royal court, Alexandra Smirnova (née Rosset) and Nikolai Karamzin’s son, Andrei Karamzin, and in October 1838, he read part of the manuscript to Alexander Turgenev. Work on the first volume took place in Rome at the end of 1837 - beginning of 1839.
Upon returning to Russia, Gogol read chapters from “Dead Souls” in the Aksakov house in Moscow in September 1839, then in St. Petersburg with Vasily Zhukovsky, Nikolai Prokopovich and other close acquaintances. The writer was engaged in the final finishing of the first volume in Rome from the end of September 1840 to August 1841.
Returning to Russia, Gogol read chapters of the novel in the Aksakov house and prepared the manuscript for publication. At a meeting of the Capital Censorship Committee on December 12, 1841, obstacles to the publication of the manuscript were revealed, submitted for consideration to the censor Ivan Snegirev, who, in all likelihood, acquainted the creator with the complications that could arise. Fearing a censorship ban, in January 1842 Gogol sent the manuscript to St. Petersburg through Belinsky and asked his friends A. O. Smirnova, Vladimir Odoevsky, Pyotr Pletnev, Misha Vielgorsky to help pass censorship.
On March 9, 1842, the book was approved by censor Alexander Nikitenko, but with a changed title and in the absence of “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin.” Even before receiving the censored copy, the manuscript began to be typed at the printing house of the Capital Institute. Gogol himself undertook to design the cover of the novel, writing “The Adventures of Chichikov or” in small letters and “Dead Souls” in large letters. In May 1842, the book was published under the title “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls, a poem by N. Gogol.” In the USSR and modern Russia the title “The Adventures of Chichikov” is not used.
Gogol, like Dante Alighieri, intended to make the poem three volumes, and wrote the 2nd volume, which contained positive images and an attempt was made to depict Chichikov’s moral degeneration. Gogol supposedly began work on the second volume in 1840. Work on it lasted in Germany, France and mainly in Italy in 1842-1843. At the end of June or early July 1845, the writer burned the manuscript of the second volume. When working on the second volume, the meaning of the work in the writer’s mind grew beyond the boundaries of actual literary texts, which made the plan virtually impossible to implement. On the night of February 11-12, 1852, Gogol burned the white manuscript of the second volume (the only eyewitness was the servant Semyon) and died 10 days later. Preliminary manuscripts of four chapters of the second volume (in incomplete form) were discovered during the opening of the writer’s papers, sealed after his death. The autopsy was performed on April 28, 1852 by S.P. Shevyrev, Count A.P. Tolstoy and the capital's civilian governor Ivan Kapnist (the son of the poet and playwright V.V. Kapnist). The whitewashing of the manuscripts was carried out by Shevyrev, who also took care of its publication. Lists of the second volume were distributed even before its publication. For the first time, the surviving chapters of the second volume of Dead Souls were published as part of Full meeting Gogol's works in the summer of 1855. Now being printed together with the first 4 chapters of the second volume, one of last chapters belongs to an earlier edition than other chapters.
Source of material: ru.wikipedia.org
You can read the poem “Dead Souls” on the Internet on the following websites:
One of the most famous works Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” is considered to be. The author worked meticulously on this work about the adventures of a middle-aged adventurer for 17 long years. The history of the creation of Gogol’s “Dead Souls” is truly interesting. Work on the poem began in 1835. Dead Souls was originally conceived as comic work, but the plot kept getting more complicated. Gogol wanted to display the entire Russian soul with its inherent vices and virtues, and the conceived three-part structure was supposed to refer readers to “ Divine Comedy» Dante.
It is known that the plot of the poem was suggested to Gogol by Pushkin. Alexander Sergeevich briefly outlined the story of an enterprising man who sold dead souls to the board of trustees, for which he received a lot of money. Gogol wrote in his diary: “Pushkin found that such a plot of Dead Souls was good for me because it gave me complete freedom to travel all over Russia with the hero and bring out many different characters.” By the way, in those days this story was not the only one. Heroes like Chichikov were constantly talked about, so we can say that Gogol reflected reality in his work. Gogol considered Pushkin to be his mentor in matters of writing, so he read the first chapters of the work to him, expecting that the plot would make Pushkin laugh. However great poet was darker than a cloud - Russia was too hopeless.
The creative story of Gogol’s “Dead Souls” could have ended at this point, but the writer enthusiastically made edits, trying to remove the painful impression and adding comical moments. Subsequently, Gogol read the work in the Askakov family, the head of which was the famous theater critic and public figure. The poem was highly appreciated. Zhukovsky was also familiar with the work, and Gogol made changes several times in accordance with Vasily Andreevich’s suggestions. At the end of 1836, Gogol wrote to Zhukovsky: “I redid everything I started again, thought over the entire plan and now I am writing it calmly, like a chronicle... If I complete this creation the way it needs to be done, then... what a huge, what an original plot! .. All Rus' will appear in it!” Nikolai Vasilyevich tried in every possible way to show all sides of Russian life, and not just the negative, as was the case in the first editions.
Nikolai Vasilyevich wrote the first chapters in Russia. But in 1837 Gogol left for Italy, where he continued to work on the text. The manuscript went through several revisions, many scenes were deleted and redone, and the author had to make concessions in order for the work to be published. Censorship could not allow “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin” to be published, since it satirically depicted the life of the capital: high prices, the arbitrariness of the tsar and the ruling elite, abuse of power. Gogol did not want to remove the story of Captain Kopeikin, so he had to “extinguish” the satirical motives. The author considered this part to be one of the best in the poem, which was easier to redo than to remove altogether.
Who would have thought that the history of the creation of the poem “Dead Souls” is full of intrigue! In 1841, the manuscript was ready for printing, but censorship in last moment changed her mind. Gogol was depressed. In upset feelings, he writes to Belinsky, who agrees to help with the publication of the book. After a while, the decision was made in Gogol’s favor, but he was given a new condition: to change the title from “Dead Souls” to “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls.” This was done in order to distract potential readers from relevant social problems, focusing on the adventures of the main character.
In the spring of 1842, the poem was published; this event caused fierce controversy in the literary community. Gogol was accused of slander and hatred of Russia, but Belinsky came to the writer’s defense, highly appreciating the work.
Gogol again leaves abroad, where he continues to work on the second volume of Dead Souls. The work was even more difficult. The story of writing the second part is full of mental suffering and personal drama of the writer. By that time, Gogol felt an internal discord that he could not cope with. Reality did not coincide with the Christian ideals on which Nikolai Vasilyevich was raised, and this gap grew larger every day. In the second volume, the author wanted to portray heroes different from the characters in the first part - positive ones. And Chichikov had to undergo a certain rite of purification, taking the true path. Many drafts of the poem were destroyed by order of the author, but some parts were still preserved. Gogol believed that the second volume was completely devoid of life and truth; he doubted himself as an artist, hating the continuation of the poem.
Unfortunately, Gogol did not realize his original plan, but “Dead Souls” rightfully plays its very important role in the history of Russian literature.
Work test
Work on the poem began in 1835. From Gogol’s “Author’s Confession,” his letters, and from the memoirs of his contemporaries, it is known that the plot of this work, as well as the plot of “The Inspector General,” was suggested to him by Pushkin. Pushkin, who was the first to unravel the originality and uniqueness of Gogol’s talent, which consisted in the ability to “guess a person and make him look like a living person with a few features,” advised Gogol to take on a large and serious essay. He told him about one rather clever swindler (whom he himself had heard from someone) who was trying to get rich by pawning the dead souls he had bought as living souls on the board of guardians.
Many stories have been preserved about real buyers of dead souls, in particular about the Ukrainian landowners of the first thirds of the XIX centuries, who quite often resorted to such an “operation” in order to acquire the qualification for the right to distill distillation. Even one distant relative of Gogol was named among this kind of buyer. The purchase and sale of living revision souls was an everyday, everyday, ordinary fact. The plot of the poem turned out to be quite realistic.
In October 1835, Gogol informed Pushkin: “I began to write Dead Souls.” The plot stretches out into a long novel and, it seems, will be very funny.<...>In this novel I want to show at least from one side the whole of “Rus”.
From this letter one can see the task set by the writer. The plot of the conceived “pre-long novel” was mainly built, apparently, more on positions than on characters, with a predominance of a comic, humorous tone, rather than a satirical one.
Gogol read the first chapters of his work to Pushkin. He expected that the monsters coming from his pen would make the poet laugh. In fact, they made a completely different impression on him. “Dead Souls” revealed to Pushkin a new world, previously unknown to him, and horrified him with the impenetrable quagmire that provincial Russian life was at that time. It is not surprising that as he read, Gogol says, Pushkin became more and more gloomy, “finally becoming completely gloomy.” When the reading was over, he said in a voice of melancholy: “God, how sad our Russia is!” Pushkin’s exclamation amazed Gogol, forced him to look at his plan more carefully and seriously, to reconsider artistic method processing of living material. He began to think “how to soften the painful impression” that “Dead Souls” could make, how to avoid the “frightening absence of light” in his “very long and funny novel.” Pondering further work, Gogol, reproducing dark sides Russian life, interspersing funny events with touching ones, wants to create “a complete composition, where there would be more than one thing to laugh at.”
In these statements, although in embryo, one can already discern the author’s intention, along with the dark sides of life, to give bright, positive ones. But this did not mean at all that the writer necessarily wanted to find the bright, positive aspects of life in the world of landowner and bureaucratic Russia. Apparently, in the chapters read to Pushkin for Gogol, the author’s personal attitude to the depicted had not yet been clearly defined; the work was not yet permeated with the spirit of subjectivity due to the lack of a clear ideological and aesthetic concept.
“Dead Souls” was written abroad (mostly in Rome), where Gogol went after the production of “The Inspector General” in the spring of 1836 in the most dejected and painful state. The waves of muddy and malicious hatred that fell upon the author of “The Inspector General” from many critics and journalists made a stunning impression on him. It seemed to Gogol that the comedy aroused an unfriendly attitude among all layers of Russian society. Feeling lonely, not appreciated by his compatriots for his good intentions to serve them in exposing untruths, he went abroad.
Gogol's letters suggest that he left home country not in order to relive his insult, but to “think about his responsibilities as an author, his future creations” and create “with great reflection.” Being far from his homeland, Gogol was connected with Russia in his heart, thought about it, sought to learn about everything that was happening there, turned to friends and acquaintances with a request to inform him about everything that was happening in the country. “My eyes,” he writes, “most often look only at Russia and there is no measure of my love for her.” Immense love for the fatherland inspired Gogol and guided him in his work on “ Dead souls" In the name of prosperity native land the writer intended, with the full force of his civil indignation, to brand the evil, self-interest and untruth that were so deeply rooted in Russia. Gogol was aware that “new classes and many different masters” would rise up against him, but convinced that Russia needed his flagellating satire, he worked a lot, intensely, persistently on his creation.
Soon after leaving abroad, Gogol wrote to Zhukovsky: “The dead flow alive... and it completely seems to me as if I were in Russia.”<...>.. I’m completely immersed in Dead Souls.”
If in a letter to Pushkin dated October 7, 1835, Gogol defined “Dead Souls” as a basically comic and humorous novel, then the further the writer’s work on the work went, the broader and deeper his plan became. 12 November 1836, he informs Zhukovsky: “I redid everything I started again, thought more over the whole plan and now I am writing it calmly, like a chronicle... If I complete this creation the way it needs to be done, then... what a huge, what an original plot ! What a varied bunch! All Rus' will appear in it!<...>My creation is enormously great and its end will not come soon.”
So, genre definition works - a poem, its hero - all of Rus'. After 16 days, Gogol informs Pogodin: “The thing that I am sitting and working on now and which I have been thinking about for a long time, and which I will think about for a long time, is not like either a story or a novel.”<...>If God helps me complete my poem as it should, then this will be my first decent creation: all of Rus' will respond to it.” Here the title of the new work, already given in the letter to Pushkin, is confirmed, and again it is said that this is a poem that will cover all of Rus'. He also says in 1842 in a letter to Pletnev that Gogol wants to give a single complex image of Rus', wants his homeland to appear “in all its enormity.” The definition of the genre of the future work - a poem - indisputably testified that it was based on a “all-Russian scale”, that Gogol thought in national categories. Hence the many common signs that carry a generalizing semantic function, the appearance of such statements as “U us in Rus'" .... "y us not that" ..., "in our opinion custom" ..., "what we have there are common rooms,” etc.
So gradually, in the course of work, “Dead Souls” turned from a novel into a poem about Russian life, where the focus was on the “personality” of Russia, embraced from all sides at once, “in full scope” and holistically.
The heaviest blow for Gogol was the death of Pushkin. “My life, my highest pleasure died with him,” we read in his letter to Pogodin. “I didn’t do anything, didn’t write anything without his advice.” He took an oath from me to write.” From now on, Gogol considers the work on “Dead Souls” to be the fulfillment of Pushkin’s will: “I must continue the great work I began, which Pushkin took the word from me to write, whose thought is his creation and which has since turned into a sacred testament for me.”
From the diary of A.I. Turgenev it is known that when Gogol was with him in Paris in 1838, he read “excerpts from his novel “Dead Souls.” A true, living picture in Russia of our bureaucratic, noble life, our statehood... It’s funny and painful.” In Rome in the same year 1838, Gogol reads to Zhukovsky, Shevyrev, and Pogodin who arrived there, chapters about Chichikov’s arrival in the city of N, about Manilov, and Korobochka.
On September 13, 1839, Gogol came to Russia and read four chapters of the manuscript in St. Petersburg from N. Ya. Prokopovich; in February-April 1840, he read a number of chapters in Moscow from S. T. Aksakov, with whose family by this time he had developed friendly relations relationship. Moscow friends enthusiastically greeted the new work and gave a lot of advice. The writer, taking them into account, again began to redo, “re-clean” the already completed edition of the book.
In the spring and summer of 1840 in Rome, Gogol, rewriting the revised text of Dead Souls, again made changes and corrections to the manuscript. Repetitions and lengths are removed, whole new pages, scenes, additional characteristics appear, lyrical digressions, individual words and phrases are replaced. Work on the work testifies to the enormous tension and rise of the writer’s creative powers: “everything further appeared clearer and more majestic for him.”
In the fall of 1841, Gogol came to Moscow and, while the first six chapters were being whitewashed, read the remaining five chapters of the first book to the Aksakov family and M. Pogodin. Friends now with particular insistence pointed out the one-sided, negative nature of the depiction of Russian life, noting that the poem gives only “half the girth, and not the whole girth” of the Russian world. They demanded to see another one, positive side life of Russia. Gogol, apparently, heeded this advice and made important insertions into the completely rewritten volume. In one of them, Chichikov takes up arms against the tailcoats and balls that came from the West, from France, and are contrary to the Russian spirit and Russian nature. In another, a solemn promise is made that in the future “a formidable blizzard of inspiration will rise and the majestic thunder of other speeches will be heard.
The ideological turning point in Gogol’s consciousness, which began to emerge in the second half of the 30s, led to the fact that the writer decided to serve his fatherland not only by exposing “to general ridicule” everything that desecrated and obscured the ideal to which a Russian could and should strive man, but also showing this ideal itself. Gogol now saw the book in three volumes. The first volume was supposed to capture the shortcomings of Russian life, the people hindering its development; the second and third are to indicate the path to the resurrection of “dead souls,” even such as Chichikov or Plyushkin. “Dead Souls” turned out to be a work in which pictures of a broad and objective display of Russian life would serve as a direct means of promoting high moral principles. The realist writer became a preacher-moralist.
Of his enormous plan, Gogol managed to fully implement only the first part.
At the beginning of December 1841, the manuscript of the first volume of Dead Souls was submitted to the Moscow censorship committee for consideration. But rumors that reached Gogol about unfavorable rumors among the committee members prompted him to take the manuscript back. In an effort to get “Dead Souls” through the St. Petersburg censorship, he sent the manuscript with Belinsky, who arrived in Moscow at that time, but the St. Petersburg censorship was in no hurry to review the poem. Gogol waited, full of anxiety and confusion. Finally, in mid-February 1842, permission was received to print Dead Souls. However, censorship changed the title of the work, demanding that it be called “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls” and thereby trying to divert the reader’s attention from social issues poem, focusing his attention mainly on the adventures of the rogue Chichikov.
Censorship categorically banned The Tale of Captain Kopeikin. Gogol, who valued it very much and wanted to preserve “The Tale...” at all costs, was forced to remake it and place all the blame for the disasters of Captain Kopeikin on Kopeikin himself, and not on someone indifferent to fate ordinary people the tsar's minister, as it was originally.
On May 21, 1842, the first copies of the poem were received, and two days later an announcement appeared in the Moskovskie Vedomosti newspaper that the book had gone on sale.