Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol created extraordinary works that caused a lot of disagreement, controversy, and reasons for thought. A particularly clear reflection of Russian reality in the 19th century is shown in the novel “Dead Souls,” work on which began in 1835. The plot of the beautiful creation was suggested famous writer Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, who was not indifferent to Gogol’s work. Work on the work lasted 17 years, because every little thing and every detail was thought out by the writer to the last, carefully.

Initially, it was assumed that the novel would be humorous, but through reflection and deep reflection, Nikolai Vasilyevich decided to touch upon the global problems of people's lives in an indifferent world. Designating a poem as a genre of work, Gogol considered the best option to divide it into three parts, where in the first he wanted to depict negative qualities modern society, in the second - this is the self-realization of the individual, ways to correct it, and in the third - the life of the characters who changed their fate in the right direction.

The first part took the writer exactly 7 years; it began in Russia, but subsequently continued abroad. He devoted quite a lot of time to the creation, because he wanted everything to be perfect. The part was already ready for printing in 1841, but, unfortunately, it failed to pass the censorship. The publication process took place only the second time, taking into account that Gogol’s friends in an influential position helped him in this. But the work was published with some reservations: Nikolai Vasilyevich was obliged to change the title to “The Adventures of Chichikov or Dead Souls”, make some adjustments, and exclude the story “about Captain Kopeikin”. But the writer agreed only to change the text, and not to remove it from the poem. So the first part was published in 1842.

After the publication of the work there was a flurry of criticism. Judges, officials, and other people of high status were categorically against accepting the work, because they believed that Gogol did not show Russia as it really is. They argued that Nikolai Vasilyevich portrayed his homeland as harsh, gray, and negative. There were disagreements about dead soul what Gogol wrote in the novel. Thoughtless people said that the soul is immortal and that what the writer is talking about is complete nonsense, nonsense. It becomes clear that they are too far from the great Gogol in terms of intelligence.

It is noteworthy that friends and colleagues considered how deeply and accurately he raised eternal problems Nikolai Vasilyevich, because what is depicted in the poem is simply amazing in its reality, severity, and truth.

Criticism from people seriously hurt Gogol, but this did not stop him from continuing to work on the novel. I wrote the second chapter until my death, without finishing it. To Nikolai Vasilyevich the work seemed imperfect, imperfect. Exactly nine days before his death, Gogol sent his own manuscripts to the fire, this was the final version. To this day, some chapters have survived; their number is five; now these days they are perceived as a separate independent work. As you can see, the implementation of the third part of the novel did not happen; it remained only an idea that Gogol did not have time to bring to life.

Thus, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is considered an unsurpassed writer, because he was able to present all the pressing problems in his work.

His long-term works are invaluable; after reading, many questions remain. I managed to express my own point of view in the novel “Dead Souls,” which is now a masterpiece of world literature. Even though Gogol did not have time to finish the third part, he left readers with something worth grasping with their hands and feet, something worth thinking about and reflecting on. Nikolai Vasilyevich would not have put anything in the poem in vain, because he cared too much about the process of writing it. All details are thought out to the smallest detail. Therefore, the work is of extraordinary value!

Option 2

Nikolai Gogol began working on the creation of the poem “Dead Souls” in 1835. The author finished his creation only towards the end own life. Initially, the author planned to create the work in 3 volumes. Gogol took the main idea of ​​the book from Pushkin. The author wrote the poem in his homeland, in Italy and Switzerland, and also in France. The writer finished the first part of the book in 1842. Gogol called this volume “The Adventures of Chichikov or Dead Souls.” In the next volume, the writer intended to depict the changing Rus' and people. In this volume, Chichikov tried to correct the landowners. In the third volume, the author wanted to describe a changed Russia.

The title of the book reflects the main idea of ​​the poem. With a literal meaning, readers understand the essence of Chichikov’s deception. The hero was engaged in acquiring the souls of deceased peasants. The poem has a deeper meaning. At first, the author decided to compose a poem based on the work “The Divine Comedy” by Dante. Gogol intended for the characters to go through the circles of purgatory and hell. At the end of the work, the heroes must ascend and rise again.

Gogol was unable to realize his own plan. Gogol was able to complete only the first part. In 1840, the author wrote several versions of the second volume. For unknown reasons, the author himself destroyed the second part of the book. The poem has only draft manuscripts of the second part.

The writer in his works highlights the soullessness and ruthlessness of the characters. Sobakevich was very soulless, like Koschey the immortal. Apart from him, all the city officials depicted in the book had no souls. The beginning of the book describes the active and interesting existence city ​​residents. In the book, a dead soul is a simple phenomenon. For characters human soul considered a distinctive feature of a living person.

The title of the work is closely related to the symbolism of the district town N. And the city K represented the whole country. The author wanted to show that decline had set in in Russia and that the souls of the inhabitants had faded away. Gogol showed all the meanness of the existence of the fallen town. In one of his speeches, reading the names of the deceased, Chichikov revives them in his own fantasy. In the poem, the living souls are Plyushkin and Chichikov. Plyushkin's image differs from other heroes. In Chapter 6, the author gave a complete description of Plyushkin’s garden. The garden is a comparison of Plyushkin’s soul.

The world described in " Dead souls ah" is considered the complete opposite of the real world. The social direction of creation is associated with “dead souls”. Chichikov's plan is impossible and at the same time simple.

The poem “Dead Souls” was conceived by Gogol as a grandiose panorama of Russian society with all its features and paradoxes. The central problem of the work is the spiritual death and rebirth of representatives of the main Russian classes of that time. The author exposes and ridicules the vices of the landowners, the corruption and destructive passions of the bureaucrats.

The title of the work itself has a double meaning. “Dead souls” are not only dead peasants, but also other actually living characters in the work. By calling them dead, Gogol emphasizes their devastated, pitiful, “dead” souls.

History of creation

“Dead Souls” is a poem to which Gogol devoted a significant part of his life. The author repeatedly changed the concept, rewrote and reworked the work. Initially, Gogol conceived Dead Souls as a humorous novel. However, in the end I decided to create a work that exposes the problems of Russian society and will serve its spiritual revival. This is how the POEM “Dead Souls” appeared.

Gogol wanted to create three volumes of the work. In the first, the author planned to describe the vices and decay of the serf society of that time. In the second, give its heroes hope for redemption and rebirth. And in the third he intended to describe the future path of Russia and its society.

However, Gogol only managed to finish the first volume, which appeared in print in 1842. Until his death, Nikolai Vasilyevich worked on the second volume. However, just before his death, the author burned the manuscript of the second volume.

The third volume of Dead Souls was never written. Gogol could not find the answer to the question of what will happen next to Russia. Or maybe I just didn’t have time to write about it.

Description of the work

One day, in the city of NN a very interesting character, who stands out greatly from the background of other old-timers of the city - Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. After his arrival, he began to actively get acquainted with important persons of the city, attending feasts and dinners. A week later, the newcomer was already on friendly terms with all the representatives of the city nobility. Everyone was delighted with the new man who suddenly appeared in the city.

Pavel Ivanovich goes out of town to pay visits to noble landowners: Manilov, Korobochka, Sobakevich, Nozdryov and Plyushkin. He is kind to every landowner and tries to find an approach to everyone. Natural resourcefulness and resourcefulness help Chichikov to gain the favor of every landowner. In addition to empty talk, Chichikov talks with the gentlemen about the peasants who died after the audit (“dead souls”) and expresses a desire to buy them. The landowners cannot understand why Chichikov needs such a deal. However, they agree to it.

As a result of his visits, Chichikov acquired more than 400 “dead souls” and was in a hurry to quickly finish his business and leave the city. The useful contacts Chichikov made upon his arrival in the city helped him resolve all issues with documents.

After some time, the landowner Korobochka let slip in the city that Chichikov was buying up “dead souls.” The whole city learned about Chichikov's affairs and was perplexed. Why would such a respected gentleman buy dead peasants? Endless rumors and speculation have a detrimental effect even on the prosecutor, and he dies of fear.

The poem ends with Chichikov hastily leaving the city. Leaving the city, Chichikov sadly recalls his plans to buy dead souls and pledge them to the treasury as living ones.

Main characters

Qualitatively new hero in Russian literature of that time. Chichikov can be called a representative of the newest class, just emerging in serf Russia - entrepreneurs, “acquirers”. The hero’s activity and activity distinguishes him favorably from other characters in the poem.

The image of Chichikov is distinguished by its incredible versatility and diversity. Even by the appearance of the hero it is difficult to immediately understand what kind of person he is and what he is like. “In the chaise sat a gentleman, not handsome, but not of bad appearance, neither too fat nor too thin, one cannot say that he is old, but not that he is too young.”

It is difficult to understand and embrace the nature of the main character. He is changeable, has many faces, is able to adapt to any interlocutor, and give his face the desired expression. Thanks to these qualities, Chichikov easily finds common language with landowners, officials and wins the desired position in society. Chichikov uses his ability to charm and win over the right people to achieve his goal, namely receiving and accumulating money. His father also taught Pavel Ivanovich to deal with those who are richer and to treat money with care, since only money can pave the way in life.

Chichikov did not earn money honestly: he deceived people, took bribes. Over time, Chichikov's machinations become increasingly widespread. Pavel Ivanovich strives to increase his fortune by any means, without paying attention to any moral norms and principles.

Gogol defines Chichikov as a person with a vile nature and also considers his soul dead.

In his poem, Gogol describes typical images of landowners of that time: “business executives” (Sobakevich, Korobochka), as well as not serious and wasteful gentlemen (Manilov, Nozdrev).

Nikolai Vasilyevich masterfully created the image of the landowner Manilov in the work. By this one image, Gogol meant a whole class of landowners with similar features. The main qualities of these people are sentimentality, constant fantasies and lack of active activity. Landowners of this type let the economy take its course and do nothing useful. They are stupid and empty inside. This is exactly what Manilov was - not bad at heart, but a mediocre and stupid poser.

Nastasya Petrovna Korobochka

The landowner, however, differs significantly in character from Manilov. Korobochka is a good and tidy housewife; everything goes well on her estate. However, the landowner's life revolves exclusively around her farm. The box does not develop spiritually and is not interested in anything. She understands absolutely nothing that does not concern her household. Korobochka is also one of the images by which Gogol meant a whole class of similar narrow-minded landowners who do not see anything beyond their farm.

The author clearly classifies the landowner Nozdryov as an unserious and wasteful gentleman. Unlike the sentimental Manilov, Nozdrev is full of energy. However, the landowner uses this energy not for the benefit of the farm, but for the sake of his momentary pleasures. Nozdryov is playing and wasting his money. Distinguished by its frivolity and idle attitude towards life.

Mikhail Semenovich Sobakevich

The image of Sobakevich, created by Gogol, echoes the image of a bear. There is something of a large wild animal in the appearance of the landowner: clumsiness, sedateness, strength. Sobakevich is not concerned about the aesthetic beauty of the things around him, but about their reliability and durability. Behind his rough appearance and stern character lies a cunning, intelligent and resourceful person. According to the author of the poem, it will not be difficult for landowners like Sobakevich to adapt to the changes and reforms coming in Rus'.

The most unusual representative of the landowner class in Gogol's poem. The old man is distinguished by his extreme stinginess. Moreover, Plyushkin is greedy not only in relation to his peasants, but also in relation to himself. However, such savings make Plyushkin a truly poor man. After all, it is his stinginess that does not allow him to find a family.

Bureaucracy

Gogol's work contains a description of several city officials. However, the author in his work does not significantly differentiate them from each other. All officials in “Dead Souls” are a gang of thieves, crooks and embezzlers. These people really only care about their enrichment. Gogol literally describes in a few outlines the image of a typical official of that time, rewarding him with the most unflattering qualities.

Analysis of the work

The plot of “Dead Souls” is based on an adventure conceived by Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. At first glance, Chichikov's plan seems incredible. However, if you look at it, the Russian reality of those times, with its rules and laws, provided opportunities for all sorts of fraud associated with serfs.

The fact is that after 1718, a capitation census of peasants was introduced in the Russian Empire. For every male serf, the master had to pay a tax. However, the census was carried out quite rarely - once every 12-15 years. And if one of the peasants ran away or died, the landowner was still forced to pay a tax for him. Dead or escaped peasants became a burden for the master. This created fertile ground for various types of fraud. Chichikov himself hoped to carry out this kind of scam.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol knew perfectly well how it worked Russian society with its serf system. And the whole tragedy of his poem lies in the fact that Chichikov’s scam absolutely did not contradict the current Russian legislation. Gogol exposes the distorted relationships of man with man, as well as man with the state, and talks about the absurd laws in force at that time. Because of such distortions, events become possible that contradict common sense.

"Dead Souls" - classic, which, like no other, is written in the style of Gogol. Quite often, Nikolai Vasilyevich based his work on some anecdote or comical situation. And the more ridiculous and unusual the situation, the more tragic the real state of affairs seems.

The book “Dead Souls,” on the first volume of which Gogol worked from 1835 to 1841, is the pinnacle of his creativity. The book shows Nikolaev Russia with its bureaucratic apparatus, the decomposition of the feudal economic system and the beginning of the development of bourgeois relationships. The poem shows the decline of the human personality, cut off from the healing sources of creative labor.

The plot for this poem was suggested to Gogol by Pushkin. “Pushkin found out that the content of “Dead Souls” was not bad for me because it gave me complete freedom to travel all over Russia together with the hero and bring out a lot of very different morals.”

Any of the types, from the outwardly pleasant Manilov to the Plyushkin who has lost his human appearance, is a “dead soul.” These are morally degenerate people. Not one of them lacks the thought of public duty and service to the fatherland, which makes a person respectable and selfless. And if there is energy in them, as, for example, in Nozdryov or Sobakevich, then it is not oriented in the right direction and is transformed from a positive property into its own opposite. Such vital energy can only bring suffering to people. Realizing this, Gogol writes about Sobakevich: “No, whoever is a fist cannot straighten it into a palm! And if you straighten your fist with one or two fingers, it will turn out even worse.”

The landowners depicted in the poem are in no way people, moral monsters, “dead souls.” This reveals the meaning of the title of the poem.
As soon as Pushkin listened to the poem being read by Gogol himself, he said with sadness in his voice: “God, how sad our Russia is!”

Gogol lovingly and tirelessly develops the content given to him by Pushkin, expands and deepens initial plan. The writer completed the first volume of his own brilliant poem abroad by 1841.

With extraordinary observation and amazing power, Gogol depicted in “Dead Souls” the state and temper of the ruling class, taken in his “ privacy" He demonstrated the ugly appearance of the local “existents”, presented the “acquiring heroes” born of a cynical century, and revealed the very essence of the unclean and disgusting life of landowner Russia.
The first volume of “Dead Souls” is the pinnacle of Gogol’s realism. The writer gives exorbitant typical generalizations of Russian reality, depicts human morals in their conditioning by obvious social circumstances. In the gallery of images Gogol of the dead souls reveal “human passions”, formed in the “emptiness and savagery” of local life. The writer himself, in “Reflections of the Creator on Certain Heroes of the First Volume of Dead Souls,” perfectly characterizes the destructive impact of his progressive life on a person. He writes: “...They coolly embrace, completely imperceptibly, the vulgar habits of the world, conditions, decency in the absence of the work of a moving community, which, in the end, only entangle and clothe a person, as if he himself does not remain in him, but only a multitude of conditions and habits belonging to the world. And when you try to get to the soul, it’s already missing: a petrified piece and a whole person who has turned into a terrible Plyushkin, from whom, if sometimes something similar to a feeling flutters out, it’s similar to the last effort of a drowning man...”

(where Pushkin was twice) no one dies. The point is that in early XIX century, quite a lot of peasants from the central provinces of the Russian Empire fled to Bessarabia. The police were obliged to identify fugitives, but often without success - they took the names of the dead. As a result, not a single death was registered in Bendery for several years. It started official investigation, which revealed that the names of the dead were given to fugitive peasants who did not have documents. Many years later, Pushkin, creatively transforming it, told Gogol.

The documented history of the creation of the work begins on October 7, 1835. In a letter to Pushkin dated this day, Gogol first mentions “Dead Souls”:

I started writing Dead Souls. The plot stretches out into a long novel and, it seems, will be very funny.

Gogol read the first chapters to Pushkin before leaving abroad. Work continued in the fall of 1836 in Switzerland, then in Paris and later in Italy. By this time, the author had developed an attitude towards his work as a “sacred testament of the poet” and a literary feat, which at the same time had 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 imperial 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 worked on 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 poem in the Aksakovs' house and prepared the manuscript for publication. At a meeting of the Moscow 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, informed the author of the complications that could arise. Fearing a censorship ban, in January 1842 Gogol sent the manuscript to St. Petersburg through Belinsky and asked friends A. O. Smirnova, Vladimir Odoevsky, Pyotr Pletnev, Mikhail Vielgorsky to help with passing censorship.

On March 9, 1842, the book was approved by censor Alexander Nikitenko, but with a changed title and without “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin.” Even before receiving the censored copy, the manuscript began to be typed at the printing house of Moscow University. Gogol himself undertook to design the cover of the novel, writing in small letters “The Adventures of Chichikov or” and in large letters “Dead Souls.” 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.

• Literary legend: Gogol, in the early morning of February 12, 1852, deliberately burned a work with which he was dissatisfied.
• Reconstruction: Gogol, returning from the all-night vigil in a state of complete decline, mistakenly burned the white paper instead of the drafts intended for burning.
• Hypothetical version. By the end of 1851, Gogol completed the second volume of Dead Souls, which, in the opinion of the author and his listeners, is a masterpiece. In February 1852, feeling his death approaching, Gogol burned unnecessary drafts and papers. After his death, the manuscript of the second volume of “Dead Souls” came to Count A. Tolstoy and to this day remains somewhere safe and sound.

Draft 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 Moscow civil governor Ivan Kapnist (son of the poet and playwright V.V. Kapnist). The whitewashing of the manuscripts was carried out by Shevyrev, who also worked on 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. One of the last chapters, now printed together with the first four chapters of the second volume, belongs to an earlier edition than the rest of the chapters.

Plot and characters

First volume

The book tells about the adventures of Chichikov Pavel Ivanovich, the main character of the story, a former collegiate adviser posing as a landowner. Chichikov arrives in a town that is not specifically named, a certain provincial “city N” and immediately tries to gain the trust of all any important inhabitants of the city, which he successfully succeeds in doing. The hero becomes an extremely welcome guest at balls and dinners. The townspeople of the unnamed city have no idea about Chichikov's true goals. And its goal is to buy up or acquire free of charge dead peasants who, according to the census, were still listed as living among local landowners, and then register them in their own name as living. The character, past life of Chichikov and his future intentions regarding “dead souls” are described in the last, eleventh chapter.

Chichikov is trying by any means to get rich and achieve a high social status. In the past, Chichikov served in customs, in exchange for bribes he allowed smugglers to freely transport goods across the border. However, he quarreled with an accomplice, who wrote a denunciation against him, after which the scam was revealed, and both found themselves under investigation. The accomplice went to prison, Chichikov immediately left the province, so as not to be caught without taking money from the bank, having only managed to take with him a few shirts, some government paper, and a couple of bars of soap.

Chichikov only smiled, flying slightly on his leather cushion, for he loved driving fast. And what Russian doesn’t like driving fast? Is it his soul, striving to get dizzy, to go on a spree, to sometimes say: “damn it all!” - Shouldn’t his soul love her?

"Dead Souls, Volume One"

Chichikov and his servants:

• Chichikov Pavel Ivanovich is a former official (retired collegiate adviser), and now a schemer: he is engaged in buying up so-called “dead souls” (written information about deceased peasants) to pawn them as alive in a pawnshop and gain weight in society. He dresses smartly, takes care of himself, and after a long and dusty Russian road manages to look as if only from a tailor and barber.
• Selifan is Chichikov's coachman, short in stature, loves round dances with purebred and slender girls. Expert in horse characters. Dresses like a man.
• Petrushka - Chichikov's footman, 30 years old (in the first volume), big-nosed and big-lipped, a lover of taverns and bread wines. Loves to brag about his travels. Because of the dislike for baths, wherever it is found, the unique amber of Parsley appears. He dresses in shabby clothes that are a little too big for him, from his master's shoulder.
• Chubary, Bay and Brown Assessor are Chichikov's three horses, respectively the right side, the root and the left side. The bay and the Assessor are honest hard workers, but the brown-haired one, in Selifan’s opinion, is a cunning one and only pretends to pull the shaft.

Residents of the city N and surrounding areas:

• Governor
• Governor's wife
• Governor's Daughter
• Lieutenant Governor
• Chairman of the Chamber
• Chief of Police
• Postmaster
• Prosecutor
• Manilov, landowner (the name Manilov became a household name for an inactive dreamer, and a dreamy and inactive attitude towards everything around him began to be called Manilovism)
• Lizonka Manilova, landowner
• Manilov Themistoclus - seven-year-old son of Manilov
• Manilov Alkid - six-year-old son of Manilov
• Korobochka Nastasya Petrovna, landowner
• Nozdryov, landowner
• Mizhuev, Nozdrev’s “son-in-law”
• Sobakevich Mikhail Semenovich
• Sobakevich Feodulia Ivanovna, Sobakevich’s wife
• Plyushkin Stepan, landowner
• “Pleasant lady in every way”
• "Just a nice lady"

Second volume

The chapters of this volume are working or draft versions and some characters go through it with different names- last names and ages.

• Chichikov Pavel Ivanovich is, according to Tentetnikov, the first person in his life with whom he can live a century and not quarrel. Since the time of the first volume, he has aged a little, but nevertheless he has become even more dexterous, lighter, more courteous and more pleasant. Again he leads a gypsy life, tries to buy up dead peasants, but manages to acquire little: it has become a fashion among landowners to pawn souls in a pawnshop. He buys a small estate from one of the landowners, and towards the end of the novel he gets caught in a scam with someone else's inheritance. Not leaving the city in time, he almost perished in prisons and hard labor. He will do a favorable thing: he will reconcile Betrishchev and Tentetnikov, thereby ensuring the latter’s wedding with the general’s daughter Ulinka.

... Tentetnikov belonged to the family of those people who are not translated in Rus', whose names used to be: lumps, lazybones, boibaks, and whom now, really, I don’t know what to call. Are such characters already born, or are they formed later as a product of sad circumstances that harshly surround a person? ...Where is the one who would native language Our Russian soul would be able to tell us this almighty word: forward! who, knowing all the powers, and properties, and all the depth of our nature, with one magical wave could direct us to high life? With what tears, with what love would a grateful Russian man pay him? But centuries pass after centuries, half a million Sidneys, bumpkins and boibaks sleep soundly, and rarely is a husband born in Rus' who knows how to pronounce this almighty word.

Unlike Goncharov's hero, Tentetnikov did not completely plunge into Oblomovism. He will join an anti-government organization and will be put on trial for a political case. The author had a role planned for him in the unwritten third volume.

... Alexander Petrovich was gifted with a sense of hearing human nature... He used to say: “I demand intelligence, and not anything else. “Whoever thinks of being smart has no time to play pranks: the pranks should disappear by themselves.” He did not restrain many frolics, seeing in them the beginning of the development of mental properties and saying that he needed them like a rash to a doctor - in order to find out reliably what exactly lies inside a person. He did not have many teachers: he read most of the sciences himself. Without pedantic terms, pompous views and opinions, he was able to convey the very soul of science, so that even a minor could see what he needed it for... But it was necessary that at the very time when he (Tentetnikov) was transferred to this select course, ... an extraordinary mentor died suddenly... Everything changed at the school. Some Fyodor Ivanovich took the place of Alexander Petrovich...

N.V. Gogol, Dead Souls, volume two (later edition), chapter one

... He felt something unbridled in the free playfulness of the first-year children. He began to establish some kind of external order between them, demanding that the young people remain in some kind of silent silence, so that in no case would they all walk around except in pairs. He even began to measure the distance from pair to pair with a yardstick. At the table, for best view, seated everyone according to height...

... And as if to spite his predecessor, he announced from the first day that intelligence and success meant nothing to him, that he would look only at good behavior... It’s strange: Fyodor Ivanovich did not achieve good behavior. Hidden pranks started. Everything was in order during the day and went in pairs, but at night there was revelry... Respect for superiors and authorities was lost: they began to mock both mentors and teachers.

N.V. Gogol, Dead Souls, volume two (later edition), chapter one

... to the point of blasphemy and ridicule of religion itself just because the director demanded frequent going to church and he got a bad priest [not a very smart priest (in a later edition)].

N.V. Gogol, Dead Souls, volume two (early edition), chapter one

... The director began to be called Fedka, Bulka and other different names. The debauchery that has developed is no longer childish... night orgies of comrades who acquired some lady [mistress - one for eight people (in early edition)] right in front of the windows of the director’s apartment...
Something strange happened to science too. New teachers were appointed, with new views and points of view...

N.V. Gogol, Dead Souls, volume two (later edition), chapter one

...They read learnedly and bombarded their listeners with many new terms and words. There was a logical connection and a follow-up to new discoveries, but alas! There was only no life in science itself. All this began to seem dead in the eyes of the listeners who had already begun to understand... He (Tentetnikov) listened to the professors getting excited in the department, and remembered his former mentor, who, without getting excited, knew how to speak clearly. He listened to chemistry, the philosophy of rights, and professors delving into all the intricacies political sciences, And general history humanity in such a huge form that the professor at three years old only managed to read the introduction and the development of communities of some German cities; but all this remained in his head as some ugly scraps. Thanks to his natural intelligence, he only felt that this was not how it should be taught... Ambition was strongly aroused in him, but he had no activity or field. It would be better not to excite him!..

N.V. Gogol, Dead Souls, volume two (early edition), chapter one

... If a transparent picture, illuminated from behind by a lamp, had suddenly flashed in a dark room, it would not have struck as much as this figure shining with life, which appeared as if to illuminate the room. It seemed as if a ray of sunshine had flown into the room with her, suddenly illuminating the ceiling, the cornice and its dark corners... It was difficult to say what land she was born in. Such a pure, noble outline of a face could not be found anywhere, except perhaps on some ancient cameos. Straight and light as an arrow, she seemed to tower above everyone with her height. But it was a seduction. She was not tall at all. This happened due to the extraordinary harmony and harmonious relationship between all parts of the body, from head to toes...

N.V. Gogol, Dead Souls, Volume Two, Chapter Two

“Fool, fool! - thought Chichikov. - He will squander everything and turn the children into swindles. A decent name. You'll see - both the men feel good and they don't feel bad either. And when they get enlightened there at the restaurants and in the theaters, everything will go to hell. I wish I could live in a village... Well, how can such a person go to St. Petersburg or Moscow? With such hospitality, he will live there for three years to the nines!” That is, he did not know that now it has been improved: and without hospitality, everything can be released not in three years, but in three months.

“But I know what you’re thinking,” said the Rooster.
- What? - Chichikov asked, embarrassed.
- You think: “This Rooster is a fool, he called for dinner, but there is still no dinner.” He will be ready, most respected, before the bobbed girl has time to braid her hair, he will be ready...

• Aleksha and Nikolasha are the sons of Pyotr Petrovich Rooster, high school students.

Who slammed glass after glass; it was clear in advance what part of human knowledge they would pay attention to upon arrival in the capital.

N.V. Gogol, Dead Souls, volume two (later edition), chapter three

• Platonov Platon Mikhailovich is a rich gentleman, a very handsome young man of tall stature, but throughout his life he is overcome by the blues and has not found any interest in himself. According to brother Vasily, he is indiscriminate in making acquaintances. He agrees to accompany Chichikov on his travels in order to finally dispel this boredom with travel. Chichikov was very glad to have such a companion: he could throw all his travel expenses on him and, on occasion, borrow a large sum money.
• Voronoi-Dryannoy is a landowner, a leader of some kind of underground.
• Skudrozhoglo (Kostanzhoglo, Poponzhoglo, Gobrozhoglo, Berdanzhoglo) Konstantin Fedorovich, a landowner about forty years old. Southern appearance, dark and energetic man with very lively eyes, although somewhat bilious and feverish; strongly criticizes the foreign orders and fashions that have become fashionable in Rus'. An ideal business executive, a landowner not by birth, but by nature. He bought a ruined farm inexpensively and increased his income several times over several years. He buys up the lands of surrounding landowners and, as the economy develops, becomes a manufacturing capitalist. He lives ascetically and simply, has no interests that do not bring an honest income.

... about Konstantin Fedorovich - what can we say! This is Napoleon of sorts...

N.V. Gogol, Dead Souls, volume two (later edition), chapter four

There is an assumption that the prototype of this hero was the famous industrialist Dmitry Benardaki

• Skudrozhoglo's wife, the Platonovs' sister, looks like Plato. A very economical woman to match her husband.
• Colonel Koshkarev is a landowner. He looks very stern, his dry face is extremely serious. He failed the farm and went bankrupt, but he created an “ideal” system of estate management in the form of all sorts of government offices in a disorderly manner built around the village, commissions, subcommittees and paperwork between them, officials - former peasants: a parody of a developed bureaucratic system in an undeveloped country. In response to Chichikov’s question about the purchase of dead souls, in order to show how smoothly his management apparatus works, he entrusts this matter in writing to his departments. The long written answer that arrived in the evening, firstly, reprimands Chichikov for not having the appropriate education, since he calls the revision souls dead, the dead are not acquired and in general, educated people known for certain that the soul is immortal; secondly, all the audit souls have long been pawned and re-pledged to the pawnshop.

So why didn’t you tell me this before? Why did they keep it for nothing? - Chichikov said with heart.

But how could I have known about this in the first place? This is the benefit of paper production, that now everything is clear in full view. . .
“You are a fool, you stupid brute! - Chichikov thought to himself. “I delved into books, but what did I learn?” Bypassing all politeness and decency, he grabbed the hat - from home. The coachman stood, the carriage was ready and did not put the horses aside: there would have been a written request for food, and the resolution - to give oats to the horses - would have come out only the next day.

N.V. Gogol, Dead Souls, volume two (early edition), chapter three

His speeches contained so much knowledge of people and light! He saw many things so well and correctly, so aptly and deftly outlined the neighbors of the landowners in a few words, so clearly saw the shortcomings and mistakes of everyone... he was so original and aptly able to convey their smallest habits that both of them were completely enchanted by his speeches and were ready to recognize him for the smartest person.

Listen,” said Platonov, “with such intelligence, experience and worldly knowledge, how can you not find a way to get out of your difficult situation?”
“There are funds,” said Khlobuev, and after that he laid out a whole bunch of projects for them. All of them were so absurd, so strange, so little stemming from knowledge of people and the world that one could only shrug one’s shoulders: “Lord God, what an immense distance between the knowledge of the world and the ability to use this knowledge!” Almost all projects were based on the need to suddenly get a hundred or two hundred thousand from somewhere...
“What to do with him,” thought Platonov. He did not yet know that in Rus', in Moscow and other cities, there are such sages whose lives are an inexplicable mystery. It seems that he has lived through everything, he is in debt all around, there are no funds from anywhere, and the dinner that is given seems to be the last; and the diners think that tomorrow the owner will be dragged to prison. Ten years pass after that - the sage is still hanging on in the world, he is even more in debt than before and still sets dinner, and everyone is sure that tomorrow they will drag the owner to prison. Khlobuev was such a sage. Only in Rus' alone could it be possible to exist in this way. Having nothing, he treated and provided hospitality, and even provided patronage, encouraged all sorts of artists who came to the city, gave them shelter and an apartment... Sometimes for whole days there was not a crumb in the house, sometimes they set such a dinner in it that would satisfy the taste of the most sophisticated gastronome. The owner appeared festive, cheerful, with the bearing of a rich gentleman, with the gait of a man whose life is spent in abundance and contentment. But at times there were such difficult moments (times) that someone else in his place would have hanged himself or shot himself. But he was saved by his religious mood, which in a strange way combined in him with his dissolute life... And - a strange thing! - almost always came to him... unexpected help...

• Platonov Vasily Mikhailovich - landowner. He is not like his brother either in appearance or in character, he is a cheerful and kind-hearted person. The owner is no worse than Skudrozhoglo and, like a neighbor, is not delighted with German influences.
• Lenitsyn Alexey Ivanovich - landowner, his excellency. Due to not very serious circumstances, he sold dead souls to Chichikov, which he later regretted very much, when a case was opened against Pavel Ivanovich.
• Chegranov is a landowner.
• Murazov Afanasy Vasilyevich, tax farmer, successful and intelligent financier and a kind of oligarch of the nineteenth century. Having saved 40 million rubles, he decided to save Russia with his own money, although his methods strongly resemble the creation of a sect. He likes to get involved “with his hands and feet” in someone else’s life and set him on the right path (in his opinion).

Do you know, Pyotr Petrovich (Khlobuev)? give it to me - the children, the affairs; leave your family (spouse) too... After all, your circumstances are such that you are in my hands... Put on a simple Siberian shirt... yes, with a book in your hands, on a simple cart and go to cities and villages... (ask for money for the church and collect information about everyone) .

He has a great gift of persuasion. Chichikov, like a lost sheep, also tried to persuade him to implement his great idea, and he, under the influence of circumstances, almost agreed. He persuaded the prince to release Chichikov from prison.

• Vishnepokromov Varvar Nikolaevich
• Khanasarova Alexandra Ivanovna is a very rich old townswoman.

“I have, perhaps, the three-millionth aunt,” said Khlobuev, “a religious old woman: she gives money to churches and monasteries, but she’s too lazy to help her neighbor.” An old-time aunt who would be worth a look. She has only about four hundred canaries, pugs, hangers-on and servants, all of whom are no longer there. The youngest of the servants will be about sixty years old, although she calls him: “Hey, little one!” If a guest somehow behaves inappropriately, she will order a dish to surround him at dinner. And they will enclose it. That's what it is!

N.V. Gogol, Dead Souls, volume two (early edition), chapter four

She died, leaving a confusion with wills, which Chichikov took advantage of.

• The legal adviser-philosopher is a very experienced and resourceful businessman and philanderer with extremely changeable behavior depending on the remuneration. Shabby appearance creates a contrast to the chic decor of his home.
• Samosvistov, official. A “sleazy beast”, a reveler, a fighter and a great actor: he can pull off or, on the contrary, screw up any business not so much for a bribe, but for the sake of daring recklessness and ridicule of his superiors. At the same time, he does not disdain changing clothes. For thirty thousand, he agreed to help out Chichikov, who had ended up in prison.

In wartime, this man would have done miracles: he would have been sent somewhere to get through impassable, dangerous places, to steal a cannon right in front of the enemy’s nose... And in the absence of a military field... he did dirty tricks and shit. An incomprehensible thing! He was good with his comrades, did not sell anyone out, and, having made his word, kept it; but he considered the higher authorities above him to be something like an enemy battery, through which he had to break through, using all sorts of weak point, breach or omission.

N.V. Gogol, Dead Souls, volume two (early edition), one of the last chapters

… It goes without saying that many innocents will suffer among them. What to do? The matter is too dishonest and cries out for justice... I must now turn to only one insensitive instrument of justice, an ax that should fall on our heads... The fact is that it has come to us to save our land; that our land is perishing not from the invasion of twenty foreign languages, but from ourselves; that already past the legal government, another government was formed, much stronger than any legal one. The conditions were established, everything was assessed, and the prices were even made publicly known...

N.V. Gogol, Dead Souls, volume two (late edition), one of the last chapters

At this angry, righteous speech before a decorous assembly, the manuscript ends.

Third volume

The third volume of Dead Souls was not written at all, but there was information that in it two heroes from the second volume (Tentetnikov and Ulinka) are exiled to Siberia (Gogol collected materials about Siberia and the Simbirsk region), where the action should take place; Chichikov also ends up there. Probably, in this volume, the previous characters or their analogues, having gone through the “purgatory” of the second volume, should have appeared before the reader as certain ideals to follow. For example, Plyushkin from the stingy and suspicious senile man of the first volume was supposed to turn into a beneficent wanderer, helping the poor and getting to the scene of events on his own. The author conceived a wonderful monologue on behalf of this hero. The other characters and details of the third volume are unknown today.

Translations

The poem “Dead Souls” began to gain international fame during the writer’s lifetime. In a number of cases, translations of fragments or individual chapters of the novel were first published. In 1846, a German translation by F. Löbenstein of Die toten Seelen was published in Leipzig (reprinted in , , ), and another translation was published entitled Paul Tschitchikow"s Irrfahrten oder Die toten Seelen. Three years after the first German translation, a Czech translation by K. Havlíčka-Borovský () appeared. Anonymous translation Home life in Russia. By a Russian noble published in English in London in 1854. In the United States of America, the poem was first published in a translation by I. Hepgood in 1886 under the title Tchitchikoff's journeys, or Dead souls(reprint in London in). Subsequently, various translations with the title Dead souls were published in London (, , , , , , ) and New York (, , ); sometimes the novel was published with the title Chichikov's journeys; or, Home life in Russia(New York, ) or Dead souls. Chichikov's journey or Home life in Russia(New York, ). An excerpt in Bulgarian was published in 1858. The first translation in French was published in 1859. .

An excerpt from “Nozdryov” translated into Lithuanian by Vincas Petaris was published in 1904. Motējus Miskinis prepared a translation of the first volume in 1923, but it was not published then; his translation was published in Kaunas in 1938 and went through several editions.

Film adaptations

The poem has been filmed several times.

• In 1909, Khanzhonkov’s studio produced the film “Dead Souls” (directed by Pyotr Chardynin)
• In 1960, the film-play “Dead Souls” was shot (directed by Leonid Trauberg)
• In 1969, the film-play “Dead Souls” was shot (directed by Alexander Belinsky, in the role of Chichikov - Igor Gorbachev).
• In 1974, at the Soyuzmultfilm studio, based on the plot of “Dead Souls,” two animated films were shot: “The Adventures of Chichikov. Manilov" and "The Adventures of Chichikov. Nozdryov." Directed by Boris Stepantsev.
• In 1984, the film “Dead Souls” was shot (directed by Mikhail Shveitser, in the role of Chichikov - Alexander Kalyagin).
• Based on the work, the series “The Case of Dead Souls” was filmed in 2005 (the role of Chichikov was played by Konstantin Khabensky).

Theater productions

The poem has been staged many times in Russia. Directors often turn to M. Bulgakov’s stage play based on Gogol’s work of the same name ().

• - Moscow Art Theater, “Dead Souls” (based on the play by M. Bulgakov). Director: V. Nemirovich-Danchenko
• - Moscow Taganka Drama and Comedy Theater, “Revision Tale.” Production: Y. Lyubimova
• - Moscow Drama Theater on Malaya Bronnaya, “The Road”. Staged by A. Efros
• - Moscow drama theater them. Stanislavsky, Solo performance “Dead Souls”. Director: M. Rozovsky Cast: Alexander Filippenko
• - Theater "Russian Entreprise" named after. A. Mironov, “Dead Souls” (based on the works of M. Bulgakov and N. Gogol). Director: Vlad Furman. Cast: Sergey Russkin, Nikolay Dick, Alexey Fedkin
• - Moscow State Theater “Lenkom”, “Mystification” (based on the play “Brother Chichikov” by N. Sadur; fantasy based on N. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”). Staged by M. Zakharov. Cast: Dmitry Pevtsov, Tatyana Kravchenko, Viktor Rakov
• - “Contemporary”, “Dead Souls”. Director: Dmitry Zhamoida. Cast: Ilya Drenov, Kirill Mazharov, Yana Romanchenko, Tatyana Koretskaya, Rashid Nezametdinov
• - Theater named after Mayakovsky, "Dead Souls". Director: Sergey Artsibashev. Cast: Daniil Spivakovsky, Svetlana Nemolyaeva, Alexander Lazarev, Igor Kostolevsky
• - Moscow Theater-Studio directed by Oleg Tabakov, “Adventure based on N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls.” Director: Mindaugas Karbauskis. Cast: Sergey Bezrukov, Oleg Tabakov, Boris Plotnikov, Dmitry Kulichkov.
• - State Academic Central Puppet Theater named after S.V. Obraztsov, “Concert for Chichikov with orchestra.” Director: Andrey Dennikov. Cast: Andrey Dennikov, Maxim Mishaev, Elena Povarova, Irina Yakovleva, Irina Osintsova, Olga Alisova, Yana Mikhailova, Alexey Pevzner, Alexander Anosov.
• - Sverdlovsk State Academic Theater of Musical Comedy, “Dead Souls”. Libretto by Konstantin Rubinsky, composer Alexander Pantykin.
• Since 2005 - National Academic Theater named after Yanka Kupala (Minsk, Republic of Belarus), “Chichikov”. Director: Valery Raevsky, costumes and set design: Boris Gerlovan, composer: Viktor Kopytko. The performance features People's and Honored Artists of Belarus, as well as young actors. The role of the police chief's wife is played by Svetlana Zelenkovskaya.

Opera

Illustrations

Illustrations for the novel “Dead Souls” were created by outstanding Russian and foreign artists.

• The classic works were the drawings of A. A. Agin, engraved by his permanent collaborator E. E. Bernardsky.

“One Hundred Drawings for N.V. Gogol’s Poem “Dead Souls”” was published in 1847 in notebooks containing four woodcuts in each. In addition to Bernardsky, his students F. Bronnikov and P. Kurenkov took part in engraving the illustrations. The entire series (104 drawings) was published in 1892 and phototypically repeated in 1893. In 1902, when the exclusive copyright for Gogol’s works, owned by the St. Petersburg publisher A. F. Marx, expired, two editions of “Dead Souls” with drawings by A. A. Agin were published (St. Petersburg Electric Printing House and the publishing house of F. F. Pavlenkov ). In 1935, a book with illustrations by Agina was published by the State Publishing House of Fiction. In 1937, “Dead Souls” with drawings by Agin, re-engraved by M. G. Pridantsev and I. S. Neutolimov, was published by the Academia publishing house. Later, E. E. Bernardsky's engravings were reproduced photomechanically (Dagestan State Publishing House, Makhachkala, Children's State Publishing House, Goslitizdat, advertising and computer agency Trud). Agin's illustrations were also reproduced in foreign editions of Dead Souls: 25 of them in the German translation, published in 1913 in Leipzig; 100 - in the edition published by the Zander publishing house in Berlin without indicating the year. Agin's drawings were reproduced in the publication of the Berlin publishing house Aufbau Verlag ().

• Another recognized series of illustrations for the novel belongs to P. M. Boklevsky.

The artist began working on illustrations for “Dead Souls” in the 1860s. However, the first publication dates back to 1875, when 23 watercolor portraits of Gogol’s heroes, reproduced using woodcut techniques, were published by the Moscow magazine “Bee”. Then seven more drawings appeared in the magazine “Picturesque Review” in 1887. The first independent publication of Boklevsky’s illustrations was “Album of Gogol’s Types” (St. Petersburg), published by N. D. Tyapkin with a foreword by V. Ya. Stoyunin. The album consisted of 26 drawings previously published in magazines. It was repeatedly republished using the woodcut technique by St. Petersburg typographers S. Dobrodeev (,), E. Goppe (,,). In 1895, Moscow publisher V. G. Gauthier published an album in new technology phototypes with a foreword by L. A. Belsky. The 1881 album with Boklevsky's drawings was facsimilely reproduced in Germany by the Berlin publishing house Rutten und Loning (). Boklevsky's drawings were rarely used as actual illustrations. They were most fully presented in the 5th volume of the “Complete Works” of N.V. Gogol, undertaken by the Pechatnik publishing house (Moscow,). Later, Boklevsky’s drawings illustrated the publication of “Dead Souls” (Goslitizdat, ) and the 5th volume of Gogol’s “Collected Works” (Goslitizdat, ). Seven oval bust images of Chichikov, Manilov, Nozdrev, Sobakevich, Plyushkin, Captain Kopeikin, Tentetnikov in the “Collected Works” were printed on coated paper on separate sheets using the autotype technique.

Chagall began working on illustrations for Dead Souls in 1923, fulfilling an order from the French marchand and publisher Ambroise Vollard. The entire edition was printed in 1927. The book is a translation of Gogol's text into French A. Mongo with Chagall's illustrations was published in Paris only in 1948, almost ten years after Vollard's death, thanks to the efforts of another outstanding French publisher, Eugene Teriade.

Notes

1. Mann Yu.V. Gogol. Brief literary encyclopedia. T. 2: Gavrilyuk - Zulfigar Shirvani. Stb. 210-218. Fundamental electronic library"Russian literature and folklore" (1964). Archived
2. Vadim Polonsky. Gogol. Around the world. Yandex. Archived from the original on February 19, 2012. Retrieved June 2, 2009.
3. N.V. Gogol in Rome in the summer of 1841. - P.V. Annenkov. Literary Memoirs. Introductory article by V. I. Kuleshov; comments by A. M. Dolotova, G. G. Elizavetina, Yu. V. Mann, I. B. Pavlova. Moscow: Fiction, 1983 (Series of literary memoirs).
4. Khudyakov V.V. The scam of Chichikov and Ostap Bender // In the blooming acacias the city... Bendery: people, events, facts / ed. V.Valavin. - Bendery: Polygraphist, 1999. - pp. 83-85. - 464 s. - 2000 copies. - ISBN 5-88568-090-6
5. Mann Yu.V. In search of a living soul: “Dead Souls.” Writer - critic - reader. Moscow: Book, 1984 (The Fates of Books). P. 7.
6. Khyetso G. What happened to the second volume of “Dead Souls”? // Questions of literature. - 1990. - No. 7. - P.128-139.
7. Gogol N.V. Dead Souls.
8. The mystery of the crypt under Oktyabrsky
9. N.V. Gogol. Collected works in eight volumes. Volume 6. P. 316
10. Yu. V. Mann. In search of a living soul: “Dead Souls.” Writer - critic - reader. Moscow: Book, 1984 (The Fates of Books). P. 387; Bibliography of translations into foreign languages works of N.V. Gogol. Moscow: All-Union State Library of Foreign Literature, 1953. pp. 51-57.

How to understand what Nikolai Gogol really wanted to say

Text: Natalya Lebedeva/RG
Collage: Year of Literature.RF/

Photo portrait of N. V. Gogol from the group daguerreotype of S. L. Levitsky. Author K. A. Fisher/ ru.wikipedia.org

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is rightfully considered one of the most mysterious writers of Russian literature. Many secrets of his life and work have not yet been revealed by researchers. One of these mysteries is the fate of the second volume of Dead Souls. Why did Gogol burn the second volume, and did he burn it at all? But literary scholars were still able to reveal some of the secrets of Dead Souls. Why are “Russian men” so remarkable, why did playing whist become a “smart activity” and what role does the fly that flew into Chichikov’s nose play in the novel? About this and more literary historian, translator, candidate of philological sciences Evgenia Shraga told on Arzamas.

1. The secret of Russian men

In the first paragraph of Dead Souls, a chaise with Chichikov enters the provincial town of NN:

“His entry made absolutely no noise in the city and was not accompanied by anything special; only two Russian men standing at the door of the tavern opposite the hotel made some comments..."

This is clearly an unnecessary detail: from the first words it is clear that the action takes place in Russia. Why clarify that the men are Russian? Such a phrase would sound appropriate only in the mouth of a foreigner describing his impressions abroad. Literary historian Semyon Vengerov in an article entitled “Gogol did not know real Russian life at all” he explained it this way:

Gogol really learned late about the actual Russian (and not Ukrainian) life, not to mention the life of the Russian province,

Therefore, such an epithet was truly significant for him. Vengerov was sure: “If Gogol had thought about it for even one minute, he would certainly have crossed out this absurd epithet that says absolutely nothing to the Russian reader.”

But he didn’t cross out - and for good reason: in fact, this is a technique that is most characteristic of the poetics of “Dead Souls”, which the poet and philologist

called “a figure of fiction” - when something (and often a lot) is said, but nothing is actually said, definitions do not define, descriptions do not describe.

Another example of this poetics is the description of the main character. He “not handsome, but not bad-looking, neither too fat nor too thin; one cannot say that he is old, but not that he is too young”, “a middle-aged man with a rank neither too high nor too low”, “a gentleman of average rank”, whose face we never see, although he looks with pleasure in the mirror.

2. The mystery of the rainbow scarf

This is how we see Chichikov for the first time:

“The gentleman took off his cap and unwound from his neck a woolen scarf of rainbow colors, which the wife prepares for married people with her own hands, providing decent instructions on how to wrap themselves up, but for single people - I probably can’t say who makes it, God knows...”

“...I have never worn a headscarf like this,”- continues the narrator of “Dead Souls”. The description is constructed in a very characteristic Gogol image: the intonation of a know-it-all - “I know everything about such scarves”- changes abruptly to the opposite - “I’m single, I didn’t wear anything like that, I don’t know anything.” Behind this familiar technique and in such a familiar abundance of details, a rainbow scarf is well hidden.

“The next day he woke up quite late in the morning. The sun through the window shone straight into his eyes, and the flies that had slept peacefully yesterday on the walls and ceiling all turned to him: one sat on his lip, another on his ear, the third tried to settle on his very eye, the same one that had the imprudence to sit close to the nasal nostril, he pulled in his sleep right into his nose, which made him sneeze very hard - a circumstance that was the reason for his awakening.”

It is interesting that the narrative is filled with detailed descriptions of the universal dream, and only this awakening of Chichikov is an event that is described in detail.

Chichikov wakes up from a fly flying into his nose. His feelings are described almost in the same way as the shock of officials who heard about Chichikov’s scam:

“The position of them [the officials] at the first minute was similar to the position of a schoolboy, whose sleepy comrades, who had risen early, thrust a piece of paper filled with tobacco into the nose of a hussar. Having pulled all the tobacco towards himself in his sleep with all the zeal of a sleeper, he awakens, jumps up, looks like a fool, his eyes bulging in all directions, and cannot understand where he is, what he is, what happened to him ... "

Strange rumors alarmed the city, and this excitement is described as the awakening of those who had previously indulged in “dead dreams on their sides, on their backs and in all other positions, with snoring, nasal whistles and other accessories”, the entire “hitherto slumbering city " Before us is the resurrection of the dead, albeit a parody. But all this had such an effect on the city prosecutor that he completely died. His death is paradoxical, since in a sense it is a resurrection:

A. A. Agin. "Dead Souls". Chichikov and Korobochka. 1846/ www.nasledie-rus.ru

“...They sent for a doctor to draw blood, but they saw that the prosecutor was already one soulless body. Only then did they learn with condolences that the deceased definitely had a soul, although out of his modesty he never showed it.”

The contrast between sleep and awakening is associated with the key motifs of the novel - death and revival. The impetus for awakening can be the most insignificant little thing - a fly, tobacco, a strange rumor. The “Resurrector,” played by Chichikov, does not need to have any special virtues - it is enough for him to be in the role of a fly in his nose: to break the usual course of life.

5. How to keep up with everything: Chichikov’s secret

Chichikov leaves Korobochka:

“Although the day was very good, the ground became so polluted that the wheels of the chaise, catching it, soon became covered with it like felt, which significantly burdened the crew; Moreover, the soil was clayey and unusually tenacious. Both were the reasons that they could not get out of the country roads before noon.”

So, in the afternoon, the hero struggles to get out onto the pillar. Before this, after lengthy bickering, he bought 18 revision souls from Korobochka and ate unleavened pie with eggs and pancakes. Meanwhile, he woke up at ten. How did Chichikov manage to do everything in just over two hours?

This is not the only example of Gogol's free use of time. Setting off from the city of NN to Manilovka, Chichikov gets into a chaise wearing an “overcoat on big bears,” and on the way he meets men in sheepskin coats - the weather is clearly not summer. Arriving at Manilov, he sees a house on the mountain, “clad with trimmed turf”, “bushes of lilacs and yellow acacias”, birch with “small-leafed thin peaks”, “a pond covered with greenery”, women are wandering knee-deep in a pond - no longer wearing any sheepskin coats. Waking up the next morning in Korobochka’s house, Chichikov looks out of the window at “spacious vegetable gardens with cabbage, onions, potatoes, beets and other household vegetables” and “ fruit trees covered with nets to protect them from magpies and sparrows"- The time of year has changed again. Returning to the city, Chichikov will again put on his "a bear covered with brown cloth." “Wearing bears covered with brown cloth and a warm cap with ears” Manilov will also come to the city. In general, as stated elsewhere Gogol's text: “I don’t remember the numbers. It wasn’t a month either.”

Cover of the first edition of the poem “Dead Souls”, made according to a drawing by N. V. Gogol

In general, the world of “Dead Souls” is a world without time. The seasons do not follow each other in order, but accompany a place or character, becoming its additional characteristic. Time stops flowing in the expected way, freezing in an ugly eternity - "a state of continued immobility", according to the philologist Michael Weiskopf.

6. The mystery of the guy with the balalaika

Chichikov orders Selifan to leave at dawn, Selifan scratches his head in response, and the narrator discusses what this means:

“Is it annoyance that the meeting planned for the next day with my brother in an unsightly sheepskin coat, surrounded by a sash, somewhere in the Tsar’s tavern, somewhere in the Tsar’s tavern, did not work out, or some kind of sweetheart has already started in a new place and I have to leave the evening standing at the gate and political holding of white hands at that hour, as twilight falls on the city, a kid in a red shirt strums a balalaika in front of the courtyard servants and weaves quiet speeches of the common, well-served people?<…>God knows, you won't guess. Scratching the back of the head means many different things to the Russian people.”

Such passages are very typical of Gogol: to tell a lot of everything and come to the conclusion that nothing is clear, and there is nothing to talk about at all. But in this next passage that explains nothing, the guy with the balalaika attracts attention. We've already seen it somewhere:

“Approaching the porch, he noticed two faces looking out of the window almost at the same time: a woman’s in a cap, narrow, long, like a cucumber, and a man’s, round, wide, like Moldavian pumpkins, called gourds, from which balalaikas, two-stringed, are made in Rus' , light balalaikas, the beauty and fun of an agile twenty-year-old guy, flashing and dandy, winking and whistling at the white-breasted and white-necked girls who had gathered to listen to his low-stringed strumming.”

You can never predict where Gogol’s comparison will lead:

the comparison of Sobakevich’s face with a Moldavian pumpkin suddenly turns into a scene with the participation of our balalaika player.

Such detailed comparisons are one of the techniques with the help of which Gogol further expands the artistic world of the novel, introduces into the text what did not fit even in such a capacious plot as travel, what he did not have time or could not see Chichikov, something that may not fit into big picture life of the provincial city and its environs.

But Gogol does not stop there, but takes the dandy with the balalaika who appeared in the extended comparison - and again finds a place for him in the text, and now much closer to the plot reality. From a figure of speech, from a comparison grows real character, which earns its place in the novel and ultimately fits into the plot.

7. Corruption secret

Even before the events of “Dead Souls” began, Chichikov was a member of the commission “to build some kind of government-owned, very capital building”:

A.A. Agin. "Dead Souls". Manilov with his wife. 1846/ www.nasledie-rus.ru

“For six years [the commission] was busy around the building; but the climate somehow interfered, or the material was already like that, but the government building just couldn’t rise above the foundation. Meanwhile, in other parts of the city, each of the members found themselves beautiful home civil architecture: apparently the soil was better there.”

This mention of “civil architecture” generally fits into Gogol’s redundant style, where definitions do not define anything, and the opposition can easily lack a second element. But initially it was: “civil architecture” was opposed to church architecture. In the earlier edition of “Dead Souls,” the commission, which included Chichikov, is designated as “the commission for the construction of the temple of God.”

This episode of Chichikov’s biography was based on the story of the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, well known to Gogol. The temple was founded October 12, 1817 years, in the early 1820s a commission was established, and already in 1827 abuses were discovered, the commission was abolished, and two of its members were put on trial. Sometimes these numbers serve as the basis for dating the events of Chichikov’s biography, but, firstly, as we have already seen, Gogol did not really commit himself to exact chronology; secondly, in the final version, the mention of the temple is removed, the action takes place in the provincial town, and this whole story is reduced to an element of style, to “civil architecture”, in Gogol’s style, no longer opposed to anything.