The stage fate of N.V.’s comedy Gogol "The Inspector General"
Performance "The Inspector General"
Characters:
Mayor – Alekhina Anastasia
Anna Andreevna (mayor's wife) -
Marya Antonovna (daughter of the mayor) -
Lyapkin-Tyapkin Ammos Fedorovich -
Strawberries Artemy Filippovich -
Osip –
Khlestakov –
Bobchinsky –
Dobchinsky –
Servant-
Gendarme -
Scene 1. The mayor's room.
Gore: . I invited you, gentlemen, in order to tell you some very unpleasant news: an auditor is coming to visit us.
Lyapkin-Tyapkin . How's the auditor?
Strawberries. How's the auditor?
Gor. Inspector from St. Petersburg, incognito! And with a secret order.
L.-T . Here you go!
Zem . There was no concern, so give it up!
Go R. Here I will read you a letter from Andrei Ivanovich Chmykhov, this is what he writes: “Dear friend, godfather and benefactor... (runs through the lines, muttering indistinctly) and notify you... Ah! Here...I hasten, by the way, to notify you that an official has arrived with orders to inspect the entire province and especially our district! Since I know that you are prone to sins, I advise you to take precautions, because he can arrive at any hour, unless he has already arrived and lives somewhere incognito... This is the circumstance...
L.-T. Yes, this is such an unusual circumstance...
Earth Why, Anton Antonovich, why is this? Why do we need an auditor?
Gore . For what? So, apparently it’s fate!
Earth No, I’ll tell you, the bosses are far away for nothing, but they’re messing with themselves.
Gor. It shakes, it doesn’t shake, I warned you, gentlemen! Artemy Filippovich! Charitable establishments will definitely want to take a look! So that patients have clean caps!
Earth You can also wear clean ones!
Gor. And it’s not good that you have no idea who got sick when, what kind of disease it is.
Earth We have our own measures regarding healing: if he dies, he will die, he will recover, he will recover.
Gore . Oh, and I imposed myself - incognito is a curse! Suddenly he looks in: “Oh, you’re here, my dears!” That's what's bad!
Scene 2. Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky appear.
Bean . Emergency!
Ext. . Unexpected news!
All. What?
Ext. . We arrive at the hotel...
Bean . (interrupting) Eh, let me, Pyotr Ivanovich, I’ll tell you.
Ext. . And you will get confused and not remember everything...
Bean . I’ll remember, don’t bother me, let me tell you! Tell him, gentlemen, not to interfere!
Gor. Yes, tell me, for God’s sake, what it is! My heart is not in the right place.
Music plays, they explain and leave.
Anna Andr. Where are they? Oh my god! Antosha! Anton! (to his daughter) And everything is you, and everything is behind you! “I have a pin, I have a scarf...” (shouting out the window) Anton, where? What, have you arrived? Auditor? With a mustache?
Anna Andr. After? Here's the news - after! But I don’t want to after...I just have one word: what is he, colonel? A? (with disdain) Left! I'll remember this for you! And all this: “Mommy, wait, I’ll pin the scarf in the back, I’ll be right there!” Here you go now! So you didn’t learn anything! And all the damned coquetry!
Marya Ant. But what can we do, mummy? We'll find out everything in two hours anyway!
Scene 4.
Whip. Hello, brother! Well, are you healthy?
Servant . And thank God, everything is fine!
Whip. Are there a lot of people passing by?
Servant. Enough!
Whip . Listen, my dear, they still haven’t brought me lunch there, so please hurry up and make it as soon as possible!
(servant leaves)
Scene 5.
Gor. I wish you good health!
Whip. (bowing) My respects...
Gor. Sorry..
Hest . Nothing.
Gor. It is my duty, as the mayor of this city, to ensure that travelers and all noble people are not harassed.
Whip. So what can we do? I’ll really pay honestly... They’ll send me something from the village... He’s more to blame, he serves me beef like a log, he starved me for days on end... why should I! How dare you? Yes, here I am... I serve in St. Petersburg... I... I...
Gore . (to the side) Oh, my God, my God, so angry! I found out everything, the damned merchants told me everything! Have mercy, don't destroy! Wife, small children, don’t make a person unhappy!
Whip. I don't know, I'll pay, but I don't have a penny yet.
Gor. (to the side) Oh! Subtle thing! If you need money or anything else, then I am ready to serve this minute. My duty is to help those passing by.
Gore . (aside) Well, thank God! He took the money. Things will go smoothly now. I gave him 400 instead of 200.
Is paying
(postmaster runs in)
Scene 6.
Poch. Amazing thing, gentlemen! The official whom we took for an auditor was not an auditor.
All Why not an auditor?
Poch . Not an auditor at all - I learned this from the letter.
Gor. What do you? What do you? From which letter?
Poch . Yes, from his own letter. They brought a letter to my post office... I took it and printed it out. I don’t know, it was an unnatural force that prompted me. In one ear I hear: “Print it out, print it out!”, and in the other ear: “Don’t print it out, you’ll be lost!”
Gore . And what?
Poch. The fact of the matter is that he, this imaginary auditor, is neither this nor that!
Gor. Neither this nor that? How dare you call him neither this nor that?
All. Read.
Poch. (reads) I hasten to notify you, my soul Tryapichkin, what miracles are happening to me. On the road, an infantry captain robbed me all around, so that the innkeeper was about to put me in prison, when suddenly, based on my St. Petersburg physiognomy and costume, the whole city took me for the governor general. And now I live with the mayor, dragging myself around, and his wife and daughter; I just couldn’t decide where to start... Everyone lends me as much as they want. The originals are terrible. You'd die laughing. You, I know, write articles: put them in your literature. Firstly, the mayor is as stupid as a gray gelding...”
Gor. Can't be! It's not there.
Poch. Read for yourself.
(gendarme enters)
G. An official who arrived from St. Petersburg by personal order demands you to come to him this very hour. He stayed at a hotel.
(the sound of thunder, a sigh and everyone turning to stone)
Vorobyova Vlada, Mikhalkina Vasilisa
N.V. Gogol is a writer who wants to tell the truth about the time in which he lives. Despite the fact that 182 years have passed from the first production of the comedy “The Government Inspector” in 1836 to today, this performance is staged on the stages of the best theaters in the world. Problems raised by N.V. Gogol, are modern and relevant for almost two centuries.
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municipal educational institution
"Secondary school of the village of Uralsky"
Sverdlovsk region
Literature Research Paper
Performer: Vorobyova V.,
Mikhalkina V.,
8th grade students
Head: Salnikova M.V.,
teacher of Russian language and literature
Uralsky village
2018
- Introduction…………………………………………………………..... 3
- Main part. The stage fate of N.V.’s comedy Gogol
“Inspector” ..................................................... .............................................. 5
- Creative history of the play “The Inspector General” …………………………... 5
- The role of Pushkin in Gogol’s creation of the comedy “The Inspector General”………. 5
- Productions of the play “The Inspector General” in the 19th century.……………………….. 6
- Productions of the play “The Inspector General” in the 20th and 21st centuries……………………8
III. Conclusion. ………………………………………………………… 12
Sources and literature…………………………………………………………… 14
Appendix……………………………………………………………... 15
I. Introduction.
N.V. Gogol conceived the idea of writing the comedy “The Inspector General” in the 1830s. Then he was working on the poem “Dead Souls”, and he had the idea of displaying the funny features of Russian reality in a comedy.
Gogol worked on the play for only two months - October and November 1835. He presented it for production. And then he improved it for 35 years.
“In The Inspector General, I decided to collect in one pile everything bad in Russia that I knew then, all the injustices that are being done in those places and in those cases where justice is most required from a person, and at one time laugh at everything.” - this is how Gogol spoke about his play. So, the comedy was written, but the main thing that worried Gogol was how it would be presented on stage, what the viewer’s reaction to the play would be, whether the audience would understand the author’s intention.
Relevance of this research workis that N.V. Gogol belongs to the type of people who want to tell the truth about the time in which he lives. And despite the fact that 182 years have passed from the first production of the comedy “The Inspector General” in 1836 to today, this performance is staged on the stages of the best theaters in the world. Problems raised by N.V. Gogol, are modern and relevant for almost two centuries.
Purpose of the research work:
Explore the stage fate of N.V.’s comedy. Gogol "The Inspector General".
Research objectives:
Find out the creative history of the play “The Inspector General”;
Research role of A.S. Pushkin in Gogol’s creation of the comedy “The Inspector General”;
Collect information about stage productions of the comedy “The Inspector General” from the 19th century to the 21st century;
- analyze featuresstage productions of the comedy “The Inspector General” from the 19th century to the 21st century.
Practical significance of this studyis the ability to use it in literature lessons devoted to the study of N.V.’s comedy. Gogol’s “The Inspector General” A presentation prepared for presenting a research paper can also be used in literature lessons.
II. Main part. The stage fate of N.V.’s comedy Gogol "The Inspector General".
II.1. Creative history of the play "The Inspector General".
To understand Gogol’s intention when creating the comedy “The Inspector General,” one should first of all turn to the most important thought formulated by him in his 1847 article “The Author’s Confession”: “I saw that in my writings I laugh for nothing, in vain, without knowing why. If you laugh, it’s better to laugh hard at something that is truly worthy of universal ridicule. In “The Inspector General,” I decided to put together everything bad in Russia that I knew then, all the injustices that are being done in those places and in those cases where justice is most required from a person, and at once laugh at everything. But "This, as you know, had an amazing effect. Through the laughter, which had never before appeared in me with such force, the reader heard sadness. I myself felt that my laughter was not the same as it was before."
The comedy began in October and was completed on December 4, 1835, in less than two months. In the spring of 1836, a separate edition of The Inspector General was published. Gogol repeatedly revised the text. In 1841, the comedy was published in a second edition with some changes. And only in 1842 “The Inspector General” appeared in its final form. In this edition, the text was significantly revised (Khlestakov’s lies were given an inspired hyperbolic character, the final scene was redone, the mayor’s address to the public was inserted: “Why are you laughing? - You’re laughing at yourself!..”, etc.). The text of the latest edition, published in all editions of Gogol, was heard on stage only in 1870.
II. 2. The role of A.S. Pushkin in the creation of N.V. Gogol's comedy "The Inspector General".
A.S. Pushkin played a remarkable role in Gogol’s creation of his famous play “The Inspector General.” N.V. Gogol was fond of theater since childhood (in his childhood, his father, Vasily Afanasyevich, wrote plays, mainly comedies, which were staged in the courtyard theater of their relative, philanthropist Troshchinsky, who lived not far from their Vasilievka estate. N.V. Gogol dreamed of writing it himself comedy and asked A.S. Pushkin to tell him the plot. And Pushkin suggested it - he gave him the plot of the future famous comedy “The Inspector General,” which he kept in his possession. “However,” said the poet, “I could not have written better.” Gogol has an abyss of humor and observation, which are not found in others," writes V. I. Shprok in his “Materials for the biography of Gogol.” A. S. Pushkin was very interested in the fate of the play, the plot of which he presented to Gogol. He was present at the reading of the comedy by the writer He attended the premiere of the play at the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg and persuaded Gogol to read the play to the artists of the Moscow Maly Theater.
II. 3. Productions of the play “The Inspector General” in the 19th century.
The play was not immediately cleared for production. Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky personally had to convince Emperor Nicholas I of the comedy’s trustworthiness.
The premiere of the play in its first edition took place in 1836 at the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. The premiere attracted a full house. The lights were shining brightly in the huge chandeliers, orders and diamonds were shining in the boxes, young people were noisy in the gallery - students, young officials, artists. The king and the heir to the throne sat in the imperial box. The excited author also sneaked into his seat unnoticed.
The performance was a success. The Emperor personally thanked the actors. There is a version that Nicholas I said after watching: “Well, what a play! Everyone got it, and I got it the most.” Since the sovereign liked the play, the comedy was allowed for further productions.
But Gogol was not happy about all this: upset by the shortcomings of the acting, the shortcomings of his own text and the reaction of the audience, who, as it seemed to him, laughed at the wrong thing, he fled from the theater. The painful impressions were aggravated by individual critical reviews that appeared in the press, which Gogol perceived as outright persecution. “Everyone is against me,” he complained to Shchepkin. “Elderly and respectable officials shout that nothing is sacred to me... The police are against me, the merchants are against me, the writers are against me.”
Gogol was disappointed with the production: the actors did not understand the satirical nature of the comedy or were afraid to play as required; the performance turned out to be primitively comic. The main reason for Gogol’s dissatisfaction was not even the farcical nature of the performance, but the fact that with the caricature style of the play, those sitting in the hall perceived what was happening on stage without applying it to themselves, since the characters were exaggeratedly funny. Meanwhile, Gogol’s plan was designed for precisely the opposite perception: to involve the viewer in the performance, to make them feel that the city depicted in the comedy does not exist somewhere far away, but to one degree or another in any place in Russia. Gogol addresses everyone: “Why are you laughing? You’re laughing at yourself!”
The author was also concerned about the lack of costume rehearsals. So, the playwright wanted to see Shchepkin and Ryazansky in the roles of Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky, neat, plump, with decently smoothed hair. At the premiere, the actors appeared on stage with tousled hair, huge shirtfronts pulled out, awkward and unkempt. Actor N.O. Dur presented Khlestakov as a traditional rogue, a vaudeville rogue. Only the mayor performed by I.I. Gogol liked Sosnitsky. Gogol was also upset by the “silent scene”. He wanted the numb facial expressions of the petrified group to hold the audience's attention for two or three minutes until the curtain closed. But the theater did not allow this time for the “silent stage”.
Confused and offended, the writer did not notice that all the leading people in society were trying to get to the performance of “The Inspector General,” and the publication of the text of the play became a real event in the cultural life of Russia. Throughout the 19th century. The play never left the theater stage.
On May 25, 1836, a production of the play was presented at the Maly Theater. In Moscow, the first performance was supposed to take place at the Bolshoi Theater, but under the pretext of repairs, the performance was given the next day at the Maly.where the role of the mayor was played by the famous Russian actorMikhail Semenovich Shchepkin.Gogol joked that Shchepkin in his “The Inspector General” could have played at least ten roles in a row.Despite the absence of the author and the complete indifference of the theater management to the premiere production, the performance was a huge success. However, the magazine “Rumor” described the Moscow premiere as follows: “The play, showered with applause in places, did not excite either a word or a sound when the curtain fell, in contrast to the St. Petersburg production.”
On April 14, 1860, “The Inspector General” was staged by a circle of writers in St. Petersburg in favor of the “Society for Benefiting Needy Writers and Scientists.” This production is especially interesting because it involved not professional actors, but professional writers.Among them were Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich and Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov.
And the interpretation of the images in their performance certainly deserves interest.
There were other productions of the play in the 19th century: at the Polytechnic Exhibition in Moscow (1872), at the Korsh Theater (1882), inMoscow Art Theater. There were also many productions in theaters in different cities of Russia. Some of the premiere productions abroad were in Paris, at the Port-Saint-Martin theater in France, then in Berlin and Prague.
II. 4. Productions of the play “The Inspector General” in the 20th and 21st centuries.
In 1920, the play “The Inspector General” was staged at the Moscow Art Theater (directed by K.S. Stanislavsky). The role of Khlestakov was played by Mikhail Chekhov, a famous dramatic artist, theater teacher, director, nephew of A.P. Chekhov. Contemporaries spoke with delight about this production. In particular, theater critic and playwright A. I. Piotrovsky wrote:
“Chekhov’s Khlestakov is a real artistic feat, this is one of those roles that change the entire performance, break its usual understanding and established traditions. Perhaps for the first time in all those eight decades that the stage history of “The Inspector General” includes, he has finally appeared on the Russian stage! - the Khlestakov about whom Gogol himself wrote..."
In the 20th century, in 1926, one of the most striking and unconventional productions of “The Inspector General” on the Russian stage was offered by the famous innovative directorVsevolod Emilievich Meyerhold. For the performance, he selected actors whose appearance best matched the characters in the play and did not require makeup. Thus, he brought to the stage not just Gogol’s images, but “people from life.” The only place where Meyerhold deviated from the realism of the theatrical image was the “silent” stage: instead of people in it, it was not the actors who appeared before the public, but their life-size dolls, symbolizing the horror of the internal “inhumanity” of Gogol’s characters. The dolls form a “petrified group” - an ironic embodiment of Nicholas Rus', with its Derzhimords and “pig snouts” of bureaucracy and bureaucracy.
The director set himself the artistic task of showing the world of old Russia as a distorting mirror, which reflects its ugliest moments. For example, all scenes with officials were performed on a darkened stage, with candlelight reflected in the mahogany lacquered rear partition with 15 doors. All the women's scenes are designed under the bright spotlight, with clearly defined details, exposing the unbridled impulse towards the “flowers of pleasure” that owns the hearts of the selfish ladies and young ladies of the official’s decayed family.
The production of the play “The Inspector General” at the Maly Theater in 1949 was a great success. The role of Khlestakov was played by Igor Ilyinsky. It is noteworthy that the actor was already 48 years old at that time. After three seasons, he will transfer this role to another performer and play the Mayor.
In 1972, at the Leningrad BDT (Bolshoi Drama Theatre), “The Inspector General” was staged by Georgy Aleksandrovich Tovstonogov.
The role of Khlestakov was played by Oleg Basilashvili, the role of the mayor was played by Kirill Lavrov.
On March 26, 1972, the premiere of the play “The Inspector General” took place at the Moscow Theater of Satire, directed by Valentin Pluchek. For ten years the play ran with constant success, not least thanks to the star cast of performers, and entered the golden fund of the Soviet theater. In 1982, for the 10th anniversary, the performance was filmed. The role of Khlestakov is Andrei Mironov, the role of the mayor is Anatoly Papanov. As experts noted, the director looked at Gogol’s textbook play as a modern play denouncing modern society.
According to a theater criticAnatoly Smelyansky , for Valentin Pluchek, turning to Gogol’s comedy became a way of “describing modernity”, an opportunity to talk about the current problems of his time.
Each director of The Inspector General looked for his own ways to present the play. In 2002, at the E. B. Vakhtangov Theater, director Rimas Tuminas presented the following ending to the play: thunder rumbles, rain breaks out, Gogol’s officials find themselves on a raft, and the postmaster is forced to catch up with them on a boat.
In the 21st century, in 2003, a team of actors from Italy under the direction of a famous director surprised the public with an innovative performance based on Gogol’s immortal comedyMatthias Langhoff. Performed by this troupe, The Inspector General turned into a play about the bureaucratic machine, corruption and fear of exposure. As the main scenery, the director used a strange structure consisting of an incredible number of walls, doors, corridors, stairs, nooks and rooms, some of which can rotate around their axis. A meeting of county officials of the 19th century, dressed in 60-70 fashion-X years of the 20th century, resembles a gathering of the Italian mafia. Merchants in good suits and dark glasses talk on mobile phones and write checks to Khlestakov, special signals sound for the escort of executive cars, police officers with brooms enter the hall, the mayor’s wife performs a dance with ribbons, a live dog runs around the stage, and at the end of the play two huge furry dogs appear rats... All these innovations are designed to emphasize the modern sound of the play, its obvious connection with today's life. It is no coincidence that at the press conference the director and actors unanimously asserted that the Russian comedy, depicting a county town in the 19th century, is relevant for today’s Italy. For in Italy, like in many other countries, there are Khlestakovs, and mayors, and, of course, fear of the auditor.
The stage fate of N.V.’s comedy Gogol "The Inspector General"
III. Conclusion.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol saw in the theater a huge educational, transformative force capable of uniting thousands of people and making them “suddenly shake with one shock, burst into tears with one universal laugh.” Neither the theater, nor the public, nor criticism as a whole immediately understood the innovative poetics of the playwright. In the theater of that time, a person was accustomed to feeling, worrying about the heroes of historical dramas, following the deft development of a frivolous vaudeville plot, sympathizing with the characters of a tearful melodrama, being carried away into the worlds of dreams and fantasies, but not reflecting, not comparing, not thinking. Gogol, presenting the requirement for the performance to be based on important social conflicts, to truthfully and deeply reveal the phenomena of life, saturating his works with pain for a person, expected from the viewer involuntary, unexpected laughter generated by the “dazzling brilliance of the mind” and turning to oneself, recognizing oneself in these “heroless” characters. He spoke a different aesthetic language.
The theater contemporary to Gogol had not yet set itself such tasks. Therefore, it is not surprising that the first productions of The Inspector General caused a lot of controversy and mixed responses. The theater did not yet know such drama and did not understand how to play it. The actors, using the techniques of stage existence in vaudeville, tried to make the audience laugh with caricatured grimaces or antics. At the same time, the performances were staged seriously, and wonderful actors were involved in them.
Gogol introduces real life into the theater and explodes the calm, conflict-free consciousness of the audience.
Each era saw N.V. in The Inspector General. Gogol's reflection. How brave the theater people were, so true was the performance: from the vaudeville-farcical St. Petersburg performance in 1836 of the 19th century to the depiction of the modern bureaucratic machine, corruption and fear of exposure in the 21st century.
Gogol saw the meaning of art in serving one’s land, in cleansing oneself from “filth,” and the way to improve society was in the moral self-improvement of the individual: in a demanding attitude towards oneself, in the responsibility of everyone for their behavior in the world. And over time, this desire was seen by both the directors of the comedy “The Inspector General” and the audience of these productions.
Sources and literature.
Application.
A.A. Ivanova. 1841
Gogol's friends had to work hard to get permission for the first production of The Inspector General. To do this, they enlisted the support of the emperor himself. Finally permission was received. On April 19, 1836, the comedy was presented on the stage of the Alexandria Theater in St. Petersburg, and a month later - in Moscow, at the Maly Theater, where the role of the mayor was played by the famous Russian actor Mikhail Semenovich Shchepkin. Gogol joked that Shchepkin in his “The Inspector General” could have played at least ten roles in a row.
The premiere attracted a full house. The lights were shining brightly in the huge chandeliers, orders and diamonds were shining in the boxes, young people were noisy in the gallery - students, young officials, artists. The king and the heir to the throne sat in the imperial box. The excited author also sneaked into his seat unnoticed.
The performance was a success. The Emperor personally thanked the actors. But Gogol was not happy about all this: upset by the shortcomings of the acting, the shortcomings of his own text and the reaction of the audience, who, as it seemed to him, laughed at the wrong thing, he fled from the theater. The painful impressions were aggravated by individual critical reviews that appeared in the press, which Gogol perceived as outright persecution. “Everyone is against me,” he complained to Shchepkin. “Elderly and respectable officials shout that nothing is sacred to me... The police are against me, the merchants are against me, the writers are against me.” Confused and offended, the writer did not notice that all the leading people in society were trying to get to the performance of “The Inspector General,” and the publication of the text of the play became a real event in the cultural life of Russia. Throughout the 19th century. The play never left the theater stage.
In the 20th century One of the most striking and unconventional productions of “The Inspector General” on the Russian stage was offered by a famous innovative director Vsevolod Emilievich Meyerhold. For the performance, he selected actors whose appearance best matched the characters in the play and did not require makeup. Thus, he brought to the stage not just Gogol’s images, but “people from life.” The only place where Meyerhold deviated from the realism of theatrical depiction was the “silent” stage: instead of people in it, soulless dolls appeared before the public, symbolizing the horror of the internal “inhumanity” of Gogol’s characters. Material from the site
And in the 21st century. A team of actors from Italy under the direction of a famous director surprised the public with an innovative performance based on Gogol’s immortal comedy. Matthias Langhoff. Performed by this troupe, The Inspector General turned into a play about the bureaucratic machine, corruption and fear of exposure. As the main scenery, the director used a strange structure consisting of an incredible number of walls, doors, corridors, stairs, nooks and rooms, some of which can rotate around their axis. A meeting of county officials of the 19th century, dressed in 60-70 fashion -X years of the 20th century, resembles a gathering of the Italian mafia. Merchants in good suits and dark glasses talk on mobile phones and write checks to Khlestakov, special signals sound for the escort of the commanding cars, foremen with brooms enter the hall, the mayor's wife performs a dance with ribbons, a live dog runs around the stage, and in the finale of the play two appear huge furry rats... All these innovations are designed to emphasize the modern sound of the play, its obvious connection with today's life. It is no coincidence that at the press conference the director and actors unanimously asserted that the Russian comedy, depicting a provincial town of the 19th century, is relevant for modern Italy. For in Italy, like in many other countries, there are Khlestakovs, and mayors, and, of course, fear of the auditor.
It is traditionally believed that the plot of “The Inspector General” Nikolai Gogol suggested it myself Alexander Pushkin: he told the young writer an anecdote about a passing gentleman who posed as a ministry official and robbed all the city residents.
In the 19th century, the story about the pseudo-auditor sounded very plausible, and Gogol wanted to turn it into a real work of art. He spoke about his idea like this: “In The Inspector General, I decided to collect in one pile everything bad in Russia that I knew then, all the injustices that are done in those places and in those cases where justice is most required from a person, and laugh at everything at once.”
Gogol wrote “The Inspector General” in just a couple of months and in January 1836 he was already reading his first drafts to famous writers, among whom gathered Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Vyazemsky, Turgenev. They laughed until they cried. However, among the critics that evening there were those who were unable or unwilling to see anything funny in Gogol’s comedy.
Serious patron
Many of Gogol’s contemporaries were surprised that “The Inspector General” was allowed to be staged theatrically, because under the conditions of a strict censorship regime Nicholas I Not all plays received such an honor (for example, the less provocative “Woe from Wit” Alexandra Griboedova At first it was generally banned not only from production, but also from publication). Before the work entered the theater, it was carefully studied by the censorship committee, and then the emperor personally became acquainted with the text.
Gogol's accusatory comedy ended up on stage thanks to the efforts of Zhukovsky, who wanted to help the talented author. An honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, he was a member of the royal family and knew the literary taste of Nicholas I very well. He personally made sure that the play was read to the emperor by role, and convinced him that “there is nothing unreliable in comedy, that it is only a cheerful mockery of bad people.” provincial officials."
At that time, Nicholas I still did not understand the true meaning of the play, which ridiculed the entire administrative and bureaucratic system of Tsarist Russia, and gave the go-ahead for production.
Bombshell effect
On March 13, “The Inspector General” was allowed to be published. And already on April 19, 1836 (May 1, new style), the whole of St. Petersburg watched it on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater. A full auditorium gathered for the premiere, and thanks to The Inspector General, the theater that day earned a considerable sum for that time - 4,220 rubles. The Emperor himself came to watch the comedy.
Ivan Sosnitsky is the first performer of the role of the mayor in N. V. Gogol’s comedy “The Inspector General” (since 1836). Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org
As many predicted, “The Inspector General” had the effect of a bomb exploding: the audience was divided into two camps. Some admired the moral and political meaning of the comedy, while others considered the play to be slander against officials and merchants working for the good of the country. But the fate of the work, and the author himself, was decided by the emperor, who, unexpectedly for many, was pleased. Coming out of the box, he said: “What a play! Everyone got it, and I got it most of all!”
On the margins of the original poster, the inspector of the Alexandrinsky Theater troupe wrote on the day of the premiere: “The Inspector General for the first time.” An original comedy in five acts written by N.V. Gogol. The Emperor and his heir suddenly deigned to be present and were extremely pleased, laughing with all their hearts. The play is very funny, just an intolerable curse on the nobles, officials and merchants. All the actors, especially Sosnitsky, played excellently." And contemporaries recalled: “The comedy was a huge success on stage”; “The Inspector General was a success on stage: the general attention of the audience, applause, heartfelt and unanimous laughter, the challenge of the author... - there was no lack of anything.”
However, the author himself was dissatisfied with the production.
Misunderstood genius
“The Inspector General was played - and my soul was so vague, so strange... my creation seemed disgusting to me, wild and as if not mine,” Gogol wrote shortly after the premiere. And many years later he recalled: “The performance of The Inspector General made a painful impression on me. I was angry with the audience for not understanding me, and with myself, who was to blame for not understanding me. I wanted to get away from everything."
For the unsuccessful production, Gogol blamed not only himself and the audience, but also the actors. Most of all, he was dissatisfied with the performer of the role of the main character: “Dur didn’t understand one bit what Khlestakov was. Khlestakov became something like... a whole line of vaudeville rascals..."
Gogol's own drawing for the last scene of The Inspector General. 1836
The events described in the play take place in the provincial town of N, where fate brought one scoundrel, whom local officials mistakenly mistook for an auditor, and he, without being confused, managed to take advantage of the current situation for his own benefit. For many, the history of the creation of Gogol’s comedy “The Inspector General” is covered in a veil of secrecy that surrounded not only the writer’s personal life, but also his entire work. There is still no exact information about the beginning of writing the comedy, only assumptions and conjectures, which further fuels the reader’s interest in this work.
Concept
The idea of writing a topical comedy had been spinning in the writer’s head for a long time, but he couldn’t put his thoughts together. Nikolai Vasilyevich turns to a friend with a request to suggest the plot of a future comedy.
Gogol knew for sure that the comedy would be in five acts. Each of them is funnier than the previous one. Letter from A.S. Pushkin had the following content:
“...whether it’s funny or not, it’s a purely Russian joke. My hand is trembling to write a comedy in the meantime. If this doesn’t happen, then my time will be wasted, and I don’t know what to do then with my circumstances... Do me a favor, give me a plot...”
Pushkin immediately responded to the call for help. Having recently returned from Mikhailovsky, he told Gogol a story that at one time had excited him to the depths of his soul. This was in October 1835. This period of time is considered the starting point in the writing of The Inspector General.
The idea of creation
There are many versions regarding the creation of “The Inspector General”. Most often the name A.S. appears in articles. Pushkin. It was he who pushed Gogol to write a comedy. Pushkin had a story ready that was quite suitable for the future plot. It was about Pavel Petrovich Svinin. During a trip to Bessarabia, this comrade pretended to be a high-ranking official, an official from St. Petersburg. Having quickly settled into the new place and taken on the role of an auditor, Pavel Petrovich felt quite comfortable until he was caught asking for his hand. This was the end of his comfortable life.
There was another version of the creation of the play. Some dared to suggest that Pushkin himself had to find himself in the role of an auditor. When Pushkin was visiting the Nizhny Novgorod region, collecting information about the Pugachev rebellion for “The Captain’s Daughter,” General Buturlin mistook the writer for an important official whose visit to their region was expected any day.
It is no longer possible to know which of the two versions is the real one. Nevertheless, the similarity between Khlestakov and Svinin is very obvious. This was noticed by many writers when analyzing Pushkin’s letters and the text of The Inspector General. Disputes arose on another issue. How can you write a work of considerable length in a couple of months? According to researcher A.S. Dolinin's rough sketches were always easy for Gogol. This cannot be taken away. Most of his time was spent on finalizing the material. Based on this, he suggested that Gogol received the plot of the future work from Pushkin much earlier than in October 1835.
The genre of The Inspector General is social comedy. Gogol tried to reflect in her
“...everything bad in Russia that I knew then, all the injustices that are being done in those places and in those cases where what is most required of a person is justice, and at one time laugh at everything.”
Work on The Inspector General was constantly being reworked. Gogol tried to bring the text to perfection. The catch was a detailed description of the characters' characters. He came up with artistic images right away, but he couldn’t convey the exact character of the main characters the first time. He had to edit “The Inspector General” six times until he got what he wanted. This was in 1842. After being staged, the comedy had mixed reactions. She was praised and scolded at the same time. For some, it caused deep bewilderment. Gogol was upset. This was not the effect he expected from the public. People failed to fully understand the meaning of the play. Not a single one of the viewers during the viewing even thought of shifting the plot onto themselves and even for a minute imagining that everything described could happen to each of us. In any city, anywhere, any time.
