SEPTEMBER, 1789. PARIS Remembering the letters he sent to America regularly during the hot Parisian summer, Jefferson sometimes wondered who he was trying to convince that French revolution goes the right and desired way - its addressees or

Denisov V. D. (St. Petersburg), Ph.D., Associate Professor, RGGMU / 2004

Reading Gogol’s story “Nevsky Prospekt” and making fun of the operetta figures of Schiller and Hoffmann, we are not even aware of the hidden polemical plan of their depiction. It was inspired by the fierce literary struggle waged by Pushkin and his circle with Bulgarin and Grech in the early 1830s. Essentially, this was also a struggle against the monopoly in Russian journalism. For by that time Thaddeus Venediktovich and Nikolai Ivanovich held in their hands the magazines “Son of the Fatherland” and “Northern Archive” (in 1829 they made them one publication) and the first private newspaper in Russia “Northern Bee” (from 1825) - the only one in which the government allowed political news to be printed; its daily circulation sometimes reached a figure previously unheard of in Russia: 10 thousand copies. Let's add to this the popular, first of all, provincial nobility, petty officials and townspeople, Bulgarin’s novel “Ivan Vyzhigin”, published in 1829-1830. three times and immediately translated into foreign languages, as well as Bulgarin’s historical novels “Dimitri the Pretender” (St. Petersburg, 1830) and “Peter Ivanovich Vyzhigin” (St. Petersburg, 1831). Grech’s novel “A Trip to Germany” (St. Petersburg, 1831), which the author dedicated to his friend Bulgarin, was also popular.

Pursuing commercial goals, Bulgarin was hostile to any new publication that attracted the attention (and money!) of readers. This was precisely his reaction to Literaturnaya Gazeta, although previously he highly valued Pushkin as a poet, tried to maintain business relations with him and even ingratiated himself. Now Thaddeus Venediktovich called Pushkin, Delvig and Vyazemsky “literary aristocrats” who supposedly wanted to write only “for a few,” declared the complete decline of Pushkin’s talent and published libels against the poet. Pushkin responded to this with murderous epigrams, the poem “My Pedigree” and a note about the work of the “police detective” Vidocq (Literary newspaper, 1830. No. 20. April 6).

Bulgarin’s collaboration with the secret police and General Benckendorf, who headed it, and the direct use of such connections to fight competitors became known in 1829. This was then indirectly confirmed by the novel “Dimitri the Pretender,” where Bulgarin used the motifs of Pushkin’s drama “Boris Godunov” (1825), previously submitted by the poet to Nicholas I for approval and returned with the desire to turn it into a historical novel. According to the version of the Pushkin circle, at about the same time, a certain Lieutenant Colonel Spechinsky informed Pushkin about juicy details Bulgarin’s life in Reval: allegedly, suffering from binge drinking, he begged and even stole. It was no secret that, having been dismissed from military service in Russia, Bulgarin actually served in Napoleon’s army and reached Moscow with it. All this, coupled with rumors about his personal life (in particular, how he did not save or directly betrayed his Decembrist nephew), constituted a negative background for the anti-Bulgarin protests. It should be recognized that the portrait of the unprincipled literary businessman, government agent Vidocq Figlyarin, was formed with the help of very dubious or unreliable information, which, however, largely corresponded to both his reputation and public expectations. At the same time, one cannot discount the moments of literary play.

Thus, in 1831, the literary struggle against Bulgarin was supported by Muscovite Alexander Anfimovich Orlov, a writer of morally descriptive stories and novels popular among semi-educated people. In the wake of interest in the Bulgarin “Vyzhigin”, Orlov published several stories that parodically developed the plot of the novel: “Khlynovsky steppe inhabitants Ignat and Sidor, or the children of Ivan Vyzhigin”, “Khlynovsky weddings of Ignat and Sidor, children of Ivan Vyzhigin”, “The Death of Ivan Vyzhigin”, “ Pedigree of Ivan Vyzhigin, son of Vanka Cain!..” (all - M., 1831). In them, the author discredited the idea of ​​a successful career of a hero without honor and conscience, and made the name Vyzhigin itself, considering it a derivative of “burning out,” a household noun. The “father” of the illegitimate hero was declared to be Vanka Cain, a robber, traitor and police spy (a clear allusion to Bulgarin’s biography). Naturally, “Northern Bee” began to constantly blaspheme these works, the author of which was immediately declared a writer for “Pushing Market”.

This battle allowed N.I. Nadezhdin to declare that the creations of Bulgarin and Orlov were practically equivalent (Telescope, 1831. No. 9). N.I. Grech stood up for his friend Bulgarin (Son of the Fatherland and Northern Archives, 1831. No. 27). And Pushkin, under the pseudonym Feofilakta Kosichkina, answered him with a pamphlet “The Triumph of Friendship, or Justified Alexander Anfimovich Orlov” (Telescope, 1831. No. 13), where he ridiculed Bulgarin’s claims to moral and literary superiority, since “The Vyzhigins of Mr. Orlov enjoy the favor of the public on a par with the Vyzhigins Mr. Bulgarin...”

At the same time, the signs of literary play were preserved. The text itself was created in the ponderous and florid manner of former seminarian A. A. Orlov. The pseudonym also corresponded to it: such a “mask” of the sexton-critic implied the special objectivity and scrupulousness of the church minister (in the literature of that time it correlates with the “mask” of the sexton Foma Grigorievich - the narrator in the story “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala”, published anonymously by Gogol in 1830 G.). And “immoderate” praise for both rivals (“ great writer”, “immortal glory”, “two brilliant suns of our literature”) reminded the reader of the manner of Bulgarin and Grech to extol to the skies in their critical analyzes the author they liked, not shying away from the loudest expressions. At the same time, we were actually talking about the insincerity of Bulgarin and Grech, their false friendship and the “literary industry” generated by them, whose level is quite comparable to popular literature"Push Market".

There is not much difference between such authors: if “Thaddeus Vened. surpasses Alexander Anfimovich in the captivating foppishness of his expressions; Alexander Anf. takes advantage over Fad. Venediktovich with the liveliness and poignancy of the story.

Novels of Thaddeus Vened. more thoughtful, demonstrating greater patience in the author (and requiring even greater patience in the reader); stories by Alexander Anf. more concise, but more intricate and enticing.

Thaddeus Vened. more philosophical; Alexander Anf. more poet.

Fad. Venediktovich is a genius; for he invented the name Vyzhigin, and with this bold innovation revived the vulgar imitations of Sovestdral and the English milord (that is, “Vyzhigin” appears as the heir to popular popular prints on the “Push Market” - V.D.); Alexander Anf. skillfully took advantage of Mr. Bulgarin’s invention and extracted infinitely varied effects from it!

Thaddeus Vened., it seems to us, is a little monotonous; for all his works are nothing more than Vyzhigin in various changes: Ivan Vyzhigin, Pyotr Vyzhigin, Dimitry the Pretender or Vyzhigin XVII century, own notes and moral articles - everything goes astray on the same subject. Alexander Anf. amazingly diverse: in addition to the countless number of Vyzhigins, how many flowers he scattered on the field of literature! Meeting of Plague and Cholera; The falcon would have been a falcon, but the chicken ate it, or the runaway wife; Living fainting spells, Burial of a merchant, etc. and so on.

However, impartiality requires that we indicate the side with which Thaddeus Vened. takes an undeniable advantage over his happy rival: I mean the moral purpose of his writings. Indeed, dear listeners, what could be more moral than the works of Mr. Bulgarin? From them we clearly learn: how commendable it is to lie, steal, indulge in drunkenness, and play cards...” Note that earlier, when talking about “strange hatred of Moscow in the publishers of the Son of the Fatherland and the Northern Bee,” it was noted that “in Moscow “Born and brought up, for the most part, were native Russian writers, not natives, not changeovers, for whom ubi bene, ibi patria, for whom it doesn’t matter whether they run under the French eagle, or disgrace everything Russian with the Russian language - they would only be well fed.” .

Thus, Orlov turns out to be much higher than the “changeover” Bulgarin in moral terms, although “Alexander Anf. enjoys much less fame than Thaddeus Vened. What is the reason for this apparent inequality? - And Feofilakt Kosichkin explains this by the “resourcefulness” of Bulgarin, citing examples of how a novel about Vyzhigin that did not yet exist was already praised in the “Northern Archive”, “Northern Bee” and “Son of the Fatherland”, and the French traveler and writer Mr. Anselo (in his honor Messrs. Bulgarin and Grech arranged a dinner in 1826), returning to Paris, “proclaimed ... Ivan Vyzhigin as the best of Russian novels,” and when the novel came out, the same venerable publications - such as “Northern Bee”, “Son” fatherland and the Northern Archive" - ​​"praised him to the skies<...>customers were kindly invited; encouraged, incited lazy readers; threatened revenge on ill-wishers who had not read Ivan Vyzhigin out of sheer low envy.

Meanwhile, what auxiliary means did Alexander Anfimovich Orlov use?

None, dear readers!

He didn't ask for lunch foreign writers, who do not know the Russian language, in order to get a place in their travel notes for their bread and salt.

He did not praise himself in the magazines he published.

He did not lure subscribers and buyers with humiliating caresses and magnificent promises.

He did not charlatanize newspaper advertisements written in the style of dog comedy posters.

He did not respond to any criticism; he did not call his opponents fools, scoundrels, drunkards, oysters, and the like.

<...>It is a sin for him that he knows Latin. Of course: it has been proven that Thaddeus Venediktovich (who published Horace with someone else’s notes) does not know Latin; but does he really owe his immortal glory to this ignorance?

They assure that Mr. Orlov is a scientist. Of course: it has been proven that Mr. Bulgarin is not at all learned, but I repeat again: is ignorance such an enviable virtue?

This is dissatisfied: they menacingly demand an answer from my friend: how did he dare to assign to his persons the name consecrated by Thaddeus Venediktovich himself? - But didn’t A. S. Pushkin dare to bring out in his Boris Godunov all the faces of Mr. Bulgarin’s novel and even use many places in his tragedy (written, they say, five years earlier and known to the public in manuscript)?

I boldly refer to the conscience of the publishers of the Northern Bee themselves: are these criticisms fair? Is Alexander Anfimovich Orlov to blame?

N.V. Gogol knew this pamphlet even in manuscript and reminded Pushkin about it in a letter dated August 21, 1831. It is curious that the young author, busy publishing “Evenings,” at the beginning of the letter ironically certifies himself as a writer “for the mob” in the spirit Orlova. Describing an incident in a printing house when typesetters made fun of “Evenings,” he concludes that he writes “completely in the taste of the mob. Speaking of the mob, you know that hardly anyone knows how to communicate with them better than our mutual friend Alexander Anfimovich Orlov. In the preface to his new novel: “The burial ceremony of Ivan Vyzhigin, the son of Vanka Cain,” he says, addressing the readers: “I have many, many novels in my head (his own words), only they are all still in my head; Yes, these novels are such lively children, they jump out of your head. But no, I won’t let you in until it’s time; and then, if you please, I will supply half a dozen. Please! please! Oh, my dear friends! Orthodox people!“ The last appeal touches the heart of the Russian people. This is completely in his spirit, and this is where Alexander Anfimovich’s decisive advantage over Fadey Benediktovich is not a joke.”

Based on Pushkin's pamphlet, Gogol proposes a kind of program for a literary game-controversy with different levels of perception and a certain redundancy expressive means : “More about the mob. You know, how good it would be to write an aesthetic analysis of two novels, let’s say: “Pyotr Ivanovich Vyzhigin” and “The Falcon Would Be a Falcon, but the Chicken Eats It.” To begin in the same way as they now begin in our magazines: “Finally, it seems, the time has come when romanticism decisively triumphed over classicism and the old champions of the French Koran on stilted legs (something like Nadezhdin) got to hell. In England, Byron, in France, Victor Hugo, immense in his greatness, Ducange and others, in some manifestation of objective life, reproduced a new world of its inseparably individual phenomena. Russia, the wisdom of whose rule all the educated peoples of Europe marvel at, etc. etc., could not remain in one position. Soon she also had two representatives of her transformed greatness. Readers will guess that I am talking about Mr. Bulgarin and Orlov. On one of them, that is, on Bulgarin, a purely Byronian direction is indicated (after all, it is not a bad idea to compare Bulgarin with Byron). The same pride, the same storm of strong, rebellious passions, which sharply signified the fiery and at the same time gloomy character of the British poet, is visible in our compatriot; the same selflessness, contempt for everything low and vile belongs to both of them. Even Bulgarin’s life itself is nothing more than a repetition of Byron’s life; Even in their portraits, their extraordinary similarity is noticeable. Regarding Alexander Anfimovich, one can refute the opinion of Feofilakt Kosichkin; they say that Orlov is more of a philosopher, that Bulgarin is entirely a poet. Here it is not bad to take the heroes of Bulgarin’s novel: Napoleon and Pyotr Ivanovich, and consider both of them as the pure creation of the poet himself; Naturally, here you need to arm yourself with the glasses of a strict reviewer and cite passages (which, of course, did not happen in the novel). It’s not bad to add: “Why did you, Mr. Bulgarin, force Pyotr Ivanovich to open up in love so and so early, or why didn’t you continue Pyotr Ivanovich’s conversation with Napoleon, or why did you get a Pole involved at the very point of the denouement (you can even come up with his last name) ? All this is so that readers can see the critic’s perfect impartiality. But the most important thing is that we must agree with the complaints of our journalists that our literature is really being torn apart by the spirit of the parties in a terrible way, and therefore it is impossible to overhear a fair judgment. All opinions are divided into two sides: some are on the side of Bulgarin, and others on the side of Orlov, and that they, while their adherents attack each other with such bitterness, do not know any enmity among themselves at all and internally, like all great geniuses, respect each other."

To all this Pushkin answered evasively: “The project of your scientific criticism surprisingly good. But you are too lazy to put it into action." Most likely, the poet did not share the aesthetic and ethical plans of the controversy and even for parody purposes could not compare Byron with Vidocq Flugarin: in the eyes of Pushkin, Bulgarin was a scoundrel who cannot be compared with honest people, much less great writers (it is noteworthy that in his In his review of “Evenings,” Pushkin puts Gogol on a par with Moliere and Fielding).

We do not know how Gogol accepted Pushkin’s remark, but he continued the polemic later and in a different way, and instead of direct comparisons or metaphors, he used metonymy. Anti-Bulgarin attacks will permeate Gogol’s St. Petersburg stories, created in 1834. Thus, in the story “Nevsky Prospekt” the narrator sometimes either imitates the style and spirit of contemporary feuilletons, or parodies them, and is mainly guided by Bulgarin’s morally descriptive essays. There is also a direct link to the controversy known to us. Vulgar heroes like Lieutenant Pirogov share the opinions of “Northern Bee”: they “praise Bulgarin, Pushkin and Grech and speak with contempt and witty barbs about A. A. Orlov” (after the publication of “Literary Gazeta” ceased, “Northern Bee” again began to call Pushkin “the author of immortal creations,” “our first poet,” “a lucky genius,” and even gradually compared him with Bulgarin).

Against this background, German artisans, from a certain perspective, acquire an unexpected resemblance to Bulgarin and Grech. After all, this is “not the same Schiller who wrote “William Tell” and “The History of the Thirty Years’ War,” but the famous Schiller, a tinsmith on Meshchanskaya Street. Standing next to Schiller was Hoffmann, not the writer Hoffmann, but a rather good shoemaker from Officers Street, a great friend of Schiller” (III, 37). That is, the St. Petersburg Schiller and Hoffmann are not writers at all, but only artisans! Such a comparison of great and insignificant namesakes had real basis: judging by the reference books, in the 1830s. German craftsmen, both the Hoffmanns and the Schillers, lived in St. Petersburg. On the other hand, the reference to Hoffmann and Schiller is reminiscent of the habit of Bulgarin and Grech of handing out titles such as “Russian Goethe” to their favorite authors and to each other. Both writers had foreign roots (as you know, all foreigners in Russia were called “Germans”), and Bulgarin’s wife was indeed German. In addition, Schiller’s address and the behavior of his wife, whom Pirogov mistook for a prostitute “in Meshchanskaya Street,” correlates with rumors about the connections of Bulgarin’s wife with brothels on Meshchanskaya (this explains the hint in Pushkin’s poem “My Genealogy” that Bulgarin “in Bourgeois nobleman"). Grech's house was indeed located between the Moika embankment and the street. Officer's. And the friendly feasts of friends, like the aforementioned ever-memorable dinner, were widely discussed by the St. Petersburg public.

In this regard, the addition of a third “literary” craftsman, a German - the carpenter Kunz (this is the name of the publisher and friend of E. T. A. Hoffmann), probably targeted the Pole Osip Senkovsky - writer, journalist, orientalist, publisher of the magazine “Library for Reading”, and in fact its editor and the same monopolist as Bulgarin and Grech. All three made up the notorious “magazine triumvirate,” which Gogol openly opposed in 1836 in the Sovremennik magazine.

The metonymic comparison of Bulgarin with Schiller is probably due to Bulgarin’s historical novels “Dimitri the Pretender”, “Peter Ivanovich Vyzhigin”, “Mazepa” (St. Petersburg, 1833-1834) and his Collected Works of 1827-1828, republished in 1830 (!) g. And the Grech-Hoffman parallel apparently explains Grech’s adventure-fantasy novel “The Black Woman” (St. Petersburg, 1834) and Senkovsky’s exaggeratedly enthusiastic review of it in the magazine “Library for Reading” (1834. Vol. 4. Dept. VI ), where Grech was the editor. At the same time, Gogol plays German surnames Kuntz (der Kunst - art) and Hoffman (der Hoffman - courtier; perhaps because Grech was awarded a diamond ring from the Empress for his novel).

“German” motifs in the story are strengthened by literary parallels. According to the observation of G.P. Makogonenko, the characterization of Schiller is close to the characterization of Hermann from Pushkin’s story “The Queen of Spades”, published in volume 2 of “Library for Reading” in 1834. And the episode when the drunken Hoffmann intends, at the insistence of the no less drunken Schiller, cutting off someone's nose goes back to Goethe's Faust. There, in the scene “Auerbach’s Cellar in Leipzig,” Mephistopheles bewitches drunken students, they mistake each other’s noses for bunches of grapes and intend to cut them off with knives (by the way, in Gogol’s story “The Nose,” created around the same time as “Nevsky Avenue”, played out the consequences of the loss of a nose by a philistine hero).

Thus, Gogol’s original “project of scientific criticism” received a slightly different embodiment in the story “Nevsky Prospekt”.

However, Volynian cities and towns appear in his works. First of all, this concerns Dubno. After all, for some reason the main events of the story “Taras Bulba” take place in this city. Taras Bulba, together with the Cossacks, is trying to take Dubno by storm. True, he fails to do this. But under the walls of this city he kills his youngest son Andria.

On occasion, it is worth noting that there is no information that Dubno was stormed by Cossack troops somewhere on the eve of the uprising of Ostryanin and Guni, as is presented in Taras Bulba. There is no information about Cossack raids on this city in the 16th, and even more so in the 15th century. (namely, this is the chronology of events given in this story). Only the Tatar attacks on Dubno are known. True, during the Khmelnytsky region, a wave of Cossack uprisings reached this city. In the summer of 1648, the detachments of Maxim Krivonos temporarily entered here. Colonel Rat clashed with the royal troops near Dubno. On June 5, 1651, one of the Cossack detachments drove the Polish troops out of the city with a sudden blow. Later, minor clashes took place underneath it between Cossacks and Polish troops. That is, something like that described in the story “Taras Bulba” did not actually happen near Dubno.

The Cossack chronicles, which Gogol could have consulted, do not speak of any assault on Dubno by the Cossacks. And there is no doubt that Gogol worked with them. He even talks about this himself in Taras Bulba. But why does Gogol choose Dubno for his epic narrative?

By the way, it is worth noting that the descriptions of some details in the story concerning Dubno give reason to talk about the writer’s possible stay in the city. The work talks about the powerful Dubno fortress. And Dubno Castle in Gogol’s time made a strong impression. Underground passages are also mentioned in the story. Indeed, there were large dungeons in the castle. Gogol could see them. “Taras Bulba” also talks about the large Catholic church in Dubno. Probably they meant the Bernardine Church. At least the descriptions given in the story seem to point to this religious building.

In addition to Dubno, two more Volyn towns appear in Gogol’s works - Shumsk and Radivilov. Mention of Shumsk is found in the story “Terrible Revenge”, included in the second book “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”. There we read: “The tops of churches flashed in the distance. But this is not Kanev, but Shumsk. The sorcerer was amazed, seeing that he had driven in a completely different direction. He drove the horse back to Kyiv, and a day later the city appeared; but not Kyiv, but Galich, a city even further from Kyiv than Shumsk, and already not far from the Hungarians.” Shumsk appears somehow unmotivated. It was a small place. At least between Kanev and Kiev, on the one hand, and Galich, on the other, there were many other interesting cities where Orthodox churches were striking - Zaslav, Ostrog, Kremenets, etc. And for some reason the inconspicuous Shumsk is chosen.

But the fact is that this place was located near Dubno - at a distance of some forty kilometers. Gogol could go to Dubno through Shumsk. There was a postal station in this town. Accordingly, a postal and horse-drawn road passed through it, which stretched from Kyiv all the way to the border in Radivilov. As for the “tops of churches” that shone in Shumsk, these were probably the domes of the ancient Church of the Holy Trinity (first Orthodox, then Uniate). Soon this church was dismantled. The Orthodox parish moved to the premises of the Franciscan church, built in 1715. And on the site of the Trinity Church, a neo-Gothic church was built. During Soviet times, this church was destroyed. Then they were restored in independent Ukraine. It is located on a hill and could be seen from different parts of Shumsk. One can only imagine what the domes of the Trinity Church once looked like here - they could be seen from afar. It seems that this was etched in Gogol’s memory. And it was reflected in “Terrible Revenge”.

Gogol, as already noted, mentions another Volyn town - Radivilov (or Radziwillov). He is mentioned in the first edition of Taras Bulba. Here we are talking about some Catholic Radzivilov monastery: “The Cossacks, as if feasting, walked their way, leaving empty spaces behind them. Nowhere did a detachment of Polish troops dare to stop them: they were scattered at the first battle. Nothing could resist their Asian attack. The prelate, who was then in the Radziwill Monastery (emphasis added - P.K.), sent two monks on his behalf with the idea that there was agreement between the Cossacks and the government and that they were clearly violating their duty to the king, and at the same time people's rights "

In general, the first mention of Radivilov dates back to 1564. Then this settlement was mentioned as the estate of the Vilnius governor Nikolai Khritofor Radziwill the Black.

In 1672, the place was visited by a French diplomat, a German by birth, Ulrich von Werdum, who wrote in his diary: “...Across the plain on which Brody is located, and then through a hill and a beautiful spruce forest to Radziwilov, one mile. This small town also belongs to Pan Konetspolsky. Located in a field, surrounded on all sides spruce forest, on the shore of a lake formed by a small river that flows here. In the town there is a papal church and a Russian church, but only 50 or 60 houses.”

During Gogol’s time, many Polish nobles lived in Radivilov. Some of them became participants in the Polish November Uprising of 1830-1831, died and were buried in the local cemetery. There was a Catholic church here. The writer could interpret the city as a cell of Polishness and, thinking further, came up with some kind of Catholic Radivilovsky monastery, the abbot of which seemed to want to enter into negotiations with the Cossacks.

A broader mention of Radivilov, or rather his customs, is found in the preserved fragments of the second volume of Dead Souls: “At the very time when Chichikov, in a new Persian robe made of golden thermal wool, lounging on the sofa, was bargaining with a visiting smuggler-merchant of Jewish origin and German accent, and in front of them already lay a purchased piece of first-class Dutch linen for shirts and two paper boxes with excellent soap of the highest quality (this soap was the same one that he had once purchased at Radzivilov’s customs (emphasis ours - P.K.); it had, indeed, the property of imparting an incomprehensible tenderness and amazing whiteness to the cheeks), while he, like a connoisseur, was buying these products necessary for a well-mannered person, the thunder of an approaching carriage was heard, which responded with a slight trembling of the room windows and walls, and His Excellency Alexey entered Ivanovich Lenitsyn." As we can see, the mention of the Radivilovskaya customs was of a specific nature. Radivilov was located on the border between the Russian and Austrian empires. There was a customs office here, which Gogol wrote about.

But it seems that even before his trips abroad, Gogol visited Volyn. This should have happened in the late 20s or early 30s of the 19th century, before he wrote “Terrible Vengeance” (1831) and “Taras Bulba” (1834).

There are several “gaps” in Gogol’s St. Petersburg addresses during this period - from July to the end of 1829, from May to August 1831, and also from May 1832 to the summer of 1833. During the noted periods of time, Gogol did not have a permanent housing in St. Petersburg. And he could well have ended up in Volyn at that time.

One can only guess what brought the writer to this region. Generally speaking, it was interesting time in Gogol's life. The writer tried to make a career in the capital. At first he hoped to become a famous writer. The poem “Hanz Küchelgarten”, published by him in 1829, had negative reviews. Gogol even bought copies of it in bookstores and burned them. At the same time, he was forced to shell out a lot of money. It is possible that he got into debt.

He also failed to become an actor. Gogol hoped that just such a career would provide him comfortable existence. Moreover, he had some acting experience since his school years. And his father wrote and staged plays in Dmitry Troshchinsky’s home theater. However, the tests that were organized for Gogol at the Bolshoi Theater showed his unsuitability for the acting profession. The future classic realized this and refused to perform on stage.

The only thing that “shone” for Gogol was the career of a petty official. But it didn't give big money, not to mention fame. I can’t help but remember Gogol’s story “The Overcoat,” where the writer depicted the unsightly life of bureaucrats.

In the summer of 1829, Gogol went to Germany, to Lubeck. But already in September he returns to St. Petersburg. He explained this act very confusingly: it was as if God had shown him the way to a foreign land, or that the reason for this was hopeless love. The journey, accordingly, required money, which Gogol did not have. The only thing he could count on was his mother's help. True, the latter has already spent so much on her unlucky son Nikosha.

It was to that time that the “strange” testimony of Thaddeus Bulgarin about the beginning of Gogol’s bureaucratic career dates back. Shortly after the writer’s death, on March 21, 1852, Bulgarin wrote to an unknown addressee the following: “During his first stay in St. Petersburg, Gogol turned to me, through me he received a government position with a salary and in my honor he wrote poems that I am ashamed to even announce.” And two years later he “gave birth” to such memoirs in the publication “Northern Bee” (1854, No. 175): “At the end of 1829 or 1830, I don’t remember well, one of our journalists (meaning Bulgarin himself. - P.K.) was sitting in the morning doing literary work, when suddenly the bell in the hallway rang and a young man, blond, short, entered the room, shuffled around and handed the journalist a piece of paper. The journalist, having asked the visitor to sit down, began to read the paper handed to him - these were laudatory poems in which the journalist was compared with Walter Scott, Addison, etc. Of course, the journalist thanked the visitor, the author of the poems, for his flattering opinion of him, and asked, how can it serve him? Here the visitor said that he had arrived in the capital from an educational institution to look for places and did not know who to turn to with his request. The journalist asked the visitor to come in two days, promising at that time to intercede with people who could determine the location. On the same day, the journalist went to M. Ya. von Fock, manager of the III Department of the Property. the office of his imp. Majesty, spoke about the unfortunate situation of the young man and earnestly asked to save him and put him in a place, because the young man was close to despair. M. Ya. von Fok willingly agreed to help the visitor from the provinces and gave Gogol a place in the office of the III Department. I don’t remember how long Gogol served in this office, to which he came only to receive his salary; but I know that some friend of Gogol brought a request for resignation to the office and took back his papers. Gogol himself disappeared somewhere unknown! The journalist still has Gogol’s laudatory poems and two of his letters (the contents of which I consider unnecessary to report); but Gogol never visited the journalist again!”

This testimony of Bulgarin was perceived ambiguously. For example, Soviet authors considered it gross slander. After all, the III Department of the Tsar's Chancellery is the secret police, which was supposed to identify and fight against “enemies of the fatherland.” This Branch became especially active after the Decembrist uprising. Gogol's work in such an institution, from the point of view of Soviet authors, cast a stain on Gogol's biography.

Bulgarin himself was a paid agent of Section III. At the same time, he enjoyed great popularity as a writer and journalist. It was in 1829 that Bulgarin published the novel “Ivan Vyzhigin,” which became the first Russian bestseller.

True, no contacts between Gogol and Bulgarin have been recorded. But if the latter recruited Gogol to work in the III Department, then neither the first nor the second were interested in demonstrating these contacts. Moreover, Bulgarin managed to “expose himself”, and representatives of the Russian cultural establishment, in particular Pushkin, knew about his work in the III Department.

Indeed, Gogol and Bulgarin had a lot in common. Both one and the other were not Russians. The first is Ukrainian, the second is Pole. Although talking about Bulgarin’s Polish origin is somewhat problematic. His family on the parental side was of Albanian origin; he was born on the territory of Belarus. The Polish writer Osip Pshetslavsky, who knew Bulgarin well, considered him a Belarusian. Although both Bulgarin and Gogol became Russian writers, their command of the Russian language was far from brilliant. Both one and the other demonstrated “double-mindedness”: vacillation between Russian imperialism and their national origin. You can find many common points in the works of these two writers. For example, the mentioned novel by Bulgarin “Ivan Vyzhigin” is considered the forerunner of “Dead Souls”. Gogol was interested in the personality of Ivan Mazepa, he even wrote small piece"Reflections of Mazepa". At the same time, Bulgarin owns the novel “Mazepa”, where he portrayed the Ukrainian hetman in a fairly positive light. In 1829, Bulgarin published a negative review of the anti-Polish novel “Yuri Miloslavsky”, for which he was put in a guardhouse on the orders of the Tsar himself. And Gogol in “The Inspector General” speaks ironically about this work.

Gogol’s agent work is indicated by the writer’s “strange” behavior abroad, in particular in 1836-1639. There he received good financial grants from royal court. For example, on October 30, Gogol writes to Vasily Zhukovsky: “I received the help given to me by our magnanimous sovereign. Gratitude is strong in my chest, but its outpouring will not reach his throne. Like some kind of god, he pours out good deeds with his full hand and does not want to hear our thanks; but perhaps the word of the poor poet will reach posterity and add a touching touch to his royal virtues.” This “help” amounted to 5,000 rubles - a fairly significant amount at that time. For comparison, a gymnasium teacher at that time received about 300 rubles a year. In addition, Gogol also had subsidies from the Empress. Was this “remuneration” for literary activities? Formally, yes. But money could be given for completely different things. For example, at the height of the Polish uprising of 1830-1831. Bulgarin received a diamond ring from the Tsar (apparently for “Ivan Vyzhigin”). At the same time, in a letter from Alexander Benkendorf, chief of the III Department, it was noted: “On this occasion, the Emperor deigned to say that His Majesty is very pleased with your work and zeal for the common good and that His Majesty, being confident in your devotion to his person, is always disposed provide you with my merciful protection.” Doesn't this remind you in some way of the situation with Gogol, who is given serious “assistance”?

By the way, it was after receiving “help” from the Tsar that Gogol sharply began to gain the trust of the Polish emigrants who opposed the Russian autocracy - he became close to Pyotr Semenenko and Jerome Kaysevich, Catholic priests who were participants in the uprising of 1830-1831. and emigrated abroad. In the fall of 1837, they arrived in Rome illegally to recruit supporters for their mentor Bogdan Jansky, a friend of Adam Mickiewicz. Gogol also ended up there. Was it a coincidence?

Both Semenenko and Kaysevich considered Gogol one of their own, a supporter of Poland and Catholicism. Kaysevich wrote in his diary: “We met Gogol, a gifted Great Russian writer, who expressed great affection for Catholicism and Poland, and even made a successful trip to Paris to meet Mickiewicz and Bogdan Zaleski.” Also, Kaysevich and Semenenko wrote to Yansky on April 7, 1838 regarding Gogol: “Gogol recently visited us, the next day we will visit him. We talked with him about Slavic topics. What a pure soul! You can say about him with the Lord: “You are not far from the kingdom of God!” We talked a lot about general literature. We spoke in more detail about what we talked about with each other only in hints during that walk to the villa. He made an amazing confession to us. In the simplicity of my heart I admitted that Polish language sounds better than Russian." Against the background of anti-Polish statements that we encounter in the stories “Terrible Vengeance” and “Taras Bulba”, such reasoning seems, to put it mildly, unusual. Or here is another excerpt from a letter from Kaysevich and Semenenko to Yansky dated May 12, 1838: “By God’s permission, Gogol and I came to an understanding very well. Surprisingly: he admitted that Russia is a rod with which a father punishes a child in order to later break it. And many, many other very comforting speeches.” Such statements do not at all correspond to what Gogol wrote about Russia in the second edition of Taras Bulba and Dead Souls. It is doubtful that Kaysevich and Semenenko made this up. After all, they cited these facts in business correspondence, where correspondents had no point in fantasizing.

Where was Gogol sincere - in conversations with Polish emigrants or in his works? It seems, after all, in the works. And if so, why did Gogol gain the trust of Polish emigrants and say things that impressed them? Was he here playing the role of an informant for Section III?

But let us return to the end of 1829. Gogol then, as already mentioned, found himself without money. They probably knew about him in the III Department - after all, back in the Nizhyn gymnasium, he was involved in the “free-thought case.” Probably, the secret police had information that Gogol was inclined to be a hacker; and if necessary, he knows how to skillfully hide his intentions. At least, this is how the writer was often characterized by people who knew him. That is, he was an almost ideal target for recruitment.

Gogol was probably used to collect information regarding “Polish affairs.” After all, Bulgarin, who brought the writer to the III Department, was well versed in them. Gogol himself could pretend to be a descendant of Polish nobles. Even his grandfather, Afanasy Yanovsky, in order to receive the nobility, began to prove that he allegedly descended from the appointed hetman of Right Bank Ukraine, to whom the Polish king Jan Sobieski gave an estate for his service, and therefore endowed him with the nobility. Accordingly, he began to be written as Gogol-Yanovsky. Nikolai Gogol, shortly after he found himself working in the III Department, discarded the authentic part of his surname Yanovsky and began to be called simply Gogol. That is, he retained the fictitious noble part of the surname. It is also worth noting here that the real Gogol family has its roots in Volyn. Its representatives occupied high positions in this region. Of course, the local gentry knew about this and could perceive the writer as “one of their own.”

The tsarist regime really needed information about what was happening among the Polish gentry. After all, this gentry was a “foreign body” within the Russian Empire. Having broad rights, she showed dissatisfaction with the tsarist regime. The idea of ​​uprising matured among her.

One of the powerful centers of the Polish gentry movement was Volyn. Here in Kremenets there operated a higher education institution created by the Poles. educational institution- Higher Volyn Gymnasium. The Polish cultural influences inspired by this institution made themselves felt both in Volyn and beyond. Polish Masonic organizations operated in neighboring Dubno.

Probably in the fall of 1829 Gogol found himself in Volyn and tried to find out the plans of the seditious Poles. He “blathered out” about this in “Terrible Revenge.” One of the first sentences of the work sounds like this: “The Cossack Mikitka arrived on his bay horse straight from a riotous drinking session from the Pereshlyaya field, where he fed red wine to the royal nobles for seven days and seven nights.” Mikitka is episodic character works. The question naturally arises: why is Mikitka so honored? In fact, the work begins with it. Is there a hint here that Gogol himself had to give wine to the Polish nobles, gaining their trust? And the writer loved to drink wine.

The anti-hero of the story is a sorcerer who commits various atrocities. But it turns out that isn’t the greatest sin his “ secret betrayal”, which consists of a conspiracy with the enemies of the Orthodox faith: “It is not for witchcraft and not for ungodly deeds that the sorcerer sits in a deep basement. God is their judge. He is imprisoned for secret betrayal, for conspiring with the enemies of the Orthodox Russian land to sell the Ukrainian people to Catholics and burn down Christian churches.”

Gogol could view the Poles as “traitors” who want to destroy the “Russian land,” in particular the Ukrainian people. Among the Volyn gentry who sought to restore the independence of Poland, there were many “werewolves” - people Ukrainian origin who “became Poles.” This, in fact, is how the sorcerer appears in “Terrible Revenge.”

There is one frankly anti-Polish episode in the story - and although it is small in size, Gogol cites it as a separate eighth chapter. The author seemed to want to emphasize the importance of this episode. Although in reality it does not play any great significance in the plot outline of the story - at least it could be done without it. Isn't this episode a definite hint? This is how it sounds in Gogol:

“On the border road, in a tavern, the Poles have gathered and have been feasting for two days. Something a lot of all the bastards. They probably agreed on some kind of raid: some had muskets; the spurs clink; sabers rattle. The gentlemen are having fun and boasting, talking about their unprecedented deeds, mocking Orthodoxy, calling the Ukrainian people their slaves and twirling their mustaches importantly, and with their heads raised, they are lounging on benches. The princes are with them. Only their priest is like them: and in appearance he doesn’t even look like a Christian priest. He drinks and walks with them and speaks shameful speeches with his wicked tongue. The servants are in no way inferior to them: they have thrown back the sleeves of their torn zhupans and are playing trump cards, as if it were something worthwhile. They play cards, hitting each other on the nose with cards. They took other people's wives with them. Screaming, fighting!.. The gentlemen go berserk and do things: they grab the Jew by the beard, paint a cross on his wicked forehead; They shoot the women with blank charges and dance the Krakowiak with their wicked priest. There has never been such a temptation on Russian soil and from the Tatars. Apparently, God has already determined for her to endure such shame for her sins! In the midst of the general sodomy, you can hear people talking about the Trans-Dnieper farm of Pan Danil, about his beautiful wife... This gang has not gathered for a good cause!”

If we put aside the caricature of this narrative, then the question inevitably arises whether this is not a depiction of the “seditious conversations” that the Polish gentry conducted in preparation for the “attack” - the November Uprising. Catholic clergy played a significant role in its preparation and organization. Therefore, Gogol portrays the priest as one of the organizers of the raid.

It should be noted that “Terrible Vengeance” was written during this uprising or shortly after it. Hence the anti-Polish orientation of the work. And at the same time, the impression from the writer’s Volyn travel, when he had to communicate with the local gentry. These impressions were most directly reflected in “Terrible Revenge”, then “rethought” - in “Taras Bulba”. By the way, famous critic Vissarion Belinsky combined these two works. And he was right.

Another possible hint of Gogol’s Volyn journey is contained in “Taras Bulba” - these are references to the so-called. the Kovno voivode, who was the father of the Polish lady with whom Andriy fell in love. In reality, no Kovno voivodes ever existed. And Kovno (Kaunas) was a small place in the fields of Lithuania. But, heading from St. Petersburg to Volyn and back, Gogol may have passed through Kovno. He might have had certain impressions of this city, and he decided to reflect them in his own way in Taras Bulba.

During the November Uprising, Gogol's probable recruiter for work in the III Department, Bulgarin, was favored by the tsar. It has already been said that he was given an expensive diamond ring. Although before this, Bulgarin found himself in disgrace and they even wanted to send him to serve in the Cossack troops. It seems that in this situation he turned out to be a valuable personnel. Gogol also rises sharply during this period. From an unknown newcomer to St. Petersburg, a kind of “ugly duckling”, he becomes a swan - he ends up on public service, meets representatives of the St. Petersburg cultural elite. Subsequently, “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” appeared, thanks to which Gogol became a star of Russian literature of that time. Did his bosses from Section III contribute to this? Gogol could become a valuable informant for them, reporting on what was happening among the Russian cultural elite. Gogol’s intelligence work is “given away” by his iconic works - “The Inspector General” and “Dead Souls”. It describes the things that the secret police did in the Russian Empire.

In general, many amazing things happened around The Inspector General. The work, which criticized the imperial order and was negatively perceived in government circles, for some reason was supported by Tsar Nicholas himself. And it was after the appearance of The Inspector General that Gogol traveled abroad, receiving benefits from the Empress and the Tsar-Father. Did the writer “expose himself” as “The Inspector General” among the St. Petersburg establishment? Therefore, in 1836 he was sent to Europe to work among Polish emigrants. It was no big secret that he communicated with them. If such things were done by a simple man in the Russian Empire, not an agent of the Third Section, the tsarist authorities would probably have great complaints against him. But there were no complaints about Gogol.

Of course, the tsarist secret police, like any secret police, tried not to expose their agents - especially valuable agents. Therefore, finding direct evidence of Gogol’s collaboration with Section III is problematic. But there is Bulgarin’s testimony, there are many mysterious moments in the writer’s biography. After all, there are his works. The latter is an encrypted biography of the author. They just need to be deciphered.

Born in the town of Velikiye Sorochintsy, Mirgorod district, Poltava province, in the family of a landowner. The Gogols had over 1000 acres of land and about 400 serfs. The writer's father, V. A. Gogol-Yanovsky (1777-1825), served at the Little Russian Post Office, in 1805 he retired with the rank of collegiate assessor and married M. I. Kosyarovskaya (1791-1868), according to legend, the first beauty in the Poltava region. There were six children in the family: in addition to Nicholas, son Ivan (died in 1819), daughters Marya (1811-1844), Anna (1821-1893), Lisa (1823-1864) and Olga (1825-1907).
Gogol spent his childhood years on his parents' estate Vasilievka (another name is Yanovshchina). The cultural center of the region was Kibintsy, the estate of D. P. Troshchinsky (1754-1829), a distant relative of the Gogols, a former minister elected to the district marshals (district leaders of the nobility); Gogol's father acted as his secretary. In Kibintsy there was a large library, there was a home theater, for which Father Gogol wrote comedies, being also its actor and conductor.
As a child, Gogol wrote poetry. The mother showed great concern for the religious education of her son, who, however, was influenced not so much by the ritual side of Christianity as by his prophecy about Last Judgment and the idea of ​​afterlife retribution.
In 1818-19, Gogol, together with his brother Ivan, studied at the Poltava district school, and then, in 1820-1821, took lessons from the Poltava teacher Gabriel Sorochinsky, living in his apartment. In May 1821 he entered the gymnasium of higher sciences in Nizhyn. Here he is engaged in painting, participates in performances - as a set designer and as an actor, and with particular success he plays comic roles. Tries himself in various literary genres(writes elegiac poems, tragedies, historical poems, stories). At the same time he writes the satire “Something about Nezhin, or the law is not written for fools” (not preserved). However, the thought of writing has not yet “come to mind” for Gogol; all his aspirations are connected with “public service”; he dreams of a legal career. Gogol’s decision to make this was greatly influenced by Prof. N. G. Belousov, who taught a course in natural law, as well as a general strengthening of freedom-loving sentiments in the gymnasium. In 1827, the “case of freethinking” arose here, which ended with the dismissal of leading professors, including Belousov; Gogol, who sympathized with him, testified in his favor during the investigation.
Having graduated from the gymnasium in 1828, Gogol, together with another graduate A. S. Danilevsky (1809-1888), went to St. Petersburg in December. Experiencing financial difficulties, unsuccessfully fussing about a place, Gogol made his first literary attempts: at the beginning of 1829 the poem “Italy” appeared, and in the spring of the same year, under the pseudonym “V. Alov”, Gogol published the “idyll in pictures” “Ganz Küchelgarten”. The poem evoked harsh and mocking reviews from N. A. Polevoy and later a condescending and sympathetic review from O. M. Somov (1830), which intensified Gogol’s difficult mood. In July 1829, he burns unsold copies of the book and suddenly leaves abroad, to Germany, and by the end of September, almost as suddenly, returns to St. Petersburg. Gogol explained his step as an escape from a love feeling that unexpectedly took possession of him. Before leaving abroad or shortly after his return, Gogol experiences another setback - his attempt to enter the stage as a dramatic actor is unsuccessful.
At the end of 1829, he managed to decide to serve in the department of state economy and public buildings of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. From April 1830 to March 1831 he served in the department of appanages (first as a scribe, then as an assistant to the clerk), under the command of the famous idyllic poet V.I. Panaev. His stay in the offices caused Gogol deep disappointment in the “state service,” but it provided him with rich material for future works that depicted bureaucratic life and the functioning of the state machine. By this time, Gogol was devoting more and more time to literary work. Following the first story “Bisavryuk, or the Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala” (1830), Gogol published a series works of art and articles: “Chapter from a Historical Novel” (1831), “Teacher. From a Little Russian story: “The Scary Boar” (1831), “Woman” (1831). The story "Woman" became the first work signed real name author. Gogol meets Zhukovsky, P. A. Pletnev, Pushkin. By the summer of 1831, his relationship with Pushkin’s circle became quite close: living in Pavlovsk, Gogol often visited Pushkin and Zhukovsky in Tsarskoe Selo; carries out instructions for the publication of Belkin's Tales. Gogol’s financial situation is strengthened thanks to his pedagogical work: he gives private lessons in the houses of P.I. Balabin, N.M. Longinov, A.V. Vasilchikov, and from March 1831, at the request of Pletnev, he became a history teacher at the Patriotic Institute (where he later assigned his sisters, Anna and Lisa).
During this period, “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” (1831-1832) was published. They aroused almost universal admiration.
After the release of the 2nd part of "Evenings" Gogol came to Moscow in June 1832 famous writer. He meets M. P. Pogodin, S. T. Aksakov and his family, M. N. Zagoskin, I. I. Dmitriev. On this visit or on a second visit (on way back through Moscow from Vasilievka) he also meets with I.V. and P.V. Kireevsky, M.S. Shchepkin, and becomes close to M.A. Maksimovich. The next year, 1833, for Gogol was one of the most intense, full of tormenting searches. further path. Gogol writes the first comedy "Vladimir of the 3rd degree", however, experiencing creative difficulties and anticipating censorship complications, stops working. Gogol considers the study of history - Ukrainian and world - to be very important, perhaps the main direction of his activity.
Numerous preliminary developments remain (in particular, the "Teaching Plan general history", "An excerpt from the history of Little Russia...", both - 1834; later, under changed names, they were included in the writer's "Arabesques"). Gogol is trying to occupy the department of world history at the newly opened Kiev University, but to no avail. In June 1834, he, however , was appointed associate professor in the Department of General History at St. Petersburg University. pedagogical work and through works on history, about which Gogol quite widely informs his friends, he in deep secret writes the stories that made up his two subsequent collections - “Mirgorod” and “Arabesques”. Their harbinger was “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich” (first published in the book “Housewarming” in 1834).
The publication of "Arabesque" (1835) and "Mirgorod" (1835) marked Gogol's step towards realism, consolidating and deepening the trend that had emerged in "Evenings". The desire for the “ordinary” meant a change in the subject of the image: instead of strong and sharp characters - the vulgarity and facelessness of ordinary people, instead of poetic and deep feelings - sluggish, almost reflexive movements. In the stories from St. Petersburg life, “ordinary” life itself became illusory. Manifestations of ghostliness are an endless series of unmotivated, illogical or internally inconsistent movements, facts and phenomena, from the actions of characters to the isolation and autonomy of toilet details, external surroundings, as well as organs and parts of the human face and body. The pinnacle of Gogol’s fiction is the “St. Petersburg story” “The Nose” (1835; published in 1836), an extremely bold grotesque that anticipated some trends in twentieth-century art. In contrast to both the provincial and metropolitan world was the story "Taras Bulba", which captured that moment in the national past when the people ("Cossacks"), defending their sovereignty, acted integrally, together and, moreover, as a force that determined the nature of pan-European history.
The writer spends the summer of 1835 in Vasilyevka, Crimea, and also in Kyiv, where he stays with Maksimovich and, together with Danilevsky, studies architectural monuments. In September he returns to St. Petersburg and leaves teaching (in June he leaves the Patriotic Institute, in December - from the university).
In the fall of 1835, he began writing “The Inspector General,” the plot of which was suggested by Pushkin; the work progressed so successfully that on January 18, 1836 he read a comedy at an evening with Zhukovsky (in the presence of Pushkin, P. A. Vyazemsky and others), and in February-March is already busy staging it on the stage of the Alexandria Theater. The play premiered on April 19. May 25 - premiere in Moscow, at the Maly Theater.
The depth of the comedy was not reflected in its first productions, which gave it a touch of vaudeville and farce; The image of Khlestakov was especially depleted by N. O. Durom in St. Petersburg and D. T. Lensky in Moscow who played this role. Much greater understanding was found by critics who noted the originality of the comedy and called the author “the great comedian of real life.” However, the first to be heard were sharply unkind reviews from F.V. Bulgarin, who accused the writer of slandering Russia, and O.I. Senkovsky, who believed that the comedy was devoid of a serious idea and was not formalized in plot and composition. On Gogol, who had time to read only these reviews before going abroad, they had a depressing effect, reinforced by many more oral judgments.
The writer's state of mind was aggravated by the complications of his relationship with Pushkin; the reasons for this are not yet clear enough, but one of them was friction during the editing of Sovremennik, for which Pushkin invited Gogol to collaborate. In 1836, the story “The Stroller,” the dramatic scene “The Morning of a Business Man,” and several reviews and articles were published. Some expressions of the latter seemed risky and incorrect to Pushkin; in the editorial note he made it clear that the article was not a Sovremennik program.
In June 1836, Gogol left St. Petersburg for Germany (in total, he lived abroad for about 12 years). He spends the end of summer and autumn in Switzerland, where he begins to work on the continuation of Dead Souls. The plot was also suggested by Pushkin. The work began back in 1835, before the writing of The Inspector General, and immediately acquired a wide scope. In St. Petersburg, several chapters were read to Pushkin, causing him both approval and at the same time a depressing feeling.
In November 1836, Gogol moved to Paris, where he met A. Mickiewicz. Here in February 1837, in the midst of work on “Dead Souls,” he received the shocking news of Pushkin’s death. In a fit of “inexpressible melancholy” and bitterness, Gogol feels the “present work” as the poet’s “sacred testament.” At the beginning of March 1837, he came to Rome for the first time, where he spent time in the company of the artist A. A. Ivanov, I. S. Shapovalov, as well as Princess Z. A. Volkonskaya. At the end of summer, Gogol was on the road again: Turin, Baden-Baden, Frankfurt, Geneva. In October he came to Rome for the second time, where the final stage of work on the 1st volume of the poem took place. A number of new important meetings date back to this time: in 1838 in Rome, the writer became close to the amateur composer Count M. Yu. Vielgorsky and his family; Gogol became especially attached to his son I. M. Vielgorsky, whose early death (in 1839 in Rome) the writer bitterly mourned in his work “Nights at the Villa” (not finished, published 1856); in the summer of 1839 in Hanau am Main he met N. M. Yazykov, who soon became one of his closest friends.
In September 1839, accompanied by Pogodin, Gogol came to Moscow and began reading chapters of “Dead Souls” - first in the Aksakovs’ house, then, after moving to St. Petersburg in October, at Zhukovsky’s and Prokopovich’s in the presence of his old friends. A total of 6 chapters have been read. There was universal delight.
On May 9, 1840, at the celebration of his name day, organized in Pogodin’s house in Moscow, Gogol met with M. Yu. Lermontov. After 9 days, he leaves Moscow again, heading to Italy for the final finishing of the 1st volume. But at the end of the summer of 1840 in Vienna, where Gogol stopped to continue work on the drama from Zaporozhye history that he had begun in 1839 ("For a Shaved Mustache"; the author burned the manuscript in 1840; fragments were published in 1861), he suddenly suffered from an attack of severe nervous illness . From the end of September 1840 to August 1841, Gogol lived in Rome, where he completed the 1st volume of the poem. In October, through him, Petersburg returns to Moscow; reads the last 5 chapters in the Aksakovs' house. In January 1842, the writer, fearing the banning of the poem, sent the manuscript to V.G. Belinsky to the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee, also asking for the assistance of St. Petersburg friends. On March 9, the book was approved by censor A.V. Nikitenko, however, with a change in the title and without “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin,” the text of which Gogol was forced to rework. In May, “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls” (vol. 1, M., 1842) was published.
After the first, brief, but very commendable reviews, the initiative was seized by Gogol’s detractors, who accused him of being a caricature, a farce and slandering reality. Later, N.A. Polevoy came up with an article that bordered on denunciation.
All this controversy took place in the absence of Gogol, who went abroad in June 1842. Before leaving, he entrusts Prokopovich with the publication of the first collection of his works. Gogol spends the summer in Germany; in October, together with N. M. Yazykov, he moves to Rome. He is working on the 2nd volume of Dead Souls, which apparently began back in 1840; He devotes a lot of time to preparing his collected works. “The Works of Nikolai Gogol” in four volumes was published at the beginning of 1843, as censorship suspended the two volumes that had already been printed for a month.
The three years (1842-1845), which followed the writer’s departure abroad, was a period of intense and difficult work on the 2nd “Dead Souls”.
Writing "Dead Souls" is extremely difficult, with long stops. The work became somewhat livelier with the move to Nice, where Gogol spent the winter of 1843-1844, living in the Vielgorsky apartment. Gogol forces himself to write, overcoming mental fatigue and creative doubts. In Ostend in the summer of 1844 he became especially close to A.P. Tolstoy, the former Tver governor and Odessa military governor. Conversations with him regarding the duties of senior officials then formed the basis of letter XXVIII from “Selected Places...” - “To one who occupies an important place.”
The process of writing a poem is increasingly turning into a process of building one’s life, and through oneself, everyone around us. Thus, from the work on “Dead Souls,” the idea of ​​a book of “letters” sprang up, the first articles for which Gogol began to think about back in 1844-1845.
At the beginning of 1845, Gogol showed signs of a new mental crisis. The writer goes to Paris to rest and “recuperate”, but returns to Frankfurt in March. A period of treatment and consultations with various medical celebrities begins, moving from one resort to another - now in Halle, now in Berlin, now in Dresden, now in Carlsbad. At the end of June or beginning of July 1845, in a state of sharp exacerbation of the disease, Gogol burns the manuscript of the 2nd volume. Subsequently (in “Four Letters to Various Persons Concerning “Dead Souls” - “Selected Places”) Gogol explained this step by saying that the book did not show “paths and roads” to the ideal clearly enough.
An improvement in Gogol's physical condition began only in the fall. In October he is already in Rome. From May to November 1846 Gogol was on the road again. In November he settled in Naples with S.P. Apraksina, sister of A.P. Tolstoy. Here the news of the death of N. M. Yazykov (1847) is hard to bear.
Gogol continues to work on the 2nd volume, however, experiencing increasing difficulties, he is distracted by other matters: he composes the preface to the 2nd edition of the poem (published 1846) “To the Reader from the Author,” writes “The Inspector General’s Denouement” (published 1856), in in which the idea of ​​a “prefabricated city” in the spirit of the theological tradition (“On the City of God” by St. Augustine) was refracted into the subjective plane of the “spiritual city” of an individual, which brought to the fore the requirements spiritual education and improving everyone.
In 1847, “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” was published in St. Petersburg. The book performed a dual function - both an explanation of why the 2nd volume has not yet been written, and some compensation for it: Gogol proceeded to present his main ideas - doubt about the effective, teaching function of fiction, a utopian program for all “classes” to fulfill their duty and "ranks", from peasant to high officials and king.
The release of Selected Places brought a real critical storm upon its author. L.V. Brant, Senkovsky, E.F. Rosen and others wrote about Gogol's defeat, about his excessive and unjustified claims. N. F. Pavlov reproached Gogol for contradictions and false grounds. Many of his friends, especially S.T. Aksakov, accused Gogol of betraying his calling. P. A. Vyazemsky and A. A. Grigoriev wrote about the need for a more careful approach to the book. “Selected Places” was sharply criticized by V.G. Belinsky.
All these responses overtook the writer on the road: in May 1847 he went from Naples to Paris, then to Germany. Gogol cannot recover from the “blows” he received: “My health... was shaken by this devastating story for me about my book... I marvel at how I was still alive.” To deflect blows and justify himself, Gogol undertakes a “confession” literary work mine" (published in 1855), where he insists that his creative path was consistent and continuous, that he did not betray art and his previous creations. Nevertheless, he acknowledges the failure of Selected Places and expresses his desire to avoid the shortcomings of the book in the upcoming 2nd volume. Among the critics of “Selected Places” was Rzhev Archpriest Father Matvey (Konstantinovsky), who inclined the writer to even greater rigorism and steady moral self-improvement. Gogol succumbed to the influence of this sermon, although he defended his right to artistic creativity.
Gogol again spent the winter of 1847-1848 in Naples, intensively reading Russian periodicals, new fiction, historical and folklore books - “in order to plunge deeper into the indigenous Russian spirit.” At the same time, he is preparing for a long-planned pilgrimage to holy places. In January 1848 he went to Jerusalem by sea. In April he returns to Odessa. Gogol spends the summer of 1848 in Odessa, Vasilievka; in September in St. Petersburg, at an evening with the poet and teacher of Russian literature A. A. Komarov, he met young writers: N. A. Nekrasov, I. A. Goncharov, D. V. Grigorovich, A. V. Druzhinin.
In mid-October, Gogol lives in Moscow. In 1849–1850, Gogol reads individual chapters of the 2nd volume of Dead Souls to his friends. General approval and delight inspire the writer, who now works with redoubled energy. In the spring of 1850, Gogol makes the first and last attempt to organize his family life- makes an offer to A. M. Vielgorskaya, but is refused.
In June 1850, Gogol took a trip (together with Maksimovich “for a long time”) to his native place; On the way he visits A. O. Smirnova in Kaluga, then visits Optina Pustyn. He spends the summer and early autumn in Vasilievka, meets with Danilevsky, and continues to work on the 2nd volume.
In October he arrives in Odessa. His condition is improving; he is active, cheerful, cheerful; willingly gets along with the actors of the Odessa troupe, to whom he gives lessons in reading comedy works, with L. S. Pushkin, with local writers. In March 1851 he left Odessa and, after spending the spring and early summer in his native places, returns to Moscow in June. Should new circle readings of the 2nd volume of the poem; In total, up to 7 chapters were read. In October he attended “The Inspector General” at the Maly Theater, with S. V. Shumsky in the role of Khlestakov, and was pleased with the performance; in November he reads “The Inspector General” to a group of actors, including I. S. Turgenev.
On January 1, 1852, Gogol informs Arnoldi that the 2nd volume is “completely finished.” But in last days month, signs of a new crisis were clearly revealed, the impetus for which was the death of E. M. Khomyakova, sister of N. M. Yazykov, a person spiritually close to Gogol. He is tormented by a premonition of imminent death, aggravated by newly intensified doubts about the beneficialness of his writing career and the success of the work being carried out. At the end of January - beginning of February, Gogol meets Father Matvey (Konstantinovsky) who arrived in Moscow; the content of their conversations remained unknown, but there is an indication that Father Matvey advised destroying part of the chapters of the poem, motivating this step by the harmful influence they would have. Gogol, for his part, could reinterpret his reaction in the sense that the 2nd volume remained artistically unconvincing. On February 7, Gogol confesses and receives communion, and on the night of 11 to 12 he burns the white manuscript of the 2nd volume (only 5 chapters have survived in incomplete form, relating to various draft editions; published 1855). On the morning of February 21, Gogol died in his last apartment in Talyzin's house in Moscow.

Russian writers.1800-1917. T. 1. M.: Great Russian Encyclopedia. 1990. P. 593