Gogol's work arabesques summary. What is arabesque? Arabesque: description, history and interesting facts

Arabesque is a collection of works by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol in two parts, compiled by the author. Published in the first half of January 1835 (censorship permission November 10, 1834). The collection combined articles on chronicles, geography, art and several works of art. Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol 1835 1834

In the articles included in the collection “Arabesques,” Gogol sets out his historical views and his views on literature and art. In the article “A few words about Pushkin,” Gogol expressed his view of Pushkin as a great Russian national poet; in the fight against romantic aesthetics, Gogol here outlines the tasks facing Russian literature. In the article “On Little Russian Songs,” Gogol assessed folk art as an expression of folk life and national consciousness. In an article about Karl Bryullov’s painting “The Last Day of Pompeii,” Gogol made a fundamental assessment of the phenomena of Russian art. literatureart A few words about PushkinPushkinAbout Little Russian songs by Karl BryullovThe Last Day of Pompeii

Part one. Preface (1835) Sculpture, painting and music (1835) About the Middle Ages (1834) Chapter from a historical novel (1835) Chapter from a historical novel About teaching general history (1834) Portrait (story) A look at the composition of Little Russia (Excerpt from the History of Little Russia. Volume I, book I, chapter 1) (1834) A look at the composition of Little Russia A few words about Pushkin (1835) A few words about Pushkin About the architecture of the present time (1835) Al-Mamun (1835)

Hetman (novel) The novel takes place in the middle of the 17th century. The main character, Stepan Ostranitsa, is a historical figure, a Nizhyn colonel, information about whom Gogol gleaned from “The History of the Rus.” Gogol worked on the novel for years, but was dissatisfied with what he had written and burned his work, sparing only two chapters. Several rough handwritten excerpts from the novel have also been preserved, containing many inaccuracies. 17th century Stepan Ostrina Colonel History of the Rus

In “Northern Flowers” for 1831, an excerpt from the novel was published under the title “Chapter from a Historical Novel.” Gogol placed this passage, along with another passage from “The Bloody Bandura Player,” in the collection “Arabesques,” but the ending of “The Bloody Bandura Player” was not passed by the censors, so Gogol wrote a different ending. The original version was published based on the surviving author’s proofreading, in the magazine “Niva”, 1917, 1 Northern Flowers 1831 Arabesquecensored Niva

A look at the compilation of Little Russia Historical article by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, written in the years. Included in the collection “Arabesques”. An article by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol in the years of Arabesques. This article was supposed to precede Gogol’s historical work “History of Little Russia”, unknown to this day. Gogol's biographers have never been able to discover manuscripts or any materials indicating that the History of Little Russia was written at all.

In a letter to Mikhail Maksimovich dated November 9, 1833, Gogol wrote about his work: “Now I set about the history of our only poor Ukraine. Nothing calms you down like a story. My thoughts begin to flow more quietly and more harmoniously. It seems to me that I will write it, that I will say a lot of things that have not been said before” to Mikhail Maksimovich, 1833, Ukrainian history

On January 30, 1834, Gogol placed an “Announcement about the publication of the history of Little Russia” in the Northern Bee, asking for materials on the history of Ukraine to be sent to him for the great work he had begun. However, by the beginning of March 1834 (despite the fact that in a letter to M.A. Maksimovich dated February 12, Gogol promised to write the entire “History of Little Russia” “from beginning to end,” “in six small or four large volumes”) Gogol gradually began to cool down towards the work he had begun. To the Northern Bee

About the reasons for his cooling, Gogol wrote on March 6, 1834 to Izmail Sreznevsky, who expressed a desire to help with the materials: “I have lost interest in our chronicles, trying in vain to find in them what I would like to find. Nowhere is there anything about that time, which should have been the richest in events. A people whose whole life consisted of movements, who were involuntarily (even if they were completely inactive by nature) neighbors, the position of the earth, the danger of existence, led to deeds and exploits, this people... I am dissatisfied with Polish historians, they say very little about these exploits ... And that’s why every sound of the song speaks to me more vividly about what has happened. To Izmail Sreznevsky

Part two. Life (1835) Schletser, Miller and Herder (1835) Nevsky Prospect (1835) Nevsky Prospect About Little Russian songs (1834) About Little Russian songs Thoughts on geography (A few thoughts on teaching geography to children) (1831) The last day of Pompeii (1835) Prisoner ( Bloody bandura player) (1835)Prisoner (Bloody bandura player) About the movement of peoples at the end of the 5th century (1835) Notes (1835)

“Nevsky Prospekt” A story by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. Part of the Petersburg Tales series. Written in the years of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. Petersburg stories. First published in the book “Arabesques. Various works of N. Gogol”, part 2, St. Petersburg, The idea of “Nevsky Prospekt” dates back to 1831, when Gogol made several unfinished sketches depicting the landscape of St. Petersburg. Arabesques. Various works by N. Gogol in 1831 St. Petersburg

Two sketches have survived: “A terrible hand. A story from a book called: moonlight in a broken attic window" and "The lantern was dying...". Both sketches, relating to the years, are associated with the concept of “Nevsky Prospekt” years

“On Little Russian Songs” An article by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, in which he compares folk songs and a reflection of folk history, folk aspirations and ideals. The song for him is nothing more than “people's history, living, bright, full of colors, truth, revealing the whole life of the people..., a living, talking... chronicle.” Written in 1833. Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol1833 The article was written about “Zaporozhye antiquity” by Izmail Sreznevsky.Zaporozhye antiquityIzmail Sreznevsky

“Notes of a Madman” A story by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, written by him in 1834. The story was first published in 1835 in the collection “Arabesques” with the title “Scraps from the Notes of a Madman.” Later it was included in the collection “Petersburg Tales”. The story of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol18341835ArabesquesPetersburg stories

Arabesque. Various works by N. Gogol. Parts 1-2. St. Petersburg, printing house of the widow Pluchard with her son, 1835. Censorship permission of the collection - November 10, 1834.

Part 1: , 287 pp.

Part 2: , 276 pp.

Bound in one c/o brown period binding with embossed spine. Format: 21x13 cm. Rare!

Bibliographical sources:

1. Smirnov–Sokolsky N.P. My library, T.1, M., “Book”, 1969, No. 606.

2. The Kilgour collection of Russian literature 1750-1920. Harvard-Cambridge, 1959, no. 342.

3. Books and manuscripts in the collection of M.S. Lesmana. Annotated catalogue. Moscow, 1989, No. 616.

4. Collection of S.L. Markova. St. Petersburg, Globus Publishing House, 2007, No. 329.

5. Library D.V. Ulyaninsky. Bibliographic description. Volume III. Russian literature mainly from the 19th century until the 80s. Moscow, 1915, No. 4146.

In 1832, the literary activity of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was somewhat suspended due to all sorts of domestic and personal troubles; but already in 1833 he worked hard again, and the result of the intense creative work of these years were two literary collections. First, Arabesques came out (two parts, St. Petersburg, 1835), which contained several articles of popular scientific content on history and art, but at the same time three new stories, and three months later - Mirgorod (two parts, St. Petersburg, 1835), containing four stories. "Arabesques" were printed on January 20-22, 1835. Part 1 included: “Sculpture, painting and music”; "About the Middle Ages"; "Chapter from a historical novel"; “On teaching general history”; "Portrait"; “A look at the composition of Little Russia”; “A few words about Pushkin”; “On the architecture of the present time”; "Al-Mamun". Part 2 included: “Life”; "Schletser, Miller and Herder"; "Nevsky Avenue"; “About Little Russian songs”; "Thoughts on Geography"; "The last day of Pompeii"; "Prisoner"; “On the movement of peoples at the end of the 5th century”; "Diary of a Madman". For the first time, only “Notes of a Madman” appeared in this collection. Everything else was published earlier in various periodicals. From the end of 1833, Gogol was carried away by a thought as unrealizable as his previous plans for service: it seemed to him that he could enter the scientific field. At that time, preparations were being made for the opening of Kyiv University, and he dreamed of occupying the department of history there, which he taught to girls at the Patriotic Institute. Maksimovich was invited to Kyiv; Gogol thought of settling with him in Kyiv, and wanted to invite Pogodin there; in Kyiv, he finally imagined Russian Athens, where he himself thought of writing something unprecedented in universal history, and at the same time studying Little Russian antiquity. To his chagrin, it turned out that the department of history had been given to another person; but soon he was offered the same chair at St. Petersburg University, of course, thanks to the influence of his high literary friends. He actually occupied this pulpit; once or twice he managed to give an effective lecture, but then the task turned out to be beyond his strength: he was discouraged by the indifference of the students, the behind-the-scenes intrigues of the professors who envied him, and most importantly, he was again carried away by the work on “Arabesques” and “Mirgorod”.

Teaching became a burden for him. Gogol said he was sick and came to classes tied with a silk scarf, complaining of continuous toothache, often missed lectures, and then listened to mocking and sour remarks from his superiors addressed to him... Nikolai Vasilyevich hardly completed the course, took exams and in early April 1835 , having asked for leave, went to his family estate Vasilyevka. Upon his return, in the fall he submitted his resignation and abandoned his professorship forever. This was, of course, great arrogance; but his guilt was not so great if we remember that Gogol’s plans did not seem strange either to his friends, among whom were Pogodin and Maksimovich, professors themselves, or to the Ministry of Education, which considered it possible to give a professorship to a young man who had completed a high school course with sin in half ; The entire level of university science at that time was still so low. “I gave up on the university,” he wrote to Pogodin on December 6, 1835, “and a month later I was a carefree Cossack again. Unrecognized I ascended the pulpit and unrecognized I leave it. But in these one and a half years - the years of my disgrace, because the general opinion says that I did not take up my own business - in these one and a half years I took a lot from there and added to the treasury of the soul. It was no longer childish thoughts, not the limited former circle of my information, but lofty thoughts, filled with truth and terrifying grandeur, that excited me...”

Yes, the university was a school for Gogol himself. With his characteristic passion, with a straightforwardness that knew no compromises or concessions, he plunged into the world of history. He discovered a new world there - the world of people's destinies, incessant movement, heroic deeds and events. This enriched him as a writer. But Gogol the historian, Gogol the scientist, could not push aside Gogol the writer. The result of his studies in history was a number of brilliant articles: “On the Middle Ages”, “On the teaching of general history”, “Al-Mamun”, “Schletser, Miller and Herder”, “On the movement of peoples at the end of the 5th century”, “A look at the compilation Little Russia." The fact that three stories appeared in “Arabesques” surrounded by different articles and studies was obviously supposed to demonstrate that the author is at the level of European thinking in all areas - both as an artist and as a theorist who treats the problems of beauty, art, division its various branches (“Sculpture, painting and music”), on the relationship between religious eras - paganism and Christianity (“Life”) - to this we must add numerous discussions on historical topics proper. These articles testify to Gogol’s multifaceted erudition and advanced according to that time views on history as a process of development and progress of peoples. But first of all they are poetry. Like everything that Gogol wrote, his historical articles are animated by a brilliant, burning style, filled with that unquenchable poetic pathos, which even now makes them an example of high verbal art. The cycle of the writer’s “St. Petersburg” stories is rooted in the mystical-romantic works of Hoffmann and Schiller, “Melmoth the Wanderer” by Maturin and “The Human Comedy” by Balzac. Turning to pictures of demonic life in Nevsky Prospekt, Gogol comprehends the reasons for its obsession and emptiness. “Nevsky Prospekt” is a metaphor for the hell that Satan creates on earth. The demon is trying to give the appearance of the presence of light, and the person, who mistook the deception for the truth, submitted to this. The whims of evil are unlimited in the city of illusion. One day Gogol turned off Nevsky Prospekt and, passing by an uncurtained window of one of the houses, accidentally looked into it. In the depths of the narrow, dimly lit room, a pale young man with curly blond hair sat motionless. His face expressed suffering, he looked thoughtfully ahead, as if not daring to move. Some paintings hung on the walls, and there was a dark easel in the corner. “Probably a poor artist,” thought Gogol. It seemed to him that the fate of this young man, who probably came to the damp, cold capital in a thirst for fame from some distant side, resembled his own fate. After all, he is as lonely as this young artist. During the years spent in St. Petersburg, he had to face bitter poverty, humiliation, envy, and experienced a lot of grief and ill will. A picture of Nevsky Prospect arose before my eyes, now unusually lively, teeming with smartly dressed regulars, with flashing shiny carriages drawn by hot, slender horses, now plunging into uncertain twilight, in which need and suffering were hidden.

“Nevsky Prospekt” is a story about St. Petersburg, about the cruel contrasts of the big city, about the death of the honest, gifted artist Piskarev and about the well-being of the vulgar and smug lieutenant Pirogov. Gogol first called his artist Palitrin, but then changed his surname to Piskarev, thereby emphasizing his modesty, his inconspicuous place in life, like a small inconspicuous fish. Gogol met these half-destitute eccentrics during his visits to the Academy of Arts. They were usually kind and shy, loved their art, and naively believed in the justice and purity of the people around them. With emotional pain, Gogol excitedly told the tragedy of the artist who became a victim of his all-consuming passion. His Peruginova Bianca, so beautiful in the transparent glow of the evening artificial light, in reality turned out to be a rude and vulgar whore. The hero of the story, Piskarev, amazed by the transformation of a beauty into an inhabitant of a brothel, thinks about the duality of man, about the preference given to the “hellish spirit” and in despair commits suicide. Gogol painted a picture of his funeral, sad and harsh in its truth, the funeral of a beggar, a useless person. Gogol considered the story “Portrait” to be his unsuccessful attempt and later significantly revised it. In a new edition, it was published in the third book of the Sovremennik magazine for 1842. The prototype of the artist who sent his painting from Italy to an exhibition in St. Petersburg was A. A. Ivanov, who worked all his life on one painting - “The Appearance of Christ to the People.” His features were also reflected in the image of the elder artist who went to the monastery. In the article “The Historical Painter Ivanov,” included in the book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” Gogol wrote: “What an incomprehensible fate of this man! His case had finally begun to be explained to everyone. Everyone was convinced that the painting he was working on was an unprecedented phenomenon, they took part in the artist, they were working from all sides so that he would be given the means to finish it, so that the artist would not die of hunger over it... and still not a word has been heard. spirit from St. Petersburg... Absurd rumors have been brought here that the artists and the entire professorship of our Academy of Arts, fearing that Ivanov’s painting will not kill everything that has hitherto been produced by our art, are out of envy trying to ensure that he is not given the means to ending. It's a lie, I'm sure of it. Our artists are noble, and if they knew everything that poor Ivanov endured because of his unparalleled selflessness and love of work, at the risk of actually dying of hunger, they would fraternally share their own money with him, and not to inspire others with this cruel thing. And why should they be afraid of Ivanov? He goes his own way and is not a hindrance to anyone. Not only is he not looking for a professorship or worldly benefits, but he is not even looking for anything, because he has long since died to everything in the world except his work... No, until a true conversion to Christ has occurred in the artist himself, he cannot depict that on the canvas. Ivanov prayed to God to grant him such complete conversion, shed tears in silence, asking Him for the strength to fulfill the thought He had inspired; and at this time they reproached him for being slow and rushed him! Ivanov asked God to use the fire of grace to incinerate in him that cold callousness that many of the best and kindest people now suffer from, and to inspire him to depict this appeal in such a way that even a non-Christian would be touched when he looked at his picture; and at that time even the people who knew him, even his friends, reproached him, thinking that he was simply being lazy, and seriously thought about whether it was possible to force him to finish the painting by starvation and taking away all his means.” The structure of “Notes of a Madman”, which is in form a diary, consistently recording the stages of madness of the main character Poprishchin, is divided into the comic story of the titular adviser, the comic story of a madman who imagined himself to be the “found” heir to the Spanish throne, and the final entry, a passionate monologue of a tortured man. The tragedy of the hero, passed through the comic style of his monologue, is that in his ambitions he aims at something higher than the social and spiritual framework in which he is forced to exist. “I spit on everyone!” This is the height of misanthropy and hatred, the blackest envy. Powerless thirst for revenge. Fury in the desire to humiliate the whole world. And at the same time a cry for help. Gogol's hero feverishly seeks a way out of his unhappy situation (he and his love are ridiculed), seeks a way out in elevation above those who offended him, in a purely material, class, visual leap. He can’t even pick up a title to avenge himself more harshly. This is how he grows to become a king. The king is not only a mockery of the table of ranks (there is no such rank there), but also the mystery of Poprishchin’s thinking, its allegorical nature, for the king is Spanish, but in Spain there is no king, and the throne is empty. For the Russian reader, this fact was already a fairy tale, a myth, an incomprehensible dream, and it was into this dream (which was a reality for Europe in 1833) that Gogol’s hero was transported. Reality bursts into Gogol's story and pushes Poprishchin's imagination, telling him: go for it! The throne in Spain is empty. You are the king! You are the true heir to the throne, you are the one whom everyone is waiting for and everyone is looking for and who should finally take your place in the sun. And here is the first entry in the diary of the hero who has found himself. “Today is the day of the greatest celebration! Spain has a king. He was found. I am this king! Poprishchin makes his leap. As P.V. assures Annenkov, he once found an elderly man in Gogol’s St. Petersburg apartment on Malaya Morskaya, talking about the habits of crazy people, the strict, almost logical consistency noticed in the development of their absurd ideas. Gogol sat down next to him, listened attentively to his story, and when one of his friends began to call everyone home, Gogol objected, hinting at his visitor: “You go... They already know their hour and, when necessary, they will leave.” Most of the materials collected from the stories of an elderly man were later used by Gogol in “Notes of a Madman.” The elderly stranger was probably an experienced psychiatrist. In any case, as modern experts note, the “Notes of a Madman” clinically accurately describes the origin and development of schizophrenic delusions, the concentration on one extraneous idea, which has grown to a manic idee fixe. An important role in the story is played by the “correspondence of dogs” borrowed from Hoffmann, which allows, along with the emancipation of the consciousness of the “madman,” to see the world of familiar phenomena in a naturally naked form. “Arabesques” are Arabic patterns that are a combination of dissimilar elements. Gogol declared the lack of unity, discord, and discord in the preface to the book, and then in the letters accompanying the donated copies. The Gogol collection combined articles on history, geography, literature and art, as well as stories on St. Petersburg themes. In the preface to Arabesques, Gogol emphasized: “This collection consists of plays written by me in different eras of my life. I didn't write them to order. They spoke from the heart, and I chose as a subject only what struck me greatly. Between them, readers will no doubt find much that is young. I confess that I might not have allowed some plays into this collection at all if I had published it a year earlier, when I was more strict with my old works. But instead of harshly judging your past, it is much better to be unforgiving about your present activities. It seems as unfair to destroy what we have previously written as to forget the past days of our youth. Moreover, if an essay contains two or three truths that have not yet been said, then the author no longer has the right to hide it from the reader, and for two or three correct thoughts one can forgive the imperfection of the whole.” In the evenings, Gogol usually stood at his desk and wrote. He loved to write on large sheets of office books, made of plain paper with leather spines, usually used for recording incoming and outgoing papers in offices. In these notebooks, Gogol sketched out the draft, initial texts of his works, plans, and ideas. In a small, unclear, somewhat feminine handwriting, he very closely, leaving neither margins nor a scrap of free space, covered the entire page, without any system, without numbering, with reddish, somewhat faded ink. The letters were woven into long, monotonous lines, which sometimes rose or fell slightly, as if expressing the inner rhythm of the phrase. He made blots and corrections in thin, almost imperceptible letters above the line. Ideas and plans overtook each other, colliding on the same page. Here on the sheet is the beginning of the article “Sculpture, Painting and Music”, interrupted on the seventh line. “A story from a book entitled;” “Moonlight in a broken attic window on Vasilyevsky Island in line 16.” A few lines of an unfinished story about a street illuminated by the strange brilliance of a lonely lantern. And then the initial phrases of “Nevsky Prospekt”: “There is nothing better than Nevsky Prospect, at least in St. Petersburg...” A few pages later are the outlines of the article “Schletser, Miller and Herder,” followed by four lines from the end of “Notes of a Madman.” We seem to see here how generously Gogol’s ideas swarmed, how inexhaustible his creative impulse, redundancy, and creative wealth of the writer were. Along with working on works of art, he devoted a lot of time and effort to studying history, reading sources, scientific research, and monographs. His notebooks contain extracts from rare books and sources, notes, notes of his own thoughts. Here is a discussion about the place of residence of the Slavic peoples, and notes “On the Varangians”, “Alliances of European sovereigns with the Russians”, “The Age of Louis XIV”, outlines of lectures - on Media and the Persians, on the “Spread of the Normans”, on “Italy before the Visigoths” and much more. How much selfless labor, tireless work, and careful study was needed to accumulate this mass of materials! In a lyrical note dedicated to the new, upcoming year of 1834, Gogol wrote: “Mysterious, inexplicable 1834! Where will I signify you with great labors? Is it among this heap of houses piled one on top of the other, thundering streets, seething commercialism - this ugly heap of fashions, parades, officials, wild northern nights, splendor and low colorlessness? Is it in my beautiful, ancient, promised Kyiv, crowned with fruitful gardens, surrounded by my southern, beautiful, wonderful sky, intoxicating nights, where the mountain is strewn with bushes with its own, as if harmonious cliffs, and my clean and fast, my Dnieper, washing it away... “Gogol dreams of getting away from the commercialism of St. Petersburg, its apartment buildings, the glaring contradictions of brilliance and colorlessness, luxury and poverty. He turns to his genius, to the dream of universal harmony, beauty, and bliss of man: “Oh, do not be separated from me! Live on earth with me at least two hours every day, like my wonderful brother. I will do it... I will do it! Life is boiling inside me. My works will be inspired. A deity inaccessible to the earth will blow over them! I will commit... Oh, kiss and bless me! This lyrical confession, this poet’s dream of a harmonious world, of human happiness, was all the more moving and heartfelt, the darker and more hopeless was everything unfair, base, corrupt that surrounded him. The dream of universal harmony, of the liberation of man from the vulgarity of his surroundings was reflected in a number of articles written with the same inspired pathos and soon included in the collection “Arabesques”. These articles are imbued with passionate love for man, anxious concern about his fate in this mercantile world of ranks and gold, universal corruption and fall: “Everything is a conspiracy against us,” wrote Gogol, “this whole seductive chain of sophisticated inventions of luxury is trying harder and harder to drown out and lull our feelings. We long to save our poor soul, to escape from these terrible seducers...” Gogol first mentioned “Arabesques” in letters to M.P. Pogodin from November 2 and December 14, 1834: “... terribly busy... printing some things!” and “I print all sorts of things. All the writings and passages and thoughts that sometimes occupied me. Between them there are historical ones, already known and unknown ones. “I only ask you to look at them more leniently.” There is a lot of youth in them.” At the beginning of January 1835, Gogol sent a preface to A.A.S. Pushkin: “I am sending you a preface. Do yourself a favor, look through it, and if there is anything, correct it and change it right there in ink. As far as you know, I haven’t written any serious prefaces yet, and therefore I’m completely inexperienced in this matter.” It is not known whether Pushkin made any changes to the text of his younger brother in literature. On January 22, 1835, Gogol sent a copy to A.A.S. Pushkin, noting in a letter: “Read it... and do yourself a favor, take a pencil in your hands and do not stop your indignation at the sight of mistakes, but at the same time they are all obvious. - I need it very much". On the same day, copies of Arabesques were sent to M.P. Pogodin and M.A. Maksimovich. M.P. After a while Gogol wrote: “I am sending you all my things. Pet her and pat her: there is a lot of childishness in her, and I tried to throw her out into the world as quickly as possible, so that at the same time I could throw out everything old from my office, and, shaking myself off, start a new life. Express your opinion about historical articles in some magazine. Better and more decent, I think, in an educational magazine. Your word will help me. Because I, too, seem to have some learned enemies. But fuck their mother!” M.A. Gogol reported to Maksimovich: “I am sending you a confusion, a mixture of everything, a porridge, judge for yourself whether there is oil in it.” V.G. Belinsky, in the article “On the Russian Tale and the Stories of Mr. Gogol” (1835), did not highly appreciate Arabesque’s articles on history: “I don’t understand how you can so thoughtlessly compromise your literary name. Is it really true that translating, or, better said, paraphrasing and reparodying some passages from Miller’s history, mixing them with your own phrases, means writing a learned article? in what case is it not comparable to scholarship?..” “Arabesques” did not have commercial success. In this regard, Gogol wrote to M.P. on March 23, 1835. Pogodin: “...Please publish an advertisement in Moskovskie Vedomosti about “Arabesques”, that this book has aroused general curiosity, that the expense on it is terrible (No. 6, not a penny of profit has been received so far) and the like.” The publisher of “Arabesques” was Nikolai Vasilyevich himself. In his letters, he speaks irritably about Smirdin and complains about booksellers. On October 7, 1835, Gogol complained to A.S. Pushkin: “Neither “Arabesques” nor “Mirgorod” suit me at all. God knows what that means. Booksellers are the kind of people who, without any conscience, could be hanged from the first tree.” Subsequently, Gogol did not value most of the works included in Arabesques too highly. On November 16 (28), 1836, he wrote from Paris to M.P. Pogodin: “I’m scared to remember all my messes. They appear to my eyes as a kind of formidable accusers. The soul asks for oblivion, long oblivion. And if such a moth appeared that would suddenly eat all the copies of “The Inspector General”, and with them “Arabesques”, “Evenings” and all other nonsense, and for a long time no one spoke about me either in print or orally. words - I would thank fate. Only glory after death (for which, alas! I haven’t done anything yet) is familiar to the soul of a genuine poet. And modern fame is not worth a penny.” In the article “Russian Literature in 1841” V.G. Belinsky noted that in A. “Gogol moves from cheerful comedy to “humor,” which for him consists in the opposition of contemplation of true life, in opposition to the ideal of life - with the reality of life. And therefore his humor makes only simpletons or children laugh; people who have looked into the depths of life look at his paintings with sad reflection, with heavy melancholy... Because of these monstrous and ugly faces, they see other, beautiful faces; this dirty reality leads them to contemplate the ideal reality, and what is, more clearly represents to them what should be...”

In 1835, two collections appeared in print: “Arabesques” and “The World-City”. It was from this time that Gogol devoted himself entirely to writing.

These stories are united into one whole primarily by a common theme, defined by Gogol as “the collision of dreams with reality” (reality). They are also related by the place of action - St. Petersburg, the capital city, in which social contradictions were especially pronounced already in the 30s of the 19th century, during the period of development in the capital of “mercantilism”, the pursuit of profit, predation, and soulless calculation.

In Nevsky Prospect, Gogol tells the story of the artist Piskarev, an enthusiastic dreamer, before whose eyes appeared “the whole low, all the despicable life, a life full of emptiness and idleness...”. And Piskarev dies a tragic victim of the discord between dreams and reality.

The story “Portrait” was later (in 1841) revised by Gogol, especially the second part. This is a sad story about the artist Chartkov, who lost his talent in the pursuit of wealth. “Gold became his passion, ideal, fear, pleasure, goal.” Under the influence of gold, human qualities die out in Chartkov, and the artist dies in it, since genuine, realistic art is not needed by the exploiting classes; they need an artisanal embellishment of themselves and the life they dominate.

In “Notes of a Madman” and in the adjacent, although written later (in 1841) “The Overcoat,” Gogol addresses the theme raised by Pushkin in “The Station Agent,” the theme of the “little man,” a poor petty official living in a society that evaluates people by rank and wealth.

The senseless office work - copying papers - killed every living thought and every human aspiration in Akaki Akakievich Bashmachkin. But even in this downtrodden, humiliated petty official, a man awakens when he has a goal in life - a new overcoat. “He,” writes Gogol, “somehow became more alive, even firmer in character, like a man who had already defined and set a goal for himself. Doubt and indecision naturally disappeared from his face and from his actions...”

There was no happier person than Akaki Akakievich when the tailor finally brought him a new overcoat. But the joy was short-lived. At night, when he was returning from a colleague, he was robbed: his overcoat was taken off. In vain Akakiy Akakievich sought help from a private bailiff, from a “significant person”; Everywhere he met either complete indifference, or contempt and menacing shouts. Frightened by the reception of a “significant person,” the timid and downtrodden Akaki Akakievich fell ill with a nervous fever, which carried him to his grave. “The creature disappeared and hid,” notes Gogol, “protected by no one, dear to no one, and interesting to no one...”

With great sympathy, Gogol showed the downtrodden “little man” who responded to the evil ridicule of his colleagues with “penetrating” words: “Leave me alone. Why are you offending me?” and these penetrating words rang with other words: “I am your brother.”

Two collections of Gogol (“Mirgorod” and “Arabesques”) were the reason for the appearance of Belinsky’s remarkable article “On the Russian Tale and Gogol’s Stories,” published in the Telescope magazine for 1836. Material from the site

Defining the features of Gogol’s work, Belinsky writes: “The distinctive character of Mr. Gogol’s story consists of simplicity of fiction, nationality, the perfect truth of life, originality and comic animation, always overcome by a deep feeling of sadness and despondency. The reason for all these qualities lies in one source: Mr. Gogol is a poet, a poet of real life.” And if the first four qualities are inherent, in Belinsky’s opinion, in “all elegant works,” then the last one—special humor—constitutes the originality of Gogol the writer.

Belinsky sees in Gogol a realist writer, strong in his fidelity to the depiction of life. Each of Gogol’s stories “makes you say: “How simple, ordinary, natural and true all this is and, at the same time, how original and new!”

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in 1835, two collections of N.V. Gogol appeared in print:

Arabesque Arabesque, Arabesque, Arabesque (French arabesque from Italian arabesco Arabic). Arabesque type of ornament. Arabesque is one of... Wikipedia

- “Night Stories” by E. T. A. Hoffmann (1817) Collection of stories, a separate edition of a group of stories ... Wikipedia

- “Mirgorod” (February, 1835) a collection of stories by Nikolai Gogol, which is positioned as a continuation of “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”. The stories in this collection are based on Ukrainian folklore and have much in common with each other. It is believed that ... Wikipedia

Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, the first book by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (excluding the poem “Hanz Küchelgarten,” published under a pseudonym). Consists of two volumes. The first came out in 1831, the second in 1832. The stories of “Evenings” were written in 1829 1832... ... Wikipedia

Years in the literature of the 19th century. 1835 in literature. 1796 1797 1798 1799 1800 ← XVIII century 1801 1802 1803 1804 1805 1806 1807 1808 1809 1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816 1817 ... Wikiped ya

A few thoughts on teaching geography to children (“Thoughts on Geography”), an article by N.V. Gogol, “Gogol’s first and perhaps the best pedagogical work.” Published in the Literary Gazette, 1831, No. 1, dated January 1, page 4 7 under ... Wikipedia

Arabesque, Arabesque, Arabesque (French arabesque from Italian arabesco Arabic). Arabesque (ornament) is a type of ornament. Arabesque is one of the ballet poses. “Arabesques (collection)” collection of works by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, ... ... Wikipedia

Coat of arms of the Zaporozhye Army ... Wikipedia

- (1809 1852), Russian writer. Gogol’s literary fame was brought to him by the collection “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” (1831-32), rich in Ukrainian ethnographic and folklore material, marked by romantic moods, lyricism and humor.... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

- (Roe) (1809 1849), American romantic writer, critic. A classic of a strict plot novel, mainly tragic, “terrible”, “double”, fantastic adventure (including science fiction) collection “Grotesques and Arabesques”... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Books

Arabesques, Andrey Bely. Book of articles. “Arabesques” contains a series of articles that, on the whole, serve as a continuation of the most important theoretical work of A. Bely, “Symbolism.” To them the author added some excerpts and notes from...
Arabesques, Gogol Nikolai Vasilievich. N. V. Gogol’s collection “Arabesques” - the second after “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” - in its motley composition resembles an “almanac of one author”: here are articles on art,…

"ARABESKI"

collection of articles and stories by Gogol. Full title: “Arabesques. Various works of N. Gogol" (St. Petersburg, 1835). Censorship permission of the collection - November 10, 1834. Publication - January 20–22, 1835. A. consisted of two parts. Part 1 included: “Sculpture, painting and music”; "About the Middle Ages"; "Chapter from a historical novel"; “On teaching general history”; "Portrait"; “A look at the composition of Little Russia”; “A few words about Pushkin”; “On the architecture of the present time”; "Al-Mamun". Part 2 included: “Life”; "Schletser, Miller and Herder"; "Nevsky Avenue"; “About Little Russian songs”; "Thoughts on Geography"; "The last day of Pompeii"; "Prisoner"; “On the movement of peoples at the end of the 5th century”; "Diary of a Madman".

“Arabesques” are Arabic patterns that are a combination of dissimilar elements. The Gogol collection combined articles on history, geography, literature and art, as well as stories on St. Petersburg themes. In the preface to A. Gogol emphasized: “This collection consists of plays written by me in different eras of my life. I didn't write them to order. They spoke from the heart, and I chose as a subject only what struck me greatly. Between them, readers will no doubt find much that is young. I confess that I might not have allowed some plays into this collection at all if I had published it a year earlier, when I was more strict with my old works. But instead of harshly judging your past, it is much better to be unforgiving about your present activities. It seems as unfair to destroy what we have previously written as to forget the past days of our youth. Moreover, if an essay contains two or three truths that have not yet been said, then the author no longer has the right to hide it from the reader, and for two or three correct thoughts one can forgive the imperfection of the whole.”

Gogol first mentioned A. in letters to M.P. Pogodin dated November 2 and December 14, 1834: “... terribly busy... printing some things!” and “I print all sorts of things. All the writings and passages and thoughts that sometimes occupied me. Between them there are historical ones, already known and unknown ones. “I only ask you to look at them more leniently.” There is a lot of youth in them.”

At the beginning of January 1835, Gogol sent a preface to A. A. S. Pushkin: “I am sending you a preface. Do yourself a favor, look through it, and if there is anything, correct it and change it right there in ink. As far as you know, I haven’t written serious prefaces yet, and therefore I’m completely inexperienced in this matter.” It is not known whether Pushkin made any changes to the text of his younger brother in literature.

On January 22, 1835, Gogol sent a copy to A. A. S. Pushkin, noting in the letter: “Read it... and do yourself a favor, take a pencil in your hands and do not stop your indignation at the sight of mistakes, but at the same time they are all obvious. - I need it very much". On the same day, copies of A. were sent to M. P. Pogodin and M. A. Maksimovich. Gogol wrote to M.P. Pogodin: “I am sending you all my things. Pet her and pat her: there is a lot of childishness in her, and I tried to throw her out into the world as quickly as possible, so that at the same time I could throw out everything old from my office, and, shaking myself off, start a new life. Express your opinion about historical articles in some magazine. Better and more decent, I think, in an educational magazine. Your word will help me. Because I, too, seem to have some learned enemies. But fuck their mother!” Gogol reported to M. A. Maksimovich: “I am sending you a confusion, a mixture of everything, a porridge, judge for yourself whether there is oil in it.”

V. G. Belinsky, in the article “On the Russian Tale and the Stories of Mr. Gogol” (1835), did not highly appreciate A.’s articles on history: “I don’t understand how one can so thoughtlessly compromise one’s literary name. Is it really true that translating, or, better said, paraphrasing and reparodying some passages from Miller’s history, mixing them with your own phrases, means writing a learned article? In what case are learning also not comparable?..” A. did not have commercial success. In this regard, Gogol wrote to M.P. Pogodin on March 23, 1835: “...Please print an announcement about Arabesques in Moskovskie Vedomosti, that this book has aroused general curiosity, that the cost of it is terrible (NB, so far there has not been a penny of profit not received) and the like.” On October 7, 1835, Gogol complained to A.S. Pushkin: “My “Arabesques” and “Mirgorod” don’t work at all. God knows what that means. Booksellers are the kind of people who, without any conscience, could be hanged from the first tree.” Subsequently, Gogol did not value most of the works included in A. very highly. On November 16 (28), 1836, he wrote from Paris to M. P. Pogodin: “I’m scared to remember all my messes. They appear to my eyes as a kind of formidable accusers. The soul asks for oblivion, long oblivion. And if such a moth appeared that would suddenly eat all the copies of “The Inspector General”, and with them “Arabesques”, “Evenings” and all other nonsense, and for a long time no one spoke about me either in print or orally. words - I would thank fate. Only glory after death (for which, alas! I have not yet done anything) is familiar to the soul of a genuine poet. And modern fame is not worth a penny.” In the article “Russian Literature in 1841,” V. G. Belinsky noted that in A. “Gogol moves from cheerful comedy to “humor,” which for him consists in the opposition of contemplation of true life, in opposition to the ideal of life - with the reality of life. And therefore his humor makes only simpletons or children laugh; people who have looked into the depths of life look at his paintings with sad reflection, with heavy melancholy... Because of these monstrous and ugly faces, they see other, beautiful faces; this dirty reality leads them to contemplate the ideal reality, and what is, more clearly represents to them what should be ... "