Unknown lines in Nikolai Gogol’s notebook

There is an unknown note by Nikolai Gogol in his pocket notebook. The reasons why it has remained unpublished for a long time are thoroughly highlighted. What is listed are similar – numerous – Nikolai Gogol’s texts of religious content, which also used to be inaccessible to the Soviet reader for a long time for ideological reasons. In the ninth volume of the academic Nikolai Gogol's Complete Works of 1937–1952, where a notebook was printed for the first time from an autograph, only one line in the notes was devoted to a note which had been entitled “To pray” by Nikolai Gogol himself. In addition to the title, the laconic information provided by the volume commentator Georgiy Fridlender, the content of Nikolai Gogol's recording was not disclosed in any way. In turn, the error made by the same commentator in the dating of the note is corrected. The data are given in favour of the fact that the record was made not in 1846, as the researcher believed, but three years earlier, in the summer of 1843. The connection of the 1843 note with the final religious-patriotic book of Nikolai Gogol "Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends" 1846, as well as the invariability of the political views of the writer.

Reflexões comparadas sobre a ética utilitarista nas obras "A carteira", de Machado de Assis, e "O capote", de Nikolai Gogol

Sob a luz das obras A ética protestante e o “espírito” do capitalismo, de Max Weber (2007), e As ideias fora do lugar, de Roberto Schwarz (1992), este trabalho visa à análise comparativa dos contos A carteira, de Machado de Assis (2019), e O capote, de Nikolai Gogol (2001). Assim, a contraposição dos contextos das obras evidenciou grande semelhança entre as sociedades - como Schwarz deixa claro -, o que reflete na proximidade das características morais das personagens dos contos. Tais características, sobretudo referentes à economia, deixam clara a discrepância da ética presente em países protestantes – descritos por Weber. Em A carteira, Machado nos apresenta Honório como protagonista, o qual preza pela imagem de homem honrado, e, principalmente, pela manutenção de seus créditos social e financeiro, ainda que desenvolva questionamentos morais ao longo do conto. Já em O capote, Gogol faz com que Akaki seja a representação do homem que preza pelo trabalho pelo viés tradicionalista – sem visar ao acúmulo de dinheiro ou ao lucro. Os contos analisados, por serem verossímeis, apresentam, respectivamente, características sociais do Brasil Império e da Rússia czarista e, portanto, suas personagens reproduzem padrões éticos vigentes na época – o que permite analisar e comparar as obras e os contextos em que estas estão inseridas. Por meio deste trabalho, a ética utilitarista – pregada por Benjamin Franklin e descrita por Weber – se mostrou presente em ambas as sociedades, ainda que o tradicionalismo estivesse presente, o que evidenciou o fato de que tais elementos não são excludentes.

Nicholas I in Rome (1845). The Artistic Aspect of the Visit in the Assessments of Nikolai Gogol

The article analyzes the part of the Nicholas’ I artistic program in Rome that was previously insufficiently studied (acquisitions in Italy of works of modern painting, orders for copies from Italian and other masterpieces of classical painting, etc.). Based on documents stored in domestic and foreign archives, the author characterizes the artistic preferences of the Russian emperor, his contribution to the formation of the museum fund of St. Petersburg and Russia; establishes the relationship between the visit of the emperor to Rome and the creation of the artistic and architectural appearance of St. Petersburg and its main temple – St. Isaac’s Cathedral, as well as the revival of the mosaic case in Russia.

Kolonizacja wewnętrzna Rosji w ujęciu Aleksandra Etkinda

The article aims to present the most important theses contained in the book of an outstanding Russian postcolonial researcher Alexander Etkind. At the heart of his deliberations lies the assumption that the Russian empire not only dominated foreign territories, but also native territories located in the central governorates of the state. The process was accompanied by colonization of the local population, above all — peasants. Etkind considers the Russian serfdom law and rural community as typical colonial institutions. His interests remain in some writers’ attempts to explain the phenomenon of internal colonization. A combination of methods used in historical and literary research results in an interesting interpretation of texts written by Daniel Defoe, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol, Joseph Conrad, Immanuel Kant and Mikhail Bakhtin, reflecting their authors’ imperial experience. In the article, I focus on the issues included in the introduction and the first two parts of the book.

P. Merime’s Essay “Nikolai Gogol”

Merimee’s essay “Nikolai Gogol”, in which the author presented the Russian writer as an imitator of European models, a satirist who focused on portraying the flaws of Russian life, a writer who neglects the plausibility of the overall composition is considered in the article. The author of this article shows that such a superficial and biased approach to Gogol’s texts aroused indignation among Russian journalists in both 19th century capitals and continues to be criticized by Russian and French literary critics. The results of a comparative analysis of the essay “Nikolai Gogol” with reviews of French-speaking journalists who wrote about the author of “The Inspector General” and “Dead Souls” in Parisian magazines of the 1840s are presented in the article. The question is raised that the motives that prompted Merimee to turn to the work of Gogol, and the reasons for the bias in relation to his work are still unrevealed. The novelty of the research is seen in the fact that the essay by Mérimée is for the first time considered as a commentary on the stable aesthetic position of the French writer, discordant with the poetics of romanticism and realism. The author dwells on the study of a number of artistic devices of the works of Merimee in the 1820—1840s and his genre preferences in the 1850s.

Les Joueurs de Nikolaï Gogol, vertige des masques

International audience Ixarev, un tricheur professionnel qui a fabriqué son propre jeu de cartes, rencontre un jour une bande organisée d'homologues qui lui offrent de collaborer avec eux, sous la direction de leur mentor, le Consolateur ; au moyen de la flatterie, ils obtiennent du tricheur l'abandon de toute méfiance, et en lui proposant de plumer une victime, ils l'entraînent en fait à participer à sa propre déconfiture. Voici en quelques mots le propos des Joueurs, pièce dont l'écriture commence entre 1832 et 1837, achevée en 1842, puis publiée la même année dans la première édition des oeuvres complètes de Nikolaï Gogol, préparée sous sa direction. Ce texte constitue un exemple remarquable d'imposture. Il mêle en effet d'une part le discours du mensonge, qui consiste à tromper autrui, et le discours de l'illusion, qui consiste à se tromper soi-même, et met en scène un jeu de masques vertigineux : le masque de sincérité arboré par le Consolateur, conjugué à l'aveuglement d'Ixarev, le passionné du jeu, parvient à se faire passer pour un visage, et la pièce nous amène au point d'indistinction entre ces deux phénomènes.

Nikolai Gogol in silent films

The article is devoted to the problem of Nikolai Gogol's interpretation on Russian screen. The problem of interaction between literature and cinematography is considered in a concrete historical plan, that is connected with the features of the time in which Gogol`s film adaptations were created. At the same time, the level of technical equipment of cinematography and other inherent qualities of it, that are largely determined the approach of the first directors to specific Gogol material, were taken into account. Cinema interpretations like «Dead Souls» by Pyotr Chardynin, «Taras Bulba» by Alexander Drankov, «Christmas Eve» and «The Portrait» by Ladislas Starevich, «The Overcoat» by Georgi Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg are in the centre of the article. Each of the listed film adaptations has its own specifics determined by close connection with other types of art, fragmentariness, melodramatic, an abundance of phantasmagorias, etc. «The Overcoat» stands out in the list of silent interpretations, since presents a new look at the process of Gogol's translation from the language of literature into the cinema language. Compared to previous films, the creators of the 1926 cinematic version of «The Overcoat» took into account Gogol's style, the mood of his work, recreated through the picture of the ghostly expressionist Petersburg.