Where was the first audit position? Summary of a lesson on literature "The first productions of N.V. Gogol's comedy "The Inspector General" on Russian stages." Anna Andreevna Skvoznik-Dmukhanovskaya
About the first production of The Inspector General in St. Petersburg - page No. 1/1
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About the first production of The Inspector General in St. Petersburg
The comedy surprised the actors even during the first reading by its author. "What is it? Is this a comedy? - the listeners whispered to each other. To the participants in the performance it seemed difficult and incomprehensible. Actor of the Alexandria Theater Grigoriev wrote: “... this play is still like some kind of mystery for all of us.” Being present at the rehearsals, Gogol saw the confusion in which the actors were: they were embarrassed by the unusual characters of the play - officials, the lack of love intrigue, the language of comedy. However, neither the majority of the actors nor the theater inspector Khrapovitsky attached due importance to the author’s advice and ignored his instructions. Subsequently, Gogol wrote that “the costume design for most of the play was very bad and caricatured.” The only actor Sosnitsky who played the Mayor suited Gogol. He really captivated the audience in this role. Gogol also hoped for the actor Afanasyev, who played Osip and showed, according to the writer, “attention to words.” The performance of the brilliant vaudeville actor N. Duras in the role of Khlestakov was not a success. Instead of the lively, psychologically complex nature of Khlestakov, Dur brought to the stage a vaudeville scoundrel and helipad. By the way, this interpretation of the role became widespread in the 19th century.
The actors did not appreciate or understand the social content of the play. And yet, despite the fact that only two of the actors satisfied Gogol, The Inspector General made a stunning impression on the public. And the day of the first production, April 19, 1836, became a great day for the Russian theater. This premiere was attended by the tsar, who was pleased with the performance: “The play is very funny, just an intolerable curse on the nobles, officials, and merchants,” this is how he assessed the performance. One of the chroniclers wrote about the performance: “The success was colossal. The audience laughed until they dropped and were very pleased with the performance. The Emperor, leaving, said: “Everyone got it here, but most of all I.”
How did it happen that, given such an assessment, the play saw the light of day? It is believed that before passing the censorship committee, it was read and approved by Nicholas 1, who at first did not understand all the enormous power that exposed it, just as neither the actors nor the theater management understood it at first. Most likely, Nikolai believed that Gogol laughed at the ordinary towns, their life, which he himself despised from his height. He did not understand the true meaning of The Inspector General.
The first spectators were also perplexed. P.V. writes about this. Annenkov: “...intense attention, convulsive, intense following of all the shades of the play, sometimes dead silence showed that what was happening on stage passionately captured the hearts of the audience.” Confusion turned into indignation, which especially increased in Act 5. The general verdict was terrible: “This is an impossibility, slander and a farce.”
Literature:
Voitolovskaya E.L. Comedy N.V. Gogol "The Inspector General". A comment. L.: Education, 1971.
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About staging the play in Moscow
After the premiere at the Aleksaidriysky Theater, Gogol’s mood changed: he sent the play to the Moscow actors. In a letter to the actor Shchepkin, he asked “out of friendship” to “take over the entire production of The Inspector General,” and offered Shchepkin himself to take the role of the mayor.
Gogol was asked to come to Moscow and begin rehearsals, but this did not happen. However, he corresponded with Shchepkin and shared his thoughts about the production.
He asks that the role of Khlestakov not be played “with ordinary farces, as boasters and theatrical hangers play.”
On May 25, 1836, the premiere of The Inspector General took place at the Maly Theater. Only part of the audience got into the hall, since the administration declared the performance a subscription and thereby limited access to the performance for the general public. It was visited by aristocrats from social drawing rooms, unable to appreciate comedy.
According to the critic Nadezhdin, all the actors essentially did not understand Gogol’s plan: they had to play “without any increase,” that is, “simply, truly, quietly, good-naturedly.” And they wanted to make you laugh. Nadezhdin singles out the play of Shchepkin, who “did not enhance, did not parody, but still represented the mayor, was not him” given the “sharpness of the mayor, he should not have felt so constrained, forced...”
Shchepkin was not satisfied with either the actors’ performance or his own. In a letter to Gogol, he tried to explain why the public remained indifferent to comedy. “...One acquaintance,” he wrote, “amusingly explained this reason to me: “Have mercy,” he says, how could it be better accepted when half the public is taking, and half is giving.”
Subsequent performances were a success. The play became the topic of general conversation. Each time Shchepkin played the mayor more and more enthusiastically, becoming the leading figure of the play. One of the reviewers wrote about his performance: “... Shchepkin played his entire role with such perfection as can only be expected from an actor. It seems that Gogol copied his mayor from him, and he did not fulfill the role written by Gogol.” The actor was well acquainted with people like the mayor, a former serf; he hated power, as well as serfdom, which was organically connected with it.
In 1838, in the Moscow Gazette, V.G. Belinsky published an article devoted to a comparison of the performances of two actors, Shchepkin and Sosnitsky. In it, he bypassed the analysis of the St. Petersburg actor’s performance, giving preference to Shchepkin’s talent. “What animation, what simplicity, naturalness, grace! Everything is so true, deeply true... The actor understood the poet: both of them do not want to make caricatures, satires, or even epigrams; but they want to show a phenomenon of real life, a characteristic, typical phenomenon.”
From this and another article by Belinsky it is clear that thanks to Shchepkin and the common understanding of the play by the entire troupe, the production of The Inspector General in Moscow became a major social event that played an important role in the history of Russian theater.
There is no doubt that Gogol made changes to the text of the play thanks to the actors’ performances.
Literature:
Voitolovskaya E.L. Comedy N.V. Gogol "The Inspector General". A comment. L.: Education, 1971.
Comedy N.V. Gogol "The Inspector General".
QUIZ
1) What proverb did Gogol take as the epigraph to “The Inspector General”?
a) simplicity is enough for every wise man;
b) there is no point in blaming the mirror if the face is crooked;
c) don’t sit in your own sleigh.
2) Which of the characters in The Inspector General took bribes with greyhound puppies?
a) Lyapkin-Tyapkin;
b) Khlopov;
c) Strawberries.
3) What is Khlestakov’s distinctive feature?
a) frivolity;
b) cunning;
c) cowardice.
4) What measure against the auditor does the mayor consider the most reliable?
a) flattery and pandering;
b) a bribe.
5) Which of the characters in “The Inspector General” says about himself that he has “extraordinary ease of thought”?
a) Bobchinsky;
b) postmaster;
c) Khlestakov.
6) Who says this? “I’m at balls every day. There we had our own whist: the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the French envoy, the English, the German envoy and me. And you get so tired of playing that it’s simply not like anything else.”
7) Who is this talking about and about? *...you see, you need to show yourself in every city! It would be nice if there really was something worthwhile, otherwise the little Elistratista is simple!
8) Who writes to whom? “I hasten to inform you... that my condition was very sad, but, trusting in God’s mercy, for two pickled cucumbers especially and half a portion of caviar, a ruble twenty-five kopecks...”
9) Who writes to whom? “I hasten to notify you... what miracles happen to me... They lend me everything... The originals are terrible. You would die of laughter..."
10) Who dreams: “... some two extraordinary rats. Really, I’ve never seen anything like this: black, of unnatural size!”
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The image of St. Petersburg in the comedy “The Inspector General”
The image of St. Petersburg constantly appears in comedy. Khlestakov comes from St. Petersburg, which attracts county ladies. In the climactic scene of lies, the hero talks about the Petersburg of his dreams. At the same time, he lets it slip, and we learn about petty employees living in extreme poverty in St. Petersburg.
Let's get acquainted with an excerpt from V. Nabokov's article “Nikolai Gogol. State ghost."
“Oh, Petersburg! - exclaims Khlestakov, - what a life, really! You may think that I’m just rewriting (that’s actually the case), no, the head of the department is on friendly terms with me... they even wanted to make me a collegiate assessor, yes, I think why. And the watchman is still flying on the stairs after me with a brush: “Excuse me, Ivan Alexandrovich, they say, I’ll clean your boots.”
Later we learn that the watchman is called Mikheev and drinks bitter.
Then, according to Khlestakov, as soon as he goes out somewhere, the soldiers jump out of the guardhouse and point at him with a gun, and the officer, who is very familiar to him, says: “Well, brother, we completely mistook you for the commander in chief.”
When Khlestakov talks about his bohemian and literary connections, an imp appears playing the role of Pushkin: “On friendly terms with Pushkin. I used to often say to him: “Well, brother Pushkin?” - “Yes, brother,” he answered, it happened, “that’s how it all is...” Great original.”
And while Khlestakov rushes further in the ecstasy of fiction, a whole swarm of important people flies onto the stage, buzzing, crowding and pushing each other: ministers, counts, princes, generals, secret advisers, even the shadow of the tsar himself and “couriers, couriers... 35 a thousand couriers alone,” and then they all disappear at once in a drunken hiccup; but not before, through a gap in Khlestakov’s monologue, among this whole pack of gilded ghosts in dreamed ambassadors, for one dangerous moment a genuine figure appears... the poor official’s shabby cook, Mavrushka, who helps him take off his thin overcoat (the same one that Gogol then he will be immortalized as an integral part of an official in general).
The image of St. Petersburg also appears in Osip’s monologue, from which the reader learns the reasons why Khlestakov is not promoted: instead of taking office, he walks along the avenue and goes to theaters. So you can really believe Khlestakov’s words: “I only go into the department for two minutes...”.
“Plucking flowers of pleasure” is Khlestakov’s goal in life. He dreams of balls, of meeting foreign envoys and ministers. For all his superficiality, Khlestakov names the names of writers who were obviously well-known during his stay in St. Petersburg. St. Petersburg is the dream of all city officials and their wives. The mayor dreams of the rank of general, which he will receive in St. Petersburg. His wife Anna Andreevna wants “our house to be the first in the capital.”
But most importantly, the theme of retribution is connected with the image of St. Petersburg: they are waiting for an auditor from there. In scene 1 of the first act, the mayor says: “Inspector from St. Petersburg, incognito.” In the last act of Act 5, the gendarme “arrived at the personal order (that is, the Tsar) from St. Petersburg...”. With this image Gogol associated the idea of justice of power.
Literature:
Based on the book: Lectures on Russian literature. T. 1. M.: Publishing house. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 1998. pp. 64-65.
The history of the creation of Gogol's The Inspector General begins in the 1830s. During this period, the author worked on the poem “Dead Souls”, and in the process of describing the exaggerated features of Russian reality, he had the idea to display these features in comedy; “my hand is shaking to write... a comedy.” Previously, Gogol had already made a successful debut in this genre with the play “Marriage,” in which both the comic techniques characteristic of the author and the realistic orientation characteristic of subsequent works had already been outlined. In 1835, he wrote to Pushkin: “Do me a favor, give me a plot, the spirit will be a comedy of five acts and, I swear, it will be funnier than the devil.”
The plot suggested by Pushkin
The story proposed by Pushkin to Gogol as a plot actually happened to the publisher of the journal “Otechestvennye zapiski” P.P. Svinin in Bessarabia: in one of the district towns he was mistaken for a government official. There was a similar case with Pushkin himself: he was mistaken for an auditor in Nizhny Novgorod, where he went to collect material about the Pugachev rebellion. In a word, this was the very “purely Russian anecdote” that Gogol needed to realize his plan.
Work on the play took only two months - October and November 1835. In January 1836, the author read out the finished comedy at an evening with V. Zhukovsky in the presence of many famous writers, including Pushkin, who suggested the idea. Almost everyone present was delighted with the play. However, the story of “The Inspector General” was still far from over.
“In The Inspector General, I decided to collect in one pile everything bad in Russia that I knew then, all the injustices that are being done in those places and in those cases where justice is most required from a person, and at one time laugh at everything.” - this is how Gogol spoke about his play; This is exactly the purpose he saw for it - merciless ridicule, cleansing satire, a weapon in the fight against the abominations and injustices that reign in society. However, almost no one, even among his fellow writers, saw in “The Inspector General” anything more than a solid, high-quality “situation comedy.” The play was not allowed to be staged immediately and only after V. Zhukovsky personally had to convince the emperor of the comedy’s reliability.
First premiere of "The Inspector General"
The premiere of the play in its first edition took place in 1836 at the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. Gogol was disappointed with the production: the actors either did not understand the satirical orientation of the comedy, or were afraid to play in accordance with it; the performance turned out to be too vaudeville, primitively comic. Only I.I. Sosnitsky, who played the role of the Mayor, managed to convey the author's intention and introduce satirical notes into the image. However, performed even in such a form, which was very far from the author’s desire, the comedy caused a stormy and controversial reaction. The “tops” of society, denounced by Gogol, still felt ridicule; the comedy was declared “impossibility, slander and farce”; According to unconfirmed reports, Nicholas I himself, who was present at the premiere, said: “Well, what a play!
Everyone got it, and I got it the most.” Even if these words were not actually spoken, it reflects well how the public perceived Gogol's bold creation.
And yet, the autocrat liked the play: the risky comedy was allowed for further productions. Taking into account his own observations of the game, as well as the comments of the actors, the author repeatedly made edits to the text; The creation of the play “The Inspector General” by Gogol in its final version continued for many years after the first production. The latest edition of the play dates back to 1842 - this is the version that is known to the modern reader.
Author's commentary on the comedy
The long and difficult history of the creation of the comedy “The Inspector General” is inseparable from Gogol’s numerous articles and comments on his play. The misunderstanding of the idea by the public and the actors forced him to write again and again in an attempt to clarify his idea: in 1842, after staging the comedy in its final version, he published “A warning for those who would like to play “The Inspector General” properly,” then “Theater Road Trip.” after the presentation of the new comedy,” later, in 1856, “The denouement of The Inspector General.”
Conclusion
As we can see, the history of the creation of the play “The Inspector General” indicates that writing this work was not so easy for the author, taking him a lot of both strength and time. And, nevertheless, comedy found its connoisseurs among enlightened and thinking people. The Inspector General received very high marks from many leading critics; Thus, V. Belinsky writes in his article: “In The Inspector General there are no better scenes, because there are no worse ones, but all are excellent, as necessary parts that artistically form a single whole...”. Many other representatives of enlightened society shared a similar opinion, despite the flow of criticism against the comedy and the author himself. Today, the play “The Inspector General” occupies a well-deserved place among the masterpieces of Russian classical literature and is a brilliant example of social satire.
Work test
The “Inspector” was sent to the III Department on February 27, 1836 for permission to submit. On March 2, a resolution was received: “Approved for presentation.” Censor Oldekop seemed not to have read the comedy. He hastily wrote: “The play does not contain anything reprehensible.” “The Inspector General” was approved for publication on March 13, and on April 19, 1836 it was shown in St. Petersburg at the Alexandrinsky Theater, and on May 23, 1836 in Moscow at the Maly Theater. The mayor was played in St. Petersburg by I.I. Sosnitsky, in Moscow - M.S. Shchepkin. Gogol was dissatisfied with the St. Petersburg production.
In the article “A warning for those who would like to play The Inspector General properly,” the author gave the following instructions to the actors: “The thing to be most careful about is not to fall into caricature. There should be nothing exaggerated or trivial even in the last roles. On the contrary, it is necessary The actor should especially try to be more modest, simpler and, as it were, nobler than the person who is being presented actually is. The less the actor thinks about making people laugh and being funny, the more funny the role he has taken will be revealed.
"Inspector". Poster for the first performance of the play in St. Petersburg. 1836
The funny will reveal itself by itself precisely in the seriousness with which each of the persons depicted in the comedy is busy with his work. They are all busily, fussily, even passionately busy with their work, as if it were the most important task of their lives. The viewer can only see from the outside the trifle of their worries. But they themselves do not joke at all and certainly do not think that anyone is laughing at them. An intelligent actor, before grasping the small quirks and minor features of the external face of the person assigned to him, must try to capture the universal human expression of the role. Must consider why this role is recognized; must consider the main and primary concern of each person, on which his life is spent, which constitutes a constant subject of thoughts, an eternal nail sitting in the head. Having caught this main concern of the person he has taken, the actor must be filled with it himself in such a force that the thoughts and aspirations of the person he has taken are assimilated to him and remain in his head inseparably during the entire performance of the play. He doesn't have to worry much about private scenes and little things. They will come out on their own successfully and deftly, if only he does not for a moment throw out of his head this nail that has lodged itself in the head of his hero. All these particulars and various small accessories, which even such an actor can so happily use, who knows how to tease and capture gait and movement, but not create the entire role, are nothing more than paints that need to be applied already when the drawing is composed and done right. They are the dress and body of the role, not its soul. So, first of all, it is this role’s soul that should be captured, and not its dress.”
Portrait of N.V. Gogol at the rehearsal of the play “The Inspector General” at the Alexandrinsky Theater. Drawing by P.A. Karatygina. 1836
Gogol's comedy caused the most controversial assessments in society. Many laughed, seeing The Inspector General as nothing more than a funny farce. Among those laughing was Emperor Nicholas I, who exclaimed: “Well, a play! Everyone got it, and I got it more than anyone else.” Most of the officials present at the performances guessed the serious, revealing meaning of the comedy. “Comedy was recognized by many as a liberal statement,” wrote Prince P.A. Vyazemsky, - like, for example, Beaumarchais’s comedy “The Barber of Seville”, is recognized as some kind of political brand, thrown into society under the guise of comedy... Some welcomed it, rejoiced at it as a bold, albeit covered up, attack on the powers that be. According in their opinion, Gogol, having chosen his provincial town as a battlefield, was aiming higher... From this point of view, others, of course, looked at comedy as an assassination attempt on the state: they were excited, frightened by it, and in the unfortunate or happy comedian they saw almost a dangerous rebel “Gogol wrote to M.S. Shchepkin on April 29, 1836: “The effect produced by it [the comedy] was great and noisy. Elderly and respectable officials shouted that nothing was sacred to me when I dared to speak like that about serving people. The police are against me, the merchants are against me, the writers are against me. They scold me and go to the play; they can’t get tickets for the fourth performance.<...>If it were not for the high intercession of the Sovereign, my play would never have been on stage, and there were already people trying to ban it. Now I see what it means to be a comic writer."
The truth said by Gogol rose to a high generalization. The bureaucratic tribe could not forgive Gogol for this. They began to accuse him of crushing the foundations of society - after all, the characters in the comedy and thousands of their prototypes considered themselves to be the founders of the foundations. “To say about a rogue that he is a rogue is considered in our country to undermine the state machine; to say just one living and true line means, in translation, to disgrace the entire class and arm others or his subordinates against it,” Gogol noted with pain. He very accurately formulated his thought about the situation of the satirical writer in Russia: “It’s sad when you see what a pitiful state our writer is in. Everything is against him, and there is no equivalent side for him. “He’s a firebrand!” He is a rebel!" And who is speaking? These are people of state speaking, people who have earned a reputation, experienced people who should have some intelligence to understand the matter in its true form, people who are considered educated and whose world, at least Russian the world, calls them educated. They brought rogues onto the stage, and everyone is in bitterness, why bring rogues onto the stage.”
Questions and tasks
- Read the textbook articles and other materials available to you about the comedy “The Inspector General.” Prepare a report on the creative and stage history of comedy.
- Why was Gogol's comedy received sharply negatively by the bureaucratic world and all adherents of class orders? What justification does the writer himself give for this?
Living word
Watch one of the modern theatrical productions of the play and write a review of it.
The events described in the play take place in the provincial town of N, where fate brought one scoundrel, whom local officials mistakenly mistook for an auditor, and he, without being confused, managed to take advantage of the current situation for his own benefit. For many, the history of the creation of Gogol’s comedy “The Inspector General” is covered in a veil of secrecy that surrounded not only the writer’s personal life, but also his entire work. There is still no exact information about the beginning of writing the comedy, only assumptions and conjectures, which further fuels the reader’s interest in this work.
Concept
The idea of writing a topical comedy had been spinning in the writer’s head for a long time, but he couldn’t put his thoughts together. Nikolai Vasilyevich turns to a friend with a request to suggest the plot of a future comedy.
Gogol knew for sure that the comedy would be in five acts. Each of them is funnier than the previous one. Letter from A.S. Pushkin had the following content:
“...whether it’s funny or not, it’s a purely Russian joke. My hand is trembling to write a comedy in the meantime. If this doesn’t happen, then my time will be wasted, and I don’t know what to do then with my circumstances... Do me a favor, give me a plot...”
Pushkin immediately responded to the call for help. Having recently returned from Mikhailovsky, he told Gogol a story that at one time had excited him to the depths of his soul. This was in October 1835. This period of time is considered the starting point in the writing of The Inspector General.
The idea of creation
There are many versions regarding the creation of “The Inspector General”. Most often the name A.S. appears in articles. Pushkin. It was he who pushed Gogol to write a comedy. Pushkin had a story ready that was quite suitable for the future plot. It was about Pavel Petrovich Svinin. During a trip to Bessarabia, this comrade pretended to be a high-ranking official, an official from St. Petersburg. Having quickly settled into the new place and taken on the role of an auditor, Pavel Petrovich felt quite comfortable until he was caught asking for his hand. This was the end of his comfortable life.
There was another version of the creation of the play. Some dared to suggest that Pushkin himself had to find himself in the role of an auditor. When Pushkin was visiting the Nizhny Novgorod region, collecting information about the Pugachev rebellion for “The Captain’s Daughter,” General Buturlin mistook the writer for an important official whose visit to their region was expected any day.
It is no longer possible to know which of the two versions is the real one. Nevertheless, the similarity between Khlestakov and Svinin is very obvious. This was noticed by many writers when analyzing Pushkin’s letters and the text of The Inspector General. Disputes arose on another issue. How can you write a work of considerable length in a couple of months? According to researcher A.S. Dolinin's rough sketches were always easy for Gogol. This cannot be taken away. Most of his time was spent on finalizing the material. Based on this, he suggested that Gogol received the plot of the future work from Pushkin much earlier than in October 1835.
The genre of The Inspector General is social comedy. Gogol tried to reflect in her
“...everything bad in Russia that I knew then, all the injustices that are being done in those places and in those cases where what is most required of a person is justice, and at one time laugh at everything.”
Work on The Inspector General was constantly being reworked. Gogol tried to bring the text to perfection. The catch was a detailed description of the characters' characters. He came up with artistic images right away, but he couldn’t convey the exact character of the main characters the first time. He had to edit “The Inspector General” six times until he got what he wanted. This was in 1842. After being staged, the comedy had mixed reactions. She was praised and scolded at the same time. For some, it caused deep bewilderment. Gogol was upset. This was not the effect he expected from the public. People failed to fully understand the meaning of the play. Not a single one of the viewers during the viewing even thought of shifting the plot onto themselves and even for a minute imagining that everything described could happen to each of us. In any city, anywhere, any time.
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol - life and work
“I am considered a mystery to everyone; no one can solve me completely.”, - this is how the most modest and, perhaps, the most mysterious classic of the 19th century spoke about himself. An exposer of social vices, a brilliant satirist, the author of the greatest works of Russian literature, a man whose name streets and educational institutions still bear - Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol.
The future writer was born on April 1, 1809 in the Poltava province. He became the third child in the family - the previous two were born dead. As a child, Gogol lived in the village, and at the age of 12 he entered the Gymnasium of Higher Sciences. He studied poorly, being actively interested only in drawing and Russian literature, but he had an excellent memory, which helped him prepare for exams in just a few days.
Having moved to St. Petersburg in 1828, Nikolai faced financial problems, so he tried himself in different directions: he tried to become an actor, an official, and studied literature. Under a pseudonym, he published the romantic idyll “Hanz Küchelgarten,” but due to the barrage of criticism that fell on the work, he personally bought the entire edition from stores and burned it.
The influence of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin
Gogol had been reading Pushkin since childhood, and when he arrived in the capital, he managed to meet him personally. “This is real gaiety, sincere ease, without affectation, without stiffness. And in places what poetry!..”, - the poet said about his new comrade, whom they met in 1831. He appreciated Nikolai's talent and offered him some ideas for works.
For example, Alexander Sergeevich sketched out a plan for a comedy about a man mistaken in the provinces for a metropolitan official - this is how “The Inspector General” appeared. And Gogol’s most famous work, “Dead Souls,” had a similar creation story. As the author later admitted, after presenting the idea of the work, Pushkin said that “This plot of Dead Souls is good for Gogol because it gives complete freedom to travel all over Russia with the hero and bring out many different characters.”
The mystical component of Gogol's image
As mentioned above, a very large number of secrets, myths and guesses are associated with the name of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. Starting with the story of the writer’s skull “turned over in his coffin”, ending with Bulgakov’s recovery from drug addiction through the nightly arrival of the already dead Gogol - by collecting all the existing legends, you can get a thick book.
We most likely will not be able to establish the authenticity of all these legends; moreover, we do not know how exactly the great writer died in 1852. Exhaustion and loss of strength, lethargic sleep, unintentional poisoning by doctors - and these are just a few versions of the author’s death.
"Inspector"
Gogol decided to “gather everything bad in Russia into one pile” - this is how the comedy turned out, which became a classic of Russian literature - “The Inspector General”. The plot is known to everyone: officials in a provincial town mistake a young man passing through for an inspector from the capital. The whole plot is built on this, the vices of society and officials are exposed and ridiculed. Critical reviews from Belinsky and Herzen assigned an accusatory, satirical meaning to the comedy.
The composition of “The Inspector General” is circular, with the unity of place, time and action typical for a work of the classicist era. Nevertheless, Gogol allowed himself to deviate from the dogmas of classicism and did not give “speaking” surnames to the main characters.
The character system in The Inspector General is also funny. So Gogol tries to cover as much as possible all aspects of public life, presenting his heroes in various industries. Power, police, education, healthcare, post office - we get a very broad view of the Russian government.
It is important to understand that the time period of The Inspector General is immediate modernity at the time of writing, that is, the events take place approximately in 1831. Everything we see in comedy is the quintessence of the human vices of that society. Theft, lies, hypocrisy, fear, bribery - everyone got what they deserved.
The most valuable thing about The Inspector General is its relevance, topicality, and contemporary significance. Gogol hit the nail on the head, pointing out the eternal problems and flaws of Russian society and ridiculing the negative qualities that every person can find in himself.
"The Inspector General" on stage
The first production of Gogol's work took place at the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. A full hall gathered for the premiere, and representatives of the authorities were also present: the emperor and officials. The performance was a success - Nicholas I laughed and clapped a lot, and leaving the box he said: “Well, a play! Everyone got it, and I got it more than everyone else!”
But despite the emperor’s satisfaction, Gogol was in despair - it seemed to him that there were many shortcomings in the acting, and the audience laughed at the wrong moments where they should have laughed. Nikolai Vasilyevich perceived the release of several critical reviews as persecution, but throughout the 19th century, “The Inspector General” appeared on stage time after time, becoming the main production of many theaters for a long time.
In the 20th century, a very important production of The Inspector General was the creation of director Vsevolod Meyerhold. He combined the text of six editions of the play. The appearance of the actors corresponded to their description in the work, so he showed on stage not just images, but “people from life.” The symbolism and realism of the image made the performance a “hyperbolic mirror” of the world of old Russia.
“Viy”, “Souls”, “Marriage”, “Players”, “May Night”, “Mama”, “The Night Before Christmas” and, of course, “The Inspector General” - a huge number of productions are still running in theaters across the country based on the works of Gogol.
The writer very highly appreciated the role of theater in the life of society. He believed that theater should educate and teach people. It seems at first that this is the approach of the authors of the times of classicism, when the educational function was assigned to literature and drama. Gogol believed that the play “must be seen with one’s own eyes,” that is, to rethink the classics, making them relevant. They didn’t understand him, or rather, he could only feel what needed to be done, but could not explain. Hence, in particular, the dissatisfaction with the first production of The Inspector General.
Gogol's places
During his not very long life, Gogol left his mark in many places. Monuments to him were erected in St. Petersburg, Dnieper, Volgograd, Kyiv, Poltava, and many other cities. Also, a monument to the writer can be seen on Nikitsky Boulevard, in Moscow, in the house where the author spent the last years of his life. In 2008, a three-meter sculpture of the writer was installed in Mirgorod, surrounded by characters from his works.
One of the most famous places in Moscow bearing the name of the playwright is the Gogol Center. Moscow Drama Theater reorganized by Kirill Serebrennikov. Gogol, the center brings together all the trends of world art, hosts performances by directors from all over the world, and provides the opportunity to attend lectures, discussions, and concerts. “Territory of Freedom” is what its leaders call their creation. The Gogol Center collects a huge theatrical video archive under its roof, holds screenings of films not released in Russian cinemas, and a discussion club provides an opportunity to discuss the most pressing issues in the field of art.
