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The Soviet Interpretation of Gogol*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2018

Robert L. Strong Jr.
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Extract

The 1952 centenary of Nikolai Gogol's death was an occasion widely observed throughout the Soviet Union. Statues of the writer were erected in various cities, new productions of his plays were staged, and even a number of films made their appearance. More important, perhaps, was the publication of a great many biographical and critical studies of Gogol, together with over seven million copies of the author's own works. When this figure is compared with the roughly eighteen million copies published during the entire period since the 1917 Revolution, it provides a good quantitative indication of the importance now attached to Gogol by Soviet critics.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , December 1955 , pp. 528 - 539
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1955

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References

* This article is a shortened form of the writer's Master's Essay, Gogol in Soviet Literary Criticism (Columbia Library, 1954, unpublished).

1 pisatel',”, “Velikij russkij Pravda, February 10, 1952, p. 1 Google Scholar.

2 “Pamjati velikogo russkogo khudozhnika slova Gogolja, N. V.,” Pravda, March 5, 1952, p. 2 Google Scholar.

3 Kataev, Valentin, “Nikolai Gogol,” Soviet Literature, No. 6 (1952), p. 174 Google Scholar.

4 The writer remembers one such cartoon portraying Dean Acheson as Khlestakov, but as yet he has not seen the ever-travelling John Foster Dulles cast in the role of Chichikov!

5 Vasilevich Gogol',”, “Nikolai Pravda, March 4, 1952, p. 1 Google Scholar.

6 Ibid.

7 Lunacharskij, A. V., “Gogol',” Krasnaja niva, No. 12 (1924), pp. 284-86Google Scholar; “'Revizor’, Gogolja-Meierkhokia,” Novyj mir, No. 2 (1927), pp. 187-95Google Scholar; Gogolja,”, “Chto vechno u Pravda, March 4, 1927, p. 2 Google Scholar.

8 Kogan, P. S., “Gogol',” Izvestija, March 4, 1927, p. 3 Google Scholar.

9 Starchakov, A., “Tvorchestvo i propoved',” Izvestija, March 29, 1934, p. 4 Google Scholar.

10 Khrapchenko, M. B., “Realizm Gogolja,” Literaturnyj kritik, No. 2 (1934), p. 13–32 Google Scholar.

Here we disagree with Khrapchenko. What Gogol was really criticizing was greed, stupidity, and hypocrisy, which are by no means the exclusive attributes of any one social order, class, or historical period.

11 V. A. Desnickij, “Zadachi izuchenija zhizni i tvorchestva Gogolja,” in N. V. Gogol '— Materialy i issledovanija, V. V. Gippius, editor (Moscow-Leningrad, 1936), II, 44. This book is especially valuable, since it contains an exhaustive bibliography of critical literature on Gogol covering the years from 1916 to 1934. It also lists the Soviet editions of Gogol's works during the same period.

12 M. V.Nechkina, , “Gogol’ u Lenina,” in N. V. Gogol'—Materialy … , pp. 534-72Google Scholar.

The term “egghead” seems to be more popular in this country at the present time.

13 Lafargue, Paul, Karl Marks, myslitel', chelovek, revoljucioner (Moscow, 1926), p. 108 Google Scholar.

14 Stalin, J. V., Rech’ na predvybornym sobranii izbiratelej Stalinskogo izbiratelnogo okruga goroda Moskvy (Moscow, 1937), p. 13 Google Scholar.

15 Literaturnyj kritik, No. 4 (1938).

16 Rjabov, I., “ ‘Revizor’ na scene Malogo Teatra,” Pravda, June 12, 1949, p. 3 Google Scholar. As might be expected, the specifically anti-American element here was sharply increased during the Korean fighting.

17 Ermilov, V. V., N. V, Gogol’ (Moscow, 1952), pp. 8–9 Google Scholar.

18 Ermilov, V. V., “Nekotorye voprosy teorii sovetskoj dramaturgii—O Gogolevskoj tradicii,” Literaturnaja gazeta, October 25, 1952, p. 3 Google Scholar.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid., October 28, 1952, p . 2.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid., October 30, 1952, p. 3.

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid., November 1, 1952, p. 3.

28 Ibid.

29 Mashinskij, S., Gogol’ i revoljucionnye-demokraty (Moscow, 1953), p. 6 Google Scholar.

30 See Hannaher's, William J. thoughtful analysis of this subject, Radishchev and Soviet Criticism: a Literary Reclamation Project, Columbia University Master's Essay (Columbia Library, 1954, unpublished)Google Scholar.

31 On the question of definitions and those who make them, the following well-known passage from Through the Loohing-Glass—And What Alice Found There is perhaps not entirely irrelevant:

“When I use a word,” Humpty-Dumpty [Malenkov-Ermilov] said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more or less.

“The question is,” said Alice [the “scholastic and pedantic” literary critic]

“whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty-Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.”

32 For a more detailed treatment of the influence of the Romantics on Gogol, particularly that of Maturin and DeQuincey, see Professor Simmons’, Ernest J. article, “Gogol and English Literature,” The Modern Language Review (October, 1931), pp. 445-50CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 A highly perceptive study of the dualism in Gogol's life and work may be found in a recent monograph by Professor Stilman, Leon, Nikolai Gogol, Columbia University Doctoral Dissertation (Columbia Library, 1958, unpublished)Google Scholar.