Mysticism in the lives of famous writers. “Mystical” in the works of N.V.

PROFESSOR OF IMMORTALITY

Mystical works of Russian writers

ALEXEY NIKOLAEVICH APUKHTIN1840–1893

Famous Russian poet. Author of a number of popular romances. From an old noble family. As a child, he received an excellent education at home. He began writing poetry at the age of ten. All my life I admired the poetry of A.S. Pushkin. In 1852 he entered the Imperial School of Law. I studied brilliantly. He began to appear in print in 1854, that is, at the age of 14. After graduating from the School, he served first in the Ministry of Justice, and then in the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Last years I was very sick.

Apukhtin began writing prose only at the end of his life - in the early 90s of the 19th century. Moreover, he made no attempts to publish his stories, although “The Diary of Pavlik Dolsky” and “From the Archives of Countess D.” are distinguished by undoubted literary merits and are of great interest in our time.

The story “Between Death and Life” was written in 1892. The main idea of ​​the story is “there is no death, there is only one endless life,” and the human soul, returning to earth many times, is, by divine will, infused into a new body, chosen by the Lord God himself.

Alexey Apukhtin

BETWEEN DEATH AND LIFE

C'est un samedi, a six

heures du matin, que je suis mort.

It was eight o'clock in the evening when the doctor put his ear to my heart, raised a small mirror to my lips and, turning to my wife, said solemnly and quietly:

- Everything is over.

From these words I guessed that I had died.

As a matter of fact, I died much earlier. For more than a thousand hours I lay motionless and could not utter a word, but occasionally I continued to breathe. Throughout my illness, it seemed to me that I was chained with countless chains to some blank wall that was tormenting me. Little by little the wall let go of me, the suffering decreased, the chains weakened and fell apart. Within two last days I was held by some kind of narrow ribbon; now it broke off, and I felt such lightness that I had never experienced in my life.

An unimaginable turmoil began around me. My large office, into which I was transferred from the beginning of my illness, was filled with people who all at once began to whisper, talk, and sob. The old housekeeper Yudishna even began to cry in a voice that was not her own. My wife fell on my chest with a loud cry; she cried so much during my illness that I wondered where her tears still came from. Of all the voices, the senile, rattling voice of my valet Savely stood out. Even in my childhood, he was assigned to me as an uncle and did not leave me all my life, but now he was already so old that he lived almost without anything to do. In the morning he gave me a robe and shoes, and then the whole day he drank birch tree “for health” and quarreled with the rest of the servants. My death did not so much upset him as it embittered him, and at the same time gave him unprecedented importance. I heard him ordering someone to go get my brother, reproaching someone and giving orders about something.

My eyes were closed, but I saw and heard everything that was happening around me.

My brother came in, focused and arrogant as always. My wife could not stand him, but she threw herself on his neck, and her sobs doubled.

“Come on, Zoya, stop, because you won’t help with tears,” the brother said in an impassive and as if learned tone, “Save yourself for the children, believe that he’s better off there.”

He struggled to free himself from her embrace and sat her down on the sofa.

“We need to make some orders right now... Will you allow me to help you, Zoya?”

- Oh, Andre, for God's sake, manage everything... Can I really think about anything?

She began to cry again, and her brother sat down at the desk and called the efficient young bartender, Semyon, over to him.

– You will send this announcement to “New Time”, and then send for the undertaker; Yes, you need to ask him if he knows a good psalm-reader?

“Your Excellency,” answered Semyon, bending down, “there is no need to send for the undertaker, there are four of them here in the morning at the entrance.” We drove them and drove them, but they didn’t come, and that’s all. Will you order them to be called here?

- No, I'll go out onto the stairs.

And the brother read loudly the announcement he had written:

- “Princess Zoya Borisovna Trubchevskaya announces with emotional sadness the death of her husband, Prince Dmitry Alexandrovich Trubchevsky, which occurred on February 20, at 8 o’clock in the evening, after a serious and long illness. Funeral services are at 2 pm and 9 pm.” Is there anything else you need, Zoya?

- Yes, of course, nothing. But why did you write this terrible word: “sorrow”? Je ne puis pas souffrir ce mot. Mettez: with deep sorrow.

My brother corrected me.

– I am sending to “New Time”. Is this enough?

- Yes, of course, that’s enough. You can also see it in the Journal de S.-Pe(ters-bourg).

- Okay, I'll write in French.

- It doesn’t matter, they’ll transfer you there.

Brother left. My wife came up to me, sat down on a chair that stood near the bed, and looked at me for a long time with some kind of pleading, questioning look. In this silent look I read much more love and grief than in sobs and screams. She recalled our common life, in which there was a lot of all sorts of troubles and storms. Now she blamed herself for everything and thought about how she should have acted then. She was so lost in thought that she did not notice my brother, who had returned with the undertaker and had been standing next to her for several minutes, not wanting to disturb her thoughts. Seeing the undertaker, she screamed wildly and fainted. She was taken to the bedroom.

“Be calm, your Excellency,” said the undertaker, taking my measurements as unceremoniously as tailors once did, “we have everything in stock: both the cover and the chandeliers.” After an hour they can be transferred to the hall. And don’t be in any doubt about the coffin: the deceased’s coffin will be such that even a living person can lie in it.

The office began to fill up again. The governess brought the children.

Sonya rushed at me and sobbed just like her mother, but little Kolya stubbornly refused to come near me and roared with fear. Nastasya, his wife’s favorite maid, who had married the barman Semyon last year and was in last period pregnancy. She crossed herself sweepingly, she kept wanting to kneel down, but her stomach was in the way, and she lazily sobbed.

“Listen, Nastya,” Semyon told her quietly, “don’t bend over, no matter what happens.” You’d better go to your room: pray, and that’s enough.

- How can I not pray for him? - Nastasya answered in a slightly sing-song voice and deliberately loudly so that everyone could hear her. “It was not a man, but an angel of God.” Even now, just before his death, he remembered me and ordered that Sofya Frantsevna should always be with me.

GBOU gymnasium No. 505

Krasnoselsky district

Research

« Mysticism in the works of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol"

Completed by: Christina Olegovna Medova

Head: Tatyana Viktorovna Kryukova

2016

Saint Petersburg

Goals and objectives

Goals:

Find out whether mysticism is really present in the works of N.V. Gogol?

Tasks

Get acquainted with the biography of the writer, with the works of the writer;

Trace the history of the emergence of mystical motifs in the works of N.V. Gogol

See the role of mystical motifs in the writer’s work

Plan

Introduction. Gogol as the most mysterious figure of Russian literature.

Main part.

1. Path N.V. Gogol into literature

   Folk fiction in “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka.”

2.1 The image of the devil in “The Night Before Christmas”.

2.2 Fantastic plot in “Terrible Revenge”.

2.3 The mystical image of a cat in “May Night or the Drowned Woman” and in “Old World Landowners.”

1. Gogol's passion for mysticism and practical jokes.

   The mysterious death of a writer.

Conclusion

1. Bibliography.

Introduction

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809 - 1852) –one of the most original Russian writers. His books are read all my life, each time in a new way. His word is perceived today as prophetic. Gogol is a man of an exceptional, tragic fate, a thinker who sought to unravel the historical fate of Russia.

It is impossible to overestimate the influence that Gogol had on Russian, and indeed on world literature. Dostoevsky, speaking about himself and his literary contemporaries, said that they all came out of Gogol’s “The Overcoat.”

Domestic and foreign theater and cinema have turned and continue to turn to Gogol’s work, finding new content in it.

There is no more mysterious figure in Russian literature than this great Russian writer.Undoubtedly, one of the reasons for Gogol’s mystery is the mysticism in his work.

Problematic question:Is mysticism really present in the works of N.V. Gogol?

Tasks:

get acquainted with the biography of the writer, with the works of the writer;

trace the history of the emergence of mystical motifs in the works of N.V. Gogol

see the role of mystical motifs in the writer’s work

Targetwork:

Consider the features of mystical motifs in the works of N.V. Gogol.

Comparison of literary mystical images created by N.V. Gogol, with their folklore prototypes, identifying similarities;

Consideration of the features of Gogol's mystical characters;

Research into the reasons for the manifestation of mysticism in the works being studied, their value for the plot and ideological content

An objectresearch: works of N.V. Gogol

Itemresearch: works of N.V. Gogol “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”.

To understand the meaning of mystical motifs in the works of N.V. Gogol, it is necessary to trace their connections with the folk art, with the objective reality that surrounded the writer, to identify the place of each of the two worlds in the holistic system of each of the works under consideration.

In this work, mystical motifs in the works of N.V. Gogol is studied from three points of view:

From a folklore point of view, that is, the mythological and folklore sources used by N.V. are explored. Gogol for creating works;

From a literary point of view, i.e., the specificity of mystical characters in Gogol’s works is examined, their difference from the original folklore prototypes;

From the point of view of their place in everyday reality, which also finds a place in Gogol’s stories.

N.V. Gogol was born in the town of Velikie Sorochintsy, Mirgorod district, Poltava province. Gogol came from an old Little Russian family; in the troubled times of Little Russia, some of his ancestors also pestered the Polish nobility. Gogol's grandfather Afanasy Demyanovich Yanovsky (1738-early 19th century). He came from a priestly background, graduated from the Kyiv Theological Academy, rose to the rank of second major and, having received hereditary nobility, invented a mystical pedigree for himself, going back to the mythical Cossack colonel Andre Gogol, who supposedly lived in the mid-eighteenth century. He wrote in an official paper that “his ancestors, with the last name Gogol, were of the Polish nation,” although he himself was a real Little Russian, and others considered him the prototype of the hero of “Old World Landowners.” Great-grandfather, Yan Gogol, a graduate of the Kyiv Academy, “went to the Russian side”, settled in the Poltava region, and from him came the nickname “Gogol-Yanovsky”. Gogol himself, apparently, did not know about the origin of this increase and subsequently discarded it, saying that the Poles had invented it.

Very early, his mother began to bring Nikolai to church. She insisted that it was necessary to maintain moral purity in the name of salvation. stories about a ladder that angels lower from heaven, giving their hand to the soul of the deceased. There are seven measures on this ladder; the last seventh raises the immortal soul of man to the seventh heaven, to the heavenly abodes. This one will then go through all of Gogol’s thoughts about the fate and calling of man to spiritual ascent and moral growth, to self-improvement.

Since then, Gogol has constantly lived “under the terror of retribution from beyond the grave.”

The boy's imagination was influenced in childhood by popular beliefs in brownies, witches, merman and mermaids. Mysterious world Gogol's impressionable soul absorbed folk demonology from childhood.

His inner world of Gogol was very complex and contradictory. He never opened up to anyone about his aspirations and plans - everyday and especially creative. He liked to mislead his friends and... Any successful hoax gave him the greatest joy.

He saw God's will in all the smallest events of life. A rude shout in class, a bad grade, or a runny nose was considered by him as supernatural attention. He was tormented by inexplicable premonitions that forced him to obey the Divine will.

Gogol's inclinations were already fully determined at the Nizhyn gymnasium. There he was called Mysterious Carlo - after one of the heroes of Walter Scott's novel "Black Dwarf".

By the end of his time at the gymnasium, he dreams of a wide social activities, which, however, he sees as not at all literary field; no doubt, under the influence of everything around him, he thinks to advance and benefit society in a service for which in fact he was completely incapable.

At the end of December 1828 Gogol ended up in St. Petersburg.

Ideas about St. Petersburg changed Nikolai Gogol's appearance to such an extent that he turned from an unkempt schoolboy into a real dandy. Without well-tailored clothes, he could not achieve, as it seemed to him, social prosperity.

Petersburg seemed to him a place where people enjoy all the material and spiritual benefits, but suddenly instead of all this there is a dirty, uncomfortable room, worries about how to have a cheaper lunch.

Gogol tried to find his calling in acting and teaching, and meanwhile the idea of ​​writing grew stronger in his mind.

Constantly communicating with friends, he did not open up to them about his intentions and did not want to take their advice. None of them knew about his plans to publish Gantz. All this was explained not by his timidity, but by his desire to assume some kind of mystery.

Critics noticed the author's abilities, but considered this work immature; it did not attract readers. Gogol was so shocked by the failure that he bought all the unsold copies of the book in stores and burned them. This was the beginning of acts of self-immolation, which Gogol repeated more than once and ended with the destruction of the second volume of Dead Souls.

The failure of the poem was also associated with another feature of behavior, which later also turned out to be constant for Gogol: having experienced a shock, he rushed out of Russia to the seaside city of Germany - Lubeck.

In his letters to his mother, he writes about the reasons for his departure, each time coming up with new excuses. First, he explained his departure by the need to treat a severe scrofulous rash that appeared on his face and hands, then he said that God had shown him the way to a foreign land, then by meeting a woman. As a result, Maria Gogol brought together two stories - about illness and about love passion - and concluded that her son had become infected with a venereal disease. This conclusion horrified Gogol. Just as the hero of his poem Gogol fled to find himself face to face with himself, he fled from himself, from the discord between his lofty dreams and practical life.

Gogol did not stay long in a foreign land. Later, his own prudence forced him to change his mind and, after a two-month absence, return to St. Petersburg.

Gradually, Gogol begins to become convinced that exactly literary creativity is his main calling. Gogol begins to write again, devoting all his leisure time to this work. Until the end of his life, Gogol never admitted to anyone that V. Alov was his pseudonym.

Gogol finds his way and achieves success. The doors to favorites opened for Gogol literary society: he meets V. A. Zhukovsky, P. A. Pletnev, and in May 1831. at the latter's party he was introduced to Pushkin.

After arriving in St. Petersburg, he begins to ask his loved ones to regularly send him information and materials about the customs and morals of “our Little Russians.”

Thus, one of the hypostases of Gogol’s demon lies in the phenomenon of “immortal human vulgarity.” This vulgarity is “the begun and unfinished, which presents itself as beginningless and infinite,” it denies God and is identified with universal evil.

As in Gogol's previous works, great place in the story " Terrible revenge"takes a fantastic plot. The bloody atrocities of the evil sorcerer-traitor from this story are terrible, but inevitable retribution will overtake him in due course.

"Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka"

The first part of “Evenings” was published in September 1831. It included four stories: “Sorochinskaya Fair”, “Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala”, “May Night” and “The Missing Letter”. Six months, at the beginning of March 1832 it appeared and the second part (“The Night Before Christmas”, “Terrible Revenge”, “Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and His Aunt”, “Enchanted Place”).

The world that opened up in “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” had little in common with the reality in which Gogol lived. It was a cheerful, joyful, happy world of a poetic fairy tale

The stories seem to be woven from Ukrainian fairy tales, songs, stories.

The story “The Night Before Christmas” begins with the witch flying out of the chimney on a broom and hiding the stars in her sleeve, and the devil steals the Moon and, getting burned, hides it in his pocket. The witch is the mother of the blacksmith Vakula, she knows how to “bewitch sedate Cossacks to herself.” A person not only is not afraid of “evil spirits,” he forces them to serve him. The devil, although he came straight from Hell, is not so scary: riding on the devil, Vakula flies to St. Petersburg to bring the wayward beauty Oksana the same slippers as the queen herself.

In the early cycles (“Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”, “Mirgorod”) the devil has real typological features. He has a “narrow muzzle, constantly spinning and sniffing whatever comes his way, ending, like our pigs, with a round snout”, “a sharp and long tail.” This is a small demon, conceptualized in folklore traditions.

Gogol’s devil is “an underdeveloped hypostasis of the unclean; a shaking, frail imp; the devil is one of the breed of small devils that appear to our drunkards.”

Fiction "Petersburg Tales"

In 1836, the premiere of The Inspector General took place at the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. But soon Gogol leaves abroad again. He leaves unexpectedly for his acquaintances and friends. It turned out that Gogol made the decision to leave even before the premiere of The Government Inspector, and it is not so easy to explain this action. Gogol had been abroad since 1836. to 1848. He traveled almost all Western Europe, lived the longest in his beloved Italy - a total of about four and a half years. Gogol also moved around the Mediterranean Sea, and before his final return to Russia, he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, to the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.

He waited for a long time in vain, but suddenly he received the image of the Savior from the preacher Innocent. This fulfillment of his desire seemed miraculous to him and was interpreted by him as a command from above to go to Jerusalem and, having cleansed himself with prayer at the Holy Sepulcher, ask for God’s blessing for his planned literary work.”

In March 1837, Gogol was in Rome. As Gogol said about his beloved Rome: “It seemed to me that I saw my homeland, which I had not been to for several years, and in which only my thoughts lived. But no, this is not all that: not my homeland, but the homeland of my soul, where my soul lived before me, before I was born.”

The city made a charming impression on him. The nature of Italy delighted and enchanted him. Under the life-giving rays of the Italian sun, Gogol's health strengthened, although he never considered himself completely healthy. His acquaintances made fun of his suspiciousness, but back in St. Petersburg he said quite seriously that doctors did not understand his illness, that his stomach was structured completely differently from that of other people, and this caused him suffering that others did not understand.

Gogol's passion for practical jokes and hoaxes.

But it was in Rome that the poet’s weak body could not stand it nervous tension, accompanying the enhanced creative activity. He caught a severe swamp fever. An acute, painful illness almost brought him to the grave and left marks for a long time, both on his physical and mental state. Her seizures were accompanied by nervous suffering, weakness, and loss of spirit.

Gogol with early years was suspicious, always attached great importance to your ill health.

Serious thoughts, which the proximity of the grave suggests to us, gripped him and did not leave him until the end of his life.

He had to reschedule several times serious illnesses, which further increased his religious mood; in his circle he found favorable soil for the development of religious exaltation - he adopted a prophetic tone, self-confidently gave instructions to his friends and, in the end, came to the conviction that what he had done so far was unworthy of the high goal to which he now considered himself called.

“A wonderful creation is happening and taking place in my soul,” he wrote in 1841, “and now my eyes are more than once filled with grateful tears.

Gogol has so far expressed this mystical, solemn view of his work to very few of his acquaintances. For others, he was his former pleasant, although somewhat silent interlocutor, a subtle observer, and a humorous storyteller.

.

The mystery of the writer's death

The tragic end of Gogol was accelerated by conversations with the fanatical priest Matvey Konstantinovsky, Gogol’s confessor, in recent months writer's life.

Instead of reassuring and reassuring the suffering person, he pushed him, seeking spiritual support, further towards mysticism. This fateful meeting ended the crisis.

In the circle of close friends, he was still cheerful and playful, willingly read his own and other people’s works, sang Little Russian songs in his “goat” voice, as he himself called it, and listened with pleasure when they were sung well. By spring, he planned to go to his native Vasilyevka for several months in order to strengthen his strength there, and promised his friend Danilevsky to bring a completely finished volume “ Dead souls».

In 1850, Nadezhda Nikolaevna Sheremeteva died, she was a close friend of Gogol, they agreed on the basis of piety and became very close. This death strengthened Gogol's desire to reunite with her soul in heaven and brought his martyrdom closer.

To the natural grief of loss loved one he was mingled with horror of an open grave. He was gripped by that painful “fear of death” that he had experienced more than once before.

His tragic death - a kind of suicide, when the writer deliberately starved himself to death, was caused by the realization of the impossibility of reconciling aesthetics and morality.

Three days later, the count came to Gogol again and found him sad.

On February 21, he died. The news of Gogol's death shocked all his friends, who did not believe the terrible premonitions until their last days. His body, as an honorary member of Moscow University, was transferred to the university church, where it remained until the funeral.

Present at the funeral were: Moscow Governor-General Zakrevsky, trustee of the Moscow educational district Nazimov, professors, university students and the mass of the public. The professors carried the coffin out of the church, and the students carried it in their arms all the way to the Danilov Monastery, where it was lowered into the ground next to the grave of their friend, the poet Yazykov.

Conclusion

The very circumstances of Gogol's death reek of the mystical horror of the last page of Viy. Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is one of the most mysterious, enigmatic Russian writers, a deeply religious, Orthodox man, he was no stranger to mysticism and believed that the devil led people after him, forcing them to commit evil deeds. Well, his compatriots, Ukrainians, have lived for centuries according to the principle: “Love God, but don’t anger the devil.”

The great writer died, and with him the work that he created for so long, with such love, died. Was this work the fruit of a fully developed artistic creativity or the embodiment in images of those ideas that are expressed in “Selected Passages of Correspondence with Friends” - this is a secret that he took with him to the grave.

“He died a victim of the lack of his nature - and the image of an ascetic burning his writings is the last that he left from his entire strange, so extraordinary life. “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay,” these words seem to be heard from behind the crackle of a fireplace, into which a brilliant madman throws his brilliant and criminal slander against human nature.”

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, who could not bear it and looked openly at the outrages that were happening around him, was buried in all church canons at the courtyard of the St. Daniel's Monastery.

Bibliography:

"Nikolay Gogol". Henri Troyat, M., "Eksmo", 2004

Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka. N.V. Gogol. Lectures - L.: 1962.

The art of detail: observation and analysis: about the work of Gogol./ E. Dobin. L.: “Owl. writer".

About the nationality of N.V. Gogol. – Kyiv, ed. Kyiv. Univ., 1973.

N.V. Gogol and Russian literature of the 19th century: Interuniversity. Sat. scientific tr. - L.: Leningrad State Historical Institute, 1989. – 131 p.

The life and work of N.V. Gogol: Materials for an exhibition at school. and children's bib-ke. – M.: Det.lit., 1980.

Sokolov B.V. Gogol deciphered. Viy. Taras Bulba. Inspector. Dead Souls. – M.: Yauza, Eksmo, 2007. – 352 p.

N.V. Gogol.

Usually, when we mention a particular writer known to us, we have certain associations associated with his work. For example, the name of Dostoevsky evokes in our memory scenes of despair, breakdown, driving the heroes to madness. When we remember Turgenev, we imagine the story of someone’s love, which, as a rule, ends in separation. As for Gogol, his name is often associated with various mystical stories that are both exciting and frightening. However, Gogol's talent lies not only in his ability to terrify his readers. Turning to “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka,” we can often notice the author’s irony about folk ideas about witches, devils and other otherworldly forces, as, for example, in this case: “The frost increased, and it became so cold above that the devil jumped from one hoof to another and blew into his fist, wanting to somehow warm up his frozen hands. It is not surprising, however, that someone who hustled from morning to morning in hell would freeze to death, where, as you know, it is not as cold as here in winter, and where, putting on a cap and standing in front of the fire, as if he were really a cook, he was roasting he treats sinners with the same pleasure with which a woman usually fries sausage for Christmas.”

Introducing us to bright colors stories with witches, ghosts and devils, Gogol enjoys these simple and rich images. The author reveals to us all the simplicity of Ukrainian folk ideas, while admiring their integrity. “...They laugh at everything you don’t tell them. Such disbelief spread throughout the world! Why, God and the Most Pure Virgin don’t love me! You may not even believe it: since I once mentioned witches, then what? a daredevil has been found who doesn’t believe in witches!”

What emerges before us is a completely pagan worldview, in which the cosmos is always fraught with chaos. But these realities in this case, are also combined with Christianity. Thus, demons no longer represent non-existence, but are endowed with the characteristics of sacred-chaotic creatures. Quite accurately capturing the worldview of a commoner, Gogol at times becomes seriously fascinated by him, forgetting about the necessary distance, and then many stories from the cycle of his Ukrainian works become truly scary. Suddenly, unexpectedly for the writer himself, his folklore witches and ghosts begin to pose some kind of real threat. Chaos pulls the heroes into itself so that there is no way out for them. And here we cease to be only observers and connoisseurs of folk traditions, but actually become immersed in them. And yet we do not enter this world as commoners. Gogol reveals it to us with all the complexity of his nature. The writer paints the lives of all these ordinary people in tones that are completely unusual for them. Drama appears in it: a reluctance to merge with chaos and the inability to resist its pressure. Let us recall, for example, one of the most famous stories Gogol - "Viy". Here it makes special sense for us to turn, first of all, to Gogol’s note regarding the very title of this work.

“Viy is a colossal creation of the common people’s imagination. This name is used by the Little Russians to call the chief of the gnomes, whose eyelids go all the way to the ground. This whole story is a folk legend. I didn’t want to change it in any way and I tell it almost in the same simplicity as I heard it.” First of all, we are alarmed here by the obvious overestimation of the abilities of the common people, the assignment of gigantic creative inclinations to them. Speaking in this way about folk tradition, Gogol not only unjustifiably exaggerates its significance, but practically bows to its simple creators. As a result, such a writer’s attitude towards all these simple-minded and at the same time gloomy stories forms in us a complex feeling that is not clear to us. In the same "Viye" the story of otherworldly forces and phenomena ceases to be just an admiration of folk naivety. In this work we are not faced with the fear that stories about witches and devils can inspire in the men gathered in the evening. Reading about how the philosopher Khoma Brut says prayers over the body of a witch in an empty church, we begin to feel real fear, no longer containing anything funny. When the lady rises in her coffin and rushes around Khoma, our horror is accompanied by confusion. It becomes obvious to us that Gogol himself in this case takes what is happening seriously. A similar conclusion follows at least from the fact that the story ends with the death of the philosopher. It is no longer the hero of some story that happened a long time ago, about which a loquacious narrator is now telling us, who encounters evil spirits here. No, in this case he dies main character- the one who was entrusted with the mission to enter into communication with the other world and emerge from it unharmed and who, however, failed to cope with this task. But then the author himself failed to cope with his task. In many of his other works, he solved it in such a way that he laughed at the Ukrainians who held their breath over yet another story about a witch. Gogol himself thus distanced himself from what was happening, making it fabulous, unreal.

“No, what I value most are our girls and young women; just show yourself to them: “Foma Grigorievich! Foma Grigorievich! and I'll give you some insurance to the Cossack! and chickpeas, chickpeas!..” - tara-ta-ta, ta-ta-ta, and they’ll go and go... Of course, it’s not a pity to tell you, but look at what happens to them in bed. After all, I know that each one is trembling under the blanket, as if she were struck by a fever, and would be glad to get headlong into her sheepskin coat. Scratch a rat with a pot, somehow hit a poker with its foot - and God forbid! and soul in your heels. And the next day nothing happened, it was imposed again: tell her a terrible fairy tale, and that’s all. What could I tell you? Suddenly it doesn’t come to mind. Yes, I’ll tell you how the witches played fool with their late grandfather.”

Everything here is full of lightness and playfulness. Reading such stories, it’s as if you are becoming a participant in some kind of folk gathering. Gogol's Little Russian works tune us in such a way that we involuntarily become enchanted and captivated by them.

It’s like a cheerful round dance, which you first join for the sake of inquisitive interest, begins to spin you around at a frantic pace, and you can no longer stop. We can say that the entire cycle of Gogol’s Little Russian stories is built on a continuous oscillation from fairy tale to “reality”, from skepticism to childish gullibility. And in this case, “Viy” certainly becomes the limit of “trust”. But what kind of reality does the writer reveal to us in his translation of this folk legend?

We see a beautiful lady who, in the eyes of her father, is the embodiment of innocence. Her death puts this strong and cheerful man into a state of deep depression and brokenness. This is what he says, addressing his already deceased daughter: “...But, woe to me, my field cape, my quail, my little darling, that I will live the rest of my life without fun, wiping with my hollow the fractional tears flowing from my old eyes, then how my enemy will have fun and secretly laugh at the frail old man. He stopped, and the reason for this was tearing grief, which was resolved by a whole stream of tears. The philosopher was touched by such inconsolable sadness.”

Illustration for the deluxe edition of the story “Viy”. Artist Eduard Novikov. 2009.

At first glance, this world seems to us to be something quite familiar and understandable. Even the stories of drunken men about how the lady “met the evil spirit” and drank “several buckets of blood” could only make us smile and would not in any way disturb the reality we are accustomed to. Everyone knows that parents love their children and that drunk men are masters at telling all sorts of tall tales. But at the same time with this cozy and recognizable world, a parallel world arises, in which some laws unknown to us operate. The beautiful lady turns out to be a witch and turns into an old woman, a dog, or turns blue, like a dead man with glowing eyes. Subsequently, however, she always returns to the image of a gentle, inexpressibly beautiful girl. Here, it seems to us, it is necessary to place special emphasis on the author’s description of her appearance.

“A thrill ran through his veins: before him lay a beauty such as had ever been on earth. It seemed that never before had facial features been formed in such sharp and at the same time harmonious beauty. She lay there as if alive. A beautiful forehead, soft as snow, like silver, seemed to be thinking; eyebrows - night in the middle of a sunny day, thin, even, proudly raised above closed eyes, and eyelashes, falling like arrows on the cheeks, blazing with the heat of secret desires; lips like rubies, ready to grin... But in them, in those same features, he saw something terribly piercing. He felt that his soul was beginning to ache somehow painfully, as if suddenly, in the midst of a whirlwind of fun and a swirling crowd, someone was singing a song about an oppressed people. The rubies of her lips seemed to bleed to her very heart. Suddenly something terribly familiar appeared in her face.

The combination of the beautiful and the demonic in the panel makes us remember the heroine of Gogol’s St. Petersburg story “Nevsky Prospekt”. The hero of this work, the artist Piskarev, meets an unusually beautiful girl on Nevsky Prospect, every feature of which tells us about nobility and unconditional belonging to high society. Having learned that she turns out to be just a girl of easy virtue, the hero loses all sorts of guidelines; he cannot connect the ugliness that was revealed to him and the beautiful, unique image that the Lord endowed this girl with. The artist suffers, tries to live in dreams in which her beauty is an extension of her soul, and ultimately dies. Here the combination of beauty and ugliness becomes completely hopeless and insoluble. This happens by overcoming the myth. The heroine of the story “Nevsky Prospekt” turns out to be no longer a sacred-cosmic reality, but just a person, a creation of God. God created her beautiful and at the same time free. But her freedom turns out to be relative. Yes, she has the opportunity to choose between good and evil, but she must not abandon the image given to her by God, which carries a divine imprint.

“Indeed, pity never takes possession of us so strongly as at the sight of beauty touched by the corrupting breath of depravity. Let ugliness be his friend, but beauty, tender beauty... It merges only with purity and purity in our thoughts.”

It would be interesting to compare these thoughts with what Khoma Brut experiences when looking at the deceased lady. In both the first and second cases we encounter beauty bordering on ugliness. But the heroine of Nevsky Prospekt combines these two states at the same time, while the lady alternates between them. At first glance, it may seem that the centurion's daughter has more power over her fortunes. However, in reality, these continuous changes of images completely depersonalize her. Like pagan deities who transform into each other, her true image always eludes us.

Illustration for the deluxe edition of the story “Viy”. Artist Eduard Novikov. 2009.

In this context, the simultaneous combination of two opposite states in the heroine of Nevsky Prospekt turns out to be more hopeless, since she cannot move from one quality to the opposite, does not have in herself that vagueness that would give her the opportunity to leave one image and completely enter another . This heroine is limited by her human existence, as a result of which she is “forced” to have her own permanent face, which she is not able to change, even with an absolute change in her essence. Her highest achievement could be to live up to the image given to her. It is not within our power to surpass what God has given us. Our source is not in us. Our task is only to identify for ourselves and for others the possibilities hidden within us. Thus, we are left with no other choice. We can become either ourselves or nothing. It is from this that comes the painful feeling that we experience when looking at a person striving for insignificance and non-existence and at the same time keeping the imprint of the Divine on himself. Piskarev feels endless pity for the heroine of the story, discovering in her divine beauty, associated with internal ugliness. As for Khoma Brut, he doesn’t feel anything like that. The only feeling that Pannochka evokes in him is fear. After all, if the sacred-cosmic closely borders on the sacred-chaotic, then the appearance of the latter will always be expected in the former. Ugliness and ugliness, in this case, cannot lead us into despair, since it contains within itself the rudiments of beauty, harmony and order. The endless transformations of the lady, in fact, do not really confuse Khoma Brut. But why, if the centurion’s daughter is so beautiful, does there not even a hint of falling in love with her? Khoma is fully aware that the lady is involved in some other reality, the laws of which are completely unknown to him. Let us remember the description of this heroine, which was given above. Looking at this face for a long time is fraught with the danger of revealing something eerie lurking in the depths of this beauty. When the philosopher first looked at Sotnikov’s dead daughter, he saw “the beauty that has ever been on earth,” but after he carefully peered into her features, he “screamed in a voice that was not his own”: “Witch!” appearance of the lady, it is important to note that her beauty is absolute, there is no flaw in her. What frightens Khoma is beyond beauty. Peering into her face, he feels that her soul is beginning to “ache painfully.”

The sacred in any of its manifestations remains complete, be it sacred-cosmic or sacred-chaotic. Thus, a witch can always take on the opposite image - to become a perfect beauty. But, despite all the closeness of pagan mythology and the reality that Gogol creates in Viy, these worlds diverge very significantly. It is known that many peasant ideas contained a certain synthesis in which Christian motifs were closely intertwined with pagan ones. There was still a sense of the presence of sacred-chaotic reality in them, but in general the accents had noticeably shifted. The sacred-chaotic has ceased to contain the beginnings of the sacred-cosmic. Ideas about witches, devils and many others like them appeared. All these forces still harbored a certain threat; they could be spelled, but the spells were no longer magical formulas, but Christian prayers and the sign of the cross. Here the caster no longer commands chaos, deceiving it and using its own powers. He turns out to be stronger due to the fact that he can read a prayer or cross himself. As for the evil spirit, it is not capable of doing anything like that and, in this case, shows complete helplessness. Controlling evil spirits no longer carries with it the possibility of becoming its prey. The opportunity has opened up to present chaos with something that is not contained in it. But dark forces remained dangerous, the peasants could not understand that evil is essentially non-existence. For them, it still represented a certain existentiality, and not temptation, not imaginaryness and confusion.

However, if in Viya, as in many other Little Russian works of Gogol, the theme of the “mystical” is built on the reproduction of mythological ideas of the common people, then in his St. Petersburg cycle it takes a slightly different direction. Let us recall, for example, Gogol’s story “Portrait”. At first glance, one can find some similarities between the mystical themes of “Viy” and “Portrait”. And here and here, behind the apparent perfection and beauty, another world, ominous, demonic, suddenly appears, which subsequently claims its rights.

“No matter how damaged and dusty the portrait was,” we read from Gogol, “but when he managed to clean the dust from his face, he saw traces of work high artist. The portrait, it seemed, was not finished; but the power of the brush was striking. Most extraordinary of all were the eyes: it seemed as if the artist had used all the power of his brush and all his diligent care in them. They simply looked, looked even from the portrait itself, as if destroying its harmony with their strange liveliness. When he brought the portrait to the door, the eyes looked even stronger. They made almost the same impression among the people. A woman who stopped behind him cried out: “He’s looking, he’s looking,” and backed away. He felt some unpleasant feeling, incomprehensible to himself, and put the portrait on the ground.”

If we compare the feelings of Khoma Brut when looking at the dead lady and the artist Chartkov, the hero of the story “Portrait,” then we will immediately discover something in common. Both of them experience a similar feeling, which in the first case is designated as “painful”, and in the second as “unpleasant and incomprehensible.” It may not be entirely correct to put a picture and the body of a deceased person on the same level, but in this case there is one point that allows us to do this. When we look at a dead person, we can no longer expect a response from him. He who was someone has become something, has become an object for us. As for the portrait, it could never be a subject for us. It only hints to us that the person depicted here exists or existed in the past. Peering into portrait image, we can only record what the artist managed to capture. The real person who once posed for the master remains inaccessible to us.

Illustration for the deluxe edition of the story “Viy”. Artist Eduard Novikov. 2009.

Thus, in both the first and second cases, we face a certain inanimate reality, which, nevertheless, points us to the soul. What happens when the traces of a personality suddenly come together and give birth to someone real, living, breathing? Where was the soul until this moment? Where did she come from? Here an excerpt from a poem by Arseny Tarkovsky comes to mind:

They knock. Who's there? - Maria, -
Open the door: - Who's there? -
No answer. Alive
That's not how they come to us.

So, the visitors to Khoma and the artist Chartkov do not belong to the category of the living. But if we turn to the appearances of saints, who are also in fact dead, we will see that they visit us in a completely different way. Their separation from another world and appearance in ours is sometimes necessary solely for our benefit. They bring peace and tranquility to the heart. And our reaction, in this case, can only be awe and reverence, followed by joy. Gogol’s mystical characters do not give us anything like this. They appear to destroy someone's life, to bring grief and discord into it. Moreover, they come not for our sake, as the saints do, but for their own sake. They themselves lack something in themselves, and they want to take it, steal it from us. This moment is another proof that the story “Viy” has many Christian motives. For some reason, the lady needed the life of Khoma Brut. Without having her, she would become weak. It would be difficult for her to continue her dark existence. The centurion's daughter did not like any of Khoma's friends. The latter turned out to be the most courageous, firm in faith and strong in spirit. There is something here for the evil spirits to feast on. After all, it does not have its own resources, but represents only emptiness, non-existence, feeding itself with the living juices of God's world.

The same can be said about the old man emerging from the portrait and destroying the lives of all those who distinguished themselves with special nobility and talent. However, if “Viy,” according to Gogol, is a reproduction of common folk tales, then in “Portrait” there cannot be even a hint of folklore. In the first case, the writer could be justified by the fact that the element of the common people suddenly carried away and captured him. But the mysticism of “Portrait” can no longer be explained in this way. The characters of Little Russian works treat witches as something completely ordinary, without which their world would be incomplete. “I already know all this. After all, in Kyiv, all the women who sit at the market are all witches.”

perceives the arrival of guests from other world St. Petersburg artist. The main difference, it seems to us, is that in Little Russian novels and short stories the appearance of evil spirits to someone corresponds to the general spirit, while in St. Petersburg works something similar can happen in the lives of only some people, but for others everything it remains unreal. Let us remember the enthusiastic ladies and respectable gentlemen who came to the artist Chartkov after he became famous. All these representatives of high society could not even guess at what price he managed to become famous. They lived in their own wonderful world, subject to restraint, order and grace. How did this world, clear as day, become intertwined in the artist’s soul with something dark, disgusting, unreasonable? The mysterious appearance of the old man destroyed only his life and did not in any way affect those around him. Although at the end of the story there are mystical stories told by the residents of Kolomna, where he once lived, mysterious old man. But all this has to do with the past, an appeal to which only increases the darkness, and makes for us the nature of this phenomenon even more strange and incomprehensible. Having learned about the origin and fate of the man who has now come to life in the portrait, we soon understand that after the death of the artist he destroyed, someone else will become his victim.

But when the splendor of St. Petersburg life sparkles before us, it is difficult for us to believe that this dark, semi-pagan reality is capable of penetrating there. Some voids appear between these two worlds. In order to get through them, you need to find yourself in a state close to death, experience very strong need and a feeling of hopelessness. Social life in St. Petersburg is completely permeated with form. She cannot break out of the rhythm she sets for herself. Elements, hopelessness and uncertainty are conditions completely alien to her. But if someone belonging to the top of St. Petersburg society suddenly finds himself in difficulty and trouble, all the above feelings enter his heart, thus breaking his connection with this perfect world. It is at such moments that the “cursed” old man appears and takes his victim into some dark, formless reality, returning from which the person becomes completely unrecognizable. People known to everyone for their honesty and talent become evil, deceitful, mediocre and soon die. If we draw a parallel with the story “Viy”, we will see that there the evil spirit acts completely differently. Let us remember that the lady chose as her victim the healthiest and most prosperous character of all those we encountered in this work. Both the first and second representatives of otherworldly reality need living juices to continue their existence. However, the witch did not need to drive Khoma Brut into despair in order to destroy him. You should pay attention to the difference between the lady's victim and those heroes who turned out to be associated with the old man. Khoma was an integral and simple person. He was unfamiliar with acute experiences, unfamiliar with the experience of contradictions, ups and downs. He does not come to the witch himself, he is forced to do so by people with whom he has no right to argue. Reading prayers dead coffin ladies for three nights, Khoma certainly experiences fear. But such worries cannot break his spirit. Despite all her sinister image, the witch is not able to penetrate the soul of the philosopher. Her victory turns out to be external. She only seeks his physical death. Khoma's soul turns out to be unaffected by these dark forces. But in this case, the question arises of what the witch needed from this hero; his soul or his life? In the Christian understanding, the enemy of the human race hunts only the soul; everything else has no value for him. If he ensures that a person dies, he will receive nothing, since martyrs who have suffered for the sake of God's truth go straight to their Creator. Why, then, did the centurion’s daughter need this strong-willed Human? We must not forget that the characters in the story “Viy” are heroes of folk legend, in which there is no place for complex poetic natures. The evil spirits in this world do not need a soul that is confused in its contradictions. The witch feels the need for a whole person, like a ripe fruit, from whom she can drink fresh blood. However, in resolving this issue we could take a different path. Khoma was the cause, albeit deceptive, but to some extent real, of her death. He disrupted the flow of the afterlife, interfered with the laws to which it is subject, and for this he had to be killed. Something has shifted in the sacred world, a certain balance has been disrupted, which can now only be restored by the death of the one who violated it. Having achieved the death of Khoma, the lady leaves the stage. Its further appearance is not expected. It exists somewhere, but the doors to another world are closing for us.

We encounter a completely different emphasis in “Portrait”. Having destroyed the life and soul of the artist, the old man does not calm down. The end of the story clearly tells us that there will be many more victims. Why is this otherworldly guest not satisfied with the troubles and death of those unfortunates who come to him? He needs more and more new lives. This is the only way he can prolong his existence. Moreover, a cheerful person like Khoma, not prone to despondency, would never have become his prey. Despair is the way an old man can get into someone's heart. He would never be satisfied with just physical death. It digs into the very soul and does not leave it until the person dies. No matter how terrible this story by Gogol turns out to be, compared to Viy, Christianity is present here to a much greater extent. At the end of the work we encounter the image of a pious artist who found the strength to resist the devilish power of the old man and even became a monk. Moreover, this same artist painted the ill-fated portrait at one time. So, if the one who came closest to the dark soul of the moneylender managed to resist its onslaught, then the world from which the old man appears is not so strong. The man from the portrait comes to people in moments of despair and melancholy, when it is difficult for them to make a decision. Christians view such moments as a test. Evil cannot penetrate a person’s soul so easily. This requires a state of weakness and confusion. Then the mysterious character of Gogol’s St. Petersburg story looks into the hearts of the heroes and seeks profit there. Without this food he will die. Before his death, he begged the artist to complete his portrait, in which he, in his own words, would continue to live.

Illustration (fragment) for the deluxe edition of the story “Viy”. Artist Eduard Novikov. 2009.

If we remember the lady, we will see that in this sense she turns out to be more independent. After Khoma’s death, she retires to some kind of world of her own and never returns from there. The old man cannot go anywhere, since in this case he will simply disappear. The centurion's daughter comes to us from the otherworldly reality where she comes from, although she needs the profane world. As for the old man, the reality in which he resides cannot be determined in any way. He exists in endless insufficiency, in a kind of nothingness that constantly needs to be filled with something.

Considering all of the above, we could safely say that in his story “Portrait” Gogol, to some extent, breaks out of myth and approaches the Christian understanding of the nature of evil. However, one cannot help but admit that the old man also has some kind of bewitching power. In almost every work of Gogol, this dark, inviting world breaks through from somewhere, trying to dissolve everything in its nonsense. Isn’t it he who declares himself in works that breathe such absurdity as the story “The Nose” or such horror and hopelessness as “Notes of a Madman”. Gogol always feels the presence of this dark reality, striving to plunge everything into chaos and formlessness. Sometimes it seems to us that the dark shadows are about to melt away, but they thicken again.

In his work, Gogol confronts us with the problem of evil, which in his works turns out to be complex, unsolved, and constantly fluctuates between Christian and pagan coloring. The author’s pathos is not the very fact of the presence of evil in the world, but the ability to resist it. However, the writer’s soul, which has so deeply absorbed the mythology of folk legends, cannot so easily abandon its tempting forms and flirts with them all the time, as if not at all aware of the danger lurking behind this game.

Magazine "Nachalo" No. 20, 2009

Gogol N.V. Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka. Mirgorod. M., 1982. P. 91.

Right there. P. 36.

Right there. With. 336.

Right there. P. 355.

Right there. P. 76.

Ibid S. 356.

Gogol N.V. Stories. Dramatic works. Leningrad, 1983. P. 14.

Gogol N.V. Stories. Dramatic works. Leningrad, 1983. P. 62.

Tarkovsky A.A. Favorites. Smolensk, 2000. P. 174.

Gogol N.V. Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka. Mirgorod. M., 1982. P. 373.

1. Folklore as a source of mystical images in Gogol’s works.
2. Evil spirits in collections of stories.
3. Mysticism in the story “Portrait”.

In dictionaries you can find several definitions of the concept “mysticism,” but they all agree that this word means beliefs in another reality inhabited by supernatural beings, as well as in the possibility of people communicating with them. The folklore tradition of different peoples has preserved stories about various creatures of another world, both kind and bright, benevolently disposed towards people, and evil, hostile to God and people.

In the works of N.V. Gogol, it is mainly malicious entities that penetrate into the world of people, and their accomplices also act - evil sorcerers and witches. Only occasionally do people encounter benevolent creatures from another world. And yet, in the works of writers there are much more evil people from another world than good ones. Perhaps this “distribution of forces” reflected people’s wary attitude towards the mysterious world, contact with which can lead to unpredictable consequences.

In the collection “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka,” mystical motifs are heard in almost all the stories, with the exception of one, “Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and his Aunt.” In other stories, the degree of contact between people and the other world is different. In the story “Sorochinskaya Fair” the story about the mysterious red scroll can still be considered a joke, successfully picked up by a young man in love. But the superstitious Cossack Solopiy Cherevik has no doubt that the ill-fated red sleeve that he keeps coming across is nothing more than a sleeve from the devil’s chopped up scroll! However, in this story it is not the evil spirits themselves that act, but the human belief in their existence, and this “shadow” of the evil spirits brings much more benefit than harm. Solopiy suffered and was shaken up, but everything turned out well, his daughter and the Cossack Gritsko received Cherevik’s consent to the marriage, and he himself successfully sold the goods brought to the fair.

A meeting with a mermaid - a lady who drowned herself due to the oppression of her stepmother-witch - unexpectedly changes the life of the boy Levko and his beloved Ganna. The mermaid rewards generously young man for helping her find her stepmother. Thanks to the power of the drowned woman, Levko and Ganna finally become husband and wife despite the objections of the young man’s father.

In the stories “The Missing Letter”, “The Night Before Christmas”, “The Enchanted Place” the evil spirits are very active and unfriendly towards people. However, she is not so powerful that she cannot be defeated. We can say that the heroes of the stories “The Missing Letter” and “The Enchanted Place” got off easy. The evil spirits played a joke on them, but also let them go in peace, each one left to his own. And in the story “The Night Before Christmas,” the meeting with the devil turned out to be even useful for the blacksmith Vakula - having scared the devil, the blacksmith used him as a vehicle and fulfilled the order of his capricious lover, bringing her the Tsarina’s slippers.

But in the stories “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala” and “Terrible Revenge”, as well as in the story “Viy”, included in another collection, “Mirgorod”, the evil spirits and their assistants - evil sorcerers - are truly terrible. No, it’s not even the evil spirits that are the most terrible, with the possible exception of the creepy Viy. Much people are scarier: the sorcerer Basavryuk and the sorcerer from the story “Terrible Revenge”, who killed all his loved ones. And the sinister Viy appears for a reason.

He comes to the witch's body to destroy the man who killed her.

“The devil is not as terrible as he is painted,” says a common expression. Indeed, we can agree that in Gogol’s works, evil spirits often do not turn out to be so terrible if the person himself is not afraid of them. Sometimes she even looks quite comical (remember the devil put in a bag by the witch Solokha and beaten by her son Vakula). Much more terrible and dangerous is the person who contributes to the penetration of evil into our world...

Mystical motives are also heard in the story “Portrait”, included in the collection of “Petersburg Tales”. However, in it they acquire an even deeper philosophical meaning. A talented artist unwittingly becomes the culprit of the fact that evil penetrates the souls of people. The eyes of the moneylender, whose portrait he painted, have a sinister effect on people. However, the artist did not have bad intentions, like those sorcerers who, of their own free will, helped the evil spirits rampage. Having realized what he had done, this man experiences deep remorse. And the work itself was not a joy to him - he felt something mysterious and terrible in a man who at all costs wanted to be captured on the canvas: “He threw himself at his feet and begged him to finish the portrait, saying that from this his fate and existence in the world depend on the fact that he has already touched its living features with his brush, that if he conveys them correctly, his life will be retained in the portrait by supernatural force, that through this he will not die completely, that he needs to be present in the world. My father felt horror from such words...”

How can one not remember Viy’s creepy, deathly gaze! Who exactly was this moneylender? Gogol does not give a direct answer to this question. The artist who painted the portrait and became a monk in repentance says this to his son: “To this day I cannot understand that he was strange image, from which I wrote the image. It was definitely some kind of devilish phenomenon... I wrote it with disgust...” Yes, the eyes of the moneylender depicted in the portrait became a kind of doors through which evil entered the world of people: and the artist, who carelessly allowed these doors to remain open, asks his son, if the opportunity arises, to destroy the ominous image, to block the path to the evil obsession that cripples human souls and fate. However, evil, having penetrated the human world, does not want to leave it: a strange portrait suddenly disappears from the hall where the auction is being held, and the son is deprived of the opportunity to fulfill the will of his father. What other troubles will an ominous look cause?..

So, we can summarize all of the above. Gogol's interest in mysticism is undeniable: the writer repeatedly developed plots in which a significant place was devoted to evil spirits and their assistants. Gogol also showed various results from a person’s collision with supernatural forces - from a completely harmless joke to a terrible tragedy, while emphasizing the role of the human factor in the activities of people from another world.

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EXPLANATORY NOTE

For my work, I chose the topic “Mysticism in literature as a reflection of the world of the human soul.” At the core human psychology I have a keen interest in everything mysterious and inexplicable, and I am no exception. This topic has aroused my interest since childhood. I read a series literary works containing elements of mysticism, I already have some reading experience behind me, which is enough to conduct a comparative analysis.

In my work I want to pay special attention to the work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. The choice of the author is not accidental, since he is the most prominent representative of the mystical trend in Russian literature. His life and work are inextricably linked with everything mysterious and inexplicable. In my work, I pay special attention to such works of his as “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”, “Viy”, “Nose”, “Overcoat”, “Portrait”.

The main goal of my work is to determine the location mystical literature, its functions and significance for humans.

The tasks that I set for myself: the study of literary works of a mystical orientation by both Russian and foreign authors; search for common distinctive features mysticism; identification of the sources of mysticism and its functions.

I. MYSTICISM AND ITS ORIGINS

The purpose of my work is not to study mysticism from a philosophical, scientific or theological point of view. Therefore, I do not consider the definitions of mysticism given by philosophers, scientists and religious figures. Moreover, the debate about the nature and essence of mysticism is still going on in these areas.

From the point of view of literature, mysticism (from the Greek mystikos - mysterious) is:

something incomprehensible, inexplicable, mysterious (source: dictionary by T. F. Efremova);

teaching, belief, concept or inclination towards mysterious interpretation and ritual (source: V. Dahl's dictionary);

something mysterious, incomprehensible, inexplicable (source: D. N. Ushakov’s dictionary);

belief in existence supernatural powers, with which a person is mysteriously connected and able to communicate (source: www.wikipedia.ru);

something that is beyond human understanding, but carries a special hidden meaning (source: www.onlinedics.ru).

Mystics contrast “reality” and “appearance.” The word “reality” has not a logical, but an emotional meaning (source: www.onlinedics.ru).

All these definitions highlight the main features of mysticism. First of all, an appeal to the world of supernatural forces, the nature of which lies beyond the boundaries of the human mind and which are perceived by man at the level of spiritual sensations.

Humanity has always shown interest in mysticism, including in painting, sculpture, music, alchemy, and literature. But if we see a picture, hear music, then we can only imagine what is described in words, understand it with our minds; It is important to perceive mystical literature not only with the five basic senses, but also with the sixth - the soul.

Mysticism originates in folk ethnicity and religion. From there he borrows the theme, characters, symbols, as well as the way of conveying sensations, feelings and emotions.

The main theme is the eternal conflict of good and evil and man's personal choice.

A striking example is Johann Goethe's tragedy "Faust". The main character, Doctor Faustus, is a man who has lived a long life, his mind is jaded. He tries to understand the world, but all attempts are fruitless. For a long time Faust lived as a recluse in his office, and he wants to taste the delights of life. His mind is strong, but his soul is weak, empty and helpless, as evidenced by disappointment in science, to which he devoted his whole life, an attempt at suicide and agreement to a deal with Mephistopheles. The weakness of Faust's soul is contrasted with the strength of Margarita's soul, which is able to forgive and beg forgiveness for him.

"The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde has similar features to Goethe's tragedy, it is sometimes called the "new Faust". The main character Dorian, a young talented youth, succumbs to the influence of Lord Henry. One after another, he commits terrible acts, destroying loved ones. Dorian's greatest fear is of growing old and losing his extraordinary beauty. When his artist friend draws his portrait, the young man says: “Oh, if only it could be the other way around! If the portrait grew old, and I remained young forever!” And his wish comes true. The portrait not only takes away the “extra” years, but also takes upon itself all of Dorian’s sins and misdeeds. Sometimes the hero tries to improve, but his thoughts are guided only by vanity. His soul is as weak as Faust's soul. She is unable to make her own choice and fight for it.

In Vasily Zhukovsky's ballads "Lyudmila" and "Svetlana" the heroes also stand before moral choice. The main characters of both ballads are waiting for the return of their lovers. One receives terrible news, and the other has a disturbing dream. Lyudmila begins to grumble at God: “No, the Creator is unmerciful; forgive everything; everything.” And in return she gets what she asks for - the girl is taken away by her dead groom: “The Creator heard your groan; your hour has struck, the end has come.” Svetlana is submissive to fate, she asks God to help her: “I pray and shed tears! Quench my sadness, comforter angel.” And her sweetheart comes to her, alive and still loving. “Our best friend in life is faith in providence.”

The struggle between good and evil is clearly shown in Nikolai Gumilyov's story "Black Dick". The main character is the embodiment of evil, he commits extremely base acts. The pastor is trying to fight him, to guide the people around him to the right path. But then the priest realizes that it is impossible to fight violence with violence and that he should not have gone against Dick and awakened the evil hidden in him: “Everyone is given his own destiny, and it is not appropriate for us, people who know nothing, to arbitrarily interfere in the work of God’s Providence.” . At the end, Black Dick, having assumed his real form, turns into a terrible beast and dies. But evil is defeated at the cost of the life of an innocent girl, who is the embodiment of good in the story.

Many characters and symbols came to mysticism from ethnicity and religion. Not only fantastic, but also real creatures endowed with unusual properties are borrowed from there.

The black raven appears in many works. The bird symbolizes evil, death, desolation on the one hand, and longevity and wisdom on the other. "The raven croaks: sadness!" - says the ballad “Svetlana”. In his poem “The Raven,” Edgar Allan Poe calls the bird “the proud Raven of old days,” “a terrible spirit,” “the dauntless prophet,” “the prophetic.”

The raven is contrasted with a dove - a symbol of peace, love, purity, hope. In the ballad "Svetlana" he is shown as a defender. The same work mentions another bird - a rooster, a symbol of the sun, dawn.

Not only living creatures, but even stones are a kind of sign, symbolizing the cult of fire, as in the story “Black Dick”. Other symbols are also mentioned in the same work: caves, as a way of entering another world in Celtic mythology; black stones are a sign of the presence of ancient dark forces, etc. The ballad “Svetlana” talks about another symbol - a mirror into which the heroine looks during fortune telling. A mirror is a symbol of eternity, spiritual purity, a reflection of supernatural intelligence.

The theme of mysticism is often addressed to biblical stories, and the heroes of the works are Jesus Christ and Satan in different guises. Vivid examples serve as the tragedy "Faust" by Johann Goethe and the novel "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov.

Mysticism, following folk ethnicity and religion, has its own ways of conveying sensations, feelings and emotions, reflecting the world into which the reader must immerse himself. First of all, this is a borderline state of human consciousness, when his mind is dulled and sensory sensations come to the fore. These are the state of sleep, immersion in detachment, the state of narcotic and alcohol intoxication. At these moments, a person is deprived of the ability to adequately perceive reality and can go beyond the boundaries of reality.

This technique is used in the ballad "Svetlana". On the night before Epiphany, the heroine has a disturbing dream. Dreams that occurred this night are considered prophetic. Svetlana overcomes all obstacles and dangers in a dream, after which she awakens, and in reality everything turns out to be fine. “Here misfortune is a false dream; happiness is awakening.”

In the short story “Ligeia,” the hero is under the influence of opium, trying to at least temporarily get rid of the mental anguish caused by the death of his beloved wife. He is so immersed in himself and his visions that when his second wife, a living person, dies in his arms, the hero is not so worried about her, he sees ghosts, and the image of Ligeia appears before him.

In the story "The Black Cat" by Edgar Poe, the hero becomes an alcoholic and slowly begins to lose himself. His behavior changes for the worse, he hurts those he loves, in a fit of anger he kills his wife: “My soul seemed to suddenly leave my body; and anger, fiercer than the devil, inflamed by the gin, instantly overwhelmed my entire being.” He is haunted by terrible visions caused by remorse.

The technique of referring to the past is also often used. The stories “Black Dick” by Nikolai Gumilyov and “Metzengerstein” by Edgar Poe tell about events of past years that have been turned into legends. According to the authors, these events cannot happen now, and that their contemporary would hardly believe in them.

In the story “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Poe, the hero describes the past in a song: “Where angels fluttered through the grass of their native valleys, the proud giant castle illuminated with brilliance.” The joyful beginning of the song is contrasted by its ending: “The abode of black troubles; ominous laughter hovers in the darkness, there are no more smiles,” as well as the whole atmosphere of the story, in which the narration is about the present moment. The author is looking for that good in the past, that light that he does not see in the present. The future oppresses him, it seems terrible, fatal and irreversible.

Another interesting way is to conduct rituals. The ballad Svetlana describes Christmas fortune-telling. In Faust, the hero appeals to the spirits, wanting to comprehend the secrets of nature. Magic rituals seem to be a means of connecting a person with the world of supernatural forces, an opportunity to cognize it.

The main function of a folk ethnic group and religion is educational, as well as the need to preserve in history the names of heroes and their exploits, which could serve as an example for future generations.

II. DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF MYSTICISM. FUNCTIONS

Mysticism not only absorbs all these functions, but also goes further, acquiring its own distinctive features. The educational function is gradually losing its significance. Other goals come first:

exploration of the world of supernatural forces beyond the control of human consciousness;

attempts to determine the place and capabilities of man in a world beyond his understanding;

revealing the eternal conflict between good and evil;

the reader’s perception of the world is from the soul, not from the mind;

veiled description of reality using fantastic characters and phenomena;

creating a background and special coloring;

attracting reader interest.

III. WORK OF NIKOLAI VASILIEVICH GOGOL

Now I want to turn directly to the work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. I chose this author not by chance. His mystical works are the whole world, multifaceted, bright and colorful.

The writer’s entire life, creativity, death and even the reburial of his remains are associated with many inexplicable facts. The author's personal attitude towards mysticism is peculiar. Throughout life and creative path he turns to mysticism less and less, as if afraid of its influence on his destiny. But the more diligently Gogol moves away from mysticism in his work, the more strongly it manifests itself in the writer’s fate. We will never know the contents of the second volume of Dead Souls and the reasons for its burning. However, it can be assumed that the answer lies in the same mysticism.

The reason for the contradictory views of Gogol, both on real world, and in the world of supernatural forces, mental unrest, in my opinion, one should look for the author’s childhood.

His mother, Maria Ivanovna, was deeply religious. However, her fate was not easy. She was orphaned early, married early, and lost many of her children. Nicholas was the only surviving son and first child. Her care and guardianship towards her son was special. She put her whole soul into it and conveyed religiosity the way she perceived it herself. For this woman, faith was associated, first of all, with the fear of sin and the inevitability of punishment. Therefore, Gogol, following her, does not find in faith the boundless love, happiness and joy that his soul needs. And the soul tries to find peace in the pictures native nature, rich, colorful, in folk color - legends, rituals and, finally, in mysticism. By the writer’s own admission, scary fairy tales interested and excited him greatly. It is no coincidence that the images of heroines who are associated with the world of supernatural forces are attractive. What a sad and beautiful image of a drowned woman Gogol draws in the story “May Night, or the Drowned Woman.” Depicting the witch lady from Viy, the author writes: “before him lay a beauty such as had ever been on earth. It seemed that never before had the features been formed in such sharp and at the same time harmonious beauty. She lay there as if alive.”

But mysticism cannot replace faith. Gogol does not find peace of mind in anything, and this internal conflict is reflected in his works.

The collection “Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka” was published in 1831-1832. This is the time when the ideas of populism appeared in the social and political life of the country, and appeals to the themes and characters of the national ethnic group were very popular in culture. However, in my opinion, Gogol does not follow fashion, but takes on a topic that is interesting to him, not fully understood and studied. All the complexities of his perception of folk ethnicity and mysticism are reflected in a bright kaleidoscope of stories.

With all the differences in the plots, the personal choice of a person comes to the fore in determining the eternal issues of good and evil, which he makes with his heart and his soul.

“Sorochinskaya Fair”, “The Missing Letter” and “The Enchanted Place” are funny, comic stories where the heroes of the works are cheerful, reckless, and sometimes just stupid people. They are afraid of evil spirits, but at the same time they enter into an argument with it and turn out to be stronger. IN " Sorochinskaya fair“There is no devil himself, there is only a legend about him, faith in which leads, on the contrary, to a good and happy ending. And in the other two works, evil spirits can only do minor dirty tricks.

In two other stories, “May Night, or the Drowned Woman” and “The Night Before Christmas,” evil spirits are directly involved in the fate of the main characters. The drowned lady helps lovers Levko and Ganna find happiness. Like the devil, he ultimately helps Vakula, the hero of the story “The Night Before Christmas.” Vakula is a real Ukrainian guy who works and lives honestly, his love for Oksana is pure and real. He was not afraid to go on a dangerous journey, to appear before the empress, to fight the devil. Vakula punished the devil, and did not sell his human soul to evil spirits. Therefore, he acquired the happiness he deserved.

The heroes of “A Terrible Vengeance” and “The Night Before Ivan Kupala” make a different choice.

In the first case, the main character is a hereditary sorcerer, whose ancestor treacherously killed his best friend together with his son, he himself is the embodiment of evil and destroys people close to him. There are also biblical motifs, since children also bear the price for the sins of the fathers. Evil is defeated in the end, but at a very high cost - the cost of the lives of innocent people.

In the second case, the desire to get the girl he loves as a wife and the thirst for profit, due to the slander of the witches, push the main character Petrus to kill a child - his own brother. But what you want, obtained in this way, does not bring happiness. Petrus goes crazy, turns into a handful of ashes, and the money into broken shards.

The second collection “Mirgorod” includes the story “Viy”.

In my opinion, “Viy” is Gogol’s most striking mystical work. The ominous action unfolds either against the backdrop of bright nature, the calm and measured life of the Ukrainian village, or against the backdrop of nature that inspires mystical horror. Gogol creates these mise-en-scenes for a reason. A bright and quiet world is easy to destroy; it turns out to be fragile. Only a truly strong and bright person is able to challenge the dark forces and protect his world. But is this what Khoma Brut turns out to be? Khoma is the darling of fate, he is a pragmatist and a fatalist, in addition, he is phlegmatic and lazy. This is the main principle of life: “what happens, cannot be avoided.” Cheerful drinking bouts, hearty food, fun in women's company - everything that fills Khoma's usual life - sins that make his soul weaker and weaker. Meeting with the lady, performance funeral rite over her are a test for his faith and soul. Did the main character survive? There is no clear answer to this. Having defeated the dark forces, he himself dies. The reader can only hope that his soul was saved, he atoned for his sins.

When describing the three nights when Khoma performed the funeral service for the deceased lady, Gogol uses a technique traditional for mystics. The state of the main character is close to hallucinations or sleep, when everything around is perceived by the soul, and not by the mind.

One cannot help but mention the images of the lady and Viy.

Pannochka is a cruel, insidious witch who can take the form of animals. She tortures people, drinks their blood. However, the image of the lady created by the author is not devoid of not only mystery, but also a certain attractiveness. Compassion arises in the reader's soul. What made the lady become a witch? The author does not give an answer, allowing you to make your own choice.

The image of Viy arose from ancient folk beliefs. An old invincible evil lurks in the depths of the earth, and people with their unreasonable behavior can always awaken it.

In his later works from the collection “Petersburg Tales”, the writer turns to the topic of mysticism for the last time. But only now these heroes are close to the reader and are ordinary people; the action of the works has been transferred from the Ukrainian hinterland to St. Petersburg. The heroes are far from the people, but they have the same weaknesses and vices.

In the story “The Nose,” the hero loses his nose on the night from Thursday to Friday, when folk beliefs Dark forces rule, which is why dreams turn out to be prophetic. Also, according to dream books, a nose, especially a large one, means importance in society, well-being and success. Thus, Gogol characterizes his character. His soul is empty, it does not strive for a high goal. All the efforts of the protagonist are aimed at creating his social status, which, apart from a certain name, has no meaning. The hero is punished with his own nose, because its absence deprives his life of all meaning.

Of course, the image of the collegiate assessor Kovalev is comical, but the essence of the work is to reveal the flaws in the public consciousness not only of that era, but also, unfortunately, of subsequent generations. At the same time, the methods and methods of mystical literature are ideal in this case for creating images of heroes.

The story “Portrait” is not like Gogol’s other mystical works; here the philosophical and religious aspects come to the fore. The choice of the artist and creator. Firstly, is it worthy for a true creator to engage in art for enrichment and, secondly, how to avoid the dark side of talent and not succumb to the temptation of creating images that have demonic power.

The heroes of both the first and second parts of the work succumbed to temptation, although for different reasons. Their souls sided with evil, and evil manifested itself and affected the destinies of many people.

In his further creativity Gogol refuses to turn to mysticism, although the fate of the heroes of his realistic works is influenced in one way or another by conduct. And the title of the novel “Dead Souls” is a response to mysticism.

I repeat that we do not know the content of the second volume of the novel, but perhaps the author nevertheless decided to return to the theme of supernatural forces. What was written became a terrible revelation for him, which he considered necessary to destroy. The world of supernatural forces and its ability to influence a person’s fate remained unsolved for Gogol. Originally the basis of the writer’s spiritual contradictions, mysticism became a test and punishment for him.

Perhaps this is why the mysticism in Gogol’s work is so unique, inventive and multifaceted. The images he created still attract and excite the reader. And this is obvious. Man will always be interested in what is beyond his mind. A person’s desire to feel and experience the mysterious and inexplicable world will always be alive. But I want to believe that, perceiving other people’s experience, the human soul will improve and turn into a world of light and goodness, into a world where love and harmony triumph.

LIST OF LITERARY WORKS

Johann Goethe "Faust"

Oscar Wilde "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

Edgar Poe "The Raven", "Ligeia", "The Black Cat", "Metzengerstein", "The Fall of the House of Usher"

Vasily Zhukovsky "Lyudmila", "Svetlana"

Nikolai Gumilyov "Black Dick"

Mikhail Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita"

Nikolai Gogol “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”, “Viy”, “Nose”, “Portrait”, “Dead Souls”

LITERATURE

www.wikipedia.ru

www.onlinedics.ru

www.gogol.biografy.ru

dictionary by T. F. Efremova

V. Dahl's dictionary

dictionary by D. N. Ushakov

"Goethe's tragedy Faust." The image of Faust. Analysis of the work" and V. Kabanova