Russian Literature
Pushkin, Gogol, and Dead Souls
Russia Today
Russia to 1800
Having adopted the light of Christianity from
Byzantium, [Russia] took part in neither the
political revolutions, nor the intellectual activity of
the Roman Catholic world. The great epoch of
the Renaissance had no influence here. ...
Russia had a lofty calling . ... Its boundless
plains swallowed the force of the Mongols and
stopped their onslaught at the edge of Europe.
... During the epoch of storms and great
changes, tsars and boyars agreed about one
thing: the necessity of bringing Russia closer to
Europe.
--Alexander Pushkin, 1836
Russia to 1800
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1703: Peter the Great founds St. Petersburg,
officially cementing Russia’s desire to become
European
Throughout the 18th Century, Russia, fought and
won wars against Sweden, Turkey, and (in the
early 19th century) France
In about 100 years, Russia went from a
backwards nation of farmers to the largest nation
on Earth
Russian Literature Before
1800
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Russia’s contribution
to art before 1800
consists of two things:
several “Lives of
Saints” (Russianstyle) and icons by
Andrei Rublev (Right)
Literature before 1800
largely consisted of
imitation of French
poetry and prose
Alexander Pushkin
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1799-1837
Russian literature really began
with Pushkin
Pushkin did for Russian what
Shakespeare did for English by
adding scores of words and
phrases to the lexicon, virtually
reinventing the language
Pushkin also introduced new
styles and genres to Russian and
introduced European authors to
the Russian people
Finally, he mixed foreign elements
with natural speech, focusing on
folk tales and common people
On Pushkin
Every nation has national symbols reflecting its self-awareness. For the people of
Russia Pushkin, his prose and poetry, is a cornerstone of national culture, first of all
because with his works he actually built the contemporary Russian language, and the
language for a nation is perhaps the main property distinguishing it from other
nations. He was a brilliant poet indeed. What is this reflected in? First of all in the
surprisingly precise poetic expressions abounding in aphorisms. In this sense
Pushkin's language is amazing, because it is lapidary and polysemantic. Many of his
phrases have become catch-words. They penetrated the consciousness of even
those people who read his works not too attentively. Nevertheless this is our habitual
linguistic environment, this is what people take in with their mother's milk from
generation to generation.
It's also important that Pushkin wrote culturally significant works for all age groups.
Children read his tales, adolescents his romantic poems and novels, adults his
philosophic dramas. Pushkin accompanies us, the Russians, from cradle to grave.
Pushkin is viewed as the forefather of new Russian literature. He marked the
beginning of almost all modern genres of Russian prose: from travel notes and
essays to historic and philosophical novels.
 Aleksei Anikin, http://www.vor.ru/culture/pushk200_eng.html
“The Bronze Horseman”
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About statue (right) of
Peter the Great in St.
Petersburg
Focuses on majesty of
capital city vs. struggles
by average people to
build that city in the
middle of a swamp
It is, essentially, Russia’s
national poem by its
national poet
Nikolai Gogol
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1809-1852
Born in Ukraine to humble family
Early work consisted of stories about
Ukraine peasant life (often with
supernatural elements thrown in)
His first collection of stories, Evenings
on a Farm Near Dikanka (1832), was
an instant success.
In these stories, he settled on a key to
his style: mixing the humorous and the
macabre
Later stories would use humor, the
macabre and the supernatural in more
modern settings like St. Petersburg
(see his famous stories “The Nose”
and “The Overcoat”)
He also wrote several well-received
plays, including “The Inspector
General”
Poshlost
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Poshlost is an untranslatable Russian word for “banality, with a
characteristic national flavoring of metaphysics and high morality,
and a peculiar conjunction of the sexual and the spiritual. This one
word encompasses triviality, vulgarity, sexual promiscuity, and a lack
of spirituality. The war against poshlost is a cultural obsession of the
Russian and Soviet intelligensia from the 1860s to the 1960s”
(Boym, 1994)
Term “poshlost” is also defined as “self-satisfied inferiority,” both
moral and spiritual (though that might be too much of a
simplification).
“He [Pushkin] used to say of me that no other writer before me
possessed the gift to expose so brightly life’s poshlust, to depict so
powerfully the poshlust of a poshlusty man in such a way that
everybody’s eyes would be opened wide to all the petty trivia that
often escapes our attention” (Gogol, 1843)
Dead Souls
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Volume One was published in 1842
The idea for the novel was suggested by Pushkin (Gogol’s friend
and champion)
He wrote much of the novel while living in Italy (he mentions this at
certain points, like the end of Volume One)
The novel was referred to both as “an epic poem in prose” and “a
novel in verse” (latter a homage to Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin)
Dead Souls originally was supposed to be three parts in length, like
Dante’s Divine Comedy. Gogol never got to the third part, and most
of part two was destroyed by the author days before his death.
Structure is clear, though: Chichikov journeys through “hell” in
volume one, is punished and exonerated in the “purgatory” of
volume two, and is redeemed in the “paradise” of volume three.
What are souls?
Souls=serfs
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Similar to slavery--in that landowners technically “owned” their serfs
Serfs worked for their masters, but they also worked their own land (and they did
have their own land)
Serfs paid taxes to their masters (usually in the form of food and other items), but
they were also free to make money on their own and possess items for their own
benefit (unlike slaves in the US)
Serfs were not allowed to travel without their master’s permission
Serfs in novel often called “muzhiks,” which is where we get the word “hicks”
The Russian serf system was officially abolished on February 19, 1861--two years
before Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing US slaves
The end of serfdom, however, didn’t really change people’s lives in Russia, as it really
meant that instead of paying taxes to masters, the people of Russia suddenly had to
pay taxes to the state
The reasons for the end of serfdom were economic and political: Russia needed
workers for modern factories, and they needed soldiers to fight wars. The serf
system had kept Russia backwards for far too long, so its end had to happen in order
for progress to be made. Ironically, that “progress” led, in 1917, to the Russian
Revolution and (later) the USSR.
Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov
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Why three names? Explain Russian
naming conventions.
What was Gogol’s intention in naming his
main character “Chichikov”?
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Why, in other words, is it funny?
What do we learn about him in the first
chapter?
How does our impression of Chichikov
change in the final chapter of volume one?
Other Characters
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Manilov
Korobochka
Nozdryov
Sobakevich
Plyushkin
Seliphan
Petrushka