The Inspector-General. Nikolai Gogol

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СКАЧАТЬ a faithful reflex of the seamy side of provincial life in Russia, and a typical set of droll but dubious characters live again in its pages. The play is indeed a mirror, and a not too flattering one, to the more shady section of Muscovite society. Apart, however, from the general tone of satire, which would be more keenly appreciated by its victims, there is in the Revizór so much rough-and-ready wit, and such a series of humorous situations, that the comedy appeals also to non-Russian readers. As to plot, there is scarcely any. The central incident of the piece is the arrival of a supposed "revizór" in a country town somewhere in the south of Russia. This functionary has no exact English analogue, but he may be defined as an inspector commissioned by the Government, with unlimited powers to inquire into the abuses of provincial administration. It is needless to say that such a petty autocrat would be about the last person desired as a visitor by the local chinovniks whom Gogol depicts. They are certainly a collection of black sheep, and the approach of this much-dreaded official does not add to their peace of mind. After years of undisturbed jobbery and plunder, they are rudely confronted with the prospect of administrative exile to Siberia. It appears that the Town-Governor has regularly blackmailed the merchants, who in their turn have recouped themselves out of Government contracts. The Judge is more distinguished as a Nimrod than as a Solomon; he has turned the court-house into a kennel, and done a roaring traffic in bribes. Artemi Philippovich, the Warden of the Hospital has left the patients to be cured by "nature " and the ministrations of an inarticulate foreigner, who is innocent of any knowledge of Russian. Of the others, Luka Lukich, Director of Educational Establishments, to give him his full style and title, is, if possible, more incapable than his subordinates. The Postmaster Shpyokin's weak point is his taste for opening and reading other people's letters; while the Police-Officers are generally too drunk to be employed on duty. Such is the model community, for which the imaginary inspector's escapades have a tragic result.

The comedy was first produced at St. Petersburg in April 1836, during the reign of the Tsar Nicholas. Russian literature at that date showed signs of a revival. Derzhavin, the court poet, and Karamzin, as a romance-writer, were now going out of fashion. It was felt that the mania for adaptation from the French had been rather overdone. Even as early as 1823 Griboyedov had raised a protest. He satirised the inordinate and slavish Francophilism of the age in a powerful play. Gore ot Uma (Wit comes to Grief). Krilov, the fabulist, also contributed to this reaction by producing some genuine Russian work, though on different lines. Sixty-eight years old in 1836, he was at the height of his popularity, and had not ceased issuing his immortal series of Fables^[1]. Another prominent litterateur was Zhukovski, then aged fifty- three. He is best known to the outside world as the author of the national anthem, Bozhe Tsarya Khrani (God save the Tsar). Of Gogol's more immediate contemporaries, some half-dozen have achieved European fame. Pushkin, the poet, and Lermontov, the novelist, were thirty-seven and twenty-two years old respectively when the Revizor first came out. They were both destined for the same fate—to be killed in duels by Frenchmen, the former in 1837, and Lermontov four years later. Other well-known names, are those of Turgeniev (1818-1883) and Dostoyevski (1821-1881), the famous pair of novelists. More celebrated than all is, perhaps, Count Lyof Tolstoy (born in 1828), but he belongs rather to a subsequent generation. Gogol's own age at the date of the Inspector-General was twenty-seven, as he was born in the same year as Tennyson and Gladstone.

Nikoldi Vasilyevich Gogol^[2] Yanovski came into the world at Sorochintsi, his father's estate, near Poltava, the scene of the famous battle, exactly a century before, between Charles XII of Sweden and Peter the Great. The date of his birth is variously given as March the 21st, or 31st, 1809. The poetic and historical surroundings of his birthplace in the Ukraine must have largely influenced his childhood and determined the bent of his future career He was educated at the "Gymnasium," or High School of Nyezhin, a town of about 40,000 inhabitants in the Chernfgov Government, near the sacred city of Kiev. Here he was a somewhat erratic and irregular pupil, but he distinguished himself by starting a manuscript magazine called the Star, to which he was the chief contributor. He also composed a tragedy, The Brigands. After leaving the academy of Nyezhin he proceeded, in 1829, to St. Petersburg full of high hopes, but with slender funds. His literary stock-in-trade consisted of one or two fugitive pieces, such as "Italy : a poem," and an idyl, " Hans Kuchel Garten," which he published under the pseudonym of V. Alof. These productions were so unmercifully ridiculed by the critics, that he hired a room in an inn and burnt all the copies obtainable. Discouraged by this failure, he thought of trying the stage, but found that his voice was too weak. Supporting himself in the meanwhile with a desultory clerkship, he scored his first success in 1830 with some delineations of Little Russian peasant life, entitled "Evenings at a Farm near Dikanka," by Rudy Panko. Shortly after this he was appointed Professor of History at the University of St. Petersburg. His first few lectures were brilliant, but he soon wearied of the work, and finally threw it up in 1835. During this period his pen was by no means idle. He wrote a number of stories and sketches, chiefly descriptive of Malo-Russian life, such as "The Quarrel of the two Ivans" and "Old-fashioned Landowners." His success was assured by the production of a romance called Taras Bulba, relating the career of a Zaporozhian^[3] Cossack chieftain. He broke fresh ground in 1836 with the Revizor. This uncompromising satire on Russian bureaucracy procured him a host of enemies, who took care to retaliate upon him. The generosity of the Emperor Nicholas, however, provided him with the means of escaping from their attacks, and enabled him to dispel his melancholy tendencies by an extended tour on the Continent. During his stay in Italy he wrote the first part of his most celebrated work, Myorivuiya Dushi (Dead Souls). This singular title was applied to serfs who had died between the "revisions" or censuses, held at irregular intervals before the Emancipation of 1861. The book describes the adventures of the speculator Chichikov, who travels about Russia, engaged in a traffic in dead serfs in order to pawn them to the State. Dead Souls appeared in 1842, and soon achieved a marked popularity. By ridiculing the proprietors and depicting the wretchedness of the muzhiks, Gogol may be said to have helped in preparing Russia for the great Liberation which was accomplished twenty years after.

      In his later years Gogol became a confirmed hypochondriac. He entertained mystical views on religious and social subjects, and abjured his former productions. A fit of depression impelled him to burn the manuscript of the second part of Dead Souls. As a result, the book only exists in an incomplete form, with considerable gaps filled up from a rough draft found after his death. In 1846 Gogol went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, the Mecca of the Orthodox. Eventually he returned to Moscow, and lived on the hospitality of his friends. He passed from house to house, with a bag full of newspaper extracts and criticisms in which his works were unfavourably reviewed. Outliving his literary productiveness by some years, he died at the early age of forty-three on March 3rd, 1852.

      Those who personally knew Gogol in the forties describe him as an awkward and badly-dressed little man, with a sidelong gait, extremely shy and uncommunicative, except in the society of children and his intimate friends. A large nose and a huge lock of hair falling over his right eyebrow gave him a somewhat eccentric appearance. It is not recorded that he was ever in love, and he died unmarried.

      The Inspector-General, like Dead Souls, is now firmly established as a Russian classic. An enthusiastic critic, Dudishkin, has gone so far as to lay down his opinion that "Russia possesses only one comedy—The Revizor—which quite fulfils the requirements of dramatic art." Representations of the play are given from time to time, especially at the Alexandrovski Theatre at St. Petersburg. Jubilee celebrations were held in 1886 in the two capitals. Matters were different, however, fifty years earlier. Difficulties were thrown in the way of its original production on the stage, as the chinovniks of the day considered it not sufficiently "well-intentioned" in tone. They would have succeeded in suppressing such an outspoken satire had not the Tsar Nicholas, as in the case of Krilóv, personally applauded the comedy, laughing heartily over the Town-Governor's embarrassments.

      There have been several editions of Gogol's works, including a complete collection published at Moscow in 1856-57. Some of his novels have been translated, but I have not seen an English rendering of the Revizór. I do not think any translation has as yet been published in England or America. Sosnitski's edition, dated 1886, СКАЧАТЬ