Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends

Chapter eight from Gogol's Art : A Search for Identity by Laszlo Tikos

Gogol's Art was published in paperback in 1997 by Bati Publishers, PO Box 263, Leverett, MA 01054. (Price $15). You can reach the author at that address or by email at Tikos@slavic.umass.edu.

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The book CD "Gogol and Russian Literature" is built around Gogol's Art: a Search for Identity by Laszlo Tikos, the best book ever written about Russia's most enigmatic and intriguing author. Nikolay Gogol (1809-1852) created a new direction in Russian letters, which was further developed in the 19th century by writers like Dostoyevsky and Rozanov, and in the 20th century by Bely, Bulgakov and Sinyavsky. In addition to Gogol's Art, this CD includes the full text of Dead Souls, Tara Bulba, The Inspector General, and St. John's Eve by Gogol, plus great books by Dostoeyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Pushkin, Turgenev, Andreyev, Gorky, Kuprin, and Lermontov, plus works on Russian history, plus two "Country Studies" -- Russia and Belarus (birthplace of Gogol) -- which were originally published as printed books by the Library of Congress between 1987 and 1995. For details, see our online store http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat/russian.html

Chapter Eight --

Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends

Actually, this treatment does not come as a surprise: it is not a very entertaining work and, in contrast to Gogol's other, little known Arabesques, it does not even have the redeeming feature of including works of fiction. The volume is a collection of essays, most of which purport to be letters -- some of them are, or may, indeed, have been actual letters, even if they were not necessarily sent to the addressees intended. Jesse Zeldin sums up the case succinctly: "Between 1842, when Dead Souls was published, and 1847, when he brought out the Selected Passages, Nikolai Gogol was occupied with two things: the continuation of Dead Souls (a task that plagued him until his death 1851) and the clarification of his religious, moral, and aesthetic views. The latter form the content of the Selected Passages, the last of Gogol's works to be published during his lifetime.⁵ "The genesis of the work, the history of its publication, and the controversy surrounding it are well known. As they are presented in detail in Zeldin's introduction, there is no need to repeat them here. Still, the volume is worthy of attention for a number of reasons: Critics agree that it is the result of Gogol's spiritual crisis -- as most term it. Besides, it evidences a certain hesitation in Gogol's artistic development, not unlike the situation he faced when the Arabesques appeared. Then, having fully mined the possibilities of the Ukrainian scene, Gogol was looking for a new source of artistic inspiration. The Petersburg stories resulted. Now, on the heels of finishing the first volume of Dead Souls, Gogol seems to have been in need of a pause, in order to gather up his courage before moving on to the second and the hypothetical third volumes. It would seem that Gogol recognized that he must reformulate his ars poetica, and that to this investigation he now devoted the Selected Passages. These can be understood as serving as a hiatus, or even as a trial balloon, testing the validity of some of Gogol's new ideas and their reception by his readers. The test, if that is what it was, proved unsuccessful, as did the projected volumes for Dead Souls. The Selected Passages, together with the remnants of the manuscripts for the second volume of Dead Souls which survived a fiery burial by their creator, have remained an enigma, a source of difficulty to critics charting the continuing evolution of Gogol's oeuvre.

The volume is divided into thirty-two chapters. If we are to consider the first, "Testament ", and the last, "Easter Sunday ", as separate entities, it becomes clear that Gogol is exploiting the structural device of thirty chapters as a reminder that the number stands for holiness, completeness and finality and that he hoped to deliver the sum total of his views on all the problems that interested him at the time. As in the Arabesques, the proper sequence of the chapters is significant to his literary purposes as well.

The first chapter, "Testament ", constitutes a highly personal statement which culminates in the last utterance of a person ready to face his death, while the final chapter, " Easter Sunday ", closes the cycle with a discussion of Christ's Resurrection as the most important of the Christian mysteries.

Between these two poles, Gogol discourses on many topics dear to his heart: social conditions in Russia, Russian literature, Christianity, his defence of the first volume of Dead Souls, the meaning of Russian social and political reforms, painting, justice and the social order in Russia, Russian poetry, and many other concerns.

The" Preface", signed by Gogol in July of 1846, strikes a somber note and reads like the will and testament of a person nearing death, or like a religious document from the Middle Ages, perhaps the last teaching of a holy person -- Monomakh's teaching to his sons comes to mind as a precursor. "I was grievously ill, death was near," Gogol begins. From this simple statement flows an elegiac formulation of his desire to see existence in the light of eternal things ( sub speciae aeternitatis ). He describes his desire to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and with this journey in mind, he expresses the need to make a final testament: hence this collection of letters and essays.

The body of the text can be divided into nine requests to friends. These requests read something like the famous self-evaluations of famous literary predecessors, for instance, Derzhavin, Pushkin, or, for that matter, Horace in the" Exegi Monumentum" . A well structured statement, it devolves on Gogol's present understanding of his place in Russian literature. Like Leo Tolstoy's similar statements, penned some forty to fifty years later, Gogol rejects his former fiction as "sinful" and "useless", and instructs his friends on how to remember him, both in literature and in life. The recommendations are neither startling nor new as they are couched in the language of standard Christian arguments, especially of a medieval, monastic bent, that see life as a vale of tears and urge repentance and forgiveness of sins as the most important Christian duty. They also view art as a sacred vocation, which should serve as a guiding, utilitarian force in this world.

Among the points Gogol raises in the Introduction, is his request that his selected correspondence be published after his death, because he wants "...to leave something of myself by way of farewell to my compatriots." He is convinced that the resulting book will be useful -- we see here his insistence on the utilitarianism of his efforts -- and, he adds, "I have never before felt such a powerful desire to be useful." ⁶ He gives still further practical advice, that those who can afford it should buy several copies of his book, and distribute them to those who cannot.

The second request follows the same logic. Gogol asks his reading public's forgiveness for his "ill-considered" and immature works, excusing himself since his intentions were good. If matters have not produced better results, it is because of his "foolishness, my haste and precipitation", which resulted in "imperfect" works, and which "led everyone into error concerning their real significance."

This request for forgiveness is then extended from Russians as a group to his fellow writers, and then to all Christians, and ends with the general request that "everyone in Russia pray for me". In return, he promises to pray for everyone when he reaches Jerusalem.

These first pages offer some obvious inconsistencies. First is gogol's request that his " Selected Letters " be published after his death. But he published them himself while he was still alive! Was the request a mistake, a miscalculation, a role-playing --merely posing? Or was it the result of his feeling that death was imminent that forced Gogol's hand in publishing the Selected Passages ? The question is difficult to answer.It is well known that Gogol complained about his health during most of the time of his stay abroad. It is conceivable that he was seriously thinking that he was indeed soon to die. Many of his friends, on the other hand, testified that Gogol was always a hypochondriac, as well as given to schemes and charades to serve his selfish ends.

But quite apart from these biographical speculations, the Selected Passages raise another question with regard to his search for a new ars poetica. ⁷ His ideas and style were permeated by an outlook borrowed from the writings of medieval monks and may represent a new phase in Gogol's artistic thinking which he was now trying out on his contemporaries in a voice uncharacteristic for him, both understated and bashful. Just as he always hid his most cherished ideas behind all kinds of verbal facades and subterfuges, and borrowed the voice of German romanticism for his Petersburg tales, after having exhausted the mine of Ukrainian folk-fiction in the Arabesques, was he here experimenting with a new, if still borrowed, voice?

Indeed, the Selected Passages can be understood as a preliminary study, a collection of ideas for contemplated second and third volumes for Dead Souls with which he planned, as he hinted repeatedly, to astonish the world, with their direction and the scope of their design. Just as the first volume was written under the old formulae of satirical lambasting of provincial Russia, now his work needed a redefinition of art's purpose which was to be sketched, in outline at least, in the Selected Passages.

The somber tone of this introduction is certainly different from the comic pages of Gogol's earlier fictions, but still, it is not a complete departure from certain ideas present in such previous works as " The Portrait " and " The Overcoat ". New, however, is the author's severe personal confession, no longer counterbalanced by humor nor by the presence of lighter, fictional characters. In the past, for instance, he had opposed the tragic Piskarev with the foolish Priogov in " The Nevsky Prospect ". The effect here is startling, as the reader has come to expect some new Gogolian trick, some equivalent of the nose, masquerading this time, not as a higher official, but perhaps in the guise of a monk, still hiding in the wings to relieve the tone. But no such foolery emerges in the entire volume.

The Introduction is followed by a "Testament" , which is again divided into seven separate parts: first, Gogol requests that his body not be buried "until such time as clear signs of decomposition have appeared." ⁸ This strange request is supported by Gogol's supposedly having witnessed premature burials-- not uncommon in those days, he says, because of "our unwise haste in all matters." On the other hand, should his death have been established without doubt, Gogol does not care where his body is to be buried, because "nothing should be associated with my dusty remains." Therefore, no monument is to be raised to him, either, except in the reader's transformation into a better person. Nor should there be weeping for him, since to see his death as a loss would be a sin.

The fourth request is even stranger: Gogol promises to bequeath to his friends a short work of his own which he calls "The Farewell Tale", and which should explain the reasons behind his mysteries: "For a long time I have carried it in my heart as the most precious treasure, as a mark of divine grace of God to me " The most curious aspect of this "Farewell Tale", however, is that there is no trace among Gogol's papers of its ever having been written. Further, he asks his friends to collect and publish the letters he has written since 1844, since these letters might be of benefit to the general reader, and they might also "strike from my soul a part of a heavy responsibility for the uselessness of what I wrote earlier."

The next request seems scurrilous: He gives orders not to free "members of his household" (presumably his serfs). The reason he advances is that "They ought rather put themselves at the disposition of the afflicted, the suffering, and all those who have felt sorrow in life. Let their abode, their country house, have more the air of a hospital and asylum than that of a landowner's property." Gogol suggests that these new asylums could become places of general counsel for travelers: "If it is a question of someone habitually on the road, used to a wretched life and embarrassed at being lodged in a house of the bourgeoisie, then let him be led to the house of the most comfortable and best lodged peasant of the village who, besides, should have the most exemplary morals and could aid him by his good counsel." ⁹

If this final request sounds like some of the "practical" suggestions advanced in the Arabesques concerning modern architecture or as coming straight out of " The Portrait ", it stems from Gogol's prohibition of the reproduction and distribution of his portrait which "has been stolen from me, and against my will and without my permission, my portrait has been published abroad." ¹⁰ Instead, he suggests that another portrait be substituted, and sold for profit, the one painted by a fellow artist in Rome, F. I. Yordanov. He even goes so far as to say that one should buy only the one on which there appears the authentication, "Engraved by Yordanov"; or, even better, that one should buy Yordanov's painting, "The Transfiguration of the Lord" which, according to Gogol, "even in the opinion of foreigners, is the crown of the engraver's art and constitutes Russian glory."

The final sentence of this "Testament" is a somber warning: "My testament must be published immediately after my death in all the newspapers and reviews, so that no one may, in ignorance, be innocently guilty towards me and bring reproaches down upon my soul." ¹¹ Thus "The Testament", like the volume's introduction, is composed of a curious mixture of vintage Gogoliana: gothic horrors are here mixed with manipulative gestures and suggestions, all clothed in the style of medieval pronouncements of high church officials -- which again raises the question as to whether the literary genre, the style itself, was just as important to Gogol as the actual content of these statements. ¹² How perverse are these offerings?

Grouping the main body of the individual essays which come together with these two somewhat startling homilies, we can distinguish among five broad categories: the question of the role of women in contemporary society; advice and admonitions; art and literature; Russia; the Church and religious matters. All have already figured in Gogol's thinking, especially as he raised them in the Arabesques.

Despite the outward differences, we find here that Gogol's basic approach has not really changed. There, too, he treated the question of a woman's place as part of the general debate on improving society. Just as in the Arabesques women were seen as potentially representing the romantic ideal of purity and grace, here now, the basic approach remains: women are supposed to act as an inspiration and an example for the betterment of men. Where in the Arabesques they were seen as affecting mankind by their mysterious relationship to beauty, here the emphasis is upon duty. Entitled "Woman in the World", the first essay on the subject occupies an important place in the collection as it follows immediately on the "Testament". It begins with an apostrophe to a woman: "You believe that you cannot have any influence on society. I believe the opposite!" ¹³ "The influence of a woman can be very great," he insists, "especially now, in the present disorder of society, in which there is a kind of spiritual chill, a kind of moral fatigue, demanding reanimation. In order to produce this reanimation, the cooperation of women is indispensable."

What, then, does Gogol propose that a woman can do in order to reanimate society? (In Gorbachev's Russia the word was to become " perestroyka " "restructuring ")? Among other things, women should not pester their husbands to spend continually greater and greater sums in the effort to keep up with the Joneses -- or Ivanovs; but rather should remember their duty. "Husbands would not allow themselves one tenth of the disturbances [in conjugal relations] if their wives were to achieve even a modicum of their duty." Clearly, Gogol's romantic vision of the feminine ideal has changed little: "For the man the soul of a woman is a preserving talisman, guarding him from moral infections; it is a power holding him to the straight path, a guide leading him back from the crooked to the straight; on the other hand, the soul of a woman can be his evil [genius] and ruin him forever." ¹⁴ In other words, the choice is between the witches of the Gothic fairy tales like the prostitute in " The Portrait ", the selfish woman who destroys Andrey in Taras Bul'ba ; and the pannochka, the director's daughter, and others who represent the unattainable ideal. Gogol now wants to domesticate this ideal, to remind her of her "duty", and to reaffirm the eternal formula on which his universe is based, that is to know her place ( svoe mesto ). It now seems impossible to everyone to do good except in someone else's position, and so he blames his present "place" instead. But we should all consider how to do good just as we are. Gogol then offers "practical" suggestions for achieving this spiritual change: she must do charity work -- "Famine," he pronounces, "fire, insupportable spiritual tribulations, and fearful mental sickness, with which our generation is infected"--all these could be attended to by women and alleviated.

Therefore, Gogol urges women: "Fly to the world boldly, with the radiance of your smile. Your only duty is to bring your smile to a sufferer, and the voice in which a man hears his sister flying to him from heaven, and nothing more."

In two subsequent essays on the issue, Gogol writes in a more truly practical vein. In a letter to A. O. Smirnova (Letter XXI, 1848), he briefly outlines his thinking on " What the Wife of a Provincial Governor Is ". The practical "advice" begins by admonitions to an intelligent woman, the wife of a provincial governor, on how to act upon falling into the quicklime of a provincial backwater. He suggests that she establish an independent way of thinking: instead of imitating the local Ivanovs, he urges, "Banish luxury." And, "as long as there is nothing else to do, this is already a good action. Do not miss one meeting or ball; go tho them just to display yourself in the same dress; wear the same dress three, four, five, six times. Boast only of what is cheap and simple. In short, banish this nasty, foul luxury, which is the ulcer of Russia, the source of bribery, of injustice, and of all the abominations among us. If you succeed in doing no more than this, you will already be of more vital benefit than Princess O... And this [conduct] does not even demand sacrifice, does not even take time."Further, he tells her to look at provincial Russia as "a doctor looks at a leper hospital". She should carefully study each administrator's function, and become herself aware of abuses and mismanagement, so that she can then appeal to honesty in others in order to bring about a change. Interestingly, Gogol does not inveigh against abuses, but suggests rather that patience and an appeal to inborn honesty is the best way to proceed: "Believe me, the best way to act at the present time is not boldly and vehemently to arm yourself against the grafters and wicked people, not to persecute them, but rather to try to bring every honest trait to light, to be friendly and to shake the hand of a sincere, honest man in the sight of everyone." ¹⁵ On the other hand, Gogol realizes that not everybody will become honest merely because of a personal appeal; and he suggests that stubborn "villains" must be dismissed, but openly, and through the court system. In other words, in a " glasnost' " through the public disclosure of evil deeds.

How is an intelligent woman to wage this fight all alone? She needs the help of the local "intelligent priests". The Russian priests -- even though Gogol recognizes their numerous faults --are still to be used as agents of social change. They are well suited for this role because through their daily concentration on God's laws, they are better equipped to be honest than most men. "Among us worldly men there is pride, ambition, vanity, self-confidence in our own perfection, in consequence of which not one of us seems to listen to the words and exhortations of his brother. A priest, whoever he may be, still more or less feels that he should be the humblest of all and the lowest of all; besides, every day he hears himself called to service. In short, he is closer than all of us to returning to his ways, and returning himself, he can return us all." ¹⁶

Gogol suggests that the wife of a provincial governor also has the duty to change the clergy. And in changing them, everything else will be changed: "Remind them that their responsibility is terrible, that the response they give will be greater than that of the people of all other vocations, that now the Synod and the Emperor himself are paying attention to the live of the priests, everyone is being sifted, because not only the powerful State but every single person in the State is beginning to notice that the cause of all this evil is that the priests are fulfilling their functions negligently."Although these statements may not seem particularly practical, or to deal with real people in real situations, he appends on important commentary: He wants her to understand that he is talking not about some kind of future Utopia, but about actual, real work to be done here and now. He distinguishes between these two forms of social activity and warns sternly against Utopian thinking: "Everything is in the hands of merciful God: the present, the past, the future. All misfortunes come only because, looking at the present, we remark as something sad and mournful what in the past was simply foul; if it is not fashioned as we would wish, we give it up as a lost [cause] and stare at the future." Gogol sees this approach as a religious practicality: "That is why God does not give us prescience; that is why all the future is in suspense for us. Some perceive that it will be good, thanks to a few progressive people who in turn have perceived it, rather than believing it to be a matter of the laws of mathematical deduction -- but how to achieve this future no one knows." ¹⁷

The insight goes against the secular belief of contemporary progressives in mathematical principles as ordering the future of society, and reveals the clearest difference between Gogol and thinkers like Belinskij, and later Chernyshevskij, both precursors of the Marxist determinists whose ideas have dominated the fierce prejudice against Gogol's work during the past hundred and fifty years.

Gogol's advice is both more practical and more humble: "Bring me at least a knowledge of the present," he cries. He relies on awakening feelings of shame and honesty in the populace which he sees as being capable of achievement by fortifying themselves with prayer and steadfastness.

Another interesting aspect of this letter is that Gogol goes into numerous details of provincial administration at the same time that he admits to his ignorance of these matters. Just as he once asked his mother for details of Ukrainian folklore, he now asks Smirnova to act as a source of information for him, and to jot down all kinds of details about the life of an actual Russian province, since he knows so little about these from first-hand experience. Thus Gogol's design appears to be twofold: on the one hand, it is the view that he aired in "The Inspector General" and in the first volume of Dead Souls, namely, that he knows Russia is a corrupt a slothful place, a "leper hospital", as he termed it; while, on the other hand, he would like to see the ideal Russia emerging as a result of his practical suggestions. Thus the picture of the Russian provinces (and of Russia in general) oscillates between these two extremes: his vision of a grotesque comedy of corruption and his eulogy of the all-powerful and beneficial activity of the "honest" people who include the "honest" top representatives of the State and the Church.

In Letter XXIV, " What a Wife Can Do for Her Husband in Simple Domestic Matters, as Things Are Now in Russia ", he urges the same sort of practical principles for family life as well. The Letter is a fairly sensible family guide which pictures a sort of mirror of the family as he portrayed it in his fiction, especially in Dead Souls. Seeing what Gogol considers to be an important aspect of family life can explain many of the grotesque situations encountered in his fiction which concern family affairs. The letter is kept on a personal level, but is addressed to a married woman, because, as he says, she is more capable of comprehending Gogol's ideas than her husband. This is certainly a departure from his frequent portrayals of female characters as empty-headed puppets. Since he evidently considers women as the more reasonable members of a marriage partnership to whom he is addressing his advice, Gogol may not be such a fiend as many critics would have us believe, though his views may also seem archaic today.

Instead of offering moralizing preachments, Gogol says that it is the wife who should see to it that the family's finances are in order. Again, the advice is practical: "Divide your money into seven almost equal piles,"he tells her;"In the first pile will be the money for your quarters, including heating, water, firewood, and everything but the bare walls of the house and keeping the courtyard clean." And so on down the line what constitutes a proposal for the practice of regular bookkeeping. "The seventh pile," on the other hand, is "for God, that is, money for the Church and for the poor." A modern Money Manager could give no better advice, even down to the charitable deductions. After setting up these categories, Gogol warns that under no circumstances should the amounts allotted be transferred from one category to another nor exceeded in spending -- not even the charitable fund. "Ask God for obstinacy," he suggests. "Keep to this strictly for a whole year. Strengthen yourself and be obstinate, and all this time pray to God to strengthen you. And you will grow constantly. This is important, so that something may be strengthened in a man and become immutable; as a result of this, order cannot help but be established in everything. " Further, he urges the necessity of keeping regular work habits, and of parceling out obligations and regular work schedules. A woman must, therefore, recognize the necessity ( which has now become familiar to Gogol's discerning reader )to establish her "own place"( svoe mesto ).Interestingly, he considers it a wife's responsibility to make certain that her husband go to the office or do his job, instead of hanging around at home and doing nothing. The consequences of idleness are detrimental to family happiness. Indeed, in one of his plays, "The Morning of a Busy Man " , this is exactly the situation that Gogol lambastes. ¹⁸

Now he says: "Distribute your time; assume that every hour is indispensable. Do not stay with your husband all morning; send him to his work to the department, every minute reminding him wholly of the common cause and of the property of the Empire (his own property is not his care; it must rely on you and not on him).He married precisely so that in freeing himself from trivial cares, he might give his all to the Fatherland; a wife must give him not a hindrance to his service, but fortify him in his service." ¹⁹

After having worked separately in their own different "places", husband and wife,instead of being bored to death with each other, and hence seeking pleasures and luxury detrimental to all, will be happy to see each other at the end of the day, and will tell each other their problems, and their experiences. Thus Gogol's advice about married life anticipates Tolstoy's point that a happy marriage is the natural function of "natural people ".

He concludes that in starting out with management of the family finances and then naturally proceeding to the management of time, it will not only be possible to achieve a happy married life, but also to serve as a model for the rejuvenation of Russia. "Everything among us," he warns, "is now diffused and disunited. Every man has become a scoundrel, a spineless creature; he has turned into a base footstool for everything, and into a slave of his own vapid, trivial circumstances; nowhere now is there freedom in its true sense." ²⁰

This insight lies at the heart of Gogol's satirical portrayal of Russia, though as he is now older and wiser and is living in Rome -- not to mention his increasingly monastic inclinations -- he has lost interest in satirizing. He understands that the time has come for a serious consideration of solving problems. For this reason, he is sure that a radical change in the basic financial and work ethic will lead to a liberation of the country as a whole. "A friend of mine,who knows all Russia, defines freedom as follows: 'Freedom is not in arbitrarily saying Yes to ones's desires, but in knowing how to say No to them.' He is right, as truth itself [is right]. No one in Russia now knows how to speak this stern 'No' to himself. Nowhere is there a real man. Let a feeble woman remind him of this! Everything has now become so wonderful that the wife must command the husband so that he may be her head and her sovereign."

Apart form the romantic--or, in modern parlance, sexist tenor of the statement, Gogol's sentiments stand in direct contradiction to the ideas of contemporary progressives who did not want to go along with such practical ways of solving the country's problems, but rather wanted to replace existing structures with new ones. (See, for example, the "new marriage" proposed by Chernyshevsky in his What's to be Done ? ) ²¹

Another group of letters and essays falls into the category of General Advice, or admonition. Some eight in number, they could be described as Christian counseling.

Letter III, to Count A. P. Tolstoy, discusses " The Meaning of Sickness ". It serves actually as a continuation of the introductory statement which dealt with the urgency of Gogol's need to do the most important things in the light of his approaching death. One should be grateful for sickness, he says: "Ah! How necessary these ailments are to us! From among the many benefits which I have extracted from then I will cite only one to you: whatever I may be now, at least I am better than I was before; were it not for these ailments, I would have thought I was already as I ought to be." ²² The insight afforded him by sickness, Gogol believes, has made him a better writer: "I see that now everything that issues from my pen will be more meaningful than heretofore." On the other hand, sickness itself is merely a precondition for improvement: one must pray for enlightenment as to the meaning of the condition. "Only pray to God that its [sickness'] wonderful meaning and all the profundity of its sublime import may be revealed to you."

Gogol always considered it important to alleviate the lot of others who, for whatever reasons, were oppressed by poverty, not to mention other disasters. In the essay :"Help the Poor ",written to A. O. Smirnova (1844), Gogol explains his ideas about charity. First, he is against the attractions of fashionable benefices, such as "giving garlands and goblets to foreign singers and actresses when whole provinces of Russia are starving". So where do misfortunes come from? He sees them exclusively as the result of normal human heedlessness. The miseries and horrors produced by hunger are far from us: he says, "They are happening in the interior of the provinces, they are not before our eyes -- that is the solution to and the explanation of everything." ²³ He asks, like L.Tolstoy in his "What Then Shall We Do ? ", how to alleviate famine. (The question is still being urged today among humanistic organizations of international scope as to how humanitarian aid should be administered.) Gogol realizes that there is a danger that the results of every centrally organized effort may fall into bureaucratic hands, and not reach those for whom they were intended: "Donations for the benefit of the poor are not now made very willingly among us," he explains; "in part, because we are not at all confident that they will reach their destination as they ought and [that they may] fall into hands into which they ought to fall. It usually happens that the aid, like water carried in the hand, trickles away on the road before it is delivered." ²⁴

Gogol then advocates priorities as to where help must be given: "It is necessary to help him to whom sudden misfortune has come, a misfortune which suddenly, in a moment, robs him of everything." He sets preconditions: aid should be given in "a really Christian way", because if aid means only giving money to the needy, "the distribution of money will mean exactly nothing and will not be converted into good."The sensible way is to teach the unfortunate person "how he should recover with the aid you have given him". But he does not have in mind some kind of training or acquisition of skills. His is a moral concern: "Explain the true meaning of misfortune to him so that he may see that it has been sent to him so that he may change his former way of life, so that henceforth he may not be as he was formerly but will become like another man, materially and morally.He will understand you: Misfortune softens a man." ²⁵

Finally, he suggests that the aid should be administered by some "expert hands", such as those of "sensible priests", not only because "they are not corrupt", but also, because they are able to convince the sufferer that his misfortune is "the heavenly appeal crying to a man to change all his former life." Another letter, to L., (1844) : " Controversies ", deals with issues which were to lead to some of the most heated political debates in Russia between the "Slavophiles" and the "Westernizers". Gogol, who has frequently been accused of having been a Slavophile, shows himself here as remarkably balanced and impartial. He observes that both sides have something to contribute to the debate, even though: "It stands to reason that the truth is more on the side of the Slavists and orientalists",  ²⁶ because they see the whole picture rather than the details as Westernizers do. And, as was his wont, he offers a practical comparison to explain his point: the debate about Russia's future can be compared to a tall building, which the Slavophiles see from too far away to distinguish the details, while the Westernizers observe it from too close at hand so that they see only the details and not the general picture.

Though he seems here to favor the Slavophiles, he goes on to critize them as well: "There is more conceit on the side of the Slavicists," ²⁷ he says. "they are boasters; each imagines that he has discovered America and inflates his little seed into a turnip."The resulting shouting match creates only chaos in society, because "affairs, like the subordinated officials themselves, come to grief, for they no longer know whom to heed."

His advice to the recipient of the letter is that the best thing is "not to meddle"; to let the fiery passions be practiced by youthful enthusiasts. It appears that the recipient is an older person, for Gogol tells him he should realize that every age has its own duty and responsibility (its" own place " ! ): "From the lips of an old man there ought to issue words of good will and not a shouting controversy. A spirit of the purest gentleness and meekness ought to imbue the noble speeches of an old man, so that youth will find nothing to say to him in objection, feeling that its words would be unseemly and that gray hairs are already holy." ²⁸ Again, in a letter to "Shch" (1855), entitled " The Christian Goes Forward ", Gogol develops the need for seeing things from a higher perspective than everyday controversy. He argues that since age is a limit for one's natural development, according to nature's laws a man reaches the fullest development of his intellect by the time he is thirty and retains the peak for another decade at best: "From thirty to forty his powers still may go somewhat forward; after forty nothing progresses in him," he says. We remember that Dostoyevsky uses the same argument--this time ironically --in his Notes from Underground, in order to ridicule the "rationalistic", conspicuous "reasonable-egotism" of Chernyshevsky and his folowers. But Gogol, instead of debating this physiological argument, as he calls it, uses it to his own advantage, maintaining that these limitations do not exist for the Christian: "Where for others the limit of perfection has been reached, for him it is only the beginning." He illustrates the argument of age and its effect upon one's intellectual and spiritual development with two examples: Even the best intellectual minds have declined with age, as witness "Kant, who in his last years completely lost his memory and died in second childhood." On the other hand, "Consider the lives of the saints: You will see that they increased in spiritual wisdom and in spiritual power in just the degree that they approached decrepitude and death." ²⁹

He marshalls further arguments; indeed, he says, it is the natural course of events that most people, while they are young,"are dreaming of that distant rainbow", though they give up the ambition with age; while before Christians, "the distance shines eternally.and new deeds are disclosed.That is why the Christian progresses when others retrogress, and why the farther he goes, the more intelligent he becomes."

He then distinguishes between three degrees of spiritual perfection: intelligence, reason, and, finally, wisdom which is the state that only Christians can reach: "If it [wisdom] enters his house, then a celestial life begins for a man, and he comprehends all the marvelous sweetness of being a pupil."

How is one to reach that stage? By prayer and by grace. On the other hand, it is not a situation which can last forever without one's doing something for it:If a man stops striving, he can lose all that he has achieved as well: "If for one instant, he imagines that his study is finished and that he is no longer a pupil, if he is outraged by anybody's lesson or instruction, then wisdom is quickly taken away from him and he remains in the dark, like King Solomon in his last days."

Further advice on the subject is offered in another letter to " Shch " (1846). Entitled " Counsels ", it opens with the Russian translation of the Latin proverb:Docendo docemus, that is, "In instructing others, one instructs oneself. The letter becomes a "Christian" interpretation of this dictum. He explains that while he himself was "in the midst of my unhappy and difficult times", almost by coincidence, he was asked for advice by his friends, and even by complete strangers -- "And I have given them answers which I would not have been able to give formerly". ³⁰ His suffering has turned him to God and, thanks to his understanding that God has sent him the suffering in order to enlighten him, he has been able to enlighten others. "By that very grief which we flee and from which we seek to hide ourselves. God makes us wise." He argues that God's unfathomable will and the wisdom sent by Him to the sufferer oblige him then to go out and teach others about the meaning of suffering. We have already seen the expression of a similar idea in a previous letter, but the thought also bears a resemblance to ideas in Pushkin's poem "The Prophet ". God turns the prophet (that is, the poet) into His own vessel and obliges him to go out and teach men about His infinite wisdom.

Therefore, this particular letter can be taken as the statement of Gogol's new formulation of his ars poetica in his continuing struggle to define his "place" in this world.

The final logic of the argument is that teaching others will inadvertently teach one also about oneself, since one will realize that nobody is better than his fellows: "Act with a two-edged weapon ; under no circumstance take your eyes off yourself. Be an egoist in this connection. Egoism is not a bad characteristic; some people choose to give it a bad interpretation, but the real truth is at the bottom of egoism.First, look at yourself, and then after others; purify you own soul first, and then attempt to make others more pure."Among the various moral admonitions, two more letters should be mentioned. One was written to Count Sergei Uvarov (1786-1855), then Minister of Education, and an influential political figure with whom Gogol had become acquainted when he was looking for a position teaching history, and with whom he remained in correspondence.

The letter (XXIX ) entitled, "Whose is the Loftiest Fate on Earth? " reads almost like letters to the editor in some religious bulletin, debating such abstract topics as the question, whose is the loftiest position on earth ? Gogol's argument is fairly straightforward: in God's eyes we are all equal because we all have to fulfill our duties, whatever they may be. We see here again a new formulation of Gogol's idea of one "own place " , which he sees as the great equalizer in an unequal world. In support of his argument, he quotes Jesus' answer to Peter's question as to the definition of that place: "In my Father's house are many mansions." (John 14:2) ³¹ Clearly, Gogol interprets this answer as indicating that everyone has his "own place", though not necessarily the same one, as he is human, and fallible, and can but follow in his Master's wake.

In this respect, Gogol makes a revealing remark about himself which sounds almost like a summary of the difficulty he was experiencing in his search for a definition of his role as a writer: "But," he confesses, "as I think about these mansions, as I think about what the mansions of God must be, I cannot refrain from tears, and I know that I can in no wise decide which of them to choose for myself." (Italics ours). He therefore concludes with the standard Christian argument in favor of humility, that it is not up to him to make the decision, and he will be content as long as he knows that he will be "in that assemblage which is already favored to contemplate His glory in all its grandeur, only to lie at their feet and to kiss their holy feet."In another short letter : "Exhortations", in which the addressee is not identified , he (or she) must have complained about the injustices and indignities he (or she) had to suffer in a new place to which he (or she) has moved, somewhere in the Russian provinces. Gogol offers the advice that there is not much to be changed with regard to external circumstances, but, he thinks there is a consolation, namely, that "life is but an assignment from above, and some have the fate to be soldiers of the good cause -- even under difficult circumstances". And again, his friend must remember that "we are not at all called into the world for celebrations and banquets. We are called for battle; we will celebrate the victory there." ³²

Thus, Gogol now presents existence in terms of Christian militancy, where life is a battle between the forces of good and evil, and victory is assured, though not necessarily here and now. Gogol's terms in fleshing out this vision are interesting: God he calls " The Heavenly General "; life is but a " battlefield ", and good Christians are but "soldiers" -- The language is the same as in the concept of the Church Militant or even in such contemporary hymns as Harriet Beecher Stowe's " Onward Christian Soldiers! " Or, as Gogol says, "Forward my fair warrior! With God, good comrade! With God, my good friend!" ³³ As to the fate of those against whom the "fair comrades" are fighting, the wages are a sojourn in hell. As Mochulsky observed in his book on Gogol's religious views, Gogol's imagination is medieval, as is his vision that "all the host of heavenly powers shudders in terror of the punishment beyond the grave awaiting them [the Evil Ones] from which no one will deliver them". ³⁴

The letters and essays, or general admonitions, as he calls them, make clear that Gogol's permanent mind-set and his age-old preoccupations have been merely reinforced in these apparently new views, especially his insistence on the practical nature of his thinking and his belief that in doing the right, one can do a great deal to change the status quo. They also emphasize his somewhat monkish outlook, which sees the affairs of this world as strictly ordered in a hierarchical system; and his on-going attempt to discover a new place for himself as a man of sound judgment and wisdom in the general scheme of things.

A group of some ten letters dealing with literature and art begins with " On Public Readings of Russian Poets ", and is addressed to "L", probably V. Leshkov who, as J. Zeldin has noted, was Professor of Law at Moscow University and censor for the journal Muscovite.

Gogol's remark has to do with public poetry readings that have taken place in Moscow. He seizes on the occasion to explain his views on the "educational effects" of literature. Much of what he says echoes familiar ideas from his essays on theater, for instance, "Proper reading of a lyrical work is no bagatelle" long study is needed for it. One must sincerely share with the poet those lofty sensations with which the poet's soul is filled " He adds precise technical advice on the manner in which one should read: "One must sincerely share with the poet those lofty sensations with which the poet's soul is filled, one must feel the words in soul and heart -- and only then bring the reading to the public. This reading will not be in the least flashy, feverish, or heated. On the contrary, it can even be very calm but an unknown force will be heard in the voice of the reader, the witness of a really moved internal state. This force will be communicated to everyone, and it will work a miracle: even those whom the sounds of poetry have never shaken will be touched." ³⁵ The ideas will come as no surprise to the reader of his instructions on producing " The Inspector General" .

Gogol tops off his recommendations with the practical stipulation to use these readings to collect money as well as to raise public consciousness for the benefit of the poor: "The idea of turning these public readings into the benefits of the pooris a good one," he says. " It is especially to the point now, when there are so many in Russia suffering from hunger, conflagrations, diseases, and all kinds of misfortunes. Perhaps the souls of the poets who left us will be consoled by such use of their works."

The Selected Passages retain another feature from his youthful essays of criticism of works which he found important or interesting. When the Odyssey appeared in Zhukovsky's translation into Russian, Gogol wrote an enthusiastic review of his friend and mentor's achievement in the form of a letter to a poet friend, N. M. Yazykov. Gogol evidently included this letter in the Selected Passages not only to show his appreciation of Yazykov's work, but also to emphasize the fascination the antique world holds out for all readers. "The publication of the Odyssey ",he announces, "will mark the beginning of a new era. ³⁶ "Though this statement may seem exaggerated, it yet expresses Gogol's basic belief that art, and literature in general, will affect reality far beyond its aesthetic appreciation by a few connoisseurs.In the process, Gogol voices naive, overblown, and often archly conservative sentiments: we recognize the former self-taught professor of history lurking in the background in this insistence that Zhukovsky's translation will not only make Russian readers appreciate Homer but will ensure that they gain a new understanding of the didactic values of a civilization long gone.

Zhukovsky's entire work, Gogol writes, was a preparation for this task, one which he could accomplish only because of his passion for Homer and the artist's true feelings communicate themselves in this translation to his readers: "It was not only necessary to conceive a passionate desire to compel everyone of his compatriots to fall in love with Homer." ³⁷ The words echo Gogol's ars poetica so often expressed (as in " Old World Landowners "), the view that an artist's personal involvement is the most important ingredient of a work of art, since it creates the mysterious building material without which no story would have any effect.

Gogol, the amateur historian, reappears in his vision of history through the filter of the Christian concept of Creation. The result is a dilemma: even though Homer wrote before Christ was born, and since only the Christian ideal achieves the pinnacle of human thought (in the Dantean sense), how, then, are we to evaluate Homer's epic ? Gogol's excuses and prevarications are curious, and his Christian apologia for Homer reminds one of some of Gogol's own characters --for instance,Popryschin in the "Diary of a Madman ": "Among us, the Odyssey produces an influence both generally on all and separately on each.Greek polytheism will not tempt our people. Our people are sensible: without racking its brain, it will comprehend what the intellectuals do not understand. Here it will see the proof of how difficult it is for a man without prophets and without a revelation from on high to know God in his true aspect, and in what absurd aspects His image has been presented by the divisions of His unity and [His] united powers into numerous forms and powers. He will not even laugh at the pagans of that time, knowing that they were in no way at fault: the prophets did not speak to them, Christ was not born then, there were no Apostles." This problem once settled, Gogol concludes that the "sensible man" in Russia will learn something different from the man of Homer's time, namely, "that everywhere, in every vocation, much trouble comes to man and he must struggle against it -- and it is for this that life has been given to man; that, in any case, he should not lose heart, as Ulysses did not lose heart when in all his difficult and grave moments he called out in his heart, without doubting that by this interior call within himself he was creating an interior prayer to God, which in moments of distress every man accomplishes, even he who has no understanding of God."Here Gogol's naive assumption as to the relationship of Christianity and the pagan ideal is essentially medieval, a point of view which, during Gogol's lifetime, only the most orthodox Christians still professed.His conclusion, nevertheless, is sincere as to the place and significance of prayer, notwithstanding its form.

But aside from theological considerations, Gogol praises the Odyssey as a great work of art, a great lyrical achievement in its poetic qualities, in the fidelity of its pictures, and in the vigor of its descriptions. He asks, in what we can see as a summation of his definition of art, "Why is it felt so powerfully? Because it resided in the depths of the old poet's soul. You see how at every step he wished to clothe what he wanted to affirm for all time among men in all the bewitching beauty of poetry, how he tried to strengthen whatever may be commendable in popular customs, to remind men that there is something better and holier in him, which he is always liable to forget, to leave to every person an example of his profession in each of his characters, and to leave all in general an example in his tireless Ulysses of the profession of mankind in general." Usefulness, utility, the improvement of man through poetry: if all these were not enough to convince readers that the Odyssey is a great artistic achievement and its translation an achievement useful to Russia, he presents five more "concrete" arguments. These read rather like the final paragraphs of "The Nose",where the narrator enumerates the "harmful" effects of "unpatriotic "literature. He argues idiosyncratically that this translation of the Odyssey will improve the craft of Russian writers: "It will make all our writers feel anew that old truth, which we should always remember and which we always forget, namely, [one should] never take up the pen until everything is established in our brains with such clarity and order that even a child's power can understand everything and keep it in memory." Second, he claims that the debates around the Odyssey "will rejuvenate criticism." He points out that "Criticism is worn out, it is entangled in the analysis of mysterious literary works of the latest fashion; it is woefully beside the point and, deviating from questions of literature, it rushes into nonsense." Third is his view that the quality of Zhukovsky's translation will "operate meaningfully for the purification of the language."  ³⁹ Praising Pushkin and Krylov, Gogol now places Zhukovsky on the same plane as these unassailable authorities of Russian literature,and recommends that writers be more careful with language itself."It is here [in Zhukovsky's translation] that we writers see with what wise attention one must make use of the words and expressions, how each simple word may be restored to its lofty dignity when we know how to put it in its proper place." Here we easily recognize Gogol, the collector of words and expressions in his notebooks. The fourth lesson is dear to his heart: the absolute necessity to be truthful in the presentation of history "by disseminating a living knowledge of the ancient world; you will not read in any history what you will find in it; all the past breathes from it; antique man is there as though living before our eyes, as though you had met him and spoken with him. Everything is before our eyes, with more freshness than in the excavations at Pompeii."The conclusion reconfirms Gogol's belief in the beneficial aspect of finding "one's own place", when he recommends the Odyssey as a poetic and historically truthful presentation of a " harmonious world order " which alone can provide for man's happiness. With this argument he attacks those radical political tendencies in Russia which he feels would argue against the possibility of such an order in the prevailing political conditions of "the present time, when by a mysterious decree of Providence, everywhere is heard an unhealthy murmur of dissatisfaction, the voice of human displeasure with everything that exists in the world: against the order of things, against the time, against oneself when one becomes suspicious of the perfection to which the latest constitution and public education have led us; when one perceives in everyone a kind of uncontrollable thirst to be something other than what he is; it is precisely at this time that the Odyssey strikes with the majesty of the patriarchal, ancient mode of life, with the simplicity of uncomplicated social lines, with the freshness of life, with the clarity of the childhood of man." ⁴⁰

These opinions made Gogol an anathema to both his progressive contemporaries and their Soviet descendants. But it would be too simple to present only these aspects of Gogol's ideas as the glorification of the existing order of things as Belinski among others have done. In the next paragraph, Gogol turns around and castigates his contemporaries for their deafness to literature and to the voice of God: "We, with our enormous means and instruments for perfecting ourselves, with all our centuries of experience, with our supple imitative nature, with our religion, given to us precisely to make us saints and inhabitants of Heaven--with all our instruments,we have come to such a sloppiness and disorder, both externally and internally." ⁴¹ Thus his ultimate conclusion is a reformulation of the basic Slavophile idea that "Many things about the patriarchal era, with which Russian nature has so much affinity, will invisibly spread abroad over the face of the Russian land." ⁴² It is not difficult to discover in these final lines the enthusiasm and optimism which have persisted from the most youthful works to his glorification of Russia in Dead Souls.

We see the same sentiments in a long article on literature titled " On the Lyricism of Our Poets ", purportedly to V. A. Zhukovsky and dated simply "1846". He sets off on a note of abject abasement: "My thoughts on and understanding of literature are the most absurd of all. Everything that I have written on this subject is singularly obscure and unintelligible." ⁴³ But he immediately adds a disclaimer, for, he says, he knows "in my heart he [a critic of his] is of course, correct, and it is only the delivery that lacks competence. The bases of my article are correct; nevertheless, I explain myself in such a way that all my expressions give rise to contradiction."

He breaks off to praise Russian lyric poetry: "In the lyricism of our poets there is something which is not in the poets of other nations, namely, a kind of biblicism, that highest mode of lyricism which is alien to the flux of passion and is firmly based on the light of reason." Russia and her poetry are therefore exceptions, especially by virtue of their religious nature: "Our poets saw every lofty subject in its legitimate contact with the supreme source of lyricism,God because the Russian soul, owing to its Russian nature, already perceives this of itself, without knowing why."

The second source of this quality is the place Russia has in the interest of the poets: Russia "suddenly clarifies the gaze of the poet." Gogol also asserts that he is not talking about simple patriotism. So-called patriots, he asserts, pay only lip service to Russia, but in reality, "they spit on Russia". Gogol has in mind the idea that Russia is God's own chosen country. His sentiments recall the opinion widely held in the Middle Ages that identified Russia with Israel as the Promised Land. He supports this Slavophilism with what he asserts are historical claims that even among the Hebrews, who gave birth to the prophets, religion did not take root, "nor in France, nor England, nor Germany ". No ! Gogol sees only Russia as having the potential to become "the New Kingdom", the true Promised Land of God's design.

He suggests next that the lyricism of Russian poets is due to their "love for the Tsar" (the emphasis is Gogol's). As an example, he quotes Derzhavin, adding ,"only icy hearts will reproach Derzhavin for his exaggerated praises of Catherine". As further proof, he quotes Pushkin who, he thinks, has praised the Tsar as "merciful" in his efforts to counterbalance the severity of the law.

Gogol attributes yet another curious (and apocryphal) statement to Pushkin who, he claims, said that "A state without an all-powerful monarch is an automaton: It is already much if it achieves what the United States has achieved. And what is the United States? Carrion. A dead body." Gogol makes every effort to prove that Pushkin glorified Nicholas I, spending two pages on an incident when Pushkin allegedly "compared him [Tsar Nicholas] to the ancient seer, Moses". Next,he delivers a long tirade on the nature of the "ideal monarch". It is the monarch who generates only love towards himself, and "he alone can reconcile all classes and turn the nation into a harmonious orchestra." Thus the Tsar is God's earthly image and representative. Such a ruler is possible only among the Russians. He adds that "in Europe it has not occurred to anyone to explain the subtle meaning of the monarch." He prophecies that therefore it is "in Russia that this power will achieve its complete and perfect form". As a final argument in favor of the exceptional nature of Russian poetry, Gogol cites the "pity and compassion" he claims Russians feel for the downtrodden. This is a typical Russian trait, he says. "Only recall the touching spectacle when people in a body meet convicts departing for Siberia and everyone brings something from his home -- one food, one money, one a word of Christian consolation". On the basis of these arguments, Gogol concludes that the vocation of a writer is different in Russia from what it is in Europe, so that "spiritual nobility is already the portion of almost all our writers." It is therefore logical, he adds, that people should speak disapprovingly of writers who do not live up to this reputation: " and he still calls himself a writer! " ( a statement , which might have come out of" The Inspector General" ).

Gogol's attempt to portray Pushkin as a fervent admirer of the Tsar Nicholas I, a despot as hated by radicals as by Puskhin himself, aroused violent objections among many Russian writers and critics (e.g. Belinski). But the question is in need of further investigation. We must clarify how much Gogol invented or distorted the facts in order to prove that a "real" Russian writer must be a religious Russophile and must be in love, this time not with Homer, but with the Tsar.

He expressed similar ideas about the writer and historian, Karamzin, a conservative in Russian letters. And, writing about an eulogy delivered by Pogodin, he underscores his approval of Karamzin's conservative spirit. In this context, one issue which tormented Russian writers from Pushkin to Gogol himself, was paramount, the issue of censorship. Now Gogol defends it, urging that if a writer fulfills his duty -- that is, if he understands " his place ", he has nothing to fear from the censors. "Karamzin", he says, "is the first to have shown that among us a writer can be independent and honored by all equally as the most notable citizen of the empire. He is the first solemnly to have made the point that censorship cannot hinder a writer, and that if a writer has been filled with the purest desire for good...then no censorship is severe for him, and there is ample room for him everywhere." We remember Gogol's reference to Jesus' remark as to his Father's many mansions. But Gogol was living abroad as he penned these words and nostalgia seems to have colored his vision. He even adds that in Russia the truth can be spoken because in Russia all men love truth: "Everyone will listen to you, from the Tsar to the lowest beggar... and they will listen with a love not accorded in other lands to parliamentary champions of the right, a love with which only our marvelous Russia can listen -- a Russia which rumor has it does not love the truth at all". These patriotic delusions confirm the distance he has traveled from the Ukraine, where he was born, a distance as ideological as it was geographical.

However we are to classify these ideas -- as conservative or reactionary, and however glaring are the inconsistencies in Gogol's arguments about the beneficial effects of censorship, we hear in them the consistent strains of an idealism akin to his high-minded prophecies about the Russian Troyka at the end of the first volume of Dead Souls.

The same idealism, couched in practical, down-to-earth-language colors a letter, " On the Theater, on the One-Sided View towards the Theater and on One-Sidedness in General ". The occasion for this letter is a criticism of the theater by Count A.P. Tolstoy, who, in a letter to Gogol, gave vent to his indignation about the way the contemporary theater was being viewed as perverting Christian values. Gogol's defense of the theater in general and his attempt to define the place of theater in a Christian world are interesting, since a cause most dear to his heart is that theater has a necessary place in a Christian world.

Eager to prove his own views on the virtues of the theater he loves, Gogol harks back, in this letter, to early Christianity when, as he puts it, "the Church began to rise up against the theater in the first centuries of the universal establishment of Christianity, when the theaters alone were the sole refuge for the paganism everywhere proscribed as a den of scandalous bacchanalia." ⁴⁶ But once Christianity was established, it was possible to write Christian plays, as the example of the bishop of Rostov ⁴⁷ proves; though, of course, Gogol is quick to admit that anything can be perverted.

The theater, indeed, has the very positive function of uniting the audience in newly shared feelings: "A multitude... whose members, taken singly, have nothing in common, can suddenly be shaken by the same shock, sob with the same tears, and laugh with the same general laughter. It is a kind of pulpit, from which much good can be spoken to the world." ⁴⁸ He defends the classical writers, Shakespeare, Sheridan, Moliere, Goethe, Beaumarchais -- even Lessing and Regnard -- as well as many other lesser writers because their plays have the ultimate result of affecting others in a positive way and will lead to a commonality of Christian views. Not the subject matter, but the spirit counts.Gogol's thinking comes very close here to Leo Tolstoy's, who some fifty years later also argued for religious art -- religious not in its subject matter and external manifestations, but in its creation of a "good feeling [which] will further the brotherhood of man." ⁴⁹ Now Gogol, himself both playwright and actor, offers practical advice on the way "classical" plays can best be performed. For one thing, he argues convincingly that professional theater must be in the hands of professional actors, not of bureaucrats, especially not those he scathingly labels "secretaries". Bureaucratic meddling leads to nonsense, he announces -- Gogol's prescience can easily be documented during the Soviet reign, as Bulgakov so eloquently makes clear in his Teatralny Roman ( A Novel about Theater )

Gogol goes on to explain how actors should study their roles, advice which can still be appreciated today: He suggests that the best actors should not limit themselves to leading roles, but should undertake secondary parts as well, in order to provide models for lesser actors. He also suggests that the actors learn their parts by heart, not at home, and alone, but together with the whole troupe within which they will form an understanding of the spirit of the play and the thrust of its production. When an actor learns his role in solitude, the very heart of the play may be lost. He concludes, "So, the theater is not to blame for the evils listed by Count Tolstoy. What is wrong, instead, is the "one-sidedness" of the views of critics --by one-sidedness, he means any dogmatic ideological view which excludes other possibilities and misses the richness of nuance.

Now he tackles the issue of how to interpret what is truly Christian and what is not. His ultimate advice is a plea for greater humility. Christianity is like poetry, he adds, it is "secrets; indeed, all poetry is a secret."

He finds he must defend Pushkin from critics who claim that he is not a Christian poet. In Gogol's opinion, Pushkin is a supremely Christian poet, whose Christianity is not manifest in externals but rather in the spirit. This is the same argument he adduced in his claim that Pushkin was not opposed to the Tsar. As always in his arguments, there are ambiguities subject to various interpretations. Pushkin, according to Gogol is a traditionalist Christian, perhaps not a church-goer but one who practices Christianity in the spirit. So it is foolish to propose the most intelligent man of his time as a denier of Christianity. Whatever one may think of this argument, Gogol is consistent: What counts is not the formalities, but the spirit always. For this reason, one must maintain an open mind in order to avoid "one-sidedness". Christianity, he insists, is the opposite of one-sidedness: "The one-sided man cannot be a true Christian: he can only be a fanatic. One-sidedness in thoughts shows only that a man is still on the road to Christianity, but has not attained it, because Christianity confers a many-sided mind."

In concluding, Gogol again defends the theater and distinguishes between bad and good theater. Good theater is the one where "enthusiasm [is] generated when in a stupendous speech a powerful character raises a man's lofty feelings to a new level ... and, upon leaving the theater with new strength, [he] sets about his duty, seeing its execution as a heroic deed." ⁵⁰ That is, he is more aware of his "true place "within God's design.

Gogol reinforces this formulation of the "good feelings" generated by art, much as Pushkin has in his poem "Monument ", and concludes on a religious note: "My friend, we are summoned into this world, not in order to annihilate and destroy, but like God himself, to direct everything towards the good -- even what man has already corrupted and turned to evil. There is no instrument in the world that should not be destined to the service of God."

Just as this article on the theater has provided some new glimpses into the workings of Gogol's mind, and the interconnection between his theory of art and his religious convictions, another letter, this time dealing with " Subjects for the Lyric Poets of the Present Time ", airs an important concern with regard to the place of the poet in contemporary Russian society. The letter is dated 1844 and addressed to N. N. Yazykov, the poet, who had published a poem called " Earthquake ". This poem triggered Gogol's enthusiastic reception.It deals with a natural disaster, an earthquake, which is then metaphorized and compared to the power of poetry. Gogol praises what he calls the excellent poetical device of exploiting both past and natural phenomena to comment upon contemporary events in Russia. He finds it appropriate that the didactic edge of the poem is the result not of satire, nor of its depiction of reality, but rather of its lyricism: "The present time," he says, "is precisely the field for the lyric poet. By satire you will produce nothing; with a simple picture of reality examined in the eye of a contemporary worldly man, you will awaken no one. Our century is gloriously asleep."

These claims are particularly revealing, as they explain the much debated question as to Gogol's reasons for calling his Dead Souls a " poema ". Indeed, further on he refers to Dead Souls when he admonishes Yazykov to make use of poetry for the betterment of man: "In powerful lyrical form [you must] appeal to the man who is splendid but asleep." The poet's task is thus to awaken this sleeping man and to help his reach "the other shore" -- the mythological undertones of this statement are inescapable. And, he sighs, "Oh, if you could read to him what my Plyushkin will say, if [only] I attain the third volume of Dead Souls!"

This statement is important because it indicates that in 1844, Gogol was already planning a third volume to his book and outlines the general direction the volume was to take. Gogol evidently conceived it as a vehicle for achieving the reformation and salvation of the sinners who appeared in the first volume. We also can see emerging a reaffirmation of his newly conceived ars poetica, namely that in looking to the past, as far back as the Old Testament, the poet must follow the example lived by the ancient poets who were castigating as well as warning their contemporaries of the impending wrath of God: "leaf through the Old Testament; there you will find each of our present events, more clearly than day you will see how the present has sinned against God, and the terrible judgment of God upon it so manifestly offered that the present will shake with trembling. You have instruments and ways: in your verse is a power which reproaches as it elevates. Just now both are necessary."

The thinking is apocalyptic, no doubt born of Gogol's fear of his own impending death. Indeed, we see here various key words in Gogol's insistence of the inevitable approach of a "terrible judgment", as well as his perception of the twinship of poet and prophet. The idea is familiar, from Derzhavin to Pushkin, especially the vision of the near approach of doom "because of our sins". ⁵¹ The vision seems to spring almost verbatim from Russian chronicles of old.

These ideas may also serve to explain Gogol's Utopian prophecies of the coming of the "future Russian man", the "future Russia", riding in the famous troyka with which the first volume of Dead Souls closes. He is not the man of the present, a new species -- he is what Dostoyevsky foresees in the generations to emerge from the world conflagration (in Raskolnikov's apocalyptic vision in the prison hospital at the end of Crime and Punishment ). In Gogol's formulation, "In your hymn celebrate the giant who could issue only from the Russian land, who, suddenly awakened from his shameful sleep, becomes something other than he was. In the sight of all, spitting on his abominations and infamous vices, he will become the foremost champion of the good." The writer's duty is to "show how this heroic enterprise is to be accomplished in a truly Russian soul". ⁵²

Thus the lyric poet must act as the prophet of the nation. He has the power to bring about this transformation of Russian society. The challenge is at the root of Gogol's great "poema ", his Dead Souls.

Soon after the publication of the first volume of Dead Souls (in 1842), Gogol received many letters of both praise and criticism; and, during the next three years from 1843-1846, he responded to some in the form of certain "Letters dealing with the Dead Souls ".Altogether, four of these are included in Selected Passages, in each of which Gogol deals with a single aspect of his argument.

In the first (1843), he responds to the critics who chided him for an incorrect description of Russia, attacking him for not being aware of many of the details of Russian government and administration about which he had purported to write. He counters the criticism, admitting that he does not know Russia very well, but that he expected his readers to provide him with the details. (!) He reproaches these readers for having lost a splendid opportunity to write another book, "incomparably more interesting than Dead Souls , had they done their duty as Gogol insists he has done himself.

The second letter (also 1843) explains why there are so many of what were called his "lyrical digressions" in his novel and why he thought that he could "address Russia" herself and ask her questions as if he were some higher being whose role is that of the poet/prophet. These digressions were necessary, he explains, as an "awkward expression of a real feeling " giving voice to his understanding that despite all the country's riches, despite all the reforms instituted since the time of Peter the Great, and despite the beauty of Russia and the Ukraine, the country is still in a terrible state of disrepair. As he observes the affairs of his country, which he sees as the unfolding of fate, he cannot help but develop a certain lyrical nostalgia. But this mood springs not from helplessness, but rather from his passionate hope that all can rapidly be changed if everyone in the country were to become aware of his "own place" , and to do what is expected of him. "Who is to blame?" Gogol asks. The question is very Russian. "We, or the government? But the government all this time has acted ceaselessly, as whole tomes of enactments, statutes and institutions bear witness. It is from on high that the demands resound ... But who has responded on this earthly plane below?" Despairingly, he cries out that the proof lies in the machinations of "all our subtle swindlers and grafters who know how to bypass all decrees, for whom a new decree is only the source of new profit.In short, wherever I turn, I see that expediency is at fault." ⁵³ Most of the government bureaucracy seems to be forgetting that each of its functionaries has been appointed not to enrich himself, but rather, "to serve his country that he ought to have accepted his place for the happiness of others and not for his own." This vision has prompted lyrical digressions, "this reproach which rises from the very heart of Russia to castigate her children for the shamefulness of their ways."

And finally, Gogol calls on his contemporaries to be transformed into heroes ( podvizhniki ) by engaging in this heroic task: "Every rank and place demands heroism," he says. "Each of us has so disgraced the holiness of his rank and position (all positions are holy) that heroic powers are necessary to lift them to their legitimate height." ⁵⁴ These exhortations reveal two of the most fundamental principles of Dead Souls: A "debased" Russia must be portrayed as it is in order to create a longing in her living Souls to rise above their debased nature. Once their consciousness has been raised, Russians will become real heroes, true saints and martyrs to the will of God. Both of these actions are part of a dialectical process and should create such an enthusiasm and dedication on the part of readers that their feelings can be expressed only in lyrical terms.

The third letter (also 1843) deals with the reproach that Dead Souls is gloomy, that it includes only negative characters, that if offers not even a glimpse of hope, and that the author must have been indulging in a self-portrait in harping on this brooding picture of doom.

Gogol admits that, yes, the heroes are close to him because "they come from my soul." This means, he explains, that unless a writer uses as his material only his innermost ideas, he cannot hope to be convincing to his readers. It is true that the negative heroes are reflections of his own soul, for he has called on themto expurgate them, by "transmitting many of the abominations to my heroes."

On the other hand, they do not stand in for his alter ego: they are the expression of his talent as an artist, enabling readers to see the poshlost' in a very powerful way. Here he refers to Pushkin, who is said to have laughed so much at some of his works that tears rolled from his eyes. He is assured that Pushkin has perceived Gogol's real talent: "He always told me that no other writer has the gift of representing the banality of life so clearly ... that is my principal virtue." Here we see the classic formulation of comedy as provoking "laughter through tears", as the ability to be funny and simultaneously to give vent to profound sadness over the banality (poshlost') of the ways of men. Further, he explains that his negative heroes are not "villains ," yet, "If I had added only one good feature to any of then the reader would have been reconciled with them all."

In explaining the nature of these heroes, Gogol comes closest to portraying them as shadows in hell. The revelation is important, as it explains the first volume of Dead Souls in Dantean terms: Dante's Hell, too, knows only negative characters, and they cannot have any positive features for it is their overindulgences which have resulted in the crimes for which they are punished in the lowest circles of Hell.

Gogol adds that he wanted to test "what a normal Russian would say on being regaled with his own banality. Since the plan of Dead Souls was adopted long before, for the first part I needed worthless people." ⁵⁵ How the development in the second and further volume will go, Gogol does not wish to reveal, because, he says, "It is my secret." "Do not ask why all the first part had to be banality and why every person in it had to be banal: the other volumes will give you the answer and that is all."

The "Fourth Letter" (written in 1846) finally answers questions as to why the second volume has been destroyed, though all Gogol says is that "the second part of Dead Souls was burned because it was necessary." ⁵⁶ The tone is far more somber than in the previous letters. Gogol assumes the attitude of a confession: "Seeing my own death before me," he says, "I desired to leave behind me something which would be a better memorial of myself." He also explains that many people expected him to praise Russians and the Russian character in the second volume after all the criticism he had included in the first -- and after the notorious "Troika" passage with which the first had come to a halt. But he refuses to comply, because a praise of Russians without reason would merely have added to mindless nationalism. His point has been to show how to achieve a positive note: "This last circumstance," he explains, "was badly developed in the second volume of Dead Souls, where it should have been the main thing; therefore, it was burned." He implies that the second volume should have been a comparison with Dante's Purgatory and was to have spoken of the soul and of the durable things in life." ⁵⁷ Evidently, the project did not work to Gogol's satisfaction, and had therefore to be destroyed. He also excuses himself for not having been able to accomplish the task since his health has been bad and there has been barely an hour a day during which he could work on the new volume. But with God's help, if the right time comes," he promises, "in several weeks I will accomplish [the work] on which I have spent five sick years."

In Rome, Gogol shared an apartment with the Russian painter, A. A. Ivanov (1806-58). About Ivanov, he wrote a letter to a certain Count Amiv. Yu. V., which speaks not only about this painter, but which also reveals many of Gogol's own ideas and aesthetic theories in 1846 when the letter was written.

By that time, Ivanov had been at work for ten years on a single picture, "Christ Appears to the People". He obviously had fallen upon hard times, as he had not been able to supplement his income. Gogol wrote the letter in defence of his friend, refuting the accusations that Ivanov has been lazy and unproductive. Rather, Ivanov has done all that a conscientious artist is supposed to do . He has made many careful studies of details of the subjects he was going to depict: "His preparatory studies for the picture alone," Gogol avers, "would fill a whole hall." But beyond the time-consuming aspect of the work, Ivanov was also finding waiting for divine inspiration difficult -- as Gogol could all too well understand, because, as Gogol says, "it was predetermined that in this painting the education of the painter himself was to be accomplished." The subject is close to Gogol's heart: "An artist can depict only what he has felt, and a complete idea of which has been formed in his head; otherwise, the picture will be a dead, academic picture." ⁵⁸ And, he muses, Ivanov could depict things he has studied, and for which he has found models -- but how to depict what he could not see, and could not find a model for: Christ Himself? Gogol's question is revealing, not merely in terms of Ivanov's concerns, but also with regard to Gogol's own work (especially the second volume of Dead Souls.) In order to portray Christ properly, Gogol maintains, the artist himself must become a profound Christian: "So long as there is not an authentic movement towards Christ in the artist himself, he cannot represent Him on canvas." ⁵⁹ But how can one judge whether the artist has the proper religious conviction ? By the effect of the work on the audience, and according to whether it matches the idea of the artist as he worked. Clearly, this was Ivanov's despair and ardent hope: "Ivanov prayed to God ... that non-Christians might be softened at the sight of this picture," For the work of an artist is, as he says, "a spiritual matter" (just as it was in the Middle Ages) and to do anything for pecuniary reasons would be as much as asking one's wife to prostitute herself to "save herself and her husband from poverty." ⁶⁰

Gogol asks why Ivanov himself has not explained these things in writing in order to satisfy the curiosity of his admirers, or even to ask for material help. Again, Gogol is speaking of himself. The artist at work, undergoing a spiritual illumination, finds it difficult to talk about the source of his inspiration before the work is completed. "Do not think," he adds, that "it is easy to explain oneself to others while a spiritual transition is occurring -- when, by the will of God, a process is beginning in the very nature of a man. I know it, because I have experienced it myself." ⁶¹ In talking about his own predicament, about what would today be called a writer's block, Gogol recounts a bad dream which "can be compared with the situation of a man who finds himself in a lethargic sleep: He sees himself being buried alive and cannot stir a finger or make a sign to show that he is still alive." ⁶²(Italics mine,LT.)

The article ends with a plea to send money to Ivanov so that he can do what a real artist should do, live like a monk and devote himself to the creation of his art. Gogol repeats his artistic conviction that "if he [the artist], like Ivanov, has renounced all worldly conveniences and conditions, wears a simple jacket, and having driven away from himself all thought not only of pleasures and feasts, but even the thought of one day acquiring a wife and family or some property, leads a truly monkish life, sweating day and night over his work and praying constantly, ... [then] he must be given the means to work." Any fear that he may squander the money Gogol refutes: "God .. will urge him without you; your business is to see that he does not die of hunger." ⁶³ Clearly, Gogol's ideal of the holiness of the artist's vocation has remained unchanged since his youthful pronouncements on the subject. Further, he adds that there are people who ought to remain beggars all their lives, for "beggary is a bliss that the world has still not got to the heart of."

Letter XXXI, a fifty-page essay, dated 1846, is a critical commentary " On the Essence of Russian Poetry and on Its Originality ". Here he investigates the origin and the main trends of Russian poetry. His insights are original and often startling -- not just about the poets he discusses, but also about the personal, creative problems he was undergoing in the mid-1840's.

Gogol begins with the assumption that Russian poetry is distinctly different from any other national poetry: "In spite of superficial marks of imitation, there is much in our poetry that belongs to it alone." The perception provides one of the leitmotifs of the article and underlies his belief in Russian art and in Russia herself -- be it in terms of religion, geography, or matters related to the spirit. Gogol is mainly repeating the standard Slavophilic notion of the exceptional nature, or independence ( samobytnost' ) of Russia, but his remarks also coincide with the contemporary ideal of the exceptional, lonely nature of the Romantic hero extolled especially by German thought.

Gogol now sets himself the problem of defining the three basic sources of Russian poetry: folksong, the rich lexicon of proverbs, and the influence of the Church. To these sources Gogol adds another decisive factor, the social development particular to Russia which has given to her poetry and art their idiosyncratic quality. "Our civil order was born of a shock ... which the reformer Tsar [Peter the Great] produced ,when [he] introduced his youthful people into the circle of European states...The Russian people needed an abrupt change and the European Enlightenment was the flint on which it was necessary to strike [to arouse] all our slumbering mass ... The spark suddenly flashed from the people."

He begins his survey of the history of Russian poetry with the work of Lomonosov in order to explain the Europeanization of Russian culture: "What is Lomonosov" Gogol asks, "if he is examined rigorously? A young enthusiast, attracted by the light of knowledge." He sees Lomonosov's adaptation of foreign patterns to the Russian soul. In his discussion of Lomonosov's ode, "Meditation at Evening on the Divine Majesty", "we perceive more the gaze of the naturalist than of the poet."

Moving on to Derzhavin, Gogol enthusiastically sketches the turbulent times of Catherine II: "Out of negotiations, diplomacies, and out of the philological and teaching academies, there appeared the poet Derzhavin, with that picturesque stately mien to be found in all personages of Catherine's time [though] it still displayed with a certain savage freedom a good number of imperfections in its parts, still not quite trimmed, as happens with works somewhat hastily exhibited."He underlines e specially Derzhavin's grandeur: "Derzhavin, it might be said, is the singer of grandeur. Everything in him is majestic. The grand figure of Catherine, grand Russia gazing round its eight Seas." But Gogol wants the reader to understand also Derzhavin's particular ability to combine incongruous elements into a vital whole, though this lasted only so long as Derzhavin's talent did not leave him. But, he mourns, "Derzhavin's other gigantic virtues which gave him an advantage over all our poets, are suddenly converted into indecorum and ugliness, as soon as inspiration abandons him. Then everything is in disorder: diction, language, style -- everything squeaks like a cart with ungreased wheels, and the poem is like a corpse abandoned by the soul." ⁶⁵ It is, of course, highly significant that Gogol, who later on himself must have faced a similar crisis, should have clearly recognized the difficulties inherent in the process of artistic creation when one's muse is not at hand.

Following in the footsteps of the two first giants in Russian poetry, Gogol observes that foreign influences took over -- first of France, and later, of German Romanticism. Curiously, Gogol disapproves of both. "At this time, strange things were produced in German literature," he says. "Vague reveries, mysterious legends, marvelous unexplained deeds, obscure indications of the invisible world, the dreams and terrors which had accompanied the childhood of man, [these] had become the subjects of the German poets." ⁶⁶ He explains the influence of this literature on Russian letters: "Our sensitive poetry paused before this phenomenon with childish curiosity. Its Slavic origins suddenly reminded it that there was something familiar there." This tendency in Russian literature is highlighted by the name of Zhukovsky, of whom Gogol says, "This poet, Zhukovsky, [is] our most remarkable and most original author. By the miraculous will of the Almighty, from the days of his youth his soul was invested with a yearning for things invisible and mysterious which were incomprehensible to him. In his soul, just as in Vadim, the hero of his ballad, there resounded the celestial bell ringing from afar." ⁶⁷ In evaluating Zhukovsky's creation, Gogol surveys his translations from the German, observing that they are better than the original. But his final judgment is nevertheless uncomplimentary: "A laziness of the spirit prevented him from being a primarily ingenious poet," a laziness," he says, "of invention, not a lack of creativity."

Most of the pages following are devoted to Pushkin. Gogol's analysis is clearly based on his personal admiration for his great Russian colleague, but also on well-founded critical principles. "He is the focal point; he has neither the abstract idealism of the first [Zhukovsky], nor the abundant voluptuous luxuriance of the second [Batyushkov]. Everything is balanced, concise, concentrated." ⁶⁸ These qualities Gogol attributes not merely to Pushkin's talent as a poet, but also to his Russianness; a Frenchman, German or Englishman he insists, would not be capable of achieving his effects.

Next, he asks, "What was the matter of his [Pushkin's] poetry?" The answer is simple, it startling: "Everything was his subject, but nothing specifically." And, "What did he say that was necessary to his century? ... Pushkin was given to the world to show in himself what a poet is, and nothing more." ⁶⁹ Again, in a comparison with Goethe, Byron and Schiller, Pushkin maintains the upper hand, because he has not injected is personality into his poetry: "Goethe himself, that Prometheus among poets ... displayed his personality, full of a certain Germanic arrogance and of the pretension of a German theoretician, to adapt himself to all times and all centuries. All our Russian poets -- Derzhavin, Zhukovsky, Batyushkov -- kept their personalities. Only Pushkin did not." ⁷⁰ Discussing Pushkin's individual works -- Onegin,Boris Godunov, and Poltava -- Gogol reiterates his admiration for Pushkin's ability t remain impartial, and, for his not having allowed his personality, rather than poetry itself, to take over.

Gogol sees in Pushkin's dealing with the poetical inheritance of his great foreign predecessors further proof of this quality: "The Spanish hero, Don Juan ... gave him the idea of concentrating the whole affair into a short, personal dramatic picture, where, with great knowledge of the soul, there is presented the irresistible allure of a debauch, still more vividly the weakness of a woman, and more audibly still, Spain itself. Goethe's Faust suggested to him "the idea of squeezing into two or three pages the principal thought of the German poet -- and you marvel at how accurately it was understood and concentrated into one solid kernel, in spite of all Goethe's vague incoherence." ⁷¹

Gogol praises Pushkin's prose, especially his attempt to "respond henceforth to all of Russian life". Gogol holds "The Captain's Daughter" in highest esteem as "decidedly the best Russian work of the narrative kind. In comparison with "The Captain's Daughter", all our novels and tales are like saccharine mush. Purity and lack of artifice rise to such high degree in it that reality itself seems artificial and a caricature next to it." ⁷² Of particular interest is Gogol's observation about the effect of this prose upon the reader: "It [the novel] is not only the truth itself, but like something better. It must ( Gogol's emphasis ) be so. It was the calling of the poet to take us out of ourselves and then return us to ourselves in purified and better form."

He has little to say of Pushkin's early death: "A sudden death carried him away from us -- and everything in the Empire immediately perceived that it had lost a great man." ⁷³ And, indeed, his conclusion is somewhat surprising: "The influence of Pushkin as a poet on society has been minor ... Society turned away from him. But his influence among poets was strong." Pushkin's followers, the "Pleiad" : Delvig, Kozlov, Baratynsky, and others were greatly influenced, he says: "Pushkin excited all these poets to activity; others he simply made." And he goes on to single out "the extraordinary artistic polish that Pushkin showed in his verses [which] attracted them all." ⁷⁴ He is particularly enthusiastic about the poetry of Yazykov, mentioning such personal recollections as Pushkin's reaction to Yazykov's poetry as sheer "intoxication". Yet Yazykov also affords a sad example of the downfall of a creative individual, whose crisis of creativity was "a severe illness [that] visited the poet and afflicted his soul." The symptoms were boredom, as well as a boring imitation of German poetry: "His language ... rested on skimpy thoughts and poverty-stricken content, like the armor of a knight on the puny body of a dwarf." ⁷⁵ Gogol's conclusions could be applied to himself as well: "The light of love dimmed in his soul," he says; "that is why the light of poetry faded. Love what is needful and necessary to your soul with as much strength as you used to love the drunkenness of your youth -- and your thoughts will be raised along with your verse, and the word will resound and spit forth fire: you will show us the banality of our sick lives, but you will show it in such a way that men will shudder because of their lack of strength and thank God for their foe who has given them the power to feel it." ⁷⁶ Yet Yazikov was not himself to be blamed for his lack of love -- for that is a God-given gift that manifests itself in different poets in different ways. Once given, it "does not miss its proper path". ⁷⁷ Gogol praises particularly Yazykov's critical biography of Fonvizin (which, interestingly, was available only in manuscript form at the time of Gogol's writing the article, even though this was finished in 1832). We see again Gogol valuing the historical basis of a poet's oeuvre, which he sees as essential to the success of his creative activity. We sense that he hoped that his own historical forays would be judged to be as important as his fiction.

On the other hand, he criticizes Yazykov for "... an absence of an internal harmonious accord among the parts [of his poetry] : Word is not matched with word, line with line, next to a solid, firm line ... As soon as it makes your heart ache with a living cry, it immediately alienates you by a sound foreign to the heart, absolutely out of tune with the subject." ⁷⁸ The high standards are, of course, those Gogol applied to his own production as well.

Moving on to Krylov, Gogol expresses his appreciation of Krylov's use of proverbs: "All our great men, from Pushkin to Suvorov and Peter, have venerated our proverbs." These, according to Gogol, are much more "significant than those of other nations." ⁷⁹ Not only does everything about which Krylov writes become Russian ( even the animals, Gogol contends, are Russian)--but beyond these national qualities is the fact that, as he puts it, "The poet observed every event in the state: He has lent his voice to everything, and in this voice is heard a reasonable middle way, a conciliatory court of arbitration which is the strength of the Russian intelligence when it has attained its full perfection." ⁸⁰ This observation is a corollary to Gogol's own ideas about practicality and the need to go about finding one's "own place" (svoe mesto ) in a reasonable fashion.

Proceeding to "satirical poetry", Gogol maintains that "there is much irony in all of us ... It is difficult to find a Russian in whom the ability really to revere something is not united with the faculty really to ridicule it." Satirical poetry leads him to a consideration of Russian theater, which is of particular value to us in assessing his own plays. "The theater, among us as everywhere, began with imitations; then original traits broke through. In tragedy appeared the moral strength and ignorance of man in the setting of a borrowed epoch and age; in comedy, there is a light mockery of the ridiculous sides of society, without a glance at the soul of man." ⁸¹ From among all the "blazing works" of Russian theater, before which "all paled", Gogol singles out two, Fonvisin's "The Young Hopeful" and Gribodoev's "Wit from Woe" , "which Prince Vyazemsky most acutely called two contemporary tragedies." "In them," he adds, "there is no light mockery of the ridiculous sides of society; rather, the comedies chose two different focal points. One displayed the sickness arising from a lack of education, and the other from a badly understood education ... sounds and diseases of our society, the grave abuses within it that ruthless, powerful irony exposes openly and shockingly." ⁸² Gogol argues of "The Young Hopeful" that "Everything in this comedy seems a monstrous caricature of Russia. However, nothing in it is a caricature: everything has been taken from life as it is and verified by the knowledge of the soul. Such is the irrefutable ideal of coarseness to which only a man of the Russian land and no other people can obtain." In Griboyedov's comedy, on the other hand, Gogol sees "the diseases arising from badly understood education, from the adoption of foolish worldly trifles in place of important things, in short, the Quixotic side of the European formation, and the incoherent mixture of customs which have made Russians neither Russians nor foreigners." ⁸³

At the same time paying tribute to these important features of the two comedies, Gogol criticizes them for poor technical understanding: "Both comedies fulfill the requirements of the stage badly. In this connection, the most insignificant French play is better than they. The substance, which is the intrigue, is neither securely tied up, nor masterfully developed." ⁸⁴ He also criticizes their declaratory nature, since they miss the most important requirement of the stage, "to live the action before the spectators instead of speaking it." Had they not neglected these qualities, they would be two masterpieces of genius." ⁸⁵

Last, he examines the effect of art upon society. In this respect, Gogol offers the pessimistic opinion that "since the death of Pushkin our poetry has ceased to progress", because of the high standards that Pushkin set "which cannot be duplicated nor surpassed by the present generation." "It is not fitting even to name them," he says, except for Lermontov who, he adds, went further than the others", though, of course, "he is no longer among us." Alas, "One perceives in him the marks of a first rate talent: a great career might have awaited him ... from his earliest age he began to express the heart-rending indifference to everything that we have perceived in no other of our poets." ⁸⁶

Otherwise, Gogol criticizes Lermontov for showing no consistency, for "playing with his talent ... very lightly ... everywhere there is excess and verbosity", and he mourns the fact that the greatest poets of Russia -- Pushkin, Griboyedov, Lermontov -- "one after the other, in the sight of everyone, were stolen away by violent death in the course of a single decade, when their maturity was just blossoming in the full development of their powers -- and it surprised no one; [yet] our frivolous breed did not even shudder." The very fact of the death of these poets within so short a span of time causes Gogol to demand, "What is the role and meaning of Russian poetry? ... What has it done for the Russian land? Has it had any influence on the soul of contemporary society, educating and ennobling each person in accordance with his place ( svoe mesto ), elevating the concepts of everyone in general in accordance with the soul of the land and the native strength of the people, which are necessary for the state to advance? ... It has done neither the one nor the other. It was almost unheard and ignored by our society." ⁸⁷ He blames foreign educating and influence: Our society "was being educated by another education -- under the influence of French, German, English tutors, under the people originally from all countries, of all possible conditions, standards of thought and manners. Our society was educated in ignorance of its country within its own country." This dreadful state of affairs has led to an ignorance and neglect to the language -- "In short, our poetry has neither taught society nor expressed it. A strange thing: we ourselves were all the subject of our poetry, but we did not recognize ourselves in it." ⁸⁸

As a result, Russian poetry suffers from a lack of credibility -- even though poetry's purpose is to hold up the mirror of the future to its society: "Our lyric poets, possessing the secret of seeing clearly in the seed which is almost imperceptible to the naked eye, the future magnificent fruit, have presented our virtues in a more purified form." On the other hand, satirical poets have succeeded better: "Our satiric writers, bearing in their souls, although un-clearly, the ideal of a better Russian man, saw [in him] more clearly everything ugly and low as he actually is in Russian reality."

From this Gogol deduces both the greater credibility and the more general acceptance of satiric literature. "That is why, in the latter days, mockery is more strongly developed than all our virtues in us." ⁸⁹ And he comes back to this concept from a different angle: "Everyone among us laughs; there is in our country something that laughs at everyone equally -- at the old and at the modern, preserving reverence only for the ageless and eternal. Thus, our poetry has nowhere fully expressed the Russian man, neither in the ideal in which he ought to be, nor in the real in which he is now. It accumulates only innumerable little hints of our diverse qualities ..." This perception leads Gogol to conclude that the time has still not come for a complete appreciation of one another by all members of society and the practitioners of its literature. He hints at a teleological situation when Russia will be transformed into a perfect Russian state. He proclaims that it is the duty of the writer to prepare man for this future development: "Our poetry did not resonate for our contemporaries, but in order to edify future times, when the ideal of the internal structure of man, in the image in which God commanded it to be made of his own nature at the (moment of) creation of the world, would finally become common to all Russia and equally desired by all, so that we would see that there really is something in us better than ourselves, and we would not forget to find room for it in our configuration. Our own treasures are more and more revealed to us in accordance with how carefully we read our poets." ⁹⁰ A view oriented to the future of Russia, he maintains, is expressed in the best poets of the past; in Derzhavin for biblical grandeur; in Pushkin for sensitivity; in Vyazemsky for a caustic, aching Russian melancholy -- and so on. "All these characteristics, revealed by our poets, are our natural virtues, most visibly developed in them: poets do not fall from the moon, they issue from their own people." These virtues cannot be merely repeated, however they must be incorporated in a higher stage of Christian development into which the poet must be educated. How this new development can be brought about, Gogol considers to be a riddle, as there is "still no one among us in whom is fully reflected a many-sided poetic plenitude," But when the development comes, poetry will play a positive role; it will be imbued with an angelic passion and, having struck every string there is in the Russian soul, it will move the most hardened with a holiness with which no power and no instrument in man will contend: it will evoke our Russia for us -- our Russian Russia ... the one that has its roots in ourselves, and it will display us in such a way that everyone ... will say with one voice: 'This is our Russia: it is a warm refuge for us, and now we are really at home in it, under our native roof and not in a foreign land."' ⁹¹

On this patriotic note ends this lengthy article on Russian poetry which has summarized the most important ideas Gogol then held on the meaning and place of poetry in the national literature of Russia. The poet is the "Volkspoet " of German Romanticism. His task is to express the essence of the people from whom he springs and to be a beacon and pathfinder for that people. The road -- both for the folk and for the poet, will lead to an ultimate Utopia, to the Christian ideal of a rejuvenated man, and a rejuvenated country as well. Not surprisingly, the ideas are identical to their fictional expression in Dead Souls.

A fourth cluster of letters in the Selected Passages extends these thoughts to the subject of the land of Russia herself: Letter XIX, "It Is Necessary to Love Russia ", directed to Count A.P.Tolstoy in 1844, sets the tone for the patriotic letters included in the section. This examines the question in a somewhat circular argument, starting with the premise that "without the love of God no one can be saved". No on can see God, and it is very difficult to love what one cannot see. Happily, Christ's mission has solved the dilemma: "Christ alone brings and proclaims this mystery to us: that it is in love for our brothers that we obtain love for God." Thus, the formula of God -- Christ -- and fellow man -- provides the individual steps of the argument. The argument is familiar, but Gogol offers a new link. In order to fulfill God's commandments," he urges, "go into the world and acquire love for your brothers," that is, your brothers who live in Russia. "Love Russia," he commands. The outlook is promising. "For the Russian at the present time, there is a way; that way is Russia herself." Though Russia is also associated with "outrages, lies and bribes", -- the very fact that people are upset about these things Gogol takes for a sign that they are not indifferent, and that the Russians themselves "want to be free of them and do not know how to do it." ⁹³

Therefore, he offers a final recommendation: "If you really love Russia, you will burst to serve her; you will be not like a governor but like a justice of the peace -- the least post that anyone seeks in her you will accept, preferring a little activity in her to all your present lazy and idle life." The converse of the argument, of course, also holds true: "Not loving Russia, you do not love your brother, you are not burning with love for God, and not burning with love for God, you are not saved." ⁹⁴ Letter XX , also addressed to Count A. P. Tolstoy, " It Is Necessary to Travel Through Russia ", contains a number of important insights into Gogol's mood at the time. Here Gogol informs his reader that he personally would have liked to become a monk: "There is no higher title than that of a monk, and God honors some of us with a day when we can don the humble black chasuble which is so desired by my soul that the very thought of it is a joy for me." ⁹⁵ He adds that in order to enter a monastery, one must first distribute one's wealth -- though he, having no wealth to distribute, cannot follow this route. What he does have to distribute is good advice to those who are seeking "their place" outside a monastery. " Your monastery is Russia ! " he cries, suggesting to his correspondent that he can follow the great examples of the monks Oslablya and Peresvet from the Zagorsk monastery, who, in 1380, took up their swords against the Tartar Khan Mamai. Countering the argument that there is nothing to do in Russia, especially in the Russian provinces, he says that it is indispensable to travel through the length and breadth of Russia oneself in order to discover the truth ". Characteristically, he gives practical advice as to how this traveling should come about -- the advice sounds much like an outline of Chichikov's Travels through the Russian Provinces.If one were to travel in Europe, Gogol continues, one would start getting acquainted with a new place by looking at its monuments and buildings. In provincial Russia, where there are none, one must begin by talking to people. "I swear to you that a man is worth being considered with greater curiosity than a factory or a ruin." ⁹⁶  He goes further, almost literally repeating Chichikov's instructions: "First make the acquaintance of those who constitute the cream of each town and region: there are two or three in every town."He warns the traveller not to satisfy himself with the "progressives" he may encounter, even though he does not mind including them on the list among the names which will include "an efficient and sharp merchant", "a respectable and sober petty bourgeois", a "chinovnik" and, finally, "the general color and spirit of society [which] you will perceive yourself."

Gogol apprises the traveler that in any community people are at odds with each other -- there are lies, and accusations and counter-accusations -- but his admonitions now take a somewhat surprising turn: the traveler should not allow himself to be a passive onlooker of the local mores, but rather assume an active role and become a reconciler of adverse positions. "In the course of the journey, you can do much good if you want to," he says. "You will find more opportunities for Christian action than you would meet in a monastery." ⁹⁷

So how should a traveller begin his useful activities? Gogol readily advises him: "Most important, in pleasant conversation, pleasing everyone, you will be able, as an outsider ... to be a third, conciliating party ... Our Savior values this person more highly almost than all others. He frankly calls the peacemakers the sons of God. And among us a career is open to peacemakers everywhere." Gogol knows that though things are bad in Russia, what is needed is neither irony, nor acerbic criticism, but rather a spirit of reconciliation: "Everyone quarrels: the nobles among themselves like cats and dogs; the merchants ... the petty bourgeoisie, the peasants, if they are not forced by some compelling force to work together, among themselves like cats and dogs. Even honest and good people are in discord among themselves; it is only among rogues that one sees something like friendship and unison, when one or another of them has the police at his heels. There is a career for the conciliator everywhere." ⁹⁸ True to form, Gogol tries to keep the advice on a practical plane: "In the nature of man," he reminds his correspondent, "and especially of the Russian, there is a wonderful quality: immediately he notices that someone else is somewhat inclined to him or manifests some leniency towards him, he is ready almost to ask pardon." Courts of arbitration should thus be working well, and as a matter of fact, he concludes that they have always worked well in Russia.

The traveller should meet yet another stratum of the population, namely, the clergy. Gogol says that they have been rejected by the educated aristocracy, so that, convinced that no one will listen to them, they have given up trying to influence society. They have become corrupt, bribe-takers,who justify themselves by proclaiming that they "accept bribes only from the rich," But if before the traveller the "curtain be raised, and he be shown that he is part of those horrors which he indirectly, rather than directly, causes, then he will speak otherwise." ⁹⁹

The same treatment should be afforded to the unscrupulous rich man, to show him the harm he causes, "to present to him one of those horrible spectacles of famine in Russia which will make his hair stand on end." The same can be applied to the dandies "who do not like to appear anywhere in the same clothes twice", and who themselves, through the vanity of their wives, add to the sufferings of the poor.

No, he concludes, "a man is not insensible, a man may progress, if you only show him things as they are." ¹⁰⁰ Ignorance and depravity are the two worst causes of human suffering. Most men will therefore welcome a mediator who leads them away from their false path. So, for example, a landowner, who spends all his money on senseless living and luxury, and causes great distress among his peasants, upon mediation, "will realize that to ravage half the village or half the district in order to furnish work for some cabinetmaker is an idea which could be formed only in the empty head of a nineteenth-Century economist, and not in the sane head of an intelligent man."

"Life must be shown to man," he says. "Life, from the angle of its present problems and not those of the past -- life, looked at not with the superficial gaze of a worldly man but weighed and appraised by an expert who has gazed at it with the lofty gaze of a Christian." And, he exclaims, "great is the ignorance of Russia within Russia. Everyone lives in foreign reviews and newspapers, not in his own land." Therefore, the traveller must use the information he has garnered in his travels through Russia to arouse the country: "Wake up !" Gogol cries, "Your monastery is Russia!" ¹⁰¹ The ideas were as controversial, and perhaps as apt, as they are today -- the contest between the Slavophiles and the Russianizers rages still.

One of these letters, XXII, addressed to a certain B. N. B. in 1846, " The Russian Landowner ", raises questions that appear in fictional form in the figures of "positive" landowners in the second volume of Dead Souls -- Tententnikov and others like him. The letter has earned Gogol a reputation as a heartless and ignorant hater of peasants, and as the supporter of the most reactionary strata of Russian landowners. The contemporary critic, Belinsky, certainly saw the letter in this light when he called Gogol "the preacher of the whip and ignorance". In the past century and a half, this letter has been the source of continuing and heated condemnation.

But a close reading in the light of Gogol's mentality during the 1840-s can recognize this evaluation as false and superficial. Gogol's aim is not to give license to Russian landowners to mistreat their peasant subjects, but rather to remind them of their obligations.In other words, he is trying to define the "ideal landowner"--as he has, for instance, the ideal housewife -- by pointing out his place ( svoe mesto ) in the general scheme. That this desire is Quixotic, not a callous support of "the whip and barbarism", should make it obvious that Belinsky's reading, in the light of the position Gogol has taken in the letters as a whole, is for the most part unmerited. Utopian idealism, which can often be confounded with reactionary sentiments, is at fault if fault there be. The artist, seduced by a vision of the beauty of medieval Christianity, is here voicing opinions that follow logically on his other efforts to identify his own station, his mission in life as an artist serving God.

Russian writers of the 19th Century faced this question repeatedly. One has only to refer to the writings of Leo Tolstoy, ¹⁰² of Turgenev and others. Gogol was not alone in trying to crack this tough nut.

He begins with the general assumption that "the former bonds uniting landowners with peasants have disappeared forever." Gogol puts little trust in this assessment and, spicing his advice with the language of the folk he so admires, he suggests that one "spit on such words," and that one maintain an attitude of healthy skepticism. He outlines a detailed plan for changing the relationship -- by simply being "good" to the peasant and doing what is right, "it is possible to attach him so that afterwards you will only wonder how he could [ever] have been detached from you." The only condition is to follow Gogol's advice: "If only you fulfill in detail everything that I now tell you, at the end of the year you will see that I am right." ¹⁰³ The general principle is to establish a clear line of authority: "Conceive the business of the landowner as that of one who should take the Russian in hand, in the proper, lawful sense." What follows is a virtual stage management of the resulting meeting between landowners and peasants: "First of all, gather the peasants together and explain to them what you are and what they are. That you are a landowner over them not because you wanted to command and be a landowner, but because you are already a landowner, because you were born a landowner, because God will make you answer if you should change this rank for another because everyone must serve God in his place or in another's ... because there is no power which is not from God." ¹⁰⁴ In order to deliver a proof of this thesis as to the responsibilities and obligations which come with the recognition of one's own place, Gogol suggests a demonstration, a proof of the position taken by the landowner: "Show them this in the Gospels, so that they may see it -- everyone." He suggests a further theatrical presentation of proof: "Tell them that you are compelling them to work not because you need money for your pleasures -- and as proof then and there before them, destroy some money -- but that you are compelling them to labor because it has been commanded by God that man must earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, and then read them a lesson in the Holy Writ, so that they may see it." ¹⁰⁵

Next, the landowner should point out to the peasants that he, the landowner, is directly responsible to God for the morals of his peasants, and that therefore, the landowner is in duty bound to see to it that nobody is " lazy, a drunkard, or a thief" . The landowner should open the Bible and point with his finger to the very passages where these strictures are written.

This introduction and delineation of duties and responsibilities, Gogol considers essential so that the peasants are not confused about their role, and the landowner is not trying to introduce "some kind of European or other farce". He delineates further steps for enforcing morality and virtuous work habits among the peasantry: the landowner should point out that if they commit trespasses against the rules, they are trespassing against God, and ruining their souls. "Show him [the peasant] that he sins against God and not against you!" To intensify the psychological pressure, Gogol offers a further recommendation which sounds like a standard Soviet enforcement of extorted labor from farmers and prisoners: Make the collective responsible for the behavior of the individual. "Arrange it so that the responsibility may lie on everyone and so that everyone who is around the man may be reproached and be not too much undone." Gogol foresees the emergence of the ideal peasant, who can be pointed to as a shining example, much like a " Stakhanovite" of later times, the "shock worker" of the Soviet system . By the same token, put those who fall behind, or do not fulfill their duties, publicly to shame, calling them all kinds of uproarious names: "You, you unwashed bum! ... Down on your knees and beg that he [the model peasant] may bring you to reason; he who does not call on reason dies like a dog ! " The public recognition of model workers, on the other hand, should reward those who follow in the path of righteousness. "If they are old, having seated them before you, have a little talk with them about how they can edify others ..." ¹⁰⁶ If the landowner follows this advice for a single year, Gogol can guarantee great material and organizational success. Clearly, he sees religious vocation and practical success as one and the same.

Once the basic psychological attitude toward the peasants has been established, great improvements can be made on the estate. Gogol does not go into details as to the means to be adopted for achieving the landowner's aims. Rather he offers some general principles, the most basic of which is that the landowner must "be a patriarch, the inceptor of everything, the vanguard of all things,- the head of everything." The words seem almost prophetic of the terminology adopted after the Revolution of three quarters of a century later -- at the same time that they hark back to the days of the Kermesse and other such peasant celebrations of the success of their labors: The landowner should from time to time invite the peasants to his house: "Let there be a feast for the whole village, and on those days let there be a common table for all the peasants in your manor house." The landowner should "dine with them, and go out to work with them". He should also encourage the good workers by "keeping in reserve a supply of synonyms for "brave fellow" ... and, of course, he should keep an appropriate number of words for those who should be reprimanded, though Gogol advises against physical punishment: "Do not beat the peasant: to slap his face betokens no skill " ! ¹⁰⁷

Many of these suggestions anticipate Tolstoy's vision, for instance, of Levin's mowing the grass together with his peasants. Gogol suggest, "Take an axe or scythe in your hands; this will be good for you and more useful for your health than all the medical tortures and languorous strolls of Marienbad."

( There are wide differences, nevertheless, in the two writers' views, especially on the need for setting up schools and schooling for the peas