Problems of making an evening on a farm near Dikanka. Analysis of the work "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka" by Gogol N.V. Brief analysis of Evenings on a farm near Dikanka
Evenings on a farm near Dikanka "aroused almost universal admiration: they picked up the Ukrainian theme, so popular in the first third of the 19th century, but raised it to a fundamentally different level. On the one hand, Gogol's Ukrainophilism was deeply organic: the writer was a native of Ukraine , Ukrainian by nationality, perfectly knew his native language, customs, customs, and he himself was engaged in collecting Ukrainian folklore.On the other hand, the theme of Ukraine did not remain within the framework of self-contained ethnography, but was transferred into the mainstream of recreating the whole artistic world.This is a book, from the pages of which the world of Ukrainian folk life unfolded in full breadth, with its heroic legends and modern worries, cunning tricks of lads and intrigues of evil spirits - this book shone with bright and fresh colors, struck with originality and expressiveness of the language.
It combines various, sometimes opposing styles: on the one hand, the style of speech is poetic, heartfelt, reaching pathetic heights; on the other - everyday vernacular, sometimes even swear words and vulgarisms.
Gogol explains in the preface of "Evenings" the variety of styles by the social difference of the narrators and their speech manner, which Vinogradov draws attention to. Thus, the author of "Evenings" ironically warns the reader about the "deep introduction of vernacular into the language of Russian artistic prose."
Thus, Vinogradov emphasizes, the preface clearly specifies the type of narrative speech that has a decisive influence on the "socially expressive" atmosphere of the work. At the same time, the author draws portraits of the narrators and characterizes the style of their speech.
In the first book of Evenings, the reader meets two narrators. The language of Foma Grigoryevich, the clerk of the Dikan church, was characterized by Gogol from the very beginning as a vernacular, everyday, folk-Ukrainian speech, writes Vinogradov. "Oh, the head, what kind of stories he knew how to let go!" ("Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka"). His style contrasted with the book-narrative style of the time. The language of Foma Grigoryevich is close in style to the language of Panka, the "publisher" of the stories "Evenings". This, in Vinogradov's opinion, is of great importance, especially considering that the second narrator, a panich in a pea caftan from Poltava, spoke "in such a pretentious language that many wits even from the Moscow people could not understand."
Vinogradov argues that Gogol not only contrasts the complex, artificially embellished language of Panich, far from living oral folk speech, with the simple, intelligible, folk-everyday language of Foma Grigorievich, but their images are also opposed to each other. Moreover, the style of Foma Grigorievich is brought to the fore by the author and he is given a clear preference, Vinogradov emphasizes.
Vinogradov compares two editions of "Evenings on the Eve of Ivan Kupala" and concludes that the former, "Karamzin" method of constructing the image of the narrator is incompatible with the new, realistic, "Pushkin" understanding of literary folk. According to the old rules of speech construction of the image of the narrator, whoever he was, his speech could not deviate from the generally accepted literary style in the direction of characterizing his professional or social position.
The narrative style of fiction in Karamzin's system was personified with the style and worldview of a generalized and abstract writer, a style that could not go beyond the generally accepted norms of speech. The style of Foma Grigoryevich's tale already in the first edition often went beyond the stylistics of the Karamzin school, Vinogradov emphasizes. But the image of the narrator was still too close to the image of the author, as a result of which "the methods of metaphorization, the choice of expressions, the syntactic structure, the expressive coloring of speech most often directly related to the author. All this deprived the folk tale style of realistic plausibility" .
The narrator's language in the second edition of "Evenings on the eve of Ivan Kupala" acquires a syntactically more pictorial, dramatic and diverse character. When comparing the two editions of Evenings, Vinogradov observes a rapid change in Gogol's style towards the use of an expressive variety of lively colloquial speech. In the second edition, Gogol eliminates the standard, monotonous literary vocabulary and phraseological turns or replaces them with more synonymous, more expressive, dynamic expressions from live oral speech. This, in turn, leads to a change in the verbal composition of the language.
In the second edition, the nature of the description of the action and state of mind of the characters changes, Vinogradov notes. The thoughts and moods of the characters are conveyed more dynamically, in their movement. The nature of the description is more detailed and subjective, general expressions disappear.
Gogol wanted to find new methods and means of "figurative expressiveness", strove for "concrete, expressive, saturated with life colors and details, figuratively expressive oral narration" .
An important role, in Vinogradov's opinion, was played for Gogol by the principle of metaphorical animation. In addition, Gogol increasingly uses words and images characteristic of oral folk speech, brings the “verbal fabric” of the narrative into line with the image of the narrator, describes the course of actions consistently and gives the language a subjective character, writes Vinogradov.
Vinogradov notes that Gogol mixed the Ukrainian language with various dialects and styles of the Russian language. Moreover, the style of the Ukrainian language directly depended on the character of the protagonist of the work. Gogol combined the Ukrainian vernacular with Russian through vernacular. As an example, V. Vinogradov compares the common language of Rudny Pank and Foma Grigorievich and the urban, Russified language of the "pea panich" from Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.
The speech of Gogol's characters is distinguished by a mixture of styles and dialects, Vinogradov emphasizes. The only difference is that this confusion is determined by the class affiliation of the actor.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol Born in 1809 in the village of Sorochintsy, Poltava province.
Training in the biography of Gogol took place at the Poltava School, then at the Nizhyn Gymnasium, where he studied justice. In 1828, Gogol moved to St. Petersburg, where he served as an official.
Gogol's stories "The Night Before Christmas", "May Night", "Sorochinsky Fair", "Terrible Revenge" and others from the same cycle poetically recreate the image of Ukraine. Also, Ukraine was described in the work of Gogol "Taras Bulba".
Realizing the full power of the theater, Gogol took up dramaturgy. Gogol's The Inspector General was written in 1835 and staged for the first time in 1836. Because of backlash audience for the production of "The Government Inspector", the writer leaves the country.
Then in the biography of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol there were trips to Switzerland, Paris. It was there that work continued on the first volume. greatest work Gogol " Dead Souls". After returning home from Rome, the writer publishes the first volume. While working on the second volume, Gogol was overtaken by a spiritual crisis. Even a trip to Jerusalem did not help to rectify the situation. On the night of February 11, 1852, Gogol burned the second volume, and died on February 21.
The circumstances in which N. V. Gogol found himself in his early years contributed to his formation as a writer of progressive convictions.
Having become addicted to reading even before the gymnasium, Gogol showed in her a penchant for writing. He was the organizer and active participant in the student handwritten magazines Severnaya Zarya (Star) and Meteor of Literature. Some juvenilia Gogol even with their titles reflect his civic-romantic pathos. His liberal aspirations were most fully reflected in the idyll "Hanz Küchelgarten", composed in 1827. Its leading hero, an elegiac romantic individualist, is debunked by Gogol. He turns out to be a weak person, incapable of fighting, carried away more by dreams not of social welfare and goodness, but of his own glory.
Harsh reviews of "Hanz Küchelgarten" greatly upset Gogol, but did not turn away from literature. At that time, the Russian public showed great interest in Ukraine: its customs, way of life, folklore, and literature. Gogol has a bold idea - to respond with his own works of art to the reader's need for Ukrainian themes, in particular in folklore and etiographic materials. Probably in April-May 1829, Gogol began to write Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka. The theme of "Evenings" - characters, spiritual properties, moral rules, mores, customs, life, beliefs of the Ukrainian peasantry ("Sorochinsky Fair", "Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala", "May Night"), the Cossacks ("Terrible Revenge") and petty local nobility ("Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and his aunt").
The ideological meaning of "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" was determined by the people's democratic views of Gogol. These views were formed by the writer under the influence of the liberation movement, the entire social environment, as well as oral poetry and progressive literature. Gogol's democracy was strengthened by his further observations on the life of the landowners.
Reflecting popular ideas and his own dreams of fair, reasonable social relations, of an ideal person, beautiful physically and morally, Gogol in "Evenings ..." elevates good over evil, generosity over selfishness, humanism over selfishness, courage over cowardice, energy over laziness and idleness. , nobility over lowland and meanness. The writer convinces his readers that the power of money is destructive, happiness is achieved not by crime, but by goodness, human, earthly forces defeat the devilish ones, violation of natural, national moral laws, betrayal of the motherland deserves the most severe punishment.
“Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” recreates folk customs, everyday customs and beliefs, mainly of the ancient times, when Ukraine was free from serfdom.
In "Evenings ..." the characters are dominated by religious fantasy, pagan and Christian beliefs. Gogol expresses people's self-consciousness not statically, but in the process of historical growth. Fairy-tale fantasy is displayed to him, as a rule, not mystically, but according to popular ideas, more or less humanized.
Fiction, organically woven by the writer into real life, acquires in "Evenings ..." the charm of a naive folk imagination and, undoubtedly, serves to poeticize folk life.
Gogol's main goal is to embody the beauty of the spiritual essence of the people, their dreams of free and happy life. Following the romantic principle, the writer depicts the life of the Ukrainian peasantry and Cossacks primarily not in its everyday life, everyday life, versatility, but mainly in its festivity, unusualness, exclusivity. Fair ("Sorochinsky Fair"), Ivan's Evening ("Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala"), festivities of boys and girls on May night ("May Night, or the Drowned Woman"), carols ("The Night Before Christmas") - this is what attracts the writer's attention . The heroes of "Evenings ...", depicted in relaxation, in a festive revelry, Pushkin rightly called a singing and dancing tribe.
"Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" is inhabited by a mass of characters - evil and kind, ordinary and extraordinary, vulgar and poetic. But, recreating a motley crowd of characters, Gogol makes the center of "Evenings ..." not idle "existents" mired in the mire of money-grubbing, but the working people. The leading characters of "Evenings ..." are powerful in spirit, broad in nature, strong-willed, integral, morally strong, like the blacksmith Vakula ("The Night Before Christmas"), grandfather ("The Lost Letter"), Danila Burulbash ("Terrible Revenge") , smart, courageous, dexterous, like Gritsko Golopupenko ("Sorochinskaya Fair"), poetic, like Levko and Ganna ("May Night, or the Drowned Woman").
Characters“Evenings…” are more often depicted in a one-sided exaggeration of their psychological properties, in the sharply emphasized plasticity of their external appearances, in the emotional uplift of their speech, coming from the folk-song element. At the same time, the external portrait of the character is always given in close connection with his internal appearance.
But "Evenings ..." grew up on a deeply national soil. The heroic-poetic characters and the real-fantastic events of "Evenings ..." required their respective romantic grouping and connection. The plots of "Evenings ..." are built on the change of sharply contrasting episodes, representing the main links of the main events, without consistent gradualness and strict motivation, in the presence of fantastic intrigue and a pronounced lyrical beginning. So, the story "Sorochinsky Fair" opens with a lyrical introduction. It contains a real and fantastic intrigue associated with the legend of the red scroll, laid by the devil in the tavern. In its development, a change of antithetical pictures is used: the conspiracy of Solopiy and Gritsko about Paraska and the decisive disagreement of Khivri; Khivri's solitary meeting with the priest, suddenly interrupted by the invasion of guests, etc. The story "The Night Before Christmas" from beginning to end is built on a contrasting parallel between the lyrical and poetic lines of Vakula and Oksana - the rudely prosaic, base line of Solokha and her admirers. On the opposition of the ideal hero, patriot, guardian of moral principles Danila Burulbash to the monstrous villain, traitor to the motherland, his father-in-law, the architectonics of "Terrible Revenge" is formed. The structure of "Evenings ..." is also characterized by the fact that, along with separate, individual heroes, a mass of people, people act in them. The image of the people with such completeness and obvious poeticization has not yet been drawn in Russian literature. This was an innovation that distinguishes "Evenings ..." from the romantic works of Pushkin, Ryleev and Lermontov.
"Evenings ..." are abundant with pictures of nature, majestic and captivatingly beautiful.
"Evenings ..." are conceived in the form of a tale, most likely, the sexton Foma Grigorievich. On his behalf, the narration of "Evenings on the Eve of Ivan Kupala", "The Missing Letter", "The Enchanted Place" is being conducted. All the main storytellers, except for the "pea panich", ridiculed by Rudy Panko for pretentiousness, are representatives of the people, their views. Introducing common people's storytellers, Gogol wanted his "Evenings ..." to be folk in terms of language. The vocabulary and phraseology of these narrators, including Rudy Panko, are wonderful placers of a living folk-vernacular language, full of well-aimed words and phrases, original expressions, proverbs, sayings and proverbs. This is the first time in Russian literature that Ukrainians have spoken in such direct colloquial speech. It was news that attracted readers.
But the author's voice, with all the diversity of its intonations, does not oppose the voices of the narrators from the people, but merges with them. The combination of the oral-folk tale of the main narrators and the literary speech of the author (often referring to the narrators, as in The Lost Letter, with irony), diversifying the style of "Evenings ...", gives it a bright variegation, spectacular multicolor. "Evenings ..." imbued with humor. Light humor, sparkling throughout "Evenings ...", debunks the mysterious and fantastic, convinces the reader of its illusory nature.
“Evenings ...” were met, as Belinsky noted, with “indecent abuse” by N. Polevoy, who reproached them for “poverty of the imagination”, for the absence of “one thought”, for “shortcomings in syllable”, for “the inability to captivate the reader with details” And in “ other people's tricks." This scolding was supported only by reactionary criticism. "Evenings ..." brought Gogol and enthusiastic praise. The compositors were the first to appreciate Gogol's work. On August 21, 1831, the author of Evenings . V. F. Odoevsky, in a letter to the Slavophile publicist A. I. Koshelev dated September 23, 1831, stated that “Evenings ...” “is higher than ... everything that has hitherto been published under the title of“ Russian Novels ”2. Pushkin, in a letter to the publisher of Literary Supplements to the Russian Invalid, confirmed: “All this is so unusual in our current literature that I still have not come to my senses ... I congratulate the public on a truly merry book.”
If we talk about the first books of Nikolai Gogol, and at the same time exclude from mention the poem "Hanz Küchelgarten", which was published under a pseudonym, the Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka cycle is Gogol's first book, which consists of two parts. The first part of the cycle was published in 1831, and the second in 1832.
Briefly, many call this collection "Gogol's Evenings". As for the time of writing these works, Gogol wrote Evenings on a farm near Dikanka in the period 1829-1832. And according to the plot, these stories seem to have been collected and published by the beekeeper Rudy Panko.
Brief analysis of Evenings on a farm near Dikanka
The Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka cycle is interesting in that the events taking place take the reader from century to century. For example, "Sorochinsky Fair" describes the events of the 19th century, from where the reader finds himself in the 17th century, moving on to reading the story "Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala". Further, the stories "May Night, or the Drowned Woman", "The Missing Letter" and "The Night Before Christmas" refer to the time of the 18th century, and then the 17th century follows again.
Both parts of the cycle Evenings on a farm near Dikanka are united by the stories of the grandfather of the deacon Foma Grigoryevich, who, with the events of his life, seems to combine the past, the present, reality and fiction. However, speaking about the analysis in the evening on a farm near Dikanka, it is worth saying that Nikolai Gogol does not interrupt the flow of time on the pages of his cycle, on the contrary, time merges into a spiritual and historical whole.
What stories are included in the cycle Evenings on a farm near Dikanka
The cycle includes two parts, each with four stories. Please note that on our website in the Summary section you can in a simple form in short time get acquainted with the summary of each story included in the Evenings on a farm near Dikanka cycle.
Besides, each summary accompanies short description works with the date of its writing, characteristic features and time of reading the most concise statement.
"Evenings on a farm near Dikanka" Gogol N.V.
The publication in 1831 of the first part of "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", and in 1832 - the second part witnessed the emergence of a new writer - N.V. Gogol, who came to the forefront of Russian and European romanticism. The inimitable originality of "Evenings" for a long time created their reputation as an artistic phenomenon that has no analogies. Belinsky wrote in 1840: “Indicate in European or Russian literature at least something similar to these first experiments. young man, at least something that could suggest the idea of \u200b\u200bwriting like this. Isn't this, on the contrary, a completely new, unprecedented world of art? Created by Gogol, a Ukrainian by origin, flowed into the mainstream of the widespread interest in Russian society in Ukrainian folk art, everyday life, and way of life. “Here everyone is so interested in everything Little Russian,” the author wrote in a letter to his mother.
The publications of "Evenings" evoked an open enthusiastic response from Pushkin. Friendship with the great poet became Gogol's happiness and the greatest creative success for all Russian literature. In their spiritual closeness, in the creative community, the wonderful law of continuity in the artistic process was expressed. Belinsky described it this way: “Pushkin’s main influence on Gogol was that nationality, which, according to Gogol himself, “consists not in the description of a sundress, but in the very spirit of the people.”
Gogol's discovery was that he discovered the poetry of natural life in people who stood closest to the origins of natural existence. It was the maximum naturalness. In "Evenings" - a holiday of the national spirit. But there is no hint of naive sentimental delight in them. It is enough to pay attention to the image of the “publisher” Pasichnik Rudy Pank, in whose tale intonation irony constantly sounds. This is that laughter, where there is as much innocence as natural wisdom. "The merry trickery of the mind", which Pushkin considered the property of the people, found a diverse expression in "Evenings". It is not for nothing that almost every story has its own narrator, an original artistic type. This picturesque diversity of styles is close to the complex and cheerful gamut of feelings and passions of Ukrainian lads, maidens and their fathers, united by “Evenings” into a festive round dance.
The feeling of pride and admiration for their homeland is expressed by the writer with exceptional insight, becomes close and accessible to any sensitive reader, at any historical time. Let us recall the famous beginning of one of the chapters of May Night: “Do you know the Ukrainian night? Oh, you don't know the Ukrainian night! Take a look at her."
For many years, Russian and European readers have been staring with great responsiveness at the young heroes of the Sorochinskaya Fair, Paraska and Gritsko, singing tender and naive songs to each other in front of the eyes of the entire crowd.
It is impossible to break away from the folklore tale of Foma Grigorievich in "The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala", where Gogol's discovery lies in the unprecedented psychological complexity of the narrator - an ingenuous sexton and almost romantic poet.
The world of folk thinking is rich. In it, folklore is combined with sobriety in the perception of the real, the everyday principle does not contradict the national-historical feeling.
Therefore, in the second part of "Evenings" the theme of the liberation struggle sounds quite naturally. Of course, “Terrible Revenge”, where the sound is the strongest, is a semi-legend in the plot, but thanks to the image of Danila Burulbash, the story claims to be a completely realistic interpretation of the topic.
But to complete the picture of the Ukrainian night, Gogol needed in "Evenings ..." and such a story as "Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and his aunt." The mood of the story is born of people's thinking, which cannot fail to notice and, accordingly, evaluate the dull emptyness of prosaic vegetation. The "cunning of the mind" is here in a well-aimed depiction of types representing the insignificant landowner's way of life. This is how the sketch of "Dead Souls" is planned.
The time of the creation of "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", their publication and discussion among the reading public is the happiest in Gogol's life. It is full of grandiose plans, many of which later came true.
