Dialogue with Chichikov about dead souls. Dialogue between Chichikov and Ivan Antonovich in the civil chamber: the topic of bureaucracy

1. Compositional construction.
2. Storyline.
3. "Dead" soul of Plyushkin.
4. Analysis of the episode.
5. The symbolic image of "dead" souls.

The plot composition of N.V. Gogol's poem "Dead Souls" is constructed in such a way that here one can consider three ideological lines or directions, logically connected and intertwined parts. The first reveals the life of landowners, the second - city officials, and the third - Chichikov himself. Each of the directions, manifesting, contributes to a deeper manifestation of the other two lines.

The action of the poem begins with the arrival of a new person in the provincial town of NN. There is a plot twist. Immediately in the first chapter, Chichikov meets almost all the heroes of the poem. In the second chapter, the movement of the plot is shown, which takes place together with the main character, who goes on a trip to the surrounding villages for his own needs. Chichikov turns out to be visiting one or another landowner, and an interesting feature is visible. The author seems to deliberately arrange his characters in such a way that each new character is even more “vulgar than the other”. Plyushkin is the latest, Chichikov has to communicate with schemes in this series, which means that it can be assumed that it is he who has the most anti-human essence. Chichikov returns to the city, and a colorful picture unfolds before the reader from the life of city officials. These people have long forgotten the meaning of such words as "honesty", "fairness", "decency". The positions they hold fully allow them to lead a prosperous and idle life, in which there is no place for awareness of public debt, compassion for others. Gogol does not try to separately focus attention on the very social elite of the inhabitants of the city, however, fleeting sketches, quick conversations - and the reader already knows everything about these people. Here, for example, the general, at first glance, and seems like a good person, but “... it was sketched in him in some kind of picture disorder ... self-sacrifice, generosity in decisive moments, courage, intelligence - and to all this - a fair amount of a mixture of selfishness, ambition, pride and petty personal ticklishness.

The dominant role in the plot of the work is given to Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov. And it is he, his qualities of character, his life that are under the close attention of the author. Gogol is interested in this new kind of people that appeared in Russia at that time. Capital is their only aspiration, and for its sake they are ready to deceive, mean, flatter. That is, “Dead Souls” is nothing more than a way to examine and understand as deeply as possible the pressing problems of the social life of Russia at that time. Of course, the plot is structured in such a way that the image of landowners and officials occupies the main place in the poem, but Gogol is not limited only to describing reality, he seeks to prompt the reader to think about how tragic and hopeless the life of ordinary people is.

Plyushkin is the last in the gallery of landowners passing before the reader's eyes. Chichikov accidentally learned about this landowner from Sobakevich, who gave a rather unfavorable recommendation to his neighbor on the estate. In the past, Plyushkin was an experienced, hardworking and enterprising person. He was not deprived of intelligence and worldly ingenuity: “Everything flowed vividly and took place in a measured course: mills moved,
felters, cloth factories, carpentry machines, spinning mills worked; everywhere the keen eye of the owner entered into everything and, like an industrious spider, he ran troublesomely, but quickly, along all ends of his economic web. However, everything soon fell apart. The wife is dead. In Plyushkin, who became a widower, suspiciousness and stinginess increased. Then the eldest daughter fled with the staff captain, the son chose the military instead of the civil service, and was excommunicated from home. The youngest daughter died. The family fell apart. Plyushkin turned out to be the only keeper of all wealth.

The absence of family and friends led to an even greater aggravation of the suspicion and stinginess of this person. Gradually, it sinks lower and lower until it turns into "some kind of hole in humanity." Even a prosperous economy is gradually falling apart: “... he became more uncompromising towards buyers who came to take away his household works; the buyers bargained and bargained and, finally, abandoned him altogether, saying that he was a demon, and not a man; hay and bread rotted, stacks and haystacks turned into clean manure, even dilute cabbage in them, flour in the cellars turned into stone ... it was terrible to touch the cloth, canvas and household materials: they turned into dust. He put a curse on all the surviving children, which further aggravated his loneliness.

It was in such a distressed condition that Chichikov saw him. In the first moments of acquaintance, the main character for a long time could not understand who was in front of him: a woman or a man. A sexless creature in an old dirty dressing gown was taken by Chichikov for a housekeeper. However, after the main character was very surprised and shocked to find out that the owner of the house was standing in front of him. The author, describing the wealth of Plyushkin, immediately tells how a previously thrifty person starves his peasants, and even himself, wears all kinds of rags instead of clothes, while food disappears in his pantries and cellars, bread and cloth deteriorate. Moreover, the stinginess of the landowner leads to the fact that the entire master's house is littered with all sorts of rubbish, since, walking along the street, Plyushkin collects any objects and things forgotten or left unattended by the serfs, brings them into the house and dumps them in a heap.

In a conversation with Chichikov, the owner complains about his life, complaining about the serfs who rob him. It is they who are responsible for such a plight of the landowner. Plyushkin, owning a thousand souls, cellars and barns full of all kinds of food, is trying to treat Chichikov with a dried, moldy Easter cake left over from his daughter's arrival, to drink a suspicious liquid that was once tincture. In Plyushkin's descriptions, Gogol tries to prove to the reader that such a life story of a landowner is not an accident, but a predetermined course of events. And here in the foreground is not so much the personal tragedy of the protagonist, but the prevailing conditions of social life. Plyushkin gladly agrees to a deal with a visiting gentleman, especially since he takes care of all the paperwork. The landowner is not even aware of why the guest needs "dead" souls. Greed takes possession of the owner so much that he has no time for reflection. The main concern of the owner is how to save paper, which is required for a letter to the chairman. Even the gaps between lines and words cause him regret: “... he began to write, putting out letters that looked like musical notes, holding the agility of his hand every minute, which bounced all over the paper, sparingly sculpting line upon line and not without regret thinking about that there will still be a lot of blank space.” During the conversation, the main character learns that Plyushkin also has runaway serfs, who also lead him into ruin, since they have to pay for them in the revision.

Chichikov offers the owner to make another deal. Trade is booming. Plyushkin's hands tremble with excitement. The owner does not want to give up two kopecks, only to get the money and quickly hide it in one of the drawers of the bureau. After the transaction is completed, Plyushkin carefully counts the banknotes several times, carefully stacks them in order to never take them out again. The painful desire for hoarding takes possession of the landowner so much that he is no longer able to part with the treasures that have fallen into his hands, even if his life or the well-being of his loved ones depends on it. However, human feelings have not completely left the landowner. At some point, he even considers whether to give Chichikov a watch for his generosity, but a noble impulse
passes quickly. Plyushkin again plunges into the abyss of stinginess and loneliness. After the departure of a random gentleman, the old man slowly goes around his pantries, checks on the watchmen, "who stood at all corners, pounding with wooden spatulas into an empty keg." Plyushkin's day ended as usual: "... looked into the kitchen ... ate a lot of cabbage soup with porridge and, having scolded everyone to the last for theft and bad behavior, returned to his room."

The image of Plyushkin, brilliantly created by Gogdle, clearly shows the readers the callousness and deadness of his soul, of everything that is human in a person. Here, as clearly as possible, all the vulgarity and baseness of the serf landowner is manifested. The question inevitably arises: who does the writer call “dead” souls: poor dead peasants or officials and landlords who manage life in Russian districts.

Chichikov's tricks in dialogues with landowners

© V. V. FROLOV

Poem N.V. Gogol's "Dead Souls" is extremely interesting from the point of view of the methods by which the cunning businessman Chichikov achieves his goal in dialogues with landowners about the purchase of dead souls.

The purpose of a business dialogue (we refer Chichikov's conversations to it) is to achieve a profitable solution to the issue. Of particular importance is the knowledge of the characteristics of the interlocutor, the art of argumentation and the possession of speech means. In such a dialogue, special techniques are used to help achieve the goal. Rhetoric defines them as "eristic tricks", "eristic argumentation", since initially the scope of these techniques was limited to the situation of the dispute. In antiquity, "eristics (from the Greek. epsiksh - arguing) was called art

the ability to argue, using all the techniques designed only to defeat the enemy ". In logic, they include sophisms, in linguistic pragmatics - linguistic means of influence in indirect communication, speech manipulations.

An analysis of various classifications of such techniques allows us to conclude that they are complex in nature, directly related to the aspect of impact - logical, psychological or linguistic. So, sophism, a logical error, is based on the violation of logical laws; in "eristic argumentation, all types of arguments are used: logical (to reality, to reason) and psychological (to authority, to personality)" that affect the feelings of the interlocutor; at the heart of speech manipulations is the use of the possibilities of the language for the purpose of hidden influence.

Thus, we include sophisms, logical and psychological arguments, linguistic means, stylistic figures, features of intonation and voice to the concept of "trick". The speaker uses them deliberately to achieve his goals.

Chichikov's dialogues with the landowners are permeated through and through with such eristic intentions. We have tried to consistently describe the types of tricks that the main character of "Dead Souls" uses to convince the interlocutor.

In a dialogue with Manilov, he carefully tries to designate the subject of his interest by giving ambiguity to the concept of "living": "not really alive, but alive in relation to the legal form." Doubts are overcome by referring to the law (“We will write that they are alive, as it really is in the revision tale”) and an argument for profit (“The Treasury will even receive benefits, because it will receive legal fees”). The argument is supported by a hint of mysterious personal circumstances, which should arouse the interlocutor's disposition: "I am used to not deviating from civil laws in anything, although I suffered in the service for this." Manilov is convinced by Chichikov's confident tone:

"I suppose it will be good.

But if it’s good, that’s another matter: I’m against it, ”said Manilov and completely calmed down.”

The dialogue with Plyushkin also turns out to be unpretentious, but emphatically polite. Caution, the use of a vaguely personal sentence ("I was, however, told") aimed at concealing interest. Feigned sympathy and surprise, a series of polite questions help the hero learn the necessary information from the interlocutor: "Tell me! And did you exhaust a lot?" Chichikov exclaimed with participation "; "And let me know: how much is the number?"; "Allow me to ask one more..."; "Chichikov noticed that indecent indifference to someone else's grief, he immediately sighed and said that he was sorry." Touched by this, Plyushkin allows himself to play on the feeling of his own stinginess: "condolences in

You can’t put your pocket in.” Chichikov “tried to explain that he was ready to prove it not with empty words, but with deeds, and immediately expressed his readiness to assume the obligation to pay taxes.”

In a dialogue with Nozdryov, neither confidence and ease at the beginning of the conversation help ("Do you have tea, a lot of dead peasants? Transfer them to me"), nor a lie to hide the true goal - gaining weight in society, marriage, nor an attempt to interest money :

"- ... If you don't want to donate, then sell it.

Sell! Why, I know you, you scoundrel, won't you pay dearly for them?

Eh, you're good too!.. why do you have diamonds, or what?"

The epithet in an ironic context is used with the intention to devalue the subject of bargaining.

Nozdryov is not convinced either by an attempt to shame with greed (“Have mercy, brother, what kind of Jewish urge you have!”), nor by an appeal to duty (“You should just give them to me”) using the modality of obligation.

Ineffective is the appeal to a sense of common sense, calling dead souls "nonsense", "all sorts of rubbish." The dialogue, Nozdryov's latest amusement, ends with a torrent of insults.

Korobochka's senseless questions ("What do you need them for?", "Why, they're dead") force Chichikov to use the benefit argument and the promise of assistance as a trick: "I'll give you money for them.<.>I will save you from the hassle and payment.<.>and besides that, I will give you fifteen rubles.” The repetition of the verb “lady” and the union “yes” increase the impact.

In order to devalue the subject, a pragmatic argument was used for the benefit: "What can they cost?", "What is the use of them, there is no use"; evaluative definition: "because it's dust"; an appeal to common sense using facts, concretization: "Take into account only that you no longer need to butter up the assessor"; "Yes, you only judge well: after all, you are ruined"; an appeal to a sense of shame: "Stram, stram, mother! Who will buy them? Well, what use can he make of them?"; "The dead are on the farm! Ek, where did they get it! Is it possible to frighten sparrows at night in your garden, or what?" The argumentation is strengthened by repetition ("after all, it's dust", "it's just dust") and figurative antithesis: "You take every worthless, last thing, for example, even a simple rag, and there is a price for a rag ... but this is not necessary for anything" ; "because now I'm paying for them; I, not you<.>I take all responsibility."

Chichikov tries to overcome Korobochka's doubts with the clarity of the concept of "money", using an analogy with the process of honey production. “I give you money: fifteen rubles in banknotes. After all, this is money. You won’t find them on the street. Well, admit it, how much did you sell honey?<.>

So on the other hand (amplifying semantics. - VF) this is honey. You collected it, maybe for about a year, with care, went, killed the bees, fed them in the cellar the whole winter; and dead souls are not of this world. There you received twelve rubles for work, for diligence, and here you take for nothing, for nothing, and not twelve, but fifteen, and not silver, but all blue banknotes. "The analogy is enhanced by the semantics of unions, particles, a number of homogeneous constructions The hero manages to convince Korobochka only by a lie that accidentally came to mind about government contracts.

The dialogue with So-bakevich is exceptional in its saturation with tricks, embodying a type of businessman who is not inferior to Chichikov in cunning. The hero begins "very remotely" in order to divert attention, win over the interlocutor with the help of flattery, praise: "he touched the Russian state in general and spoke with great praise about its space<.>souls who have completed their careers are counted on an equal footing with the living, that with all the fairness of this measure, it can be somewhat painful for many owners<...>and he, feeling personal respect for him, would even be ready to partly take on this really heavy duty.

Chichikov carefully defines the subject of the conversation: "he did not call souls dead in any way, but only non-existent." Sobakevich follows Chichikov's thought, "realizing that the buyer must have some benefit here": "Do you need dead souls? If you please, I'm ready to sell."

Chichikov tries to sidestep the issue of price (“this is such an item that it’s even strange about the price”; “we must have forgotten what the item consists of”) and offers a minimal fee. Sobakevich's emotional objection is backed up by the antithesis: "Oh, where did they get it! After all, I'm not selling bast shoes!" Chichikov puzzles him with an argument to reality: "However, they are not people either."

Sobakevich, in order to raise the price, “revives” the dead souls by substituting the thesis, reinforcing it with a figurative comparison, phraseological units: “So you think you will find such a fool who would sell you a revision soul for two kopecks?” (reading thoughts, objection in advance. -V.F); "Another swindler will deceive you, he will sell you rubbish, not souls, but I have like a vigorous nut, everything is for selection: not an artisan, but some other healthy man."

Chichikov is trying to return to the essence of the subject: "after all, these are all dead people<.>after all, the souls had already died a long time ago, there was only one sound, intangible to the senses. Support the fence with a dead body, says the proverb. "To increase expressiveness, he uses a proverb, repeating particles of amplifying semantics.

Sobakevich's new argument is based on antithesis, contains rhetorical questions and exclamations: "Yes, of course, dead. However, which of these people who are now considered living? What kind of people? Flies, not people!"

Chichikov objects with an argument to reality and uses the concept of "dream": "Yes, they still exist, but this is a dream." In response, Sobakevich spreads the substituted thesis with examples and hyperbolization, puts the meaning he needs into the concept: “Well, no, not a dream! ... a power that a horse does not have ... I would like to know where you would find such a dream elsewhere! Evaluative suffixes, detailed comparison enhance the impact.

Chichikov uses "greasing the argument", appealing to the presence of education: "You seem to be a rather smart person, you have information about education," he tries to devalue the object through an evaluative nomination: "After all, the object is just fufu. What is it worth? Who needs it?"

Sobakevich is not alien to the rules of logic, applying the ad hom-inem argument to a person: ("Yes, you are buying, therefore, you need it"). Chichikov’s attempt to refer to “family and family circumstances” he blocks with a statement: “I don’t need to know what kind of relationship you have; I don’t interfere in family affairs. You needed souls, I’m selling you, and you will regret that you didn’t buy. , loss to yourself, deshe

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  Krivonos V. Sh. - 2011

N. Sadur. "Brother Chichikov". Omsk Drama Theatre.
Director Sergei Steblyuk, artist Igor Kapitanov

"Brother Chichikov" of the Omsk drama turned out to be excitingly interesting, spectacularly bright and exciting from the very beginning to (almost) the very end. This large-format performance in all respects has a clear and easy-to-perceive spatio-temporal composition, a simple and intelligible event logic. I note, by the way, that "Brother Chichikov" for me is the second meeting with the direction of S. Steblyuk, and I met her in the magnificent performance of the Yekaterinburg theater "Volkhonka" "A Month in the Village." But there, the psychologically subtle and warm world of Turgenev's play was embodied in a tiny space, which can be called a stage rather conditionally - face to face with three dozen spectators. In Omsk, however, Steblyuk worked on a completely different scale: a large cast and numerous spectators obeyed the director’s clear and precise thinking, as did Igor Kapitanov’s set design, modern in its expressive minimalism (several successive “objects”: growing, revealing with us before our eyes, a chandelier-flower, a britzka suspended and swaying on cables, a multi-colored suspended ceiling, sometimes rising like a tent above the characters, and sometimes descending and covering them). The musical score of the performance is just as accurate (Marina Shmotova). In other words, we have a case of artistically justified, truly professional technology.

But this technology, in a good sense, rational and intelligible to the viewer, generates, as it should be in real art, multidimensional figurative meanings that cannot be interpreted in a single line, that cannot be reduced to flat rational formulas, which, literally according to Kant, give rise to “a reason to think a lot.” And, no less important, this technology creates and radiates a complex, swirling, emotional atmosphere that fills every point of artistic space and time, pulsating and exciting, intriguing and exciting spiritual and spiritual tension - the "nerve" of the performance. It is just as difficult to speak and write about this focus and secret of the artistry of "Brother Chichikov" as about any specific smell and taste, a phantom of consciousness or a directly experienced "substance of existence".

…Cold night in virtual Italy. Chichikov is freezing in front of the slightly raised curtain, trying in vain to wrap himself in newspapers. The color of the scene at night, slightly illuminated by moonlight reflections, is the color of mystery. She is not only in special lighting, but also in two shifting, tapping against each other so as not to freeze, but still freezing female legs in boots. In this night, with its haunting cold and Chichikov's discomfort, and in these lovely, gracefully freezing legs, exuding impatient femininity and charm and promising - we are already sure of this - the beauty and significance of their owner, so far invisible to us, - art is already conjuring in all this, there already lives an exciting presentiment of plot, intrigue, adventure *.

* On the stage at this time there is another young man, named "Someone" - apparently, the demon of the hero, who subsequently disappears for a long time as unnecessary, since the demonic functions, among others, are taken over by the Stranger.

V. Meisinger (Chichikov), M. Kroitor (Stranger).
Photo by A. Kudryavtsev

Then follows Chichikov's meeting with the Stranger, her attempt to "seduce" Pavel Ivanovich and his awkward resistance, and their strange collusion. In all this, too, there is a lot of disturbing uncertainty, intriguing reticence, strangely attracting secrets. The first scene of Chichikov (Vladimir Meisinger) and the beautiful Stranger (Marina Kroitor) going to the guitar and violin is of key importance for the whole performance. And not only because the idea (in modern terms - the project) of "dead souls" is born in it. From now on, the Stranger will always be next to Chichikov, and their duet-dialogue will become the lyrical center of the performance. The inner world of the hero - a small man with great ambitions, torn between God and mammon, between conscience and a thirst for well-being and wealth, between love-pity for the Motherland and contempt for it, finally, between the living and the dead - will be revealed to us in this inevitable until exhaustion and, at the same time, the necessary and desired dialogue. At the same time, Chichikov will acquire physiognomic and behavioral concreteness in the performance and will enter as a person in the flesh into another - the "epic" hypostasis of the performance, will become our guide to the world of Gogol's types, dead and alive. The stranger, invisible to everyone except Chichikov, will remain his strange vision and a mystery to us: we, the audience, will be tormented to the end by the question of who she is. And we can't find a definitive answer. Because in the wonderful performance of Marina Kroitor Stranger, this phantom woman is real and fantastic at the same time, she is both the hero’s dream-love, the image of the “eternally Feminine”, and the “runaway soul” - the embodiment of tragic female loneliness and restlessness, and a vamp woman , thirsty for the blood of Chichikov, but she is also the alter ego of the hero, a fantastic night materialization of his "unconscious", his greedy earthly desires and his conscience, provocateur-seductress and judge in one person, his strength and weakness, nobility and meanness, his innermost secret a mirror, sometimes loving, sometimes hating and despising the one who is reflected in it.

In Chichikov’s dialogues with the Stranger, Gogol’s beloved and painful theme of the Motherland, Russia, will sound modern, and Russian life, seen together with the hero, will settle (sit) in our souls and minds, merged and soldered with bitter, but giving everything a special meaning (and, it seems , eternal) his question: who, Russia, so splattered her? And with his (and our) feeling of Russia passing through the whole performance: “chilly, chilly through and through”.

The first scene with the Stranger, therefore, is the true semantic source of Steblyuk's performance. But it also contains his artistic-linguistic, stylistic "genotype" - the matrix of the author's way of seeing and building the world on stage, playing it and with it. In this world, the serious and the tragic naturally turn into hilariously funny, carnival, farcical and vice versa, the plausible and the fantastic (even phantasmagoric) pass into each other, psychologism and lyricism are freely assembled with bizarre hyperbole and the grotesque. So, in the very first scene after Neznakomkin’s hysterical confessional “I’m sick of singing” and Chichikov’s - in response - attempts to pretend to be “Italian gondolier”, the characters together famously drag out the daring Russian “Marusya, one-two-three ...”, which is replaced by dances of the Italian carnival behind a slightly raised curtain. In turn, Chichikov’s first revelations are preceded by a completely grotesque detail: a stranger pulls ropes with lingerie from Pavlusha’s bosom, which obviously comically reduces Chichikov’s sincere: “I try for my future wife and children.”

Steblyuk’s entire performance is “stitched” with such playful conjugations and “ambivalences” of aesthetically polar principles: they are inside individual images (almost all, starting with Chichikov himself), and in pair acting ensembles, and in solving collective (group) scenes. For example, next to quite specific, having a face and a name, peasants (who are also remembered for their magnificent acting performance - “at the head” of this group I would put the excellent work of Vladimir Devyatkov - dreaming of Rome and the marriage of the red-haired Selifan, Chichikov's Sancho Panza) live in the play relentlessly pursuing the hero faceless, indistinguishably identical "dead people" - ghost people, people-symbols of the kingdom of dead souls appropriated by Chichikov, introducing a note of mystical horror and, again, infernal cold into the atmosphere of the performance. In the finale, they arrange a uniform sabbath in the torn and darkened consciousness of the dearest Pavel Ivanovich - a sabbath that marks the final victory of the dead over the living and the collapse, disintegration of the personality, voluntarily submitting to the fetish of enrichment.

But first, Chichikov, accompanied by the Stranger and the “dead men,” will reveal to us the phantasmagoria of Russian provincial life, the concrete historical features of which are conditional for the authors and, in general, of little interest, but it is her grotesquely insane irreality that is truly essential and real.

This is the parade-alle of the Omsk troupe. Here you can’t say about small roles: “second plan”. Kifa Mokievich Yuri Muzychenko, Plyushkinskaya Mavra Elizaveta Romanenko, feminine-gentle and "philosophical" Governor Moisei Vasiliadi with embroidery and a chair stuck to the back seat and the governor's daughter - lively Ulinka Anna Khodyun, fencing-sharp as always, hilarious "three Russian peasants" Vladimir Avramenko, Nikolai Mikhalevsky and Vladimir Puzyrnikov - they are all on stage for only a few brief moments, but each image is completely internally and externally complete, bright and juicy. Each one is a full-blooded and intrinsically valuable "piece" of the general carnival-grotesque element of the performance, in each of them the general theme of the paradoxical Russian symbiosis of the living and the dead, wealth and poverty, reality and fantasy trembles in its own way.

And, of course, the “landlords” virtuoso soloists, giving the “ghostly” Gogol reality a full-blooded flesh and the immutable persuasiveness of earthly life-existence, and in it just as organically and at once searching for and exposing the reality of the incredible, beyond-strange, “impossible”. The fantasy of the director and the actors involved with him is cultural: he knows and remembers the original source and tradition; heartfelt: behind, it seems, the continuous mockery of the tone - a serious, close and, like in Gogol himself, lovingly sympathetic attitude towards the character, intense reflection on him.

And yet we have never seen our old acquaintances, the Gogol landowners, like this. An important role here is played by the largely unexpected costumes of Fagilya Selskaya and the plasticity of Nikolai Reutov, which correspond to the general director's decision. And here they are, known to everyone from school years and never seen before Manilov, Sobakevich, Plyushkin, Nozdrev, Korobochka.

Oleg Teploukhov's Manilov is a little red-haired clown insanely similar to Jacques Paganel, enthusiastic and sad, shy and quivering, in a white lionfish coat, with painted cheeks, with tows from under a panama hat (later Manilov will take it off along with tows) and an absurd umbrella. He expresses his subtle spiritual matters with dance (and Yulia Pelevina's enthusiastic wife is just a ballerina doll in a tutu, ruffle pants and a turban). Zoshchenko's - remember? - it was: "he is not an intellectual, but with glasses", Manilov is just the opposite - he is also an intellectual with glasses. More precisely, of course, a parody of him. Teploukhov unexpectedly adds inner loneliness, lostness, deep, life-long fright to the classic, sugary Manilov courtesy and lovingness, dreaminess Teploukhov unexpectedly adds (about dead souls - in a whisper, a declaration of love for Chichikov - with an umbrella on the ground). And - humble obedience to death in Manilovka. Sweet, thin dead soul.

Sobakevich Sergei Volkov is young, tall, confidently sharp. Shiny boots, black trousers and a shirt with a white pattern, a cap - in its own way (and unexpectedly) elegant. Not a traditional corroded bear, but a trim, successful retired officer. In addition, an ardent anti-Western patriot. True, unlike other landowners, Sobakevich is still more of a frame, a contour that Volkov has yet to fill with a special life - to come up with a "story" of his hero.

Plyushkin is played by Evgeny Smirnov. And, as always with this outstanding actor, not a single "adaptation", not the slightest seam or patch. Just as Smirnov's Plyushkin examines the world with the utmost care and delight through a colored piece of glass and, having lost almost everything, recalls with appetite the details of his past life (“I ate a plum ...” - this must be heard), lovingly picks up something what else is left - so the actor himself with appetite, pleasure and love savor every moment, every step and gesture, every reaction and every word of his unfortunate hero. Like this Plyushkin, looking like a woman, in tatters and windings, takes a fancy to every bottle or jar that falls apart, how he values ​​\u200b\u200bevery hole in an old leaky bucket and how he admires his poor world through a glass: “The world is playing like that ...”! And, lo and behold, the only reverse metamorphosis for "Brother Chichikov" takes place: poverty becomes wealth, the dead become alive. And we, in turn, admire the actor and do not want his role to end. Masterpiece, one word!

Nozdrev Valeria Alekseeva is a crazy Zaporozhian Cossack (and dressed accordingly), drunk from the eternal game of war. "Chapaev" with a sword unsheathed: turn under his arm inadvertently - he will hack and shoot, do not hesitate. And the speeches are appropriate, insane. And suddenly, in this delusional stream of military commands and reports, an unexpected and frightening truth: "Russia shook, brother Chichikov." And after that, it seems to be absurd, but also for some reason true: “There is no one left in Russia, at least shout.” And for a moment it becomes sad and scary. This is from Nozdrev's textbook empty talk ...

And "under the curtain" - an unexpected box of Valeria Prokop in a lace nightgown and felt boots. With playfulness, flirtatiousness, a frank allusion to the undead and waiting for the "victim" sexuality. And at the same time, as expected, shy, suspicious, superstitious. Gogol-style, detailed, this-worldly, but also involved in something else, on the other side ... Here, on Korobochka's bed, a strange-mysterious bell tinkles. Or does it only seem to me and Chichikov?

Meanwhile, everything around becomes somehow strange. And the music too. And Pushkin's "Demons" sound. And Chichikov's dream or his delirium begins - devilry, in a word. The performance goes to the finale, it goes, I must say, unreasonably long - for the first and only time, the slender artistic construction sags, cracks and tires.

And what about Chichikov, by the way? It's time to talk about him. In my opinion, Vladimir Meisinger did an excellent job with this difficult (not only spiritually, but also physically - the whole performance on the stage), multifaceted role. Chichikov, first of all, is even outwardly new and fresh: the viewer quickly forgets about the “classic”, Mkhatov Chichikov - a middle-aged official with a paunch and sideburns. In Omsk, he is young, romantic and handsome, like Meisinger, and Meisinger, as never before, is energetic, light, impetuous, self-confident. Secondly, the theatrical Chichikov, familiar to us, had no inner life. Meisinger, playing, of course, Chichikov - a traveler, a guest and an interlocutor, an intriguer and a hunter for dead souls, at the same time plays, and plays strongly, in fact, another and much more complex "performance within a performance": Chichikov's story, his fate consciousness, torn by contradictions, restless in the cold horror of life and in the horror of a tragic choice. And if in the first, as already mentioned, the epic performance of Meisinger-Chichikov, first of all, a correct and intelligent mirror of others, then in the second, lyrical performance, he is both the road, and the almost mystical leap along it, and the maddening cold and horror of Russian life, and most importantly - "a million torments" and the tragedy of a false choice, a painful and unsuccessful attempt to combine the incompatible and find moral self-justification and inner harmony.

... While in Omsk, one evening we were sitting with Oleg Semenovich Loevsky and rummaged through our memory, what kind of play to recommend for staging to one Omsk theater about what is happening now with Russia and the Russian people. They didn’t find it, of course, because, unfortunately, no one has written such plays yet. However, already at home, in Yekaterinburg, I suddenly realized that, unlike Loevsky and me, Sergei Steblyuk and the Omsk drama managed to find such a play.

Starting work on the poem "Dead Souls", Gogol set himself the goal of "showing at least one side of all Russia." The poem is built on the basis of a plot about the adventures of Chichikov, an official who buys up "dead souls". Such a composition allowed the author to talk about different landowners and their villages, which Chichikov visits in order to make his deal. According to Gogol, heroes follow us, "one more vulgar than the other." We get to know each of the landowners only during the time (as a rule, no more than one day) that Chichikov spends with him. But Gogol chooses such a way of depicting, based on a combination of typical features with individual characteristics, which allows you to get an idea not only about one of the characters, but also about the whole layer of Russian landowners embodied in this hero.

Chichikov plays a very important role in this. An adventurer-swindler, in order to achieve his goal - buying "dead souls" - cannot be limited to a superficial look at people: he needs to know all the subtleties of the psychological appearance of the landowner with whom he is to conclude a very strange deal. After all, the landowner can give consent to it only if Chichikov succeeds in persuading him by pressing the necessary levers. In each case, they will be different, because the people with whom Chichikov has to deal are different. And in each chapter, Chichikov himself changes somewhat, trying to somehow resemble the given landowner: in his manner of behavior, speech, expressed ideas. This is a sure way to win over a person, make him go not only to a strange, but, in fact, a criminal deal, which means becoming an accomplice in crime. That is why Chichikov tries so hard to hide his true motives, providing each of the landowners as an explanation of the reasons for his interest in "dead souls" that this particular person can be most understandable.

Thus, Chichikov in the poem is not just a swindler, his role is more important: the author needs him as a powerful tool in order to test other characters, show their essence hidden from prying eyes, and reveal their main features. This is exactly what we see in Chapter 2, devoted to Chichikov's visit to the village of Manilov. The image of all landowners is based on the same microplot. His “spring” is the actions of Chichikov, the buyer of “dead souls”. Indispensable participants in each of the five such microplots are two characters: Chichikov and the landowner to whom he comes, in this case, these are Chichikov and Manilov.

In each of the five chapters devoted to the landlords, the author builds the story as a successive change of episodes: entry into the estate, meeting, refreshment, Chichikov's offer to sell him "dead souls", departure. These are not ordinary plot episodes: it is not the events themselves that are of interest to the author, but the opportunity to show that objective world surrounding the landlords, in which the personality of each of them is most fully reflected; not only to give information about the content of the conversation between Chichikov and the landowner, but to show in the manner of communication of each of the characters that which carries both typical and individual features.

The scene of the sale and purchase of "dead souls", which I will analyze, occupies a central place in the chapters on each of the landowners. Before her, the reader, together with Chichikov, can already form a certain idea of ​​​​the landowner with whom the swindler is talking. It is on the basis of this impression that Chichikov builds a conversation about "dead souls." Therefore, his success entirely depends on how truly and fully he, and therefore the readers, managed to understand this human type with its individual characteristics.

What do we manage to learn about Manilov before Chichikov proceeds to the most important thing for him - a conversation about "dead souls"?

The chapter on Manilov begins with a description of his estate. The landscape is designed in gray-blue tones and everything, even a gray day, when Chichikov visits Manilov, sets us up for a meeting with a very boring - "gray" - person: "the village of Manilov could lure a few." Gogol writes about Manilov himself as follows: “He was a so-so man, neither this nor that; neither in the city of Bogdan, nor in the village of Selifan. A number of phraseological units are used here, as if strung on top of each other, which all together allow us to conclude how empty Manilov's inner world is in reality, devoid, as the author says, of some kind of internal "enthusiasm".

This is also evidenced by the portrait of the landowner. Manilov at first seems like the most pleasant person: kind, hospitable and moderately disinterested. "He smiled enticingly, was blond, with blue eyes." But the author notices not in vain that Manilov's "pleasantness" was "too much transferred to sugar; in his manners and turns there was something ingratiating himself with location and acquaintance. Such sweetness also slips into his family relations with his wife and children. It is not for nothing that the sensitive Chichikov immediately, having tuned in to Manilov’s wave, begins to admire his pretty wife and quite ordinary children, whose “partially Greek” names clearly betray his father’s claim and his constant desire to “work for the viewer”.

The same is true for everything else. So, Manilov's claim to elegance and enlightenment and its complete failure is shown through the details of the interior of his room. There is beautiful furniture here - and right there are two unfinished chairs covered with matting; a dandy candlestick - and next to it "some just a copper invalid, lame, curled up on the side and covered in fat." All readers of Dead Souls, of course, also remember the book in Manilov's office, "marked on the fourteenth page, which he had been reading for two years."

Manilov's famous courtesy also turns out to be just an empty form without content: after all, this quality, which should facilitate and make people's communication pleasant, in Manilov develops into its opposite. What is the scene when Chichikov is forced to stand in front of the doors to the living room for several minutes, as he seeks to outdo the owner in polite manner, letting him go ahead, and as a result, they both "entered the door sideways and squeezed each other a little." So, in a particular case, the author’s remark is realized that in the first minute one can only say about Manilov: “What a pleasant and kind person!” - and move away if you don’t move away, you will feel mortal boredom.”

But Manilov himself considers himself a cultured, educated, well-mannered person. This is how he sees not only Chichikov, clearly trying with all his might to please the tastes of the owner, but also all the people around him. This is very clearly seen from the conversation with Chichikov about city officials. Both of them vied with each other to praise them, calling everyone beautiful, "nice", "most kind" people, not at all caring about whether this corresponds to the truth. For Chichikov, this is a cunning move that helps win over Manilov (in the chapter on Sobakevich, he will give very unflattering characteristics to the same officials, indulging the taste of the owner). Manilov generally represents the relationship between people in the spirit of idyllic pastorals. After all, life in his perception is a complete, perfect harmony. This is what Chichikov wants to "play" on, intending to conclude his strange deal with Manilov.

But there are other trump cards in his deck, allowing you to easily "beat" the beautiful-hearted landowner. Manilov does not just live in an illusory world: the very process of fantasizing gives him real pleasure. Hence his love for a beautiful phrase and, in general, for any kind of posing - exactly as shown in the scene of the sale of "dead souls", he reacts to Chichikov's proposal. But the most important thing is that, apart from empty dreams, Manilov simply cannot do anything - after all, one cannot, in fact, consider that knocking out pipes and lining up piles of ashes in “beautiful rows” is a worthy occupation for an enlightened landowner. He is a sentimental dreamer, completely incapable of action. No wonder his surname has become a household word expressing the corresponding concept - "Manilovism".

Idleness and idleness entered the flesh and blood of this hero and became an integral part of his nature. Sentimentally idyllic ideas about the world, dreams in which he is immersed most of his time, lead to the fact that his economy goes on “somehow by itself”, without much participation on his part, and gradually falls apart. Everything on the estate is run by a fraudulent clerk, and the owner does not even know how many peasants have died since the last census. To answer this question of Chichikov, the owner of the estate has to turn to the clerk, but it turns out that there are many dead, but "no one counted them." And only at the urgent request of Chichikov, the clerk is given an order to re-read them and draw up a “detailed register”.

But the further course of the pleasant conversation plunges Manilov into complete amazement. To a completely logical question why an outsider is so interested in the affairs of his estate, Manilov receives a shocking answer: Chichikov is ready to buy peasants, but “not exactly peasants,” but dead ones! It must be admitted that not only such an impractical person as Manilova, but also any other person, such a proposal can discourage. However, Chichikov, having coped with his excitement, immediately clarifies:

"I suppose to acquire the dead, which, however, would be listed as alive according to the revision."

This clarification already allows us to guess a lot. Sobakevich, for example, did not need any explanation at all - he immediately grasped the essence of the illegal transaction. But to Manilov, who does not understand anything even in the usual affairs for a landowner, this does not mean anything, and his amazement goes beyond all boundaries:

“Manilov immediately dropped the chibouk with his pipe on the floor, and as he opened his mouth, he remained with his mouth open for several minutes.”

Chichikov pauses and begins the offensive. His calculation is accurate: having already well understood with whom he is dealing, the swindler knows that Manilov will not allow anyone to think that he, an enlightened, educated landowner, is not able to catch the essence of the conversation. Convinced that he is not insane, but still the same “brilliantly educated” person, as he reveres Chichikov, the owner of the house wants to “not fall face down”, as they say. But what can be said about such a really crazy proposal?

“Manilov was completely at a loss. He felt that he needed to do something, to propose a question, and what question - the devil knows. In the end, he remains “in his repertoire”: “Won’t this negotiation be inconsistent with civil decrees and further views of Russia?” he asks, showing an ostentatious interest in affairs of state. However, it must be said that he is generally the only one of the landowners who, in a conversation with Chichikov about "dead souls", recalls the law and the interests of the country. True, in his mouth these arguments take on an absurd character, especially since, having heard Chichikov’s answer: “Oh! pardon, not at all, ”Manilov completely calms down.

But Chichikov's cunning calculation, based on a subtle understanding of the internal impulses of the interlocutor's actions, even exceeded all expectations. Manilov, who believes that the only form of human connection is sensitive, tender friendship and cordial affection, cannot miss the opportunity to show generosity and disinterestedness towards his new friend Chichikov. He is ready not to sell, but to give him such an unusual, but for some reason necessary “object” to a friend.

Such a turn of events was unexpected even for Chichikov, and for the first time during the whole scene he slightly revealed his true face:

“No matter how sedate and reasonable he was, he almost even made a jump after the model of a goat, which, as you know, is done only in the strongest outbursts of joy.”

Even Manilov noticed this impulse and "looked at him in some bewilderment." But Chichikov, immediately recollecting himself, again takes everything into his own hands: all he has to do is express his gratitude and gratitude properly, and the host is already "all confused, blushed," in turn assuring that "I would like to prove something sincere attraction, magnetism of the soul. But here a dissonant note breaks into a long series of courtesies: it turns out that for him "dead souls are in some way perfect rubbish."

It is not for nothing that Gogol, a man of deep and sincere faith, puts this blasphemous phrase into Manilov's mouth. Indeed, in the person of Manilov, we see a parody of an enlightened Russian landowner, in whose mind the phenomena of culture and universal values ​​are vulgarized. Some of his external attractiveness in comparison with other landowners is only an appearance, a mirage. In his heart he is as dead as they are.

“Very much not rubbish,” Chichikov vividly retorts, not at all embarrassed by the fact that he is going to cash in on the death of people, human misfortunes and suffering. Moreover, he is already ready to describe his troubles and sufferings, which he allegedly endured for “that he observed the truth, that he was pure in his conscience, that he gave a hand to both a helpless widow and a miserable orphan!” Well, here Chichikov was clearly skidded, almost like Manilov. About what he really experienced “persecution” and how he helped others, the reader will learn only in the last chapter, but it is clearly not appropriate for him, the organizer of this immoral scam, to talk about conscience.

But all this does not bother Manilov in the least. After seeing Chichikov off, he again indulges in his beloved and only "business": thinking about the "well-being of a friendly life", about how "it would be nice to live with a friend on the banks of some river." Dreams take him further and further away from reality, where a swindler roams freely around Russia, who, taking advantage of the gullibility and promiscuity of people, the lack of desire and ability to deal with the affairs of people like Manilov, is ready to deceive not only them, but also “cheat” state treasury.

The whole scene looks very comical, but it's "laughter through tears." No wonder Gogol compares Manilov with a too smart minister:

“... Manilov, making a slight movement of his head, looked very significantly into Chichikov’s face, showing in all the features of his face and in his compressed lips such a deep expression, which, perhaps, was not seen on a human face, except for some too smart minister, and even then at the moment of the most puzzling case.

Here the author's irony invades the forbidden sphere - the highest echelons of power. This could only mean that a different minister - the personification of the highest state power - is not so different from Manilov and that "Manilovism" is a typical property of this world. It is terrible if agriculture, ruined under the rule of negligent landowners, the basis of the Russian economy of the 19th century, can be seized by such dishonest, immoral businessmen of the new era as the “scoundrel acquirer” Chichikov. But it is even worse if, with the connivance of the authorities, who care only about the external form, about their reputation, all power in the country will pass to people like Chichikov. And Gogol addresses this formidable warning not only to his contemporaries, but also to us, the people of the 21st century. Let us be attentive to the word of the writer and try, without falling into Manilovism, to notice in time and remove away from the affairs of our today's Chichikovs.

Chichikov, having met the landowners in the city, received an invitation from each of them to visit the estate. The gallery of the owners of "dead souls" is opened by Manilov. The author at the very beginning of the chapter gives a description of this character. His appearance initially made a very pleasant impression, then - bewilderment, and in the third minute "... you say:" The devil knows what it is! and move away…” Sweetness and sentimentality, highlighted in the portrait of Manilov, are the essence of his idle lifestyle. He is constantly thinking about something

And he dreams, considers himself an educated person (in the regiment where he served, he was considered the most educated), wants to “follow some sort of science”, although on his table “always lay some kind of book, bookmarked on the fourteenth page, which he has been reading continuously for two years now.” Manilov creates fantastic projects, one more ridiculous than the other, having no idea about real life. Manilov is a fruitless dreamer. He dreams of the most tender friendship with Chichikov, having learned about which "the sovereign ... would grant them generals", he dreams of a gazebo with columns and the inscription: "Temple of solitary reflection" ... Manilov's whole life is replaced by an illusion. Even his speech corresponds to the character: sprinkled with sentimental expressions like "May day", "name day of the heart." He did not take care of the economy, “he never even went to the field, the economy somehow went by itself. Describing the situation in the house, Gogol also notices this laziness and incompleteness in everything: in the rooms, next to good, expensive furniture, there were armchairs covered with matting. The owner of the estate, apparently, does not notice how his estate is falling into decay, his thoughts are far away, in beautiful, absolutely impossible dreams from the point of view of reality.

Arriving at Manilov's, Chichikov meets his wife and children. Chichikov, with his characteristic insight, immediately understands the essence of the landowner and how to behave with him. He becomes as sweetly amiable as Manilov. For a long time they beg each other to go forward and "finally both friends entered the door sideways and squeezed each other a little."

The beautiful-hearted Manilov likes everything: both the city and its inhabitants. Pavel Ivanovich gladly supports him in this, and they are scattered in pleasantries, speaking of the governor, the chief of police, and "in this way they went through almost all the officials of the city, who all turned out to be the most worthy people." In a further conversation, both interlocutors do not forget to constantly give each other compliments.

Acquaintance with the children of Manilov slightly surprised Chichikov with the extravagance of their names, which, however, once again confirmed the dreamy nature of the landowner, divorced from reality. After dinner, both interlocutors retire to the office in order to finally deal with the subject for which Chichikov came to the province. Manilov, having heard Chichikov's request, is very confused.

“- How? excuse me ... I'm a little hard of hearing, I heard a strange word ...

“I suppose to acquire the dead, which, however, were listed as alive according to the revision,” said Chichikov.

Manilov is not only somewhat deaf, but also lagged behind the surrounding life. Otherwise, he would not have been surprised by the "strange" combination of two concepts: the soul and the dead.

The writer deliberately blurs the boundaries between the living and the dead, and this antithesis takes on a metaphorical meaning. Chichikov's enterprise appears before us as a kind of crusade. It is as if he collects the shadows of the dead in different circles of hell in order to bring them to a real, living life. Manilov is interested in whether he wants to buy the souls of Chichikov with the land. “No, to the conclusion,” Chichikov replies. It can be assumed that Gogol here means the withdrawal from hell. The landowner, who does not even know how many peasants he has died, worries, "whether this negotiation will not correspond to civil decrees and further types of Russia." At the moment of talking about dead souls, Manilov is compared with a too smart minister. Here, Gogol's irony, as it were, inadvertently intrudes into a forbidden area. Comparing Manilov with a minister means that the latter is not so different from this landowner, and "Manilovism" is a typical phenomenon. Manilov is finally calmed by Chichikov's pathetic tirade about his worship of the law: "the law - I am dumb before the law." These words turned out to be enough for Manilov, who did not understand anything, to give the peasants.