Vladimir Voropaev - What Gogol laughed at. On the spiritual meaning of the comedy "The Government Inspector"

Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For he who hears the word and does not fulfill it is like a man examining the natural features of his face in a mirror: he looked at himself, walked away and immediately forgot what he was like.

Jacob. 1.22-24

My heart hurts when I see how wrong people are. They talk about virtue, about God, but meanwhile do nothing.

From a letter from N.V. Gogol to his mother. 1833

The Government Inspector is the best Russian comedy. Both in reading and in staging on stage, she is always interesting. Therefore, it is generally difficult to talk about any failure of the "Inspector General". But, on the other hand, it is also difficult to create a real Gogol performance, to make those sitting in the hall laugh with bitter Gogol's laughter. As a rule, something fundamental, deep, on which the whole meaning of the play is based, eludes the actor or spectator.

The premiere of the comedy, which took place on April 19, 1836 on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, according to contemporaries, had colossal success. The mayor was played by Ivan Sosnitsky, Khlestakov - Nikolai Dur, the best actors of that time. "... The general attention of the audience, applause, sincere and unanimous laughter, the author's challenge ... - recalled Prince Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky, - there was no shortage of anything."

At the same time, even the most ardent admirers of Gogol did not fully understand the meaning and meaning of the comedy; most of the public took it as a farce. Many saw the play as a caricature of the Russian bureaucracy, and its author as a rebel. According to Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov, there were people who hated Gogol from the very appearance of The Government Inspector. Thus, Count Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy (nicknamed the American) said at a crowded meeting that Gogol was "an enemy of Russia and that he should be sent in shackles to Siberia." Censor Alexander Vasilyevich Nikitenko wrote in his diary on April 28, 1836: "Gogol's comedy" The Inspector General "made a lot of noise.<...>Many believe that the government is wrong in approving this play, in which it is so cruelly condemned.

Meanwhile, it is reliably known that the comedy was allowed to be staged (and, consequently, to print) due to the highest resolution. Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich read the comedy in manuscript and approved it; according to another version, the Inspector General was read to the king in the palace. On April 29, 1836, Gogol wrote to the famous actor Mikhail Semenovich Shchepkin: "If it were not for the high intercession of the Sovereign, my play would not have been on the stage for anything, and there were already people who were fussing about banning it." The sovereign emperor not only himself was at the premiere, but also ordered the ministers to watch The Inspector General. During the performance, he clapped and laughed a lot, and, leaving the box, he said: "Well, a little piece! Everyone got it, but I - more than anyone!"

Gogol hoped to meet the support of the king and was not mistaken. Soon after the comedy was staged, he answered his ill-wishers in Theatrical Journey: "The magnanimous government, deeper than you, has seen with a high mind the goal of the writer."

In striking contrast to the seemingly undoubted success of the play, Gogol's bitter confession sounds: "... The Inspector General" is played - and my heart is so vague, so strange ... I expected, I knew in advance how things would go, and for all that a sad and vexatious feeling enveloped me. But my creation seemed to me disgusting, wild and as if not at all mine "(" Excerpt from a letter written by the author shortly after the first presentation of "The Government Inspector" to a certain writer ").

Gogol was, it seems, the only one who took the first production of The Inspector General as a failure. What is the matter here that did not satisfy him? In part, the discrepancy between the old vaudeville techniques in the design of the performance and the completely new spirit of the play, which did not fit into the framework of ordinary comedy. Gogol insistently warns: "Most of all, you need to be afraid not to fall into a caricature. Nothing should be exaggerated or trivial even in the last roles" ("Forewarning for those who would like to play The Inspector General properly").

Why, let us ask again, was Gogol dissatisfied with the premiere? The main reason was not even the farcical nature of the performance - the desire to make the audience laugh - but the fact that, with the caricature style of the game, those sitting in the hall perceived what was happening on stage without applying to themselves, since the characters were exaggeratedly funny. Meanwhile, Gogol's plan was designed just for the opposite perception: to involve the viewer in the performance, to make it feel that the city depicted in the comedy does not exist somewhere, but to some extent in any place in Russia, and the passions and vices of officials are in the heart of each of us. Gogol addresses everyone and everyone. Therein lies the enormous social significance of The Inspector General. This is the meaning of Gorodnichiy's famous remark: "What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourself!" - facing the audience (namely, to the audience, since no one is laughing on the stage at this time). This is also indicated by the epigraph: "There is nothing to blame on the mirror, if the face is crooked." In peculiar theatrical commentaries to the play - "Theatrical Journey" and "Decoupling of the Inspector General" - where the audience and actors discuss the comedy, Gogol, as it were, seeks to destroy the wall separating the stage and the auditorium.

Regarding the epigraph that appeared later, in the 1842 edition, let's say that this folk proverb means the Gospel under the mirror, which Gogol's contemporaries, who spiritually belonged to the Orthodox Church, knew very well and could even reinforce the understanding of this proverb, for example, with Krylov's famous fable " Mirror and Monkey".

Bishop Varnava (Belyaev), in his fundamental work "Fundamentals of the Art of Holiness" (1920s), connects the meaning of this fable with attacks on the Gospel, and this (among others) was Krylov's meaning. The spiritual idea of ​​the Gospel as a mirror has long and firmly existed in the Orthodox mind. So, for example, St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, one of Gogol's favorite writers, whose writings he re-read many times, says: "Christians! What a mirror is to the sons of this age, let the Gospel and the immaculate life of Christ be to us. They look into the mirrors and correct the body cleanse their own and the vices of the face.<...>Let us, therefore, put before our spiritual eyes this pure mirror and look into that: is our life in conformity with the life of Christ?

The holy righteous John of Kronstadt, in his diaries published under the title "My Life in Christ", remarks to "those who do not read the Gospels": "Are you pure, holy and perfect without reading the Gospel, and you do not need to look into this mirror? Or are you very ugly sincerely and afraid of your ugliness? .. "

In Gogol's extracts from the Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Church, we find the entry: "Those who want to cleanse and whiten their faces usually look in the mirror. Christian! Your mirror is the Lord's commandments; if you put them before you and look intently in them, then it they will reveal to you all the spots, all the blackness, all the ugliness of your soul." It is noteworthy that in his letters Gogol turned to this image. So, on December 20 (n.st.), 1844, he wrote to Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin from Frankfurt: "... always keep a book on your desk that would serve as a spiritual mirror for you"; and a week later - to Alexandra Osipovna Smirnova: "Look also at yourself. For this, have a spiritual mirror on the table, that is, some book that your soul can look into ..."

As you know, a Christian will be judged according to the gospel law. In "The denouement of the Inspector General", Gogol puts into the mouth of the First comic actor the idea that on the day of the Last Judgment we will all find ourselves with "crooked faces": "... let's look at least a little at ourselves through the eyes of the One Who will call everyone people before whom even the best of us, don’t forget this, will lower their eyes from shame to the ground, and let’s see if any of us then have the courage to ask: “Do I have a crooked face?”

It is known that Gogol never parted with the Gospel. “It is impossible to invent higher than what is already in the Gospel,” he said. “How many times humanity has already recoiled from it and how many times it has converted.”

It is impossible, of course, to create some other "mirror" like the Gospel. But just as every Christian is obliged to live according to the Gospel commandments, imitating Christ (to the best of his human strength), so Gogol the playwright arranges his mirror on the stage to the best of his talent. Krylovskaya Monkey could be any of the spectators. However, it turned out that this viewer saw "gossips ... five or six", but not himself. Gogol later spoke of the same thing in an address to readers in Dead Souls: “You will even laugh heartily at Chichikov, maybe even praise the author.<...>And you add: "But you must agree, there are strange and ridiculous people in some provinces, and scoundrels, moreover, no small!" And which of you, full of Christian humility,<...>will deepen this heavy inquiry into his own soul: "Isn't there some part of Chichikov in me?" Yes, no matter how!"

The remark of the Governor, which appeared, like the epigraph, in 1842, also has its parallel in Dead Souls. In the tenth chapter, reflecting on the mistakes and delusions of all mankind, the author remarks: "Now the current generation sees everything clearly, marvels at the errors, laughs at the folly of their ancestors, it is not in vain that<...>from everywhere a piercing finger is directed at him, at the current generation; but the current generation laughs and arrogantly, proudly begins a series of new delusions, which will also be laughed at by descendants later.

In The Inspector General, Gogol made his contemporaries laugh at what they were used to and what they had ceased to notice. But most importantly, they are accustomed to carelessness in spiritual life. The audience laughs at the heroes who die spiritually. Let us turn to examples from the play that show such a death.

The mayor sincerely believes that "there is no person who does not have some sins behind him. It is already so arranged by God Himself, and the Voltaires speak against it in vain." To which Ammos Fedorovich Lyapkin-Tyapkin objects: “What do you think, Anton Antonovich, are sins? Sins to sins are different. I tell everyone openly that I take bribes, but why bribes?

The judge is sure that bribes by greyhound puppies cannot be considered as bribes, "but, for example, if someone has a fur coat that costs five hundred rubles, and his wife has a shawl ..." Here the Governor, having understood the hint, retorts: "But you are not in God believe; you never go to church; but at least I am firm in faith and go to church every Sunday. And you ... Oh, I know you: if you start talking about the creation of the world, your hair just stands on end " . To which Ammos Fedorovich replies: "Yes, he came by himself, with his own mind."

Gogol is the best commentator on his works. In "Forewarning ..." he remarks about the Judge: "He is not even a hunter to do a lie, but the passion for dog hunting is great.<...>He is busy with himself and his mind, and is an atheist only because in this field there is room for him to show himself.

The mayor believes that he is firm in faith; the more sincere he says it, the funnier it is. Going to Khlestakov, he gives orders to his subordinates: “Yes, if they ask why the church was not built at a charitable institution, for which an amount was allocated five years ago, then do not forget to say that it began to be built, but burned down. I presented a report about this And then, perhaps, someone, having forgotten, will foolishly say that it never even started.

Explaining the image of the Governor, Gogol says: “He feels that he is a sinner; he goes to church, he even thinks that he is firm in faith, he even thinks to repent sometime later. , and grabbing everything without missing anything has already become like a mere habit with him.

And so, going to the imaginary auditor, the Governor laments: “Sinful, sinful in many ways ... God only grant that I get away with it as soon as possible, and there I will put a candle like no one else has put: on every beast I will send a merchant to deliver three poods of wax." We see that the Governor has fallen, as it were, into a vicious circle of his sinfulness: in his repentant thoughts, sprouts of new sins appear imperceptibly for him (the merchants will pay for the candle, not he).

Just as the Mayor does not feel the sinfulness of his actions, because he does everything according to an old habit, so do the other heroes of the "Inspector General". For example, postmaster Ivan Kuzmich Shpekin opens other people's letters solely out of curiosity: “Death loves to know what is new in the world. I will tell you that this is the most interesting reading. .. better than in Moskovskie Vedomosti!"

Innocence, curiosity, the habitual doing of all kinds of lies, the free-thinking of officials upon the appearance of Khlestakov, that is, according to their concepts, the auditor, is suddenly replaced for a moment by an attack of fear inherent in criminals awaiting severe retribution. The same inveterate freethinker Ammos Fedorovich, being in front of Khlestakov, says to himself: “Lord God, I don’t know where I’m sitting. It’s like hot coals under you.” And the Governor in the same position asks for pardon: "Do not ruin! Wife, small children ... do not make a person unhappy." And further: "Out of inexperience, by God, out of inexperience. Insufficiency of the state ... If you please, judge for yourself: the state salary is not even enough for tea and sugar."

Gogol was especially dissatisfied with the way Khlestakov was played. "The main role was gone," he writes, "that's what I thought. Dyur didn't even understand what Khlestakov was." Khlestakov is not just a dreamer. He himself does not know what he is saying and what he will say in the next moment. As if someone sitting in him speaks for him, tempting all the heroes of the play through him. Is this not the father of lies himself, that is, the devil? It seems that Gogol had this in mind. The heroes of the play, in response to these temptations, without noticing it themselves, are revealed in all their sinfulness.

Tempted by the crafty Khlestakov himself, as it were, acquired the features of a demon. On May 16 (n.st.), 1844, Gogol wrote to Aksakov: “All this excitement and mental struggle of yours is nothing more than the work of our common friend, known to everyone, namely, the devil. But do not lose sight of the fact that he is a clicker and all consists of inflation.<...>You beat this beast in the face and do not be embarrassed by anything. He is like a petty official who has climbed into the city as if for an investigation. The dust will launch everyone, bake, scream. One has only to get a little scared and lean back - then he will go to be brave. And as soon as you step on him, he will tighten his tail. We ourselves make a giant out of him.<...>A proverb is not for nothing, but a proverb says: The devil boasted of taking possession of the whole world, but God did not give him power over a pig. In this description, Ivan Aleksandrovich Khlestakov is seen as such.

The heroes of the play feel more and more a sense of fear, as evidenced by the remarks and the author's remarks ("stretched out and trembling all over"). This fear seems to extend to the audience as well. After all, those who were afraid of the auditors were sitting in the hall, but only the real ones - the sovereign. Meanwhile, Gogol, knowing this, called them, in general, Christians, to the fear of God, to the purification of conscience, which would not be afraid of any auditor, not even the Last Judgment. Officials, as if blinded by fear, cannot see the real face of Khlestakov. They always look at their feet, and not at the sky. In The Rule of Living in the World, Gogol explained the reason for such fear in this way: “Everything is exaggerated in our eyes and frightens us. Because we keep our eyes down and do not want to raise them up. above all, only God and the light emanating from Him, illuminating everything in its present form, and then they themselves would laugh at their blindness.

The main idea of ​​"The Government Inspector" is the idea of ​​the inevitable spiritual retribution that every person should expect. Gogol, dissatisfied with the way The Inspector General is staged on stage and how the audience perceives it, tried to reveal this idea in The Examiner's Denouement.

“Look closely at this city, which is displayed in the play!” Gogol says through the mouth of the First comic actor. “Everyone agrees that there is no such city in all of Russia.<...>Well, what if this is our spiritual city, and it sits with each of us?<...>Say what you like, but the auditor who is waiting for us at the door of the coffin is terrible. As if you don't know who this auditor is? What to pretend? This auditor is our awakened conscience, which will make us suddenly and at once look with all eyes at ourselves. Nothing will hide before this auditor, because by the Nominal Supreme command he was sent and will be announced about him when even a step cannot be taken back. Suddenly it will open before you, in you, such a monster that a hair will rise from horror. It is better to revise everything that is in us at the beginning of life, and not at the end of it.

This is about the Last Judgment. And now the final scene of The Inspector General becomes clear. It is a symbolic picture of the Last Judgment. The appearance of a gendarme announcing the arrival from St. Petersburg "at the nominal order" of the auditor, already present, produces a stunning effect. Gogol's remark: "The spoken words strike everyone like thunder. The sound of amazement unanimously emanates from the ladies' lips; the whole group, suddenly changing position, remains petrified."

Gogol attached exceptional importance to this "silent scene". He defines its duration as one and a half minutes, and in "An Excerpt from a Letter ..." he even speaks of two or three minutes of "petrification" of the characters. Each of the characters with the whole figure, as it were, shows that he can no longer change anything in his fate, move at least a finger - he is in front of the Judge. According to Gogol's plan, at this moment, silence should come in the hall for general reflection.

The idea of ​​the Last Judgment was to be developed in "Dead Souls", since it really follows from the content of the poem. One of the rough sketches (obviously for the third volume) directly paints a picture of the Last Judgment: ““Why didn’t you remember Me, that I look at you, that I am yours? Why did you expect rewards from people, and not from Me, and attention, and encouragement? What would it be for you then to pay attention to how the earthly landowner will spend your money when you have a Heavenly Landowner? Who knows what would have ended if you had reached the end without being frightened? You would surprise with the greatness of character, you would finally prevail and make you wonder, you would leave the name as an eternal monument of valor, and streams of tears would drop, streams of tears about you, and like a whirlwind you would wave the flame of goodness in the hearts. did not know where to go to. And after him many officials and noble, beautiful people, who began to serve and then abandoned the field, sadly bowed their heads."

In conclusion, let us say that the theme of the Last Judgment permeates all of Gogol's work, which corresponded to his spiritual life, his desire for monasticism. And a monk is a person who has left the world, preparing himself for an answer at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Gogol remained a writer and, as it were, a monk in the world. In his writings, he shows that it is not a person who is bad, but sin acting in him. Orthodox monasticism has always affirmed the same thing. Gogol believed in the power of the artistic word, which could show the way to moral rebirth. With this faith, he created the "Inspector".

NOTE

Here Gogol, in particular, answers the writer Mikhail Nikolaevich Zagoskin, who was especially indignant at the epigraph, saying: "But where is my face crooked?"

This proverb refers to the gospel episode when the Lord allowed the demons who left the possessed Gadarin to enter the herd of pigs (see: Mk. 5, 1-13).

In the patristic tradition based on Holy Scripture, the city is the image of the soul.

What did Gogol laugh at? On the spiritual meaning of the comedy "The Government Inspector"

Voropaev V. A.

Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For whoever hears the word and does not do it is like a man who examines the natural features of his face in a mirror. He looked at himself, walked away, and immediately forgot what he was like.

Jacob. 1, 22 - 24

My heart hurts when I see how wrong people are. They talk about virtue, about God, but meanwhile do nothing.

From Gogol's letter to his mother. 1833

The Government Inspector is the best Russian comedy. Both in reading and in staging on stage, she is always interesting. Therefore, it is generally difficult to talk about any failure of the "Inspector General". But, on the other hand, it is also difficult to create a real Gogol performance, to make those sitting in the hall laugh with bitter Gogol's laughter. As a rule, something fundamental, deep, on which the whole meaning of the play is based, eludes the actor or spectator.

The premiere of the comedy, which took place on April 19, 1836 on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, according to contemporaries, was a tremendous success. The mayor was played by Ivan Sosnitsky, Khlestakov Nikolai Dur - the best actors of that time. "The general attention of the audience, applause, sincere and unanimous laughter, the challenge of the author ... - recalled Prince Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky, - there was no shortage of anything."

At the same time, even the most ardent admirers of Gogol did not fully understand the meaning and meaning of the comedy; the majority of the public took it as a farce. Many saw the play as a caricature of the Russian bureaucracy, and its author as a rebel. According to Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov, there were people who hated Gogol from the moment The Inspector General appeared. Thus, Count Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy (nicknamed the American) said in a crowded meeting that Gogol was "an enemy of Russia and that he should be sent in shackles to Siberia." Censor Alexander Vasilyevich Nikitenko wrote in his diary on April 28, 1836: "Gogol's comedy The Inspector General made a lot of noise ... Many believe that the government should not approve of this play, in which it is so cruelly condemned."

Meanwhile, it is reliably known that the comedy was allowed to be staged (and, consequently, to print) at the highest resolution. Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich read the comedy in manuscript and approved it. On April 29, 1836, Gogol wrote to Mikhail Semenovich Shchepkin: "If it were not for the high intercession of the Sovereign, my play would not have been on the stage for anything, and there were already people who were fussing about banning it." The Sovereign Emperor not only attended the premiere himself, but also ordered the ministers to watch The Inspector General. During the performance, he clapped and laughed a lot, and leaving the box, he said: "Well, a little piece! Everyone got it, but I - more than anyone!"

Gogol hoped to meet the support of the king and was not mistaken. Soon after the comedy was staged, he answered his ill-wishers in Theatrical Journey: "The magnanimous government, deeper than you, has seen with a high mind the goal of the writer."

In striking contrast to the seemingly undoubted success of the play, Gogol's bitter confession sounds: "The Government Inspector" has been played - and my soul is so vague, so strange ... I expected, I knew in advance how things would go, and for all that, I feel sad and Annoyingly burdensome clothed me. But my creation seemed to me disgusting, wild and as if not at all mine "(Excerpt from a letter written by the author shortly after the first presentation of the "Inspector" to one writer).

Gogol was, it seems, the only one who took the first production of The Inspector General as a failure. What is the matter here that did not satisfy him? This was partly due to the discrepancy between the old vaudeville techniques in the design of the performance and the completely new spirit of the play, which did not fit into the framework of ordinary comedy. Gogol persistently warned: "Most of all, you need to be afraid not to fall into a caricature. Nothing should be exaggerated or trivial even in the last roles" (Forewarning for those who would like to play the "Inspector General" properly).

Creating the images of Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky, Gogol imagined them "in the skin" (in his words) Shchepkin and Vasily Ryazantsev - famous comic actors of that era. In the performance, according to him, "it was a caricature that came out." “Already before the start of the performance,” he shares his impressions, “seeing them dressed up, I gasped. These two little men, in essence quite neat, plump, with decently smoothed hair, found themselves in some awkward, tall gray wigs, tousled, untidy, disheveled, with huge shirt-fronts pulled out; and on the stage they turned out to be so grimacing that it was simply unbearable.

Meanwhile, the main goal of Gogol is the complete naturalness of the characters and the plausibility of what is happening on the stage. "The less an actor thinks about how to laugh and be funny, the more the ridiculousness of the role he has taken will be revealed.

An example of such a "natural" manner of performance is the reading of "The Government Inspector" by Gogol himself. Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, who was once present at such a reading, says: “Gogol ... struck me with the extreme simplicity and restraint of manner, some important and at the same time naive sincerity, which, as if it doesn’t matter - are there listeners and what do they think It seemed that Gogol only cared about how to delve into the subject, which was new to him, and how to convey his own impression more accurately. The effect was extraordinary - especially in comic, humorous places; it was impossible not to laugh - good, healthy laughter and the culprit of all this fun continued, not embarrassed by the general gaiety and as if inwardly marveling at it, more and more immersed in the matter itself - and only occasionally, on the lips and near the eyes, the craftsman's sly smile trembled almost noticeably. with what amazement Gogol uttered the famous phrase of the Gorodnichiy about two rats (at the very beginning of the play): “They came, sniffed and went away!” - He even slowly looked at us, as if asking for an explanation of that whom an amazing incident. It was only then that I realized how completely wrong, superficially, with what desire to make you laugh as soon as possible - the "Inspector General" is usually played on the stage.

Throughout the work on the play, Gogol mercilessly expelled from it all elements of external comedy. Gogol's laughter is the contrast between what the hero says and how he says it. In the first act, Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky are arguing over which of them should start telling the news. This comic scene should not only make you laugh. For heroes it is very important who exactly will tell. Their whole life consists in spreading all sorts of gossip and rumors. And suddenly the two got the same news. This is a tragedy. They are arguing over business. Bobchinsky needs to be told everything, not to miss anything. Otherwise, Dobchinsky will complement.

Why, let us ask again, was Gogol dissatisfied with the premiere? The main reason was not even the farcical nature of the performance - the desire to make the audience laugh, but the fact that, with the caricature-like manner of acting, the actors sitting in the hall perceived what was happening on stage without applying to themselves, since the characters were exaggeratedly funny. Meanwhile, Gogol's plan was designed just for the opposite perception: to involve the viewer in the performance, to make it feel that the city depicted in the comedy does not exist somewhere, but to some extent in any place in Russia, and the passions and vices of officials are in the heart of each of us. Gogol addresses everyone and everyone. Therein lies the enormous social significance of The Inspector General. This is the meaning of Gorodnichiy's famous remark: "What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourself!" - facing the audience (namely, to the audience, since no one is laughing on the stage at this time). This is also indicated by the epigraph: "There is nothing to blame on the mirror, if the face is crooked." In the original theatrical commentary on the play - "Theatrical Journey" and "Denomination of the Inspector", where the audience and actors discuss the comedy, Gogol, as it were, seeks to destroy the invisible wall separating the stage and the auditorium.

Regarding the epigraph that appeared later, in the 1842 edition, let's say that this folk proverb means the Gospel under the mirror, which Gogol's contemporaries, who spiritually belonged to the Orthodox Church, knew very well and could even reinforce the understanding of this proverb, for example, with Krylov's famous fable " Mirror and Monkey". Here the Monkey, looking in the mirror, addresses the Bear:

“Look,” he says, “my dear godfather!

What kind of a face is that?

What antics and jumps she has!

I would choke myself with longing,

If only she looked a little like her.

But, admit it, there is

Of my gossips, there are five or six such wimps;

I can even count them on my fingers."

Isn't it better to turn on yourself, godfather?" -

Mishka answered her.

But Mishen'kin's advice just disappeared in vain.

Bishop Varnava (Belyaev), in his fundamental work "Fundamentals of the Art of Holiness" (1920s), connects the meaning of this fable with attacks on the Gospel, and this (among others) was Krylov's meaning. The spiritual idea of ​​the Gospel as a mirror has long and firmly existed in the Orthodox mind. So, for example, St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, one of Gogol's favorite writers, whose writings he reread many times, says: "Christians! what a mirror is to the sons of this age, let the gospel and the immaculate life of Christ be to us. They look into the mirrors and correct their body and cleansing the vices on the face ... Let us, therefore, offer this mirror before our spiritual eyes and look into it: is our life in accordance with the life of Christ?

The Holy Righteous John of Kronstadt, in his diaries published under the title "My Life in Christ", remarks "to those who do not read the Gospels": "Are you pure, holy and perfect without reading the Gospel, and you do not need to look into this mirror? Or are you very ugly sincerely and afraid of your ugliness? .. "

In Gogol's extracts from the holy fathers and teachers of the Church we find the entry: "Those who want to cleanse and whiten their faces usually look in the mirror. Christian! Your mirror is the Lord's commandments; if you put them before you and look in them intently, then they they will reveal to you all the spots, all the blackness, all the ugliness of your soul."

It is noteworthy that in his letters Gogol turned to this image. So, on December 20 (N.S.), 1844, he wrote to Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin from Frankfurt: "... always keep a book on your desk that would serve as a spiritual mirror for you"; and a week later - to Alexandra Osipovna Smirnova: "Look also at yourself. For this, have a spiritual mirror on the table, that is, some book that your soul can look into ..."

As you know, a Christian will be judged according to the gospel law. In The Examiner's Denouement, Gogol puts into the mouth of the First comic actor the idea that on the day of the Last Judgment we will all find ourselves with "crooked faces": before which the best of us, don't forget this, will lower their eyes from shame to the ground, and let's see if any of us then have the courage to ask: "Do I have a crooked face?"

It is known that Gogol never parted with the Gospel. “It is impossible to invent higher than what is already in the Gospel,” he said. “How many times humanity has already recoiled from it and how many times it has converted.”

It is impossible, of course, to create some other "mirror" like the Gospel. But just as every Christian is obliged to live according to the Gospel commandments, imitating Christ (to the best of his human strength), so Gogol the playwright arranges his mirror on the stage to the best of his talent. Krylovskaya Monkey could be any of the spectators. However, it turned out that this viewer saw "gossips ... five or six", but not himself. Gogol later spoke of the same thing in an address to readers in Dead Souls: “You will even laugh heartily at Chichikov, maybe even praise the author ... And you will add: “But you must agree, there are strange and ridiculous people in some provinces, and not a few scoundrels at that!" And which of you, full of Christian humility ... will deepen this heavy inquiry into his own soul: "Isn't there some part of Chichikov in me too?" Yes, no matter how! "

The remark of the Governor, which appeared, like the epigraph, in 1842, also has its parallel in Dead Souls. In the tenth chapter, reflecting on the mistakes and delusions of all mankind, the author remarks: “Now the current generation sees everything clearly, marvels at delusions, laughs at the folly of its ancestors, it’s not in vain that ... a piercing finger is directed from everywhere at it, at the current generation ; but the current generation laughs and arrogantly, proudly begins a series of new delusions, which the descendants will also laugh at later.

In The Inspector General, Gogol made his contemporaries laugh at what they were used to and what they had ceased to notice. But most importantly, they are accustomed to carelessness in spiritual life. The audience laughs at the heroes who die spiritually. Let us turn to examples from the play that show such a death.

The mayor sincerely believes that "there is no person who does not have some sins behind him. It is already so arranged by God Himself, and the Voltaires speak against it in vain." To which Judge Ammos Fedorovich Lyapkin-Tyapkin objects: “What do you think, Anton Antonovich, are sins?

The judge is sure that bribes by greyhound puppies cannot be considered as bribes, "but, for example, if someone has a fur coat that costs five hundred rubles, and his wife has a shawl ..." Here the Governor, having understood the hint, retorts: "But you are not in God "You believe; you never go to church; but at least I'm firm in faith and go to church every Sunday. And you... Oh, I know you: if you start talking about the creation of the world, your hair just stands on end." To which Ammos Fedorovich replies: "Yes, he came by himself, with his own mind."

Gogol is the best commentator on his works. In the "Forewarning ..." he remarks about the Judge: "He is not even a hunter to do a lie, but a great passion for dog hunting ... He is busy with himself and his mind, and an atheist only because in this field there is room for him to show himself ".

The mayor believes that he is firm in faith; the more sincere he says it, the funnier it is. Going to Khlestakov, he gives orders to his subordinates: “Yes, if they ask why the church was not built at a charitable institution, for which an amount was allocated five years ago, then do not forget to say that it began to be built, but burned down. I presented a report about this And then, perhaps, someone, having forgotten, will foolishly say that it never even started.

Explaining the image of the Governor, Gogol says: “He feels that he is a sinner; he goes to church, he even thinks that he is firm in faith, he even thinks to repent sometime later. , and grabbing everything without missing anything has already become like a mere habit with him.

And so, going to the imaginary auditor, the Governor laments: “Sinful, sinful in many ways ... God only grant that I get away with it as soon as possible, and there I will put a candle like no one else has put: on every beast I will send a merchant to deliver three poods of wax." We see that the Governor has fallen, as it were, into a vicious circle of his sinfulness: in his repentant thoughts, sprouts of new sins appear imperceptibly for him (the merchants will pay for the candle, not he).

Just as the Mayor does not feel the sinfulness of his actions, because he does everything according to an old habit, so do the other heroes of the "Inspector General". For example, postmaster Ivan Kuzmich Shpekin opens other people's letters solely out of curiosity: “Death loves to know what is new in the world. I will tell you that this is the most interesting reading. .. better than in Moskovskie Vedomosti!"

The judge remarks to him: "Look, you will get someday for this." Shpekin exclaims with childish naivety: "Ah, fathers!" It doesn't occur to him that he's doing something illegal. Gogol explains: "The postmaster is a simple-minded to the point of naivety, looking at life as a collection of interesting stories for spending time, which he recites in printed letters. There is nothing more left for the actor to do than to be as simple-minded as possible."

Innocence, curiosity, the habitual doing of all kinds of lies, the free-thinking of officials when Khlestakov appears, that is, according to their concepts, the auditor, is suddenly replaced for a moment by an attack of fear inherent in criminals awaiting severe retribution. The same inveterate freethinker Ammos Fedorovich Lyapkin-Tyapkin, being in front of Khlestakov, says to himself: “Lord God, I don’t know where I’m sitting. It’s like hot coals under you.” And the Governor, in the same position, asks for pardon: "Do not ruin! Wife, small children ... do not make a person unhappy." And further: "Out of inexperience, by God, out of inexperience. Insufficiency of the state ... If you please, judge for yourself: the state salary is not even enough for tea and sugar."

Gogol was especially dissatisfied with the way Khlestakov was played. "The main role was gone," he writes, "that's what I thought. Dyur didn't even understand what Khlestakov was." Khlestakov is not just a dreamer. He himself does not know what he is saying and what he will say in the next moment. As if someone sitting in him speaks for him, tempting all the heroes of the play through him. Is this not the father of lies himself, that is, the devil? It seems that Gogol had this in mind. The heroes of the play, in response to these temptations, without noticing it themselves, are revealed in all their sinfulness.

Tempted by the crafty Khlestakov, he himself, as it were, acquires the features of a demon. On May 16 (N.S.), 1844, Gogol wrote to Aksakov: “All this excitement and mental struggle of yours is nothing more than the work of our common friend, known to everyone, namely, the devil. But do not lose sight of the fact that he is a clicker and everything consists of puffing up... You beat this beast in the face and don't be embarrassed by anything. He's like a petty official who has climbed into the city, as if on an investigation. then he will go to be brave. And as soon as you step on him, he will even turn his tail. We ourselves make a giant out of him ... The proverb is not in vain, but the proverb says: The devil boasted to take possession of the whole world, but God did not give him even a pig power". In this description, Ivan Aleksandrovich Khlestakov is seen as such.

The heroes of the play feel more and more a sense of fear, as evidenced by the remarks and the author's remarks (stretched out and trembling all over). This fear seems to extend to the audience as well. After all, those who were afraid of the auditors were sitting in the hall, but only the real ones - the sovereign. Meanwhile, Gogol, knowing this, called them, in general, Christians, to the fear of God, to the cleansing of conscience, which will not be afraid of any auditor, but even the Last Judgment. Officials, as if blinded by fear, cannot see the real face of Khlestakov. They always look at their feet, and not at the sky. In The Rule of Living in the World, Gogol explained the reason for such fear in this way: “... everything is exaggerated in our eyes and frightens us. Because we keep our eyes down and do not want to raise them up. For if we raised them up for a few minutes, then they would see from above everything only God and the light emanating from Him, illuminating everything in its present form, and then they themselves would laugh at their own blindness.

The main idea of ​​"The Government Inspector" is the idea of ​​the inevitable spiritual retribution that every person should expect. Gogol, dissatisfied with the way The Inspector General is staged on stage and how the audience perceives it, tried to reveal this idea in The Examiner's Denouement.

“Look closely at this city, which is shown in the play!” Gogol says through the mouth of the First comic actor. “Everyone agrees that there is no such city in all of Russia ... Well, what if this is our soulful city and does he sit with each of us?.. Whatever you say, but the inspector who is waiting for us at the door of the coffin is terrible. As if you don’t know who this inspector is? Why pretend? This inspector is our awakened conscience, which will make us suddenly and at once nothing will hide before this inspector, because by the Nominal Supreme command he was sent and announced about him when it will not be possible to take a step back. Suddenly, such a monster will open before you, in you, that a hair will rise from horror. It is better to make an audit of everything that is in us at the beginning of life, and not at the end of it.

This is about the Last Judgment. And now the final scene of The Inspector General becomes clear. It is a symbolic picture of the Last Judgment. The appearance of a gendarme, announcing the arrival from St. Petersburg "by personal order" of the already real auditor, produces a stunning effect on the heroes of the play. Gogol's remark: "The spoken words strike everyone like thunder. The sound of amazement unanimously emanates from the ladies' lips; the whole group, suddenly changing position, remains petrified."

Gogol attached exceptional importance to this "silent scene". He defines its duration as one and a half minutes, and in "An Excerpt from a Letter ..." he even speaks of two or three minutes of "petrification" of the characters. Each of the characters with the whole figure, as it were, shows that he can no longer change anything in his fate, move at least a finger - he is in front of the Judge. According to Gogol's plan, at this moment, silence should come in the hall for general reflection.

In Denouement, Gogol did not propose a new interpretation of The Government Inspector, as is sometimes thought, but only laid bare its main idea. On November 2 (N.S.) 1846, he wrote to Ivan Sosnitsky from Nice: “Pay your attention to the last scene of The Inspector General. Think it over, think it over again. stage and why it is so important for me that it has a full effect. I am sure that you yourself will look at The Inspector with different eyes after this conclusion, which, for many reasons, could not have been issued to me then and only now is possible.

It follows from these words that "Decoupling" did not give a new meaning to the "silent scene", but only clarified its meaning. Indeed, at the time of the creation of the "Inspector" in the "Petersburg Notes of 1836" there appear in Gogol's lines directly preceding the "Decoupling": "Lent is calm and formidable. It seems that a voice is heard:" Stop, Christian; look back at your life."

However, Gogol's interpretation of the county town as a "spiritual city", and its officials as the embodiment of the passions rampant in it, made in the spirit of the patristic tradition, came as a surprise to contemporaries and caused rejection. Shchepkin, who was destined for the role of the First comic actor, after reading a new play, refused to play in it. On May 22, 1847, he wrote to Gogol: “... until now I have studied all the heroes of The Inspector General as living people ... Don’t give me any hints that these are not officials, but our passions; no, I don’t want such a transformation: these are people, real living people, among whom I have grown up and almost grown old ... You have gathered several people from the whole world into one collective place, into one group, with these people I became completely related at the age of ten, and you want them take from me."

Meanwhile, Gogol's intention did not at all imply that "living people" - full-blooded artistic images - should be made into some kind of allegory. The author only exposed the main idea of ​​the comedy, without which it looks like a simple denunciation of morals. "Inspector" - "Inspector", - answered Gogol Shchepkin around July 10 (n. St.) 1847, - and application to oneself is an indispensable thing that every viewer must do from everything, not even the "Inspector", but which is more fitting for him to do about the "Inspector".

In the second version of the end of "Decoupling" Gogol explains his idea. Here the First comic actor (Mikhal Mikhalch), in response to the doubt of one of the characters that the interpretation of the play he proposed corresponds to the author's intention, says: "The author, even if he had this thought, would have acted badly if he had clearly discovered it. "The comedy would then have strayed into allegory, some kind of pale moralizing sermon could have come out of it. No, his job was simply to depict the horror of material disturbances, not in an ideal city, but in one that is on earth ... His job was to portray this dark so strong that they felt everything that needs to be fought with it, that it would throw the viewer into awe - and the horror of the riots would penetrate him through everything. That's what he had to do. not children. I thought about what kind of moralizing I could draw for myself, and attacked the one that I have just told you.

And then, to the questions of others, why he alone brought out a moralizing so remote in their concepts, Mikhal Mikhalch answers: “Firstly, why do you know that this moralizing was brought out by me alone? And secondly, why do you consider it remote? I think, on the contrary, our own soul is closest to us. I then had my soul in mind, I thought about myself, and therefore I derived this moralizing. If others had in mind before themselves, probably they would have derived the same moralizing, which I also deduced. But does each of us approach the work of the writer, like a bee to a flower, in order to extract from it what we need? No, we are looking for moralizing in everything for others, and not for ourselves. We are ready to fight and to defend the whole society, cherishing carefully the morality of others and forgetting about our own. After all, we love to laugh at others, and not at ourselves ... "

It is impossible not to notice that these reflections of the protagonist of The Denouement not only do not contradict the content of The Inspector General, but exactly correspond to it. Moreover, the thoughts expressed here are organic for all of Gogol's work.

The idea of ​​the Last Judgment was to be developed in "Dead Souls", as it follows from the content of the poem. One of the rough sketches (obviously for the third volume) directly paints a picture of the Last Judgment: “Why didn’t you remember Me, that I am looking at you, that I am yours? Why did you expect rewards and attention and encouragement from people, and not from Me? What then would it be for you to pay attention to how the earthly landowner will spend your money when you have a Heavenly Landowner? Who knows what would have ended if you had reached the end without fear? You would surprise with the greatness of character, you would finally prevail and make you wonder; you would leave your name as an eternal monument of valor, and streams of tears would drop, streams of tears about you, and like a whirlwind you would wave the flame of goodness in your hearts. after him, officials and noble, beautiful people who began to serve and then abandoned the field, sadly bowed their heads.

In conclusion, let us say that the theme of the Last Judgment permeates all of Gogol's work, which corresponded to his spiritual life, his desire for monasticism. And a monk is a person who has left the world, preparing himself for an answer at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Gogol remained a writer and, as it were, a monk in the world. In his writings, he shows that it is not a person who is bad, but sin acting in him. Orthodox monasticism has always affirmed the same thing. Gogol believed in the power of the artistic word, which could show the way to moral rebirth. With this faith, he created the "Inspector".

Bibliography

For the preparation of this work, materials from the site http://www.portal-slovo.ru/ were used.

"Dead Souls" is the greatest Gogol's creation, about which many mysteries still circulate. This poem was conceived by the author in three volumes, but the reader can only see the first one, since the third volume, due to illness, was never written, although there were ideas. The second volume was written by an original writer, but already before his death, in a state of agony, he accidentally or deliberately burned the manuscript. Several chapters of this Gogol volume still survive to this day.

Gogol's work has the genre of a poem, which has always been understood as a lyric-epic text, which is written in the form of a poem, but at the same time has a romantic direction. The poem written by Nikolai Gogol deviated from these principles, so some writers found the use of the genre of the poem as a mockery of the author, while others decided that the original writer used the technique of hidden irony.

Nikolai Gogol gave this genre to his new work not for the sake of irony, but in order to give it a deep meaning. It is clear that Gogol's creation embodied irony and a kind of artistic sermon.

Nikolai Gogol's main method of depicting landowners and provincial officials is satire. Gogol's images of landowners show the developing process of degradation of this class, exposing all their vices and shortcomings. Irony helped the author to tell what was under the literary ban, and allowed to bypass all censorship barriers. The writer's laughter seems kind and good, but there is no mercy from him to anyone. Every phrase in the poem has a hidden subtext.

Irony is present everywhere in Gogol's text: in the author's speech, in the speech of the characters. Irony is the main sign of Gogol's poetics. It helps the narrative reproduce the real picture of reality. After analyzing the first volume of "Dead Souls", one can note a whole gallery of Russian landowners, whose detailed description is given by the author. There are only five main characters, which are described by the author in such detail that it seems that the reader is personally acquainted with each of them.

Gogol's five landowner characters are described by the author in such a way that they seem different, but if you read their portraits more deeply, you will notice that each of them has those features that are characteristic of all landowners in Russia.

The reader begins his acquaintance with the Gogol landowners from Manilov and ends with a description of the colorful image of Plyushkin. Such a description has its own logic, since the author smoothly transfers the reader from one landowner to another in order to gradually show that terrible picture of the feudal world, which is decaying and decomposing. Nikolai Gogol leads from Manilov, who, according to the author's description, appears to the reader as a dreamer, whose life passes without a trace, smoothly moving on to Nastasya Korobochka. The author himself calls her "cudgel-headed".

This landowner's gallery is continued by Nozdrev, who appears in the author's image as a card sharper, a liar and a spendthrift. The next landowner is Sobakevich, who is trying to use everything for his own good, he is economic and prudent. The result of this moral decay of society is Plyushkin, who, according to Gogol's description, looks like "a hole in humanity." The story about the landlords in such a sequence reinforces the satire, which is designed to denounce the vices of the landowner's world.

But the landowner's gallery does not end there, as the author also describes the officials of the city he visited. They have no development, their inner world is at rest. The main vices of the bureaucratic world are meanness, servility, bribery, ignorance and arbitrariness of the authorities.

Along with Gogol's satire, which denounces the Russian landlord life, the author also introduces an element of glorification of the Russian land. Lyrical digressions show the author's sadness that some segment of the path has been passed. Here comes the theme of regret and hope for the future. Therefore, these lyrical digressions occupy a special and important place in Gogol's work. Nikolai Gogol thinks about many things: about the high appointment of a person, about the fate of the people and the Motherland. But these reflections are contrasted with pictures of Russian life that oppress a person. They are gloomy and dark.

The image of Russia is a lofty lyrical movement that evokes a variety of feelings in the author: sadness, love and admiration. Gogol shows that Russia is not only landlords and officials, but also the Russian people with their open soul, which he showed in an unusual way to a trio of horses that rush forward quickly and without stopping. This trio contains the main strength of the native land.

The writing

Written in 1836, the comedy The Inspector General dealt a crushing blow to the entire administrative and bureaucratic system of tsarist Russia in the 30s of the 19th century. The author exposed to general ridicule not individual isolated cases, but typical manifestations of the state apparatus. It would seem, what does the sleepy patriarchal life of a provincial county town, which the mayor sincerely considers his home and disposes of it like a master, have to do with the centralized bureaucratic system? Here the postmaster prints and reads other people's letters instead of novels, not seeing anything reprehensible in this. From the hasty remarks of the mayor to his subordinates about putting things in order in their subordinate institutions, we can easily draw a conclusion about how things are in the hospital, court, schools, and post offices. The patients look very much like blacksmiths and smoke strong tobacco; no one is taking care of them. All cases are confused in the court, geese roam freely under the feet of visitors. Lawlessness and arbitrariness reign everywhere.

But this obscure provincial town appears in the comedy as a state in miniature, in which, like a drop of water, all the abuses and vices of bureaucratic Russia are reflected. The features that characterize city officials are also typical of representatives of other classes. All of them are distinguished by dishonesty, vulgarity, the squalor of intellectual interests, and an extremely low cultural level. After all, in comedy there is not a single honest hero from any class. There is a social stratification of people here, some of whom hold important government posts and use their power to improve their own well-being. At the top of this social pyramid is bureaucracy. Theft, bribery, embezzlement - these typical vices of bureaucracy are castigated by Gogol with his merciless laughter. The urban elite is disgusting. But the people under their control do not cause sympathy. The merchants oppressed by the mayor, hating him, try to appease him with gifts, and at the first opportunity they write a complaint against him to Khlestakov, whom everyone takes for an important St. Petersburg dignitary. The provincial landowners Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky are loafers and gossipers, worthless and vulgar people. At first glance, the innocently flogged non-commissioned officer evokes sympathy. But the fact that she wants to receive only monetary compensation for the insult she has suffered makes her ridiculous and pathetic.

In such offended disenfranchised people as a locksmith and a serf servant Osip, a tavern floor, there is a complete lack of self-esteem, the ability to resent their slavish position. These characters are brought out in the play in order to more noticeably set off the consequences of the unseemly actions of the ruling officials, to show how the lower class suffers from their arbitrariness. The vices of bureaucracy are not invented by the author. They are taken by Gogol from life itself. It is known that Emperor Nicholas I himself acted as Gogol's postmaster, who read Pushkin's letters to his wife. The scandalous story of the stealing commission for the construction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior is very reminiscent of the act of the mayor, who embezzled government money allocated for the construction of the church. These facts, taken from real life, emphasize the typical nature of the negative phenomena that the satirist denounces in his comedy. Gogol's play highlighted all the typical vices of Russian bureaucracy, which were embodied in the individual images of the mayor and his entourage.

The main face of the city appears in the comedy as the first among the swindlers, who even, in his own words, "deceived three governors." Occupying the most significant post in the city, he is completely devoid of a sense of duty, and in fact it should be the most necessary quality for an official of this rank. But the mayor does not think about the good of the homeland and the people, but takes care of his own material well-being, robbing merchants, extorting bribes, creating arbitrariness and lawlessness against people subject to him. At the end of the play, this cunning and dexterous rogue finds himself in the stupid and unusual role of the deceived, becoming pitiful and ridiculous. Gogol uses a brilliant artistic technique here, putting into the mouth of the mayor a remark addressed to the auditorium: "What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourself! .." This emphasizes the prevalence of this type in Tsarist Russia. So, in the image of the mayor, the playwright concentrated the most disgusting features of the state administrator, on whose arbitrariness the fate of many people depended. The mayor is given in the comedy in his typical surroundings. In each of the officials, the author especially highlights one defining feature, which helps to recreate a diverse picture of the bureaucratic world. For example, the author ironically calls Judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin a "freethinker", explaining this by the fact that he has read 5 books. This small detail characterizes the general low level of bureaucracy, the poverty of its mental interests. In the trustee of charitable institutions, Strawberry, a toady, a snitch and an informer was bred. These are also very typical, widespread phenomena in the bureaucratic environment.

Thus, the writer in his comedy denounces all the main vices of the ruling bureaucracy in Russia: dishonesty, dishonest attitude to service, bribery, embezzlement, arbitrariness, lawlessness, sycophancy, lack of culture. But the satirist also condemned such negative traits of the oppressed classes as greed, lack of self-esteem, vulgarity, ignorance. Gogol's comedy retains its relevance today, forcing us to think about the causes of many negative phenomena of modern life.

Vladimir Alekseevich Voropaev

What did Gogol laugh at?

On the spiritual meaning of the comedy "The Government Inspector"

Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For he who hears the word and does not fulfill it is like a man examining the natural features of his face in a mirror: he looked at himself, walked away and immediately forgot what he was like.

Jacob. 1.22-24

My heart hurts when I see how wrong people are. They talk about virtue, about God, but meanwhile do nothing.

From a letter from N.V. Gogol to his mother. 1833

The Government Inspector is the best Russian comedy. Both in reading and in staging on stage, she is always interesting. Therefore, it is generally difficult to talk about any failure of the "Inspector General". But, on the other hand, it is also difficult to create a real Gogol performance, to make those sitting in the hall laugh with bitter Gogol's laughter. As a rule, something fundamental, deep, on which the whole meaning of the play is based, eludes the actor or spectator.

The premiere of the comedy, which took place on April 19, 1836 on the stage of the Alexandrinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, according to contemporaries, had colossal success. The mayor was played by Ivan Sosnitsky, Khlestakov - Nikolai Dur, the best actors of that time. "... The general attention of the audience, applause, sincere and unanimous laughter, the author's challenge ... - recalled Prince Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky, - there was no shortage of anything."

At the same time, even the most ardent admirers of Gogol did not fully understand the meaning and meaning of the comedy; most of the public took it as a farce. Many saw the play as a caricature of the Russian bureaucracy, and its author as a rebel. According to Sergei Timofeevich Aksakov, there were people who hated Gogol from the very appearance of The Government Inspector. Thus, Count Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy (nicknamed the American) said at a crowded meeting that Gogol was "an enemy of Russia and that he should be sent in shackles to Siberia." Censor Alexander Vasilyevich Nikitenko wrote in his diary on April 28, 1836: "Gogol's comedy" The Inspector General "made a lot of noise.<...>Many believe that the government is wrong in approving this play, in which it is so cruelly condemned.

Meanwhile, it is reliably known that the comedy was allowed to be staged (and, consequently, to print) due to the highest resolution. Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich read the comedy in manuscript and approved it; according to another version, the Inspector General was read to the king in the palace. On April 29, 1836, Gogol wrote to the famous actor Mikhail Semenovich Shchepkin: "If it were not for the high intercession of the Sovereign, my play would not have been on the stage for anything, and there were already people who were fussing about banning it." The sovereign emperor not only himself was at the premiere, but also ordered the ministers to watch The Inspector General. During the performance, he clapped and laughed a lot, and, leaving the box, he said: "Well, a little piece! Everyone got it, but I - more than anyone!"

Gogol hoped to meet the support of the king and was not mistaken. Soon after the comedy was staged, he answered his ill-wishers in Theatrical Journey: "The magnanimous government, deeper than you, has seen with a high mind the goal of the writer."

In striking contrast to the seemingly undoubted success of the play, Gogol's bitter confession sounds: "... The Inspector General" is played - and my heart is so vague, so strange ... I expected, I knew in advance how things would go, and for all that a sad and vexatious feeling enveloped me. But my creation seemed to me disgusting, wild and as if not at all mine "(" Excerpt from a letter written by the author shortly after the first presentation of "The Government Inspector" to a certain writer ").

Gogol was, it seems, the only one who took the first production of The Inspector General as a failure. What is the matter here that did not satisfy him? In part, the discrepancy between the old vaudeville techniques in the design of the performance and the completely new spirit of the play, which did not fit into the framework of ordinary comedy. Gogol insistently warns: "Most of all, you need to be afraid not to fall into a caricature. Nothing should be exaggerated or trivial even in the last roles" ("Forewarning for those who would like to play The Inspector General properly").

Why, let us ask again, was Gogol dissatisfied with the premiere? The main reason was not even the farcical nature of the performance - the desire to make the audience laugh - but the fact that, with the caricature style of the game, those sitting in the hall perceived what was happening on stage without applying to themselves, since the characters were exaggeratedly funny. Meanwhile, Gogol's plan was designed just for the opposite perception: to involve the viewer in the performance, to make it feel that the city depicted in the comedy does not exist somewhere, but to some extent in any place in Russia, and the passions and vices of officials are in the heart of each of us. Gogol addresses everyone and everyone. Therein lies the enormous social significance of The Inspector General. This is the meaning of Gorodnichiy's famous remark: "What are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourself!" - facing the audience (namely, to the audience, since no one is laughing on the stage at this time). This is also indicated by the epigraph: "There is nothing to blame on the mirror, if the face is crooked." In peculiar theatrical commentaries to the play - "Theatrical Journey" and "Decoupling of the Inspector General" - where the audience and actors discuss the comedy, Gogol, as it were, seeks to destroy the wall separating the stage and the auditorium.

Regarding the epigraph that appeared later, in the 1842 edition, let's say that this folk proverb means the Gospel under the mirror, which Gogol's contemporaries, who spiritually belonged to the Orthodox Church, knew very well and could even reinforce the understanding of this proverb, for example, with Krylov's famous fable " Mirror and Monkey".

Bishop Varnava (Belyaev), in his fundamental work "Fundamentals of the Art of Holiness" (1920s), connects the meaning of this fable with attacks on the Gospel, and this (among others) was Krylov's meaning. The spiritual idea of ​​the Gospel as a mirror has long and firmly existed in the Orthodox mind. So, for example, St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, one of Gogol's favorite writers, whose writings he re-read many times, says: "Christians! What a mirror is to the sons of this age, let the Gospel and the immaculate life of Christ be to us. They look into the mirrors and correct the body cleanse their own and the vices of the face.<...>Let us, therefore, put before our spiritual eyes this pure mirror and look into that: is our life in conformity with the life of Christ?

The holy righteous John of Kronstadt, in his diaries published under the title "My Life in Christ", remarks to "those who do not read the Gospels": "Are you pure, holy and perfect without reading the Gospel, and you do not need to look into this mirror? Or are you very ugly sincerely and afraid of your ugliness? .. "