Gogol evenings on a farm near Dikanka, a short story. History of creation (Gogol N
Preface
“What kind of unprecedented thing is this: “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”? What are these “Evenings”? And some beekeeper threw it into the light! God bless! They haven’t yet stripped the geese of their feathers and turned their rags into paper! There are still a few people, of all ranks and rabble, who have their fingers dirty in ink! The hunt also drove the beekeeper to drag himself after the others! Really, there’s so much printed paper that you can’t quickly think of anything to wrap it in.”
My prophetic listened, heard all these speeches for another month! That is, I say that our brother, the farmer, should stick his nose out of his remote place in big light- my fathers! It’s just like what happens sometimes when you go into the chambers of a great master: everyone surrounds you and starts to fool you. It would be nothing, let it be the highest lackey, no, some ragged boy, look - rubbish, who digs into backyard, and he will stick; and they will start stamping their feet from all sides. “Where, where, why? let's go, man, let's go!.." I'll tell you... But what can I say! It’s easier for me to go twice a year to Mirgorod, where neither the judge from the zemstvo court nor the venerable priest have seen me for five years, than to appear in this great world. But he showed up - don’t cry, give me an answer.
Here, my dear readers, don’t say this in anger (you may be angry that the beekeeper speaks to you simply, as if to some matchmaker or godfather), - here on our farms it has long been the custom: as soon as work in the field will end, the man will climb up to rest on the stove for the whole winter, and our brother will hide his bees in a dark cellar, when you no longer see cranes in the sky or pears on the tree - then, only in the evening, probably somewhere in the end The streets are lit with lights, laughter and songs are heard from afar, the balalaika is strumming, and sometimes the violin, talking, noise... These are our vespers! They are, if you please, similar to your balls; I just can’t say that at all. If you go to balls, it is precisely to twirl your legs and yawn in your hand; and here a crowd of girls will gather in one hut, not at all for a ball, with a spindle, with combs; and at first they seem to be busy: the spindles are noisy, songs are flowing, and each one does not even raise an eye to the side; but as soon as the couples with the violinist come into the hut, a scream will rise, a shawl will start, dancing will begin and such things will happen that it is impossible to tell.
But it’s best when everyone huddles together in a tight group and starts asking riddles or just chatting. Oh my God! What they won’t tell you! Where antiquities won't be dug up! What fears will not be caused! But nowhere, perhaps, were so many wonders told as at the evenings with the beekeeper Rudy Panka. Why the laity called me Rudy Pank - by God, I don’t know how to say. And it seems that my hair is now more gray than red. But we, if you please, do not get angry, have this custom: when people give someone a nickname, it will remain forever and ever. It used to be that they would get together the day before holiday good people will come to visit Pasichnikov’s shack, sit down at the table - and then I ask you to just listen. And that is to say that the people were not at all just a dozen, not some peasant peasants. Yes, maybe someone else, even higher than the beekeeper, would have been honored by a visit. For example, do you know the clerk of the Dikan church, Foma Grigorievich? Eh, head! What kind of stories he could tell! You will find two of them in this book. He never wore a motley robe, such as you will see on many village sextons; but come to him on weekdays, he will always receive you in a robe made of fine cloth, the color of chilled potato jelly, for which in Poltava he paid almost six rubles per arshin. From his boots, no one in our whole village can say that the smell of tar can be heard; but everyone knows that he cleaned them with the best lard, which, I think, some man would happily put in his porridge. No one will also say that he ever wiped his nose with the hem of his robe, as other people of his rank do; but he took out from his bosom a neatly folded white handkerchief, embroidered along all the edges with red thread, and, having corrected what needed to be done, folded it again, as usual, into a twelfth and hid it in his bosom. And one of the guests... Well, he was already so panicked that he could at least now dress up as an assessor or sub-committee. Sometimes he would put his finger in front of him and, looking at the end of it, would go on to tell a story - pretentiously and cunningly, like in printed books! Sometimes you listen and listen, and then thoughts come over you. For the life of me, you don’t understand anything. Where did he get those words from! Foma Grigorievich once wove him a nice tale about this: he told him how one schoolboy, learning to read and write from some clerk, came to his father and became such a Latin scholar that he even forgot our Orthodox language. All words are twisted. His shovel is a shovel, his woman is a babus. So, it happened one day, they went with their father to the field. The Latin guy saw the rake and asked his father: “What do you think this is called, dad?” Yes, and with his mouth open, he stepped on the teeth. He didn’t have time to compose himself with an answer when the hand, swinging, rose and grabbed him on the forehead. “Damn rake! - the schoolboy shouted, grabbing his forehead with his hand and jumping an arshin, - how, the devil would push their father off the bridge, they fight painfully! So that's how it is! I also remembered the name, my dear! The intricate storyteller did not like such a saying. Without saying a word, he stood up, spread his legs in the middle of the room, bent his head a little forward, stuck his hand into the back pocket of his pea caftan, pulled out a round, varnished snuff-box, snapped his finger on the painted face of some Busurman general, and, taking a considerable a portion of tobacco, ground with ash and lovage leaves, brought it to his nose with a rocker and pulled out the whole bunch with his nose on the fly, without even touching his thumb - and still not a word; Yes, when I reached into another pocket and took out a blue checkered paper handkerchief, then I just muttered to myself almost a proverb: “Don’t throw your pearls before swine”... “Now there will be a quarrel,” I thought, noticing that Foma’s fingers Grigoryevich was just about to get hit. Fortunately, my old woman thought of putting a hot knish with butter on the table. Everyone got down to business. Foma Grigorievich’s hand, instead of showing the shish, reached out to the knish, and, as always, they began to praise the craftswoman and hostess. We also had one storyteller; but he (there would be no need to remember about him by nightfall) dug up such horror stories that the hair was running all over my head. I didn't put them here on purpose. You'll still scare me good people so that, God forgive me, everyone will be afraid of the beekeeper like the devil. It would be better if I live, God willing, until the new year and publish another book, then it will be possible to fear people from the other world and the divas that happened in the old days in our Orthodox side. Among them, perhaps, you will find the fables of the beekeeper himself, which he told to his grandchildren. If only they listened and read, but I, perhaps, - I’m just too damn lazy to rummage around - can get enough of ten such books.
“Evenings...” consist of two chapters of four stories each. Below is summary Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka. Read it and you might want to check it out. full text stories.
Part one
Sorochinskaya fair.
One day, a family consisting of Solopy Cherevik, his wife and daughter were traveling to a fair in Sorochynets. One of the boys asked for the girl’s hand in marriage, but Solopy refused.
Rumors circulated around the fair about the devil's red scroll. In the morning Cherevik found a sleeve from a red scroll. And later he discovered the horse was missing. He was captured and accused of stealing his mare. Gritsko freed Cherevik, and he agreed to the wedding.
The evening before Ivan Kupala.
Poor Petrus fell in love with Pedorka, Korzh’s daughter. The devil promised to help if he picked a fern flower. The flower indicated the place where the treasure was. To get it, Petrus killed the boy and received the gold.
Korzh agreed to the wedding. But Petrus constantly sat near the gold. The witch came to Petrus's house, he woke up and saw a boy in front of him. In the morning they found ashes instead of Petrus, and shards instead of bags of gold.
May Night or the Drowned Woman.
Levko tells this story to his Hannah. The centurion had a daughter and a wife - a witch. The father kicked his daughter out of the house, and she drowned herself. One day she dragged her stepmother under water. But she turned into a drowned woman and now the lady doesn’t know which of them is the witch.
Father Levko had his eye on Hanna. Once Levko saw a lady in the pond. He recognized one of the drowned women as his stepmother. In gratitude, the lady gave him a note to his head, which ordered him to marry Levko and Hanna.
Missing certificate.
The narrator's grandfather sewed the letter into his hat and drove off. On the way, he stopped at a fair. There he met a Cossack. He asked the narrator's grandfather to stay awake at night and watch out so that the devil would not drag him away. But grandfather still fell asleep. He wakes up - there is no hat with a diploma. He went into the forest at night and came out to the fire, behind which the witches were sitting. The grandfather began to threaten to cross all the witches, and they gave up the hat and horse.
Part two
Christmas Eve.
Chuba’s daughter Oksana said that she would marry Vakula if he brought her the queen’s slippers.
Vakula took the bag with the devil out of the house, which his mother had hidden there, and went to Patsyuk. He advised him to go to hell.
Vakula flew to St. Petersburg and went to the queen. He asked her for her slippers, and she instructed him to give him shoes embroidered with gold. Vakula went to Chub and he agreed to give him his daughter Oksana. Vakula gave her slippers, and they got married.
Terrible revenge.
A sorcerer appeared at the wedding of Danila and Katerina. She began to dream that he was calling her to marry. Katerina found out that the sorcerer is her father. They decided to execute him, but he convinced Katerina to let him go.
After some time in the battle, the sorcerer shot Danila. Katerina continued to dream that the sorcerer would kill her son if she did not agree to marry him. A guest appeared in the village, supposedly a friend of Danila. Katerina recognized him as a sorcerer and rushed at him with a knife, but he stabbed her.
The sorcerer began to be pursued by his wonderful knight, he tried to hide from him, but failed. And the sorcerer died.
Ivan Fedorovich Shponka and his aunt.
Ivan Shponka resigned from service and returned to his estate to his aunt. She persuaded him to go to a neighbor to look for a deed of land. There he met his 2 sisters. The aunt decided to marry her nephew to one of them. How the story ended is unknown, since the manuscript breaks off.
Enchanted place.
Once my grandfather was dancing in the garden, but suddenly he found himself in another place in the field near the grave, he realized that there was treasure, marked the place and decided to come here again. When he returned the other night and began to dig, he dug out a cauldron. The evil spirit frightened him, but he still dragged the cauldron home. I opened it, and there was all sorts of garbage. Since then, the grandfather decided not to believe the devil, fenced off the place with a fence and did not plant anything on it.
Gogol Nikolay Vasilievich(1809-1852) - Russian prose writer, playwright, poet, critic, publicist, recognized as one of the classics of Russian literature.
Gogol's tales are varied both in their motives and in the events described in them. Take at least the most famous ones: “”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “” - each has its own heroes, its own miracles and its own events.
Fairy tales Gogol Nikolai Vasilievich
"Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka"
Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka
One of the most mystical and unusual writers of Russia in its entire history was, undoubtedly, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol- how elegant, simple and, at the same time, fantastic and amazingly beautiful Fairy tales Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka” by Gogol, his stories, short stories, plays and comedies...
And indeed, it is hardly possible to find another author who could write with unsurpassed accuracy and skill not only about everyday things (like the life of a Ukrainian village), but also describe mystical phenomena and phenomena (like evil spirits, flights to St. Petersburg on the devil, stealing the moon, etc.).
Tales of Gogol- some of his best works, in which all the author’s love for Little Russia, for the Ukrainian people and traditions, for the life of ordinary peasants, their beliefs, holidays, and customs was revealed. Almost all of Nikolai Vasilyevich’s works devoted to this topic were included in the collection “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.” They were written by the author over three years, and were published in 1831 (the first volume of Gogol's fairy tales) and 1832 (the second volume).
A kind of “geographical center” of Gogol’s fairy tales collected in “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”, as can be seen from the name itself, became the same Dikanka from Nikolai Vasilyevich’s childhood - the place of his birth and life. Another remarkable fact is that all the works from the collection are connected by the so-called “framing plot”, since according to the author’s idea, these tales and legends were allegedly collected and recorded by the Ukrainian beekeeper Rudy Panko from the words of his Cossack grandfather Foma Grigorievich.
Gogol's tales are varied both in their motives and in the events described in them. Take at least the most famous ones: “”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “”, “” - each has its own heroes, its own miracles and its own events. But all these fairy tales are united by one thing - they depict in all their glory the glorious, kind, hardworking and honest Ukrainian people with their beliefs, traditions and even legends. After all, beautiful girls and brave, pure-hearted boys in the work are opposed by mystical, semi-pagan otherworldly forces. However, goodness still wins in these fairy tales, justice triumphs, and evil spirits leave with nothing. So the author contrasts spirituality, light and grace of the human soul with the darkness of the other world.
Gogol's fairy tales are still loved in all corners of both Russia and Ukraine. They are studied in school, children and adults read them. And the reason for this is not only the sensational mysticism of these works, but also sparkling humor, charismatic characters, and a talented portrayal of the life of the Ukrainian village.
“Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” was written by Gogol in 1829-1832. The appearance of Gogol's Ukrainian stories, in which he addressed folk theme, stories that REVEALED “the creation of a new, unprecedented world of art” (V. G. Belinsky, vol. III, p. 504), was due to both general development Russian aesthetic thought, as well as some significant circumstances of the life of an aspiring writer.
The interest of advanced Russian literature in the life of the people, in the historical past and folklore intensified under the influence of the patriotic upsurge in Patriotic War 1812. Throughout the 1920s, progressive literary circles repeatedly expressed the idea that the most complete features of nationality and national identity are expressed in the history of the people, in folk art. “Domestic morals, chronicles, songs and folk tales are the best, purest, most reliable sources for our literature,” declared the Decembrist poet V. Kuchelbecker in the article “On the direction of our poetry” (“Mnemosyne”, part II, 1824, p. 42). M. wrote about the importance of folk art as a source of genuine art.
Maksimovich in the preface to the first edition of “Little Russian Songs” (1827), well known to Gogol: “It seems that the time has come when they will learn the true chain of the nationality; The wish is already beginning to come true - may truly Russian poetry be created!”
It is characteristic that, simultaneously with Gogol’s creation of “Evenings,” Pushkin was working on “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” and “The Tale of the Priest and His Worker Balda,” and Zhukovsky was working on his own fairy tales, borrowed from Russian folklore. For the first time, folk art in this meaning becomes the property and foundation of book literature.
Young Gogol's appeal to the life of Ukraine met the interests of the progressive people of Russia. In the struggle of the Ukrainian people for their national independence, their folk culture had much in common with the history and culture of the Russian people. In Russian fiction In the 20s, stories by O. Somov and novels by V. Narezhny (“Bursak”, “Two Ivans”) were told about Ukraine. The poems of K. Ryleev (“Voinarovsky”, “Nalivaiko”) and especially Pushkin’s “Poltava” resurrected images of the distant heroic past of Ukraine.
The stories of Gogol's immediate predecessors, primarily O. Somov, who published under the pseudonym "Porfiry Baysky" in the late 20s a number of stories based on Ukrainian folk tales and legends ("Haydamak", "Treasures"), anticipated not only many plot motifs “Evenings”, but also their everyday painting, their folk humor. But in addition to these works, which are closest to Gogol’s “Evenings,” ethnographic materials and stories from Ukrainian life increasingly appear in the literature of the late 20s. Among them is the story of the gymnasium teacher Gogol I. Kulzhinsky “Little Russian Village” (1827), although in it everyday and ethnographic elements were often lost in sentimental and idyllic descriptions.
Gogol developed an interest in folklore and folk art very early. He spent his childhood in Ukraine, on his father’s estate Vasilyevka, not far from Mirgorod. Pictures of Ukrainian nature, acquaintance with Ukrainian songs, “thoughts,” and legends were imprinted in the consciousness of the future writer. He listened to the songs of blind kobza men, attended peasant weddings, and watched puppet shows in Ukrainian dens. Children's love for folk tales, legends and songs over the years has grown into a serious hobby. Passionate collector and connoisseur folk songs, Gogol called them “resonant, living chronicles”; folk songs were for the writer the most valuable source of knowledge of the living soul of the people. A song is, in Gogol’s words, “a people’s history, living, “bright, full of colors, truth, revealing the entire life of the people. If his life was active, varied, self-willed, full of everything poetic, and he, with all its versatility, but received highest civilization, then all the ardor, all the strong, youthful existence of him pours out in folk songs" (N, V. Gogol, vol. VIII, p. 90)
Back in 1826, at the Nizhyn gymnasium, Gogol began the “Book of All Things, or the Handy Encyclopedia.” The main place in the “Book” was occupied by records of folklore and extracts from historical documents. This unique “encyclopedia” contained the “Virsha spoken to Hetman Potemkin by the Cossacks” and the decree of Hetman Skoropadsky, as well as excerpts from Kotlyarevsky’s “Aeneid”, Ukrainian folk songs, proverbs and riddles. In Gogol’s “encyclopedia” there are ethnographic notes about the life of Ukrainian peasants, records of beliefs, wedding rites, descriptions of various dishes, etc. It is noteworthy that Gogol continued to write the “Book of All sorts of Things” for several years even after graduating from high school. Many of the materials available in the “Book of All Things” were used by Gogol in “Evenings” (see notes on “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala”, “May Night”, etc.) and even in “Mirgorod”.
Gogol came to St. Petersburg shortly after graduating from the Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences in the hope of devoting himself to “serving the state” and becoming “truly useful to humanity,” which he wrote about in letters to family and friends. Gogol's high civic ideals were formed during his high school years. The young man was greatly influenced by the progressive lectures on “natural law” by Professor P. G. Belousov, who developed “seditious” thoughts about the illegality of despotic power, about the freedom and independence of the human person. At the gymnasium, Gogol became acquainted with the “Polar Star” and was fond of reading the freedom-loving poems of Ryleev and Pushkin. The spiritual quest of young Gogol, his dreams of high and noble activity were reflected in the romantic idyll poem “Hanz Küchelgarten,” which he began in high school and published in St. Petersburg in 1829. This “work of eighteen years of youth” reflected the poet’s dissatisfaction with the petty-bourgeois world of “existents” who, in Gogol’s figurative expression, “crushed under the bark of their earthliness... the high purpose of man” (I. V. Gogol, vol. X, p. 98) . However, this poem was not successful, and after its release Gogol bought and destroyed the entire circulation.
The failure of “Hanz Küchelgarten” apparently played a significant role in Gogol’s conversion from poetry to prose, from the conventionally idyllic setting of fictional bookish Germany to the life of the people close to him. The young man’s patriotic dreams of serving the fatherland in the name of “the happiness of citizens” did not come true either. Gogol very soon becomes disillusioned with St. Petersburg, where he was first struck by the sharpness of social contrasts. In the cold, high-ranking capital, in the city of officials and departments, where “no spirit shines among the people,” the beloved life of the common people of Ukraine, their customs, legends and songs, became especially dear to Gogol from his childhood.
Recreating the life of the Ukrainian people in “Evenings on a Farm Near Dikaika”, Gogol did not go the route of “burlesque” depiction peasant life, nor through its sentimental idealization, which distinguished the literature of the late 18th - early XIX century. The peasant in the “heroic-comic” poems of V. Maykov, N. Osipov, and the comedies of A. Sumarokov usually found himself in absurd comic situations, peasant life was depicted naturalistically, and emphasis was placed on negative traits peasants Even in the novels of V. Narezhny, despite his democratic aspirations, the peasant was portrayed as a rude, undeveloped creature. In the works of the book. P. Shalikova, Vl. Izmailov and other “sensitive travelers” depicted the life of the Ukrainian village in conditionally idyllic colors - the authors were primarily interested in the exoticism of village life, and they presented the peasants as Arcadian shepherds and shepherdesses, “kind villagers.”
Breaking with naturalistic everyday life writing, as well as with the tradition of noble sentimentalism, Gogol turned directly to reality itself, to the poetry of folk life and on this basis created unique images ordinary people Ukraine. In this he was helped not only by a good knowledge of village life, but also by young Ukrainian literature, represented by such works as “The Aeneid” by I. P. Kotlyarevsky, “Garaska’s Odes” and fables by P. Gulak-Artemovsky, the comedies of Father Gogol -V. A. Gogol-Yanovsky, one of the first Ukrainian writers of the realistic school.
In a letter to his mother dated April 30, 1829, Gogol asked her to send his father’s comedies and a number of ethnographic information and folklore materials: “Everyone here is so interested in everything Little Russian,” he explained his request. In the same letter, Gogol wrote: “... you know a lot about the customs and morals of our Little Russians, and therefore I know you will not refuse to tell me about them in our correspondence. I really, really need this.” Gogol asks to send him a “detailed description” of the Ukrainian wedding, as well as folk beliefs and customs: “If a few words about carols, about Ivan Kupala, about mermaids. If there are, in addition, any spirits or brownies, then more about them with their names and actions; There are a lot of beliefs, terrible tales, legends, various anecdotes and so on flying among the common people... All this will be extremely interesting for me” (N.V. Gogol, vol. X, pp. 142 and 141). Judging by this letter to his mother, it can be assumed that by the spring of 1829 the idea for “Evenings” had taken shape in the writer’s creative imagination. Much of what Gogol’s mother told him was used in “Evenings”, became part of the artistic fabric of the stories, and clarified everyday and ethnographic details. Gogol himself knew very well the life and folklore of Ukraine. We can say that the writer was internally prepared to create his poetic book about the people - “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.”
“Evenings” is a book about Ukraine, conveying the colors, legends, melodies, beauty of Ukraine, its nature, its people, V. G. Belinsky, developing his thoughts about the features of Gogol’s creativity, wrote in the article “On the Russian story of the stories of Mr. Gogol”: “Gogol became famous for his Evenings on the Farm. These were poetic essays of Little Russia, essays, full of life and charm. Everything that the nature of the beautiful can have, the rural life of the common people that can be seductive, everything that the people can have that is original, typical - all of this shines with rainbow colors in these first poetic dreams of Mr. Gogol” (V. G. Belinsky, vol. I, p. 301).
In “Evenings on a Farm,” Gogol contrasts the bright world of “natural man,” the world of the people, with the “earthliness” of “existents,” a selfish and selfish society. Gogol sees in the soul of the people and in simple ordinary people the embodiment of the humane and bright principle in man. He admires their selflessness, sense of camaraderie, courage, and generosity of spirit.
Young Gogol, in his search for the ideal of beauty, turns to the people as a whole, as the bearer positive properties a person in general. Not in Everyday life people, it was not in their forced life that the writer found this lofty, poetic beginning, but in those manifestations folk character, in those features that were revealed by the entire heroic past of the people. To a certain extent, this explains the fact that Gogol in “Evenings” does not show pictures of serfdom. The very events in the stories of “Evenings” are confined mainly to those times when there was no serfdom in Ukraine. Thus, the action in the story “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala” takes place when “almost everyone was a Cossack,” when the “valiant deeds” of Podkova, Potortor Kozhukh, Sagaidachny and other Cossack hetmans were still remembered. “The Enchanted Place” and “The Missing Letter” are told by sexton Foma Grigorievich from the words of his grandfather, a Cossack. The events of “The Night Before Christmas” date back to the 70s of the 18th century, to the time of the destruction of the Zaporozhye Sich. “Terrible Revenge” is dedicated to the struggle against the Polish gentry in the 16th century. Only “May Night” and “Sorochinskaya Fair” were shown modern life. It is important to take into account the peculiarity historical development Ukraine. As Herzen wrote, serfdom appeared late in Ukraine, and “one century of serfdom could not destroy everything that was independent and poetic in this glorious people” (A. I. Herzen, Works in nine volumes, vol. 3, M. 1956, p. 475) . This also largely explains Gogol's turn to his native Ukraine in his search for integral freedom-loving people.
However, creating pictures of life in Little Russia full of charm, joy and light, Gogol was far from an idyllic perception of reality. Already in “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” his own Gogolian vision of the world was revealed. Along with the voices of the narrators, who do not rise below the level of views and relationships of the heroes of the stories, another voice is heard in “Evenings”, the voice of the author himself, expressing the desire for beauty and at the same time realizing its impracticability. The internal “dialectic” of the stories and the philosophical subtext of the entire cycle are inextricably linked with the author’s lyrical beginning. The cheerful, bright world of “Evenings” is invaded by sad and sometimes tragic notes. Even such a joyful, sunny story as “Sorochinskaya Fair” ends with the author’s sad monologue about the fragility and short-term nature of human happiness.
Gogol feels the fragility of the integral and simple way of people's life, which is being destroyed in the face of growing social contradictions. Beyond the harmonious world shown in “Sorochinskaya Fair” or “The Night Before Christmas”, there is a reality full of contradictions and dramatic conflicts. The dramatic theme of “Vespers” is represented by two stories - “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala” and “Terrible Vengeance”. The tragic idea of “The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala” and “Terrible Revenge” is closely related to popular performance about the essence of evil, about the moral duty of man. But if " devilry"in other stories the writer usually depicts it with mocking and parodic features, then the demonic heroes of these stories, personifying evil, hostile forces, traitors and traitors, are shown in an atmosphere of mystery and mystical horror. True, despite the fantastic nature of the plot, Gogol sees the origins of the crime in isolation from the people, from their life and interests.
.Useful material on this topic
If we talk about the first books of Nikolai Gogol, and at the same time exclude from mention the poem “Hanz Küchelgarten”, which was published under a pseudonym, the cycle Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka is Gogol’s first book, which consists of two parts. The first part of the series was published in 1831, and the second in 1832.
In short, many people call this collection “Gogol’s Evenings.” As for the time of writing these works, Gogol wrote Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka in the period 1829-1832. And according to the plot, these stories seem to have been collected and published by the pasichnik Rudy Panko.
A brief analysis of the cycle Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka
The cycle of Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka is interesting because the events taking place take the reader from century to century. For example, "Sorochinskaya Fair" describes the events of the 19th century, from where the reader finds himself in the 17th century, moving on to reading the story "The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala." Further stories "May Night, or the Drowned Woman", "The Missing Letter" and "The Night Before Christmas" concern the time of the 18th century, and then the 17th century follows again.
Both parts of the cycle Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka are united by the stories of the clerk’s grandfather Foma Grigorievich, who seems to combine the past times, the present, true and fables with the events of his life. However, speaking about the analysis of Evening on a Farm near Dikanka, it is worth saying that Nikolai Gogol does not interrupt the flow of time on the pages of his cycle; on the contrary, time merges into a spiritual and historical whole.
What stories are included in the series Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka
The cycle includes two parts, each of which contains four stories. Please note that on our website in the Summary section you can in a simple form in short time read the summary of each story included in the Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka cycle.
In addition, each summary accompanies short description works indicating the date of its composition, characteristic features and time to read the summary itself.