How do the inhabitants of the city live as an auditor? District town and its inhabitants Inspector Gogol N
In "The Inspector General" I decided to collect in one pile
Everything bad in Russia... and one at a time
Laughed at everything.
N. Gogol
The comedy "The Inspector General" is the first "great work" by N.V. Gogol. The great satirist believed that “if you laugh, it’s better to laugh hard at what is really worthy of universal ridicule.” And Gogol perfectly managed to cope with this difficult task.
In fact, Gogol “invented” little in his comedy. The prototypes of the main characters - the official, the people in power - were always before the writer's eyes. The characters, manner of speech, and life attitudes of the characters are directly taken from life.
The action in the comedy takes place in a small provincial town, from where “even if you ride for three years, you won’t reach any state.” This town itself is a small state, the life of which is controlled by a group of officials in power. What kind of people are these? Turning over the pages of the comedy, we understand that they are bribe-takers, embezzlers, liars, unprincipled opportunists. These officials know that the fate of many citizens depends on their actions and decisions, but they think and worry only about themselves. The fear of an inspector coming to the city with “secret instructions” unites those in power into a single organism, despite the fact that they always had a low opinion of each other and worked on the principle “don’t interfere, but don’t help the other either.”
In a very short period of observing the life and relationships of officials, their dishonest and limited natures are revealed to us in all their ugliness.
Mayor Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky is the most important person in the city. He is rude and resourceful, but not stupid in his own way. The mayor values his official position very much, since it brings him income and gives him power. Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky is greedy; he, like other officials, will never miss what is in his hands. The mayor's love for profit and greed know no bounds: he robs merchants and spends government money on his own needs. However, he does not feel guilty for his misdeeds. “There is no person who does not have some kind of sin behind him,” the mayor is firmly convinced.
The power of other city officials is more limited and narrow, but in all other respects they are very similar to the mayor.
Judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin, as can be seen from his last name, performs his duties carelessly. He rarely looks into court cases, as he is a passionate lover of hound hunting. He, too, takes bribes without a twinge of conscience, but with greyhound puppies, so he is confident in his honesty: “Sins are different from sins. I tell everyone openly that I take bribes, but with what bribes? With greyhound puppies. This is a completely different matter.”
The trustee of charitable institutions, Strawberry, is a fussy and helpful person, a rogue, a swindler, and also an informer. People who end up in the hospital run by Strawberry walk around dirty and hungry. And Strawberry does not treat his sick, believing that “a simple man: if he dies, he will die anyway; if he recovers, then he will recover anyway.” That's why people in the hospital are "dying like flies."
Khlopov, the superintendent of schools, is terribly afraid of all kinds of audits and reprimands on his own account. He is timid, fearful, and always has a reason to complain about his part. However, this pathetic person is also looking for opportunities to abuse his official position.
Postmaster Shpekin is extremely stupid and limited. In response to the announcement of the arrival of the auditor, he declares: “What do I think? There will be a war with the Turks.” This is a person devoid of moral principles: satisfying petty curiosity, he prints out and reads other people's letters, doing it “with pleasure.”
This is how the images of the “pillars of the city” appear before us. These people do not want and do not know how to work honestly and conscientiously. The arrival of the auditor shook up and united the whole city, but I think that this will not last long, because they communicate with the inspectors in the language that they know - servitude, bribes and promises.
Gogol's merit is that in a short comedy he managed to show the dramatic but real life, life and customs of bureaucratic Russia in the 30s of the 19th century. “By collecting everything bad in Russia into one pile,” Gogol allowed us to laugh heartily at careerism, theft, bribery, unprincipledness and narrow-mindedness. The images created by Gogol are so realistic and life-like that they continue to excite us today.
County town and its inhabitants
The comedy "The Inspector General" has been topical for more than 150 years. Tsarist Russia, Soviet Russia, Democratic Russia. But people do not change, the old order, the relationship between superiors and subordinates, city and countryside, is preserved, so when we read “The Inspector General” today, we recognize a modern provincial city and its inhabitants. Gogol wrote a comedy in which he ridiculed the ignorance of provincials, for example, judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin read five or six books and is therefore a freethinker, attaches great weight to his words, his speech, like many other officials, is incoherent and abrupt. The trustee of charitable institutions, Zemlyanika, treats his wards without understanding anything about medicine, and the doctor Gibner does not know a word of Russian, that is, he is hardly capable of healing. A local teacher makes such grimaces that those around him are simply horrified, and his colleague explains with such fervor that he breaks chairs. It is unlikely that after such an upbringing, students receive the proper knowledge. When students grow up, they move into public service. And here everything is the same: drunkenness, bribery, abuse of one’s position, veneration of rank. It is enough to recall just some of the heroes of the comedy and their habits: the assessor who is always drunk; Lyapkin-Tyapkin, confident that if he takes bribes with greyhound puppies, then this is not a crime; money embezzled by officials for the construction of a church that allegedly burned down; complaints from merchants that the mayor could have taken any fabric or other goods from them; Dobchinsky’s phrase that “when a nobleman speaks, you feel fear.” The wives of these provincial inhabitants were brought up on magazines subscribed to from the capital and local gossip. It is not surprising that the arrival of an official from St. Petersburg caused such a stir among them - provincial suitors were up for grabs, and the young gallant man managed to court both the mayor’s wife and daughter. However, Khlestakov embodied the ideal of life not only in the eyes of the ladies, but also of all other inhabitants of the district town. They believed his fantastic stories because their content corresponded to the dreams of every provincial: the first house in St. Petersburg, thousands of couriers, friends - foreign ambassadors and the like, soup straight from Paris... It is not surprising that the mayor did not immediately believe what Khlestakov promised marry Marya Antonovna. When other inhabitants of the district town found out about this, their envy of their former friends clearly manifested itself. And how they gloated when they found out that the auditor was not real! Thus, he describes all the vices of the inhabitants of the district town, of which there were hundreds throughout Russia. This is hypocrisy, duplicity, vulgarity, envy, bribery, ignorance. And yet I would like to believe that reading and staging “The Inspector General” today will help change the moral image of Russia, and its inhabitants will help to realize their own vices.
In his works, A. N. Ostrovsky explored various topics: merchants, bureaucrats, nobility, etc. In The Thunderstorm, the playwright turned to the consideration of the provincial town of Kalinov and its inhabitants, which was very unusual for the theater of that time, because the focus was usually on larger cities like Moscow or St. Petersburg.
"The Thunderstorm", written in 1859, is a work of the pre-reform era. The fates of the heroes reflected the “pre-storm” state of Russian society. Indeed, two years after the release of the drama, serfdom was abolished, radically changing the fate of people.
The structure of city life in some ways coincides with the structure of modern society. For example, some mothers often destroy their children with their care. These children grow up to be dependent and unprepared for life, just like Tikhon Ivanovich Kabanov.
Returning to the city of Kalinov, it is necessary to say about unspoken laws full of injustice. Life is built according to Domostroy, “he who has money has power”...
These laws were established by the “dark kingdom,” namely Dikoy and Kabanikha. Enemies of everything new, they personify oppressive, unjust power.
Dikoy, Savel Prokofich - merchant, significant person in the city. Dikoy appears as an arrogant, domineering and vile person. He ruins people's lives not only with his speech, which is impossible to imagine without curses, but also with his desire to find material gain in everything, without thinking about the lives of other people.
Marfa Ignatievna Kabanova, Kabanikha - a rich merchant's wife, widow. He ruins his son’s life by telling him how to act and live in general. Prude for daughter-in-law. Unlike the Wild One, Kabanikha does not express her thoughts and feelings in front of all people.
All other heroes are victims of the “dark kingdom”. People are oppressed, without the right to live freely.
Tikhon Ivanovich Kabanov, son of Kabanikha. Slave, flexible. He obeys his mother in everything.
Boris Grigorievich, nephew of Dikiy. He ended up in the city because of an inheritance left by his grandmother, which Dikoy must pay. Boris, like Tikhon, is depressed by the life of the city.
Varvara, Tikhon’s sister, and Kudryash, Dikiy’s clerk, are people who have adapted to city life. “Do whatever you want, as long as it’s safe and covered,” says Varvara.
But not all the heroes finally “gave up” and succumbed to the flow of city life. One Kuligin, a tradesman, a self-taught watchmaker, is trying to fix and improve the life of the city. He sees injustice in the life of the city and is not afraid to speak out about it. “And whoever has money, sir, tries to enslave the poor so that he can make even more money from his free labors.”
And, perhaps, the most controversial and original hero of the drama is Katerina. "Beam of light" or "defeat of darkness"? It is worth noting that feelings arose between Boris and Katerina. But one thing hampered the development of their relationship - Katerina was married to Tikhon. They met only once, but the heroine’s morality haunted her. She found no other way out but to rush into the Volga. Katerina can in no way be called a “defeat of darkness,” because she destroyed outdated moral principles. Not a “ray of light”, but a “ray of freedom” - this is the best way to describe Katerina. Having lost her life, albeit in Ostrovsky’s drama, she gave people hope for the opportunity to be free. Let people at first not know what to do with this freedom, but later they will begin to realize that each of them is capable of much and they should not put up with the unjust laws of their hometown or obey every word of their mother.
The plot of N. V. Gogol’s comedy is quite simple: before us is the boring world of a provincial provincial town, from which “...even if you ride for three years, you won’t reach any state.” The description of this town evokes sadness: “There is a tavern on the streets, uncleanliness!” Near the old fence, “near the shoemaker, ... all kinds of rubbish were piled on forty carts.” A church at a charitable institution, “for which a sum was allocated five years ago... began to be built, but burned down”... And this is not only a sketch of a provincial town, it is a picture of all of Russia at that time.
The usual course of life is suddenly disrupted by the “unpleasant news” about the arrival of an incognito auditor, which is what the mayor informs the town officials at the beginning of the play. By chance, a passing young man is mistaken for an auditor and is given all the necessary honors. This plot has a real background: A.S. Pushkin was once mistaken by the governor of Nizhny Novgorod for a secret auditor, which he told Gogol about, advising him to take this story as the basis of a comedy. Such a situation was theoretically possible in any provincial city in Russia in those years.
But the simplicity of the plot only emphasizes the skill of the satirist, who, on the basis of a simple plot, managed to ridicule the entire bureaucratic Rus' and reflect all the pressing problems of that time.
Of course, not only government officials are involved in comedy. We see here the landed nobility, the merchants, and the peasants. But at the center of the story are the officials who embody the shortcomings of the entire Russian bureaucracy: bribery, servility, careerism, embezzlement.
The talented satirist creates a whole galaxy of Russian types, emphasizing in each of them one or another character trait that, according to Gogol, requires ridicule and denunciation.
The most complete characterization in the comedy was given to the careerist mayor, who never misses his profit, greedily grabbing everything that floats into his hands. We can judge this person on the basis of the author's comments, the statements of the characters, and the actions and words of the hero himself. Before us appears the unattractive image of an embezzler, a bribe-taker and a tyrant, confident in his impunity: “There is no person who does not have some sins behind him.” There are no laws for the mayor: he robs merchants, spends government money on personal needs. He is not stupid, but his mind is focused on dishonest deeds.
Other officials differ from their leader only in having more limited power.
The surname of the city judge - Lyapkin-Tyapkin - is indicative; by it one can judge his attitude towards his official duties. This, in Gogol’s words, is a “freethinker,” just like the mayor, he is confident in his own infallibility: “Sins are different from sins. I tell everyone openly that I take bribes, but with what bribes? Greyhound puppies. This is a completely different matter."
The trustee of charitable institutions, Strawberry, is shown with caustic satire - an informer, a cunning and a sycophant. He does not burden himself with excessive care for his charges, guided by the principle: “a simple man: if he dies, he will die anyway; if he recovers, then he will recover.”
The superintendent of district schools, Khlopov, an extremely intimidated person, also finds opportunities to abuse his official position; and the postmaster Shpekin, who reads other people's letters, is a stupid and limited subject.
Despite the differences in character, behavior, and official position, the bureaucracy, as depicted by Gogol, personifies the typical features of the state administration of Nikolaev Russia. The cultural level of officials, both in comedy and throughout the country, was extremely low, a conclusion about this can be drawn from the descriptions of the traditional amusements of the “pillars of the city of N”: drinking parties, card games, gossip. They have absolutely no idea of duty, honor, and dignity.
The play “The Inspector General” tells us that officials in Russia do not serve at all to worry about the good of the country and people. They use their official position exclusively for personal, selfish purposes, curry favor with their superiors, humiliate their subordinates, and ruin Russia with all their efforts.
By choosing the form of comedy for his work, Gogol achieved his goal “to gather in one pile everything bad in Russia... and laugh at everything at once.” Moreover, you can laugh at this to this day, since Russian bureaucrats in our time have not gone far from the lovers of bribes and beautiful life represented by Gogol.
In this lesson you will look at the structure of the city created by N.V. Gogol in The Inspector General, analyze the characters of its inhabitants, find out in what ways the model of Russian social life is conveyed in The Inspector General, consider the role of off-stage characters in the play, find out what role Nicholas I played in the fate of The Inspector General.
The officials of this city personify all the most important aspects of Russian life:
court - judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin (Fig. 2);
Rice. 2. Judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin ()
education - superintendent of schools Luka Lukich Khlopov (Fig. 3);
Rice. 3. Superintendent of schools Khlopov ()
social security - trustee of charitable institutions Zemlyanika (Fig. 4);
Rice. 4. Strawberry ()
healthcare - doctor Gibner;
mail - postmaster Shpekin (Fig. 5);
Rice. 5. Postmaster Shpekin ()
policeman - Derzhimorda (Fig. 6).
Rice. 6. Policeman Derzhimorda ()
This is not an entirely accurate, not entirely correct structure of a county town. Several decades after “The Inspector General” was published and staged, Maksheev, the son of the mayor of the district town of Ustyuzhna, pointed out some of Gogol’s mistakes in his note. He wrote:
“In a county town there cannot be a trustee of charitable institutions, since there were no charitable institutions themselves.”
But Gogol had absolutely no need (and Yuri Vladimirovich Mann writes about this very well in his book) to convey the real structure of the district city. For example, in a county town there must certainly be a bailiff, but Gogol does not have one. He doesn't need it, because there is already a judge. It was important for Gogol to create a model of the world, a model of Russian social life. Therefore, Gogol’s city is a prefabricated city.
“In “The Inspector General” I decided to collect in one pile everything bad in Russia that I knew at that time. All the injustices that are done in those places and in those cases where justice is most required from a person. And laugh at everything at once.”
In the 18th century, a satirical work depicted some separate place where injustices were committed, some island of evil. Outside of it, everything was right, everything was fine. And good forces intervene and restore order. For example, how Pravdin in Fonvizin’s “Nedorosl” (Fig. 8) takes Prostakova’s estate into custody.
Rice. 8. D.I. Fonvizin ()
This is not the case in The Inspector General. Throughout the vast expanse that is located outside the district town, the order is still the same. Officials do not expect anything other than what they are used to expecting, what they are used to seeing.
Yu.V. Mann (Fig. 9) writes very convincingly about what the “Inspector General” situation is and how it was played out by Gogol.
The life of Russian society seemed to Gogol to be a fragmented life, in which everyone has their own small interests and nothing in common. To solve the main problem, you need to find a common feeling that can unite everyone. And Gogol found this common feeling - fear. Fear unites everyone. Fear of a completely unknown, secret auditor.
It has long been noted that there is no positive hero in Gogol's play. He himself will say this 6-7 years after the play was completed, in his other play “Theatrical Travel” after the presentation of a new comedy.” This is an excellent commentary on The Inspector General:
“Laughter is the only honest face of comedy.”
And about the city it says:
“From everywhere, from different corners of Russia, exceptions to the truth, errors and abuses flocked here.”
But the truth itself is not shown in The Inspector General.
Gogol wrote to Pogodin in May 1836:
“The capital is delicately offended by the fact that the morals of six provincial officials have been taken away. What would the capital say if its own morals were removed, even slightly?”
Satirical plays before The Inspector General could touch much higher spheres. But this does not mean that such higher realms mentioned in the plays meant a greater degree of satire, a greater degree of exposure. Gogol, without encroaching on the highest positions of the Russian bureaucracy, speaks of six provincial officials, and their tricks, in general, are not God knows how dangerous and terrible. The mayor (Fig. 10) is a bribe-taker, but is he really that dangerous?
Rice. 10. Mayor ()
The judge takes bribes with greyhound puppies. Strawberry, instead of feeding oatmeal soup to the sick, cooks cabbage for them. It's not about the scale, it's about the essence. And the essence is exactly this: this is a model of Russian life, there can be nothing else. It is important.
It is curious that in 1846, more than ten years after finishing work on the play, Gogol wrote the denouement of The Inspector General.
In 1846, Gogol was completely captured by the idea of spiritual salvation, and not only his own, but also his fellow citizens. It seems to him that he is called upon to tell his compatriots some very important truth. Don't laugh at them, but tell them something that can set them on the right path, on the straight road. And this is how he interprets his own play:
“The nameless city is the inner world of a person. Ugly officials are our passions, Khlestakov is our secular conscience. And the real auditor, about whom the gendarme reports, is our true conscience, which, in the face of inexorable death, puts everything in its place.”
This is what the city of Gogol's comedy looks like.
Petersburg theme in “The Inspector General”
Two people come from St. Petersburg to the district city - Khlestakov and his servant Osip. Each of them talks about the delights of St. Petersburg life.
Osip describes life in St. Petersburg like this:
“Life is subtle and political. Theaters, dogs dancing for you and everything you want. They all speak in subtle delicacy. Haberdashery, damn it, treatment. Everyone tells you: “You.” You get bored of walking - you take a cab and sit like a gentleman. If you don’t want to pay him, please, every house has a through gate. And you will sneak around so much that no devil will find you.”
Khlestakov (Fig. 11) says the following:
“You even wanted to make me a collegiate assessor. And the watchman followed me up the stairs with a brush: “Excuse me, Ivan Sanych, may I clean your boots?”
I know pretty actresses.
On the table, for example, there is a watermelon, a watermelon costs seven hundred rubles. Soup in a saucepan, arrived by boat straight from Paris.
I'm at balls every day. There we had our own whist: the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the French envoy, the German envoy and myself.
And sure enough, there were times when I walked through the department - it was just an earthquake: everything was trembling, shaking like a leaf.”
Rice. 11. Khlestakov ()
“Everything is shaking, shaking like a leaf” - this is the same fear.
The mayor and his wife Anna Andreevna dream about St. Petersburg. The mayor admits that he is so seduced by life in St. Petersburg:
“They say there are two fish there - vendace and smelt.”
To Anna Andreevna (Fig. 12), of course, this all seems rude. She says:
“I want our house to be the first in St. Petersburg. And so that in my bedroom there would be such an aroma that you could only enter by closing your eyes.”
Rice. 12. Wife and daughter of the mayor ()
Notice how Khlestakov shines through and peeks through in their dreams. It is no coincidence that Khlestakov says:
"I am everywhere! Everywhere…".
In “Dead Souls,” Petersburg is presented as an alluring center. About Khlestakov it is said “a metropolitan thing.” St. Petersburg is a desirable and magical land. It is no coincidence that Bobchinsky (Fig. 13) will ask Khlestakov:
“Here, if you see some nobleman, and maybe even the sovereign himself, tell them that Pyotr Ivanovich Bobchinsky lives in such and such a city, and nothing more.”
Rice. 13. Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky ()
This is another very interesting motive from Gogol: a person who wants to signify his existence, to leave his mark on the world. Khlestakov is also a small man. He dreams too. And his dreams take the form of unbridled fantasy.
This is how the St. Petersburg theme highlights the prefabricated city.
Off-stage characters
In every play, not only those characters who appear on stage are very important, but also those whom we call off-stage. That is, they are mentioned, but do not appear on stage.
Let's start with the two most important for the composition of this play: Andrei Ivanovich Chmykhov, whose letter is read by the mayor at the beginning of the play, and Tryapichkin, the letter to whom Khlestakov writes at the end of the fourth act.
Chmykhov's letter sets the stage for the play. Khlestakov’s letter to Tryapichkin unties the line of the imaginary auditor.
It is curious that Gogol, in addition to fictional characters, mentions very real persons, and living at that time: Smirdin - publisher and bookseller, Zagoskin - author of the novel "Yuri Miloslavsky", and Pushkin (Fig. 14). It's interesting to see how the first (draft) and second editions fit together.
In the Sovremennik Theater, the place mentioning Pushkin was taken from the first edition, where Khlestakov says:
“On friendly terms with Pushkin. I come to him, in front of him is a bottle of the best rum. He slammed a glass, slammed another, and went to write.”
Rice. 14. A.S. Pushkin ()
This is not in the final version.
Andrei Mironov, who performed the role of Khlestakov in the satire theater, played this place like this:
“On friendly terms with Pushkin. I come to him and say: “Well, brother Pushkin, how are you? - Yes, that’s how it is somehow...”
Yuri Vladimirovich Mann, in his wonderful book about Gogol, called “Works and Days” (a very detailed and intelligent biography of Gogol), devotes several very important pages to the relationship between Gogol and Pushkin.
The off-stage characters of The Inspector General are no different from those we see on stage. For example, Andrei Ivanovich Chmykhov, whose letter the mayor reads at the beginning of the first act, calls him a kind godfather, friend and benefactor, an intelligent man, that is, one who does not like to miss what is right in his hands.
Mention is made of an assessor who smells as if he just came out of a distillery. True, the assessor has an explanation for why he smells like that. It turns out that his mother hurt him as a child.
Teachers, one of whom cannot do without making a grimace when he ascends to the pulpit, and the other explains himself with such fervor that he does not remember himself and breaks chairs.
NikolayIin the fate of "The Inspector General"
“If it were not for the high intercession of the sovereign, my play would never have been on stage, and there were already people trying to ban it.”
Rice. 15. Nicholas I ()
From this they sometimes conclude that the play “The Inspector General” was initially banned. But that's not true. There are no traces of censorship prohibition in the documents. Moreover, the tsar generally did not like to cancel the decisions of his officials, official bodies, and did not like to make exceptions to the laws. Therefore, it was much more difficult to lift the ban than to prevent it.
The Emperor (Fig. 15) not only attended the premiere, but also ordered the ministers to watch The Inspector General. The memoirs of contemporaries noted the presence of certain ministers at the performance. The Tsar was there twice - at the first and third performances. During the performance he laughed a lot, applauded, and leaving the box he said:
“Well, a play! Everyone got it, and I got it more than anyone else.”
At first, fears of censorship were very serious. And then Zhukovsky, Vyazemsky, Vielgorsky began to petition the sovereign for this play, of course, at Gogol’s request. “The Inspector General” was requested to the Winter Palace, and Count Mikhail Yuryevich Vielgorsky (Fig. 16), who was a member of the committee of the imperial theaters, read this play in the presence of the sovereign.
Rice. 16. M.Yu. Vielgorsky ()
The Tsar really liked the stories of Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky and the scene of the officials being presented to Khlestakov. After the reading was completed, the highest permission to play a comedy followed.
This meant that the play was sent to the censor, but everyone already knew that the Tsar liked the play. This is what decided the fate of “The Inspector General”.
It is curious that Gogol asked for payment not per performance, but one-time payment. He received two and a half thousand rubles for his play. And subsequently the tsar granted more gifts: rings to some actors and Gogol too.
Why did the tsar so clearly stand up for Gogol’s comedy? There is no point in suggesting that he did not understand the play. The king loved the theater very much. Perhaps he did not want to repeat history with the play "Woe from Wit", which was banned. The Tsar was very fond of comedies, loved jokes. The following episode is connected with The Inspector General: the Tsar sometimes came backstage during intermission. He saw the actor Petrov, who played the role of Bobchinsky (who speaks in the play “tell the sovereign that there is Pyotr Ivanovich Bobchinsky”), and told him: “Ah, Bobchinsky. Well, okay, we'll know.". That is, in this way he supported the text of the play.
Of course, the tsar did not read the deep implications of Gogol’s play, and did not need to. When “Dead Souls” appeared, he told someone close to him that he had already forgotten “The Inspector General”.
In addition, the king is always more merciful and tolerant than his subjects. Not only Nicholas I loved this game, the same thing happened with Moliere and Louis, right up to Bulgakov and Stalin.
According to some researchers, based on the opinion of contemporaries, the tsar was also quite contemptuous of many of his officials. Having given Russia into the hands of bureaucrats, he himself treated these bureaucrats with contempt. Therefore, the king most likely liked the criticism of officials. If for Nicholas I this was just one of many episodes, then for Gogol it was a very important thing. And he addressed this many times, because for Gogol this is a model of the true relationship between power and the artist: power protects the artist, power listens to the artist, listens to him.
Immediately after Gogol’s “The Inspector General,” a play called “The Real Inspector General” appeared without a signature, but everyone knew that it was Prince Tsitsianov. Everything there followed Gogol. One character with the last name Rulev was a real auditor and brought everyone to clean water. The mayor was removed from city management for five years. The mayor's daughter fell in love with him, and a wedding was planned. The mayor becomes the image of the father-in-law of a real auditor. But, as the history of literature shows us many times, one cannot be saved by the discoveries of others. The play was a disastrous failure and was canceled after three performances.
Bibliography
1. Literature. 8th grade. Textbook at 2 o'clock. Korovina V.Ya. and others - 8th ed. - M.: Education, 2009.
2. Merkin G.S. Literature. 8th grade. Textbook in 2 parts. - 9th ed. - M.: 2013.
3. Kritarova Zh.N. Analysis of works of Russian literature. 8th grade. - 2nd ed., rev. - M.: 2014.
1. Website sobolev.franklang.ru ()
Homework
1. Tell us about the images of provincial officials depicted in the comedy “The Inspector General”.
2. What model of Russian social life does Gogol present to us in the play?
3. What perception of his play did Gogol arrive at in 1846, when he wrote the denouement to The Inspector General? What spiritual values did he talk about, in your opinion?
