Gogol, Nikolai (EN)

Gogol Nikolai, *1 April (20 March) 1809 Velyki Sorochyntsi (near Poltava), †4 March (21 February) 1852 Moscow, Russian dramatist, novelist, and writer of short fiction. His work marks the close of Russian Romanticism and anticipates Realism. From his family background (the Gogol-Yanovskys) he inherited an interest in Ukrainian tradition; from his secondary-school education (at the gymnasium in Nizhyn, completed in 1828) he acquired an interest in literature and the arts. Between 1829 and 1835 he attempted careers in Saint Petersburg as an actor, civil servant, and teacher. From 1836 to 1847 he lived mainly abroad (in Germany, Switzerland, France, Austria, Italy, and Belgium) devoting himself entirely to literature. His early stories were favorably received, but beginning with the premiere of The Government Inspector (1836), criticism intensified. The first volume of Dead Souls profoundly shook contemporary Russia and marked a moment of personal crisis for the writer. In 1847 Gogol retracted many of his earlier critical views (in Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends and Author’s Confession), turning instead toward religious mysticism. His final journey was a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1848.

The experiences of Nikolai Gogol’s youth constitute the source of two distinct currents in his writing. The “rural” cycle (the stories collected in Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, 1831–32, and Mirgorod, 1832–34) presents an image of Ukraine derived from folktale, folk song, and local custom, moving from idyllic to demonic and ironic tonalities. In the “urban” cycle (the Petersburg Tales, 1835–36 – including The Diary of a Madman, Nevsky Prospect, and The Nose – as well as The Overcoat, 1842; in addition, the two comedies Marriage, 1835–41, and The Government Inspector, 1836), Gogol depicts the milieu of petty townspeople and minor officials of the great city or the provinces from a satirical perspective. Gogol does not create an illusion of reality; rather, he radically simplifies and typifies character. Comedy becomes a means of expression whose significance at times approaches tragedy. The fundamental expressive category of Gogol’s comedy of manners, stripped of individual and lyrical motifs, is laughter awakening moral sensitivity. His prose narrative, in turn, is dominated by the so-called skaz, a stylization of colloquial speech in the form of a tale presupposing the presence of a listener.

Gogol assigns music an exalted role within this world; he attributes to it an extraordinary power to influence the human psyche, to detach man from earthly and material concerns, and to transport him into a sphere of higher feeling. Gogol valued opera above all other musical forms and advocated the creation of a national opera. At the center of his interest stood Ukrainian and Belarusian folk song, which he regarded as the chronicle of a nation. He also incorporated folk songs into his own works as an integral component. Musical qualities were perceived in Gogol’s texts themselves, both in their rhythmic and articulatory distinctness and in their sonority. According to B. Eikhenbaum, “sentences are constructed not only according to the principles of logical speech, but also according to those of expressive speech, in which articulation, mimic gesture, and a distinctive acoustic gesture perform a special function. The sonic aspect of the word acquires significance independently of its primary logical meaning.”

The texts and plots of Gogol’s works attracted the interest of composers, especially Russian ones; approximately fifty operas and operettas, six ballets, and four symphonic works were based on his writings.

In addition, musical works inspired by Gogol were composed by C. Czerniawski, T. Chukhajian, Yaroslavenko, V. Kasperov, V. Kiuner, N. Kochetov, P. Sokalsky, N. Solovyov, K. Weis, E. Zádor, and others. Among the masterpieces are the operas derived from stories of the Ukrainian cycle, themselves already rich in musical elements; their action unfolds amid folk songs, dances, and festive games. Tchaikovsky, in his opera, approaches the national style of the composers of the The Mighty Handful, although he remains within the sphere of lyrical expression. Mussorgsky imbues with Ukrainian folk coloration not only the melodic layer but also the recitative, shaped under the influence of the characteristics of Ukrainian speech, thereby creating a comic opera. Rimsky-Korsakov expands Gogol’s plots with ritual pagan motifs and deepens the sphere of folk fantasy; the music of his Gogol operas realizes the full diversity of expressive categories contained in the texts. The realism of folk song intertwines with the fantasy of orchestral color, while the lyricism of broad melodic lines is combined with sharply rhythmized comic elements. The technique of leitmotifs unifies the musical dramaturgy, which bears the mark of its epic origins. The Nose by Shostakovich, the most outstanding twentieth-century musical realization of Gogol, draws upon motifs from many stories. Vivid sonic effects, the emancipation of the percussion section, the restriction of vocal writing largely to recitative, the mixing of genres, and stylistic heterogeneity all serve as musical means for realizing grotesque and comic expression – Gogolian ways of speaking about fundamental human problems.

Editions: Sobranie sochineniy, 7 vols., Moscow 1966–67; Pisma wybrane, 4 vols., Warsaw 1956–57.

Literature: Muzykalnyye proizvedeniya na temy iz Gogolya, in: Gogolevskiy sbornik 1852–1902, ed. M. Speransky, Kyiv 1902; L. Turgina Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol v oblasti muzyki, St. Petersburg 1909; V. Bierkov Gogol o muzyke, Moscow 1952; A. Gozenpud Gogol v muzyke, “Literaturnoye nasledstvo” 1952 no. 58; Y. Shaporin Gogol i muzyka, “Sovetskaya muzyka” 1952 no. 3; B. Asafyev Gogol i muzyka, in: Izbrannyye trudy, vol. 4, Moscow 1955; A. Solovtsov Rimsky-Korsakov, Krakow 1956; G. Tyumeneva Gogol i muzyka, Moscow 1966; B. Ejchenbaum Jak jest zrobiony „Płaszcz” Gogola, in: Rosyjska szkoła stylistyki, Warsaw 1970; H. Swolkień Musorgski, Krakow 1970; B. Galster Mikołaj Gogol, in: Historia literatury rosyjskiej vol. 1, collective work, ed. M. Jakóbiec, 2nd revised ed. 1976.