GOGOL AND THE WESTERN SLAVOPHILIA IN CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE
Journal Title: Studia Litterarum - Year 2017, Vol 2, Issue 4
Abstract
The essay examines Gogol’s heritage from a new and somewhat “unusual” perspective: the writer is seen as one of the main Russian ideologists of the Slavic unity. Gogol’s views are therefore placed in the context of different Slavophilic trends. The question that this study addresses is only seemingly marginal; as the research has revealed, the polemics between Gogol and the representatives of the Western branch of Slavophilism is central to the work of the former. The essay analyzes Gogol’s views against the background of various ideas about the unity of the Slavs of the “Moscow” and Polish Slavophilic groups, in comparison with “Ukrainophile” views of Gogol’s countryman O.M. Bodiansky, and in their relation to the initiatives of the Minister of Public Education S.S. Uvarov who prescribed the study of the history and literature of the Slavic peoples at universities in 1835. The essay focuses on the well-know “dissident case” (delo o volnodumstve) that affected Gogol already as a student at Nezhinskaya gymnasium in the 1820s. It also covers such subjects as: Gogol’s communication with Polish emigrants, participants of the Polish uprising (1830–1831), when he was abroad in 1836–1837; Mickiewicz’s Parisian lectures in Collège de France in 1840–1844; the history of the Ukrainian-Slavic Society in 1846–1847; and the consequences of the publication of the book About the Russian State by Giles Fletcher, British ambassador to Russia in the 16th century. It also pays attention to the origins of the Polish ideological doctrine concerning the so-called “turanism” of the Russians. Thus, the article discusses the reflection of various Slavic interests and views in Gogol’s fiction and essays, and in his correspondence with friends and acquaintances, up until the last years of his life. An extensive bibliography on the subject is also provided.
Authors and Affiliations
Igor A. Vinogradov
Keywords
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- EP ID EP26192
- DOI 10.22455/2500-4247-2017-2-4-182-207
- Views 379
- Downloads 15
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