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Abstract:

This article analyzes Gogol’s tale “The Missing Document” as a historical anecdote – one of those that were told during those long evenings in the homestead of Vasilyevka (Yanovshchina). This story could have been told by the master of the house — Vasily Gogol- Yanovsky, and its source might have been his father AfanasyYanovsky, the former trusted companion of the hetman Kirill Razumovsky and, most likely, himself the courier sent to the tsarina. The real historical facts mentioned in the tale allow us to date the events described in it to 1764, the year Catherine abolished the hetmanate as a political institution. For this reason, the events recounted in the tale were understood by contemporary readers as probably being historically true: the dispatch by the hetman of some document with the goal of convincing the tsarina not to deprive him of the office of hetman. The failure of the narrator’s grandfather’s diplomatic mission thereupon received a fantastic, but believable explanation: “When the devil or a muscovite steals something — then kiss it goodbye.”