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Abstract:

The article attempts to comprehensively consider the ‘Gogol’s layer’ of A.N. Tolstoy’s The Adventures of Nevzorov, or Ibikus story poetics. The reliance on the creativity of the classic was most fully manifested when creating the protagonist image. The title character is a parody projection of The Overcoat story and the Dead Souls poem protagonists. While at the beginning of the storyline Nevzorov belongs to a ‘little man’ type, a St. Petersburg official, then towards the end he turns into an adventurer hero of Chichikov’s type of personality. The process of evolution is ‘triggered’ by the events of the revolution, during which the worst personality traits begin to manifest in the character. As a result, appeals to Gogol’s legacy allowed Tolstoy to create the image of a ‘new man’ of the post-revolutionary era. On the one hand, he is the ‘eternal type’ of a cheat, a cynical businessman, on the other — a specific type of personality generated by the revolutionary era. The key to the survival of such a person during social cataclysms is his ability to transform.