Information about the author:
Igor’ A. Vinogradov
Igor A. Vinogradov, DSc in Philology, Director of Research, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
ORCID ID:https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9151-4554
E-mail:
The second volume of a comprehensive work devoted to the study of the literary legacy of N.V. Gogol in its entirety. The work is published for the first time. The book presents an exhaustive source study and interpretation analysis of all of Gogol’s works without exception, sketches, preparatory materials, extracts, lectures, essays of various genres, the titles of which begin with letters from “З” to “Л”. The study contains a summary of a century and a half of collecting and research work in comprehending Gogol’s legacy. The publication is intended to contribute to the development of a new concept of the history of Russian literature, the task of creating which faced Russian science in the 1990s. Recreation of the real literary process of the 19th century is impossible without an objective understanding of the legacy of each writer. Contrary to the biased statements of representatives of the radical school of criticism and literary studies about the supposedly hidden oppositional potential of Gogol, unrealized by the writer due to the conditions of his time, the facts testify to the creator of “The Enchanted Place,” “Notes of a Madman,” “The Carriage,” the cycle of “Comedies,” university lectures on the history of the Middle Ages as an artist and thinker, deeply rooted in the Orthodox tradition. An unbiased scientific analysis of Gogol’s works allows us to assert that the religious and political views of the classic did not contradict, but always corresponded to the ideology officially adopted in the 19th century, the heritage of centuriesold Russian history. The work is of a fundamental nature. The glossary of the encyclopedia, designed for seven volumes of the publication, contains more than eight hundred and fifty articles. The second volume consists of articles devoted to almost one hundred and fifty of Gogol’s works. The index of names to the present volume contains more than three thousand names.
Keywords: Russian literature, Nikolai Gogol, biography, creativity, author’s intention, interpretations
