About the author:
Mikhail V. Kozmenko, PhD in Philology, Senior Researcher, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 а, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
E-mail:
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1229-2210
Abstract:
The article analyzes a little-known essay by Zinaida Gippius “Samyi odinokiy” (The Most Lonely), dedicated to the fate of Gogol’ and published in the anniversary issue of the popular children’s magazine “Tropinka” (Little Path) in 1909. The role of “discourse of childhood” in the formation of a narrative that is hagiographic in nature is established (Gogol’, according to Gippius 141 hagiography, is a martyr who gave his life for the true faith, for “love for Christ the bright, not the terrible. Gogol’ did not betray this love: he died when it was taken away”), and as well as the connection of the essay with the later works of Gippius 1914–1915 (the play “Zelenoe kol’tso” (Green Ring), articles “Detskiy vzor” (Children’s Look) and “Nashe budushcheye” (Our Future). The text of the essay is being published for the first time in the appendix.