A RUSSIAN GENIUS.

Grey River Argus, 13 February 1929, Page 8

A RUSSIAN GENIUS.

NIKOLAY GOGOL. Russia’s final victory over Napoleon aroused the national self-consciousness and set in motion a strange variety of unsuspected energies (remarks the Melbourne “Age”). A new spirit clamouring for political freedom led to an abortive rising in 1825. Dreamers and prophets clamoured for a constitution and the abolition of serfdom, and some of them even for a republic, but the despotism of Nicholas I plunged the country into long political stagnation. Between 1825 and 1855 there was little to record, but corruption, banishments, persecutions, and executions. Dostoevsky was sent to Siberia and Pushkin himself had to suffer.

Nevertheless it was in this very period that Russian poetry bore its finest fruits, and the first great harvest of Russian prose was reaped. A galaxy of talent scintillated in. a sky politically as dark as Erebus. Lermontov. Kolstoy, Gogol, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Gouchaiov, Tolstoy—all of them began their literary careers under Nicholas I. Pushkin and Gogol are regarded as the two main pillars at the entrance of modern Russian literature.

Gogol was a native of the Ukraine or Little Russia, the fairest part of what was then the empire. The people were melancholy, nonchalant, keen on adventure and nomadic freedom. The Cossack spirit revelled in quarrels,, fighting and robbery. The little Nikolay, born in 1809, was a frail child, and as a boy was very thin, small of stature and awkward in movements. He had a sickly birdlike face. Feeling that strangers were inclined to laugh at him, he withdrew into his shell, looked with morbid diffidence at people, and began to ridicule others to save himself from being ridiculed. The more inferior he felt th e more did he show off and the greater became his ambition. When twenty-three he had pretensions to dandyism., behaved rudely, and 4‘looked upon people from above, as it were.” In 1848, when thirty-nine years of age, he was described as having a curious mincing gait as if one, leg continually wanted to jump forward, in consequence of which one step always came out longer than the other. “He was small iu stature; his legs too short in proportion to his body, with a crooked walk; shy and badly set.” His schoolfellows called him “the niysterious dwarf.” He dreamt of being a dignitary, a statesman. Petersburg seemed heaven. ll e went to the city only to find it hell. Failing an application for a clerkship and for appointment as an actor, -he resorted to literature. Publishing some verses at his own expense., and -stung by slighting reviews, he resolved to leave Russia, w’ent to Germany, returned to Petersburg, and found an insignificant post in one of the Government offices. Still determined to .write, he published a series of stories of Ukranian life, and at this one stroke he discovered his true vocation. His descriptions of farm life had inimitable tenderness and charm, and captivated readers with their boisterous humour, colour, and music. He was surprised at his success. Owing to various influence, says Jank 0 Lavrin, his biographer, he obtained in 1834, the Chair of History in Petersburg University, but had no serious knowledge of the subject. By dint of his artistic equipment he delivered his first lecture on the Middle Ages, but ever after that he simply bored his students, and they bored him. He retired in the same year. Literature was his vocation. As an author he had. no inventive power, and had to fall back on external facts, collected material, anecdotes, and o ther people’s themes. He confesses that he never created anything out of mere temperament, he possessed a curious capacity for cool observation, and it was this combination of qualities which makes his - writing unique and elusive.

His exquisite comedy, entitled Mar riage, contrasts the official Russians with the conservative merchants, and exposes the nonsensical side of human life. There is no love plot, no love scenes. The whole business is treated ironically, the dowry being the primeconsideration. An official, Podkolyossin, is persuaded by a professional match-maker to woo a rich merchant’s daughter. The dowry attracts the phlegmatic fellow, and the young lady, prefers him to all other candidates. Things promise well until Podkolyossin suddenly became frightened of such a change in his existence. While he is waiting in a room where he is to interview Agafya he jumps, through the window and escapes. A particularly amusing scene is that in which, when he arrives at the. house of Agafya he finds five other competitors awaiting to interview her. The play provokes one continuous scream of laughter, without any tears hidden in it. The satire is drowned in the comedy. Quite different, and with a quality entirely distinctive, is The Government Inspector. The sarcasm is keen, full of malice and salt, and is one of the favourite plays of the Russian stage. It is said that Puskin gave Gogol the, plot, and the poet Thukovsky gave it to C. Nicholas to read. He was so delighted with it that he decreed its production. This was in 1836, and it has held the stage ever and not only in Russia. The mayor of a provincial town learns that the inspector from Petersburg will visit the place incognito. Instantly the mayor summons all the officials, who are in terror lest their rogueries be discovered. They have all been blackmailing. Two worthies come in excitedly, shouting that An official has arrived at the inb a mysterious person called Khlestakov. He must be the inspector. Then everybody starts to clean up th e town, and the mayor resolves on bribing the inspector. Khlestakov is penniless and expects to be arrested for debt. Suddenly he discovers that he is mistaken for the inspector. He plays the part, lives like a lord, threatens to send some people to Siberia, poses as a friend and intimate of royalty, and

finally becomes . engaged to the mayor’s daughter. Everybody lends him money, and suddenly he clears out. The pogtmaste? is in the habit of opening letters, and finds one from Khlestakov describing how he had swindled the town. While they are all cursing their stupidity, a gendarme announces the arrival of the genuine Government inspector. Gogol says that his intention in writing this play was “to gather in one place and deride all that is bad in Russia, all the evils which are being perpetrated in those places where the utmost rectitude is required from pian. snobbery, stupidity, malice arc all lashed mercilessly. Even people who disliked it could not help enjoying it, but the. more they laughed the more angry they were with Gogol for exposing them. In Dead Souls Chichikov hits upon a clever plan to get rich. There would be no official control of serfs until next census., so he decides to buy as many fictitious “souls”* .as possible, and pawn them in the bank as living ones. “Suppose I buy all who are dead before th e new census lists are sent out; if I get, let us say, 1000 of them.” Each soul is worth 200 roubles, so there’s a fortune of 200,000 roubles. The peasants had lately been dying, in great numbers. <He got the ■ouls; was rumoured to be a millionaire buying serfs to labour on his estate. He was lionised, especially by the ladies. Suddenly the bubble burst. Chichikov wast exposed, and left the town next day. The epic is incomplete but the second part shows the villain in prison, released, and put upon the track of virtue. Gogol shortly before his death burned the second part of Dead Souls—nobody knows why. His closing years were darkened by hypochondria, and in 1852 he died, calling. “Give me the ladder, the ladder! ” Was he still aspiring?