¹ No doubt the severity of Dostoevsky's comments stemmed in part from a desire to bury his own past associations, and not simply from the fact that the surreptitious reading of Belinsky's celebrated “Pis'mo Gogolyu” (“Letter to Gogol”) in 1849 had led to his being exiled to Siberia for 10 years. One should remember, too, that by this time Dostoevsky was at work on his antinihilist novel Besy (The Possessed), in which he predicted—accurately enough —the destructive fanaticism of certain benighted epigones of his own and Belinsky's generation.

² F. M. Dostoevsky, Pis'ma, ed. A. S. Dolinin (Moscow: Akademiya Nauk SSSR, 1930), ii, 365.

³ Gogol had sent “Kolyaska” to Pushkin in Oct. 1835 for inclusion in an almanac that the poet and Pletnyov were planning to publish. At the time Pushkin wrote to Pletnyov: “Spasibo, velikoe spasibo Gogolyu za ego ‘Kolyasku,’ v ney al'manakh daleko mozhet uekhat’; no moe mnenie: darom ‘Kolyaski’ ne brat'; a ustanovit' ey tsenu; Gogolyu nuzhny den'gi.” (“Many, many thanks to Gogol for his ‘Kolyaska,‘ which will be a big help to the almanac. But you know, we should set a price for the story and not take it for nothing: Gogol needs the money”). See Polnoe sobranie sochineniy, 3rd ed. (Moscow: Akademiya Nauk SSSR, 1966), x, 552. When the projected almanac failed to take shape, Pushkin decided to use “Kolyaska” in the first issue of a new venture, the literary journal Sovremennik (The Contemporary).

⁴ There is a curious review of this collection in Revue des Deux Mondes, 12 (1845), 883–89, written by Sainte-Beuve, who recalls “d'avoir rencontré autrefois, sur un bateau à vapeur, dans une traversée de Rome à Marseille, l'auteur en personne, et là j'avais pu, d'après sa conversation forte, précise, et riche d'observations de mœurs prises sur le fait, saisir un avant-goût de ce que devaient contenir d'original et de réel ses œuvres elles-mêmes” (p. 884). Sainte-Beuve goes on to opine: “ce qui est certain, c'est que M. Gogol s'inquiète moins d'idéaliser que d'observer, qu'il ne recule pas devant le côté rude et nu des choses, et qu'il ne fait nulle difficulté d'enfoncer le trait; il se soucie tout de la nature, et il a dû beaucoup lire Shakespeare.” Having noted further that some “witty Russians” liken Gogol to Mérimée, Sainte-Beuve spends most of his time enthusing about “Taras Bul'ba” and retelling its plot.

⁵ A. P. Chekhov, Polnoe sobranie sochineniy I pisem (Moscow: Goslitizdat, 1949), xiv, 354. When quoting Chekhov's comments on “Kolyaska” most Soviet editions of Gogol omit Chekhov's criticisms of Goncharov. Such selective quoting has to be watched. Like most of the great Russian writers both before his time and since, Chekhov often found himself fighting a lonely battle for artistic independence against the government's blue-penciling censorship on the political right and the prescriptive censorship of the radical critics and their descendants on the left.

⁶ V. G. Belinsky, “Neskol'ko slov o Sovremennike,” Polnoe sobranie sochineniy (Moscow: Akademiya Nauk SSSR, 1953), iii, 179–80. In those Soviet editions of Gogol which quote Belinsky's comments on “Kolyaska” his remarks are usually cut off at the phrase “fully comprehend,” thus softening the criticism. This is another example of the selective quoting referred to in n. 5.

⁷ Belinsky's fame has been a mixed blessing. He did finally come to hold the view that writers should be engagé, that literature must criticize the social and moral ills of the time, thus embracing an attitude that goes back at least as far as Horace who sought to be ulilis urbi. But later critics, in both the 19th and 20th centuries, have frequently cheapened and vulgarized his position, lacking the sensitivity and the intense commitment that Belinsky brought to his often agonized search for an intellectually and ethically satisfying esthetics. We might recall that it was Belinsky who insisted upon the importance of the work of Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Lermontov, and others, and did much to establish them as major figures in Russian literature. The mindless parroting of his opinions that has gone on for generations in Russia should not blind us to his considerable talents as a critic.

⁸ N. V. Gogol' 1829–1842 (St. Petersburg: I. N. Skorok-hodov, 1903), p. 215.

⁹ N. V. Gogol'. Tvorchesky put' (1955; rpt. Moscow: Goslitizdat, 1959), p. 275. While it cannot compare in critical finesse with the studies of such earlier 20th-century Russian scholars as Gippius, Slonimsky, and Grigory Gukovsky, Stepanov's monograph is basically a sound introduction, written in the Belinsky tradition of Gogol as social satirist.

¹⁰ While he is by no means a Symbolist or Formalist, Vladimir Nabokov has played an important role as intermediary, particularly in this country. There are many suggestive and helpful comments in his Nikolai Gogol (Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1944), expressed with his customary panache (I quote from it myself later in this paper), but Nabokov's emphasis on Gogol as a “strange creature” and also perhaps his tendency to make Gogol over into his own image as a writer continue to attract rather too many disciples.

¹¹ Recent book-length studies which lean toward the view of Gogol as a writer in the grotesque tradition include Donald Fanger, Dostoevsky and Romantic Realism: A Study of Dostoevsky in Relation to Balzac, Dickens, and Gogol (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1965); Hans Gunther, Das Groteske bei N. V. Gogol': Formen und Funktionen (Munich: Otto Sagner, 1968); and Victor Erlich, Gogol (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1969). I, for one, would have liked to have had the views of all 3 scholars on “Kolyaska.” It is perhaps not too surprising to find that such interesting and well-informed books as these contain no reference whatsoever to “Kolyaska.” Less easy to explain, however, is the rather thin treatment of the story in some of the useful general histories of Russian literature and the monographs on Gogol available in English. Of the former, Dmitri Mirsky does not mention the story at all, nor does Marc Slonim. Helen Muchnic retells the plot in a paragraph, concluding that it is a “droll little episode—but sardonic at bottom, a tale of weakness tracked to its lair.” See An Introduction to Russian Literature (New York: Dutton, 1964), p. 87. The story is not mentioned in William E. Harkins' Dictionary of Russian Literature, or in Nabokov's Nikolai Gogol. Vsevolod Setchkarev has 3 sensible pages on it, in which he quotes some passages at length to convey its flavor. He rates the story highly, particularly for its Pushkinian simplicity and for what he calls its “terse composition.” See Gogol: His Life and Works, trans. Robert Kramer (New York : New York Univ. Press, 1965), p. 165. David Magarshack says nothing about the story as literature; he merely notes a sentence to which the censor took exception. Gogol: A Life (New York: Grove, 1969), pp. 125–26.

¹² “Kak proizoshel tip Akakiya Akakievicha,” in Legenda o Velikom Inkvizitore F. M. Dostoevskogo, 3rd ed., Sla-vische Propyläen, No. 67 (1906; rpt. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1970), pp. 266–82.

¹³ Given the peculiar ethical and social role that Russian literature has been obliged to play, there is the ever-present danger (at least in Russian criticism) of denying the writer's creativity, since he is supposed to be intent on satirizing the failings of his society and therefore on portraying it accurately, even if exaggerating for satirical effect. But, of course, far from imitating reality, any true artist creates what he describes, although drawing demonstrably upon his own environment. Since he is inventing, the artist can, indeed must, select what he wishes to portray and describe it in the way that suits his purpose. As David Lodge puts it: “This freedom of choice makes the writer's task not less but more difficult than that of ordinary descriptive writing. Everything becomes choice, and nothing determines his choice but his sense of the aesthetic logic and aesthetic possibilities of his literary structure.” See Lodge's Language of Fiction (London: Routledge, 1966), p. 64.

¹⁴ Yury Tynyanov, Arkhaisty i novatory, Slavische Propyläen, No. 31 (1929; rpt. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1967), pp. 418–19. The concept of zvukovye povtory was first adumbrated by the Futurist Osip Brik. Pifagor is the Russian for Pythagoras. Chertokutsky suggests the word Chert (“devil”) and Kutsy (“dock-tailed,” or “short”—as of a jacket).

¹⁵ Page references in my text are to the following edition : N. V. Gogol', Polnoe sobranie sochineniy (Moscow: Akademiya Nauk SSSR, 1938), iii, 177–88. The MS from which the Sovremennik version was printed has not survived, but an initial rough draft has. The Academy text is based on the Sovremennik version, but takes into account the rough draft as well as the editions of 1842 and 1855, restoring 4 short phrases blue-penciled by the censor. The Academy edition supplies all variants.

¹⁶ It has often been noted that Gogol's treatment of sex and sexual relations is unusual. His married couples are as a rule satirized (the Manilovs in Myortvye dushi) or at least treated with mixed emotions. The Tovstogubs in “Staro-svetskie pomeshchiki” are happy enough, but appear to have enjoyed no sexual life. As frequently happens in Gogol, sexual desire has been metamorphosed into gluttony. Pul'kheriya Ivanovna demonstrates her affection by preparing her husband his favorite dishes. The role of food and gluttony in Gogol has been exhaustively treated in Natalia M. Kolb-Seletski, “Gastronomy, Gogol, and His Fiction,” Slavic Review, 29 (1970), 35–57.

¹⁷ I am thinking here of Frederik C. Driessen, Gogol as a Short Story Writer: A Study of His Technique of Composition (The Hague: Mouton, 1965), and Hugh McLean's article “Gogol's Retreat from Love: Towards an Interpretation of Mirgorod,” in American Contributions to the Fourth International Congress of Slavists (The Hague: Mouton, 1958), pp. 225–45. Ivan D. Ermakov's Ocherkipo analizu tvorchestva N. V. Gogolya (Moscow: Gosudarstven-noe izdatel'stvo, n.d. [1923]) is totally ignored in Soviet writing about Gogol and is omitted from the standard Soviet bibliographical guide to Russian 19th-century literature: Istoriya Russkoy Literatury xix v. Bibliografichesky ukazatel', ed. K. D. Muratova (Moscow-Leningrad: Akademiya Nauk SSSR, 1962), pp. 224–43.

¹⁸ Leon Stilman, one of the few scholars to discuss “Kolyaska,” ignores the obvious Freudian implications of the ending, although he does capture the irony of the situation: “Thus Squire Chertokutsky is exposed to the eyes of the company, hiding inside the object upon which he had built his fantasy of grandeur, a nude statue suddenly ashamed and hiding in its pedestal.” See Stilman's “Afterword” in The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories (New York: NAL, 1960), p. 232.

¹⁹ Gogol's constant use of such hesitant words and phrases (“somehow or another”) has been investigated by James B. Woodward in another tale: See “The Threadbare Fabric of Gogol's ‘Overcoat,‘ ” Canadian Slavic Studies, 1 (Spring 1967), 95–105.

²⁰ The phrases used are as follows: “Gorodok B. ochen' poveselel, kogda nachal v nyom stoyat' kavaleriysky polk”; “No kak nachal stoyat' v uezdnom gorodke B. kavaleriysky polk, vsyo peremenilos‘”; “Obshchestvo sdelalos’ eshche mnogolyudnee i zanimatel'nee, kogda perevedena byla syuda kvartira brigadnogo generala.” The boring existence of provincial garrison towns has provided Russian writers, up to and including Chekhov, with ample material; Chekhov's play Trisestry (The Three Sisters) is an example.

²¹ A similar description occurs in Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, where we are told of Podsnap's furniture: “Everything was made to look as heavy as it could, and to take up as much room as possible. Everything said boastfully, ‘Here you have as much of me in my ugliness as if I were only lead; but I am so many ounces of precious metal worth so much an ounce;—wouldn't you like to melt me down?‘ ” (Pt. iv, Ch. ii). The comparison may not be entirely fair, but the writing in Dickens does seem rather weak, and the fantasy is toned down ; it is a difference between simile and metaphcr.

²² “Chertokutsky soshel s kryl'tsa i zashel ey vzad.” To convey something of the double entendre one might translate as follows: “Chertokutsky stepped off the porch and addressed her rear.”

²³ The Gates of Horn: A Study of Five French Realists (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1963), p. 452.

²⁴ The motifs of gluttony and escape, of food and carriage, coalesce at one point in Myortvye dushi in the extraordinary description of Korobochka's carriage, likened to a stuffed melon.

²⁵ William K. Wimsatt, Jr., “The Concrete Universal,” The Verbal Icon (New York: Noonday, 1965), p. 79.

²⁶ Leon Stilman has touched upon this matter from a slightly different viewpoint in his article “Gogol's ‘Overcoat‘—Thematic Pattern and Origins,” American Slavic and East European Review, 11, No. 2(1952), 139: “Yearning, then short-lived possession (or a mere illusion of possession), and finally frustration is a thematic sequence which often recurs in Gogol's work.” One might add that the yearning in Gogol's world is usually for some trivial object. If it were not, the predicament of his characters would be tragic rather than tragicomic.

²⁷ “La Relation critique,” in Quatres conférences sur la “Nouvelle critique,” supplement to Studi Francesi, No. 34 (1968), p. 34. Starobinski suggests a resolution of the apparent paradox: “S'il fallait donc définir un idéal de critique, j'en ferais un composé de rigueur méthodologique (liée aux techniques et à leurs procédés vérifiables) et de disponibilité reflexive (libre de toute astreinte systématique)” (p. 44).

²⁸ On p. 165 of his book on Gogol, Setchkarev makes the interesting comment: “Pushkin's irony, restrained by classical moderation, appears as funny, somewhat bitter mockery in Gogol's writing.” However, he does not elaborate.

²⁹ Dimitri Chizhevsky noted the fact that the narrator of “Shinel' ” views everything from below and therefore sees small things magnified out of all proportion. See his article “Zur Komposition von Gogols ‘Mantel’,” Zeitschrift fur slavische Philologie, 14 (1937), p. 78: “Die kleine Welt des ‘armen Beamten’ ist fur ihn selbst doch eine grosse Welt, denn Akakij Akakijevic sieht fast aile Objekte seiner Um-welt von unten an, er muss zu ihnen alien nach oben hin-aufschauen.” The comparable passage in the Russian version of this article that Chizhevsky published reads as follows: “Malen'ky mir, mirok bednogo chinovnika dlya nego samogo—bcl'shoy svet, imenno potomu, chto on polon ob”ektov, na kotorye bedny chinovnik smotrit snizu vverkh !“ See ”O ‘Shineli’ Gogolya,“ Sovremennye zapiski, 67 (1938), p. 185. Chizhevsky's central concern was to draw attention to the very frequent use of the word dazlte (”even“) in ”Shinel' “ and he makes many valuable comments about the functions it performs in the story, but he does not draw what for me is the important conclusion: dazhe is used for purposes of irony.

³⁰ I first came across the phrase “worm's-eye view” as the title of a vaudeville that played for years in London, but I note that it is also used by Erlich in Gogol, pp. 146, 156.

Aleksandr Slonimsky discusses Gogol's alogizm in his brief, stimulating study Tekhnika komicheskogo u Gogolya (1923; rpt. Providence: Brown Univ. Press, 1963).

³¹ In “Kolyaska” both Chertokutsky's admiration for the cavalry officers and their concern about his coach will seem equally excessive to the reader. It will be noted that Gogol's officers are a very different breed from those of Pushkin, e.g., in Povesti Belkina. It is not at all unlikely that Gogol had these stories in mind when writing “Kolyaska.” It is certainly true that the “lowering” remarked upon by Rozanov applies equally to Gogol's treatment of literature as well as “life.” Furthermore, there are many examples of romantic irony in Gogol.

³² In ‘“Vsevidyashchee oko’ u Gogolya,” Vozdushnye puti, No. 5 (1967), pp. 279–92. Stilman's splendid article, together with studies by other writers on Gogol, is now available in English : Gogol from the Twentieth Century, ed. & trans. Robert A. Maguire (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1974).