Christian City Oxyrhynchus. On the History of N. V. Gogol’s “Spiritual City”

The task of adequately understanding Gogol’s legacy became acute for Russian science in the early 1990s. Gogol’s own comments on his works, in particular, the play The Denouement of the Government Inspector (1846), where the writer suggested seeing in the officials of his comedy the “spiritual city” of each person on the last “inspection” of the “incorruptible Government Inspector,” were for a long time considered “invented” and imposed retroactively, not corresponding to the meaning of his work. The article proves the inconsistency of preconceived opinions. The connection between the problems of The Denouement... is consistently examined not only with The Government Inspector but also with other Gogol’s works, early and late, such as the poem Ganz Küchelgarten (1827–1829), Taras Bulba (1834–1842), the drama Alfred (1835), the article “Woman” (1831), The Gamblers (1832–1842), Theatrical Passage... (1836–1842), the first volume of Dead Souls (1835–1842), a separate sketch for the finale of the poem (1843–1845), etc. The article examines the issue of the sources of Gogol’s artistic and historical philosophical concept and the reflection of the writer’s personal life experience in it.