“The Servants’ Room” of Gogol: Concept, Problems, Types, Characters, Images

The article analyzes the play, which went almost unnoticed in critical thought contemporary to Gogol. It contains eight dramatic scenes united under the name of “Lackeyskaya.” A whole stream of misunderstandings, from important to curious, that arose during the perceptionandinterpretation of “Lackey”insubsequentliterature is considered. For the first time, a holisticstudy of the author’s idea of the play was proposed. The dramatic scenes are examined as the focus of the socio-political views of the writer, who studies the interrelated psychology of servility and lordship. The author’s views on national life are summarized along with the influence of Christian hagiography on Gogol. An overview of the literary works that influenced the creation of “Lackeyskaya” is provided. The article highlights the constant nature of the socia lproblems raised in the play for all of Gogol’s work; the educational, “parable-like” (in Gogol’s understanding of the word) idea of “Lackeyskaya” and its autobiographical subtext are noted. Special attention is paid to the religious scope of the playand the polemical reflection in it of the ideas of the Scottish economist A. Smith on the industrial division of labor. An article by an unknown author on the position of serfs in Little Russia, preserved in the writer’s papers, was used as a separate source that served as material for Gogol’s creation of images of servants. In an “unexpected” way, the “inconspicuous” “Lackeyskaya” finds itself in the midst of Gogol’s years-long deliberations. The main result of Gogol’s artistic analysis is summarized in the conclusion that a person finds his dignity in the Church and in the service of God, whereas a society without God turns a person into a “lackey.”