The Petersburg text of Gogol

The monograph by the famous Russian literary critic is dedicated to the St. Petersburg period in the work of the great writer, when he created the cycles of “Evenings on the Farm near Dikanka "," Arabesques", "Mirgorod", Comedy "Examiner" ... The author sees the origins of the“ Petersburg text ”in the views of the young provincial The glass of the capital on the history of native Little Russia - the oldest, "maternal" part of the Russian land, whose past fell into the foundation of the Slavic Empire. That is why Gogol connected the paintings and problems of the past in his works with the image and the pressing problems of the capital "Today, which combined the old and new, European and Asian," high "sciences, art and culture with" lower ”folk views and bastles, a routine, and expansion , the beauty, luxury of the palaces and the squalor of the outskirts, the greatness of the state - with the worlds of "little people" ... These obvious antitheses required understanding and explanations from the literature of that time. It was they who later determined the plan and embodiment of the Gogol poem "Dead Souls"