N. V. Gogol and L. N. Tolstoy: the Continuity of the Epic Tradition

Abstract

The article raises the issue of L. N. Tolstoy’s creative assimilation of the themes, discoveries and artistic images of N. V. Gogol. Referring mainly to the late period of the writers’ work, the author indicates the parallelism of their path. Tolstoy felt the similarity of philosophical and artistic complexities that confronted him and his predecessor, at a certain moment he admitted that he was following Gogol, “our Pascal.” It is noted that Tolstoy’s great interest in “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends” in the late 1880s forced him to rethink Gogol’s work, and turn to the poem “Dead Souls” to find a harmonious pairing of denunciation of modern vices with the thought of the timeliness of repentance and the joy of the coming Resurrection. The article makes a significant comparison of the landlords from Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” and the officials from Tolstoy’s novel “Resurrection,” it is noted that against the background of the general satirical manner of narration in the poem and the epic novel, the writers turned to the difficult conditions for the survival of the Russian people, from the position of which everything that happens in their artistic worlds is estimated.