Introduction to the analysis of "Reflections on the Divine Liturgy" by Nikolai Gogol: between poetics and exegesis.

Abstract

The article is devoted to the comparison of two traditions of the study of Gogol's creativity – a formalistic one, originating from the well-known article of Eichenbaum, and Orthodox-exegetical one, prevailing (especially in relation to the late work of the writer) in modern Russian science. The main conclusions within the first discourse belong to Roman Jakobson, who defined the key parameters of the «transformed realism» of Gogol and other classics, hiding in the seemingly secondary elements of the work. This tradition was continued in general theoretical terms by a formalistic direction in literary criticism.

At the same time, modern Russian science about Gogol examines his later work («Selected Places from Correspondence with Friends», «Reflections on the Divine Liturgy») based solely on the idea of his religious nature, reducing artistry. As a result, firstly, there is a disengagement from the old Gogol tradition, and secondly, all of Gogol's work is torn into two parts that are inert towards each other; in the third, and most importantly, the methodology becomes a victim of a new one, this one once religious, determinism. The latter distorts our understanding of artistic creativity as such, replacing the need for its study by exposing an external context in relation to it. In general, this new determinism repeats the Soviet methodological tradition, called vulgar sociology.