Gogol and the east

Abstract

The article gives a new understanding of the forms of the presence of the "eastern text" in the artistic consciousness of N.V. Gogol, a Russian writer of the 19th century. The authors believe that some images of Gogol's works (in particular, the figure of Chichikov from "Dead Souls") can potentially be read in a nontraditional context, namely through the prism of Far Eastern cultural mentality. Naturally, there is an established canon of interpretation of N.V. Gogol's works. The authors of the article do not set forth their goal to overturn, abandon the adopted interpretations - only to supplement, correct, clarify, having in view the updated methodology of literary studies. It is based on the cornerstone of the thesis that the meaning-generating model of Russian classical literature has not exhausted itself, and thus, any measured judgment about it is of a complementary nature. The proposed model of interpretation correlates with the statement of M.M. Bakhtin, the most prominent Russian philologist of the 20th century, about the importance of attracting the contexts that are far from understanding of a particular aesthetic phenomenon in terms of ethno-culture and history. The conception of "big time", developed by M.M. Bakhtin, remains relevant. Hence, there follows the necessity to reveal its rich content potential with consideration of not only Western discourse or Russian national distinctness but also traditional Eastern knowledge. One should take into account the fact that the "eastern element" can be added to the structure of the theoretical and literary quest; Russian and European literary criticism is passing to date through a crisis of methods. In general non-science terms, this kind of experience exists. It is known that the synergetic paradigm of scientific knowledge is best described by the constants of the Buddhist-Taoist picture of the world. Modern psychological science often uses the potential of Buddhist psychotechnics. The current literary criticism needs a multivariation interpretation of the classics (of course, with the support of solid, systemic arguments, in order to avoid a meaningless play with existed meanings). In this, on the one hand, there is evinced an attempt to awake a new reader's interest, or, at any rate, to support the attention formed in him in the rich heritage of the past. On the other hand, multivariation realizes that inner semantic potential that is carried by any genius work and Gogol masterpieces, in particular.