THE “ARABESQUES” CYCLE BY N. V. GOGOL: UNITY OF COMPOSITION AND PROBLEMS

The unity of the problematics and the author’s principles of composition of the collection of N. V. Gogol “Arabesques” (1835) are investigated. The unobvious unity and integrity of the writer’s poetic encyclopedia — “Arabesque” — become apparent through the coverage of the cross-cutting themes and motives of the cycle, the numerous interconnections and overlaps between the articles, essays and stories included in the collection. It is established that the organizing beginning of the cycle is the writer’s reflections of a religious and political nature. From the point of view of this main component, all eighteen works of the collection are analyzed in detail. For the first time, the influence of spiritual literature — the lives of saints, patristic works, the significance of the articles of “Philokalia” — a well-known collection of works on the prayer-contemplative experience of monastic life — is highlighted in the early works of Gogol. The spiritual aspect of the writer’s reflections on history, arts, folk art, world literature, poetry of A. S. Pushkin is noted. Gogol’s polemic with the positions of one of the founders of German romanticism, V. G. Wackenroder, is touched upon. The problems posed in the collection of the opposition of old age and youth, “sensual” life and the poetry of spirituality are analyzed, the image of the “fragmentation” of life as a distinctive feature of modernity is traced. The organic correlation of “Arabesques” with the previous and subsequent works of the writer is revealed — with the youthful poem “Ganz Kuchelgarten,” with the cycle “Mirgorod,” with “Dead Souls,” “Theatrical tour after the presentation of a new comedy,” “Selected passages from correspondence with friends” and etc. The author emphasizes the consistency of the writer’s creative path and the integral spiritual and moral character of his legacy.