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Updated: May 2, 2025
The year of the publication of Turgenev's book saw the death of Gogol: and the new author quite naturally wrote a public letter of eulogy. In no other country would such a thing have excited anything but favourable comment; in Russia it raised a storm; the government always jealous of anything that makes for Russia's real greatness became suspicious, and Turgenev was banished to his estates.
Gogol introduced it, and Tolstoy prefers it above all others.
Olga Ivanovna always called her husband by his surname, as she did all the men of her acquaintance; she disliked his Christian name, Osip, because it reminded her of the Osip in Gogol and the silly pun on his name. But now she cried: "Osip, it cannot be!" "Send for him; I feel ill," Dymov said behind the door, and she could hear him go back to the sofa and lie down.
As illustrations of this quality of vastness, one has only to recall two Russian novels one the longest, and the other very nearly the shortest, in the whole range of Slavonic fiction. I refer to "War and Peace," by Tolstoi, and to "Taras Bulba," by Gogol.
It was a little slow at first, but soon grew livelier. Paklin amused them very much by relating the well known Gogol anecdote about a superintendent of police, who managed to push his way into a church already so packed with people that a pin could scarcely drop, and about a pie which turned out to be no other than this same superintendent himself.
The title naturally suggested for this story was "A Dead Soul," but it was discarded because of the similarity to that of the famous novel by Nikolai Gogol "Dead Souls" though the motive has nothing in common with that used by the Russian novelist. This story is an attempt to trace the demoralization in a woman's soul of certain well-known influences in our existing social life.
Then came the brilliant follower of Gogol, Ivan Turgenev. In him Russian literary art reached its climax, and the art of the modern novel as well. He is not only the greatest master of prose style that Russia has ever produced; he is the only Russian who has shown genius in Construction. Perhaps no novels in any language have shown the impeccable beauty of form attained in the works of Turgenev.
It is not only a picture of Russia, it is a spiritual autobiography. It is without form, but not void. Gogol called his work a poem; and he could not have found a less happy name. Despite lyrical interludes, it is as far removed from the nature and form of Poetry as it is from Drama.
Were a majority of that Duma Anglo-Saxons, we should all see something happen, and it would not happen against Finland. One has only to compare it with the great parliamentary gatherings in England's history.* * Gogol said in "Dead Souls," "We Russians have not the slightest talent for deliberative assemblies."
Gogol has nothing of the aloofness, nothing of the scorn of Flaubert; he himself loves the revelry and the superstitions he pictures, loves above all the people. Superstition plays a prominent role in these sketches; the unseen world of ghosts and apparitions has an enormous influence on the daily life of the peasants.
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