The Evolution of the Text: The Author’s Comment by N. V. Gogol on the Poetics of the Comedy “The Government Inspector”

The article touches upon the analysis of the historical and literary circumstances of the appearance of one of the numerous author’s comments by Gogol on the comedian “The Government Inspector”, such as the article “An Prenotification for those who would like to stage “The Government Inspector” as it should be”. A whole number of facts indicate that the origin of the “Prenotification…” is related to the history of the creation by Gogol of the second edition of “The Government Inspector” in late December 1840 — February 1841. Together with the new edition, Gogol, unsatisfied with the staging of his comedy in St. Petersburg and Moscow theatres, first of all with the impersonation of Khlestakov, conceived a new presentation of “The Government Inspector”, believing that the revised edition would contribute to the theatrical updating of the play — performed “as it should be”. The text of the “Prenotice…” precedes the creation of those fragments of “The Government Inspector” that Gogol sent for the new edition of the play in spring 1841 from Rome to Moscow for M. P. Pogodin and S. T. Aksakov and is a kind of a test experiment, a “rough draft” for “An excerpt from a letter written by the author shortly after the first presentation of “The Government Inspector” to one writer”, sent at that time to Aksakov, and simultaneously it is a preliminary description for subsequent explanations of the “silent scene” of “The Government Inspector” in the text of the very comedy. In addition, there is a connection between the “Prenotification…” with drawings made by the artist A. A. Ivanov for the same final scene of “The Government Inspector”, which were created during the author’s reading of the comedy in Rome in February 1841. Thus, it is established that the “Prenotification for those who would like to play “The Government Inspector” properly was written not in the autumn 1846, as it is common to think, but five and a half years earlier, in early 1841. It is an opening article in the manuscript for the second edition of “The Government Inspector” in 1841, instead of which Gogol published here an accompanying article “An excerpt from a letter written by the author shortly after the first presentation of “The Government Inspector” to one writer”. The study allows us to conclude that Gogol’s interpretations are deeply organic to the original religious concept of comedy. The plot stem of the “The Government Inspector” is the “thunderstorm” of a distant government law, and of the even more inevitable Last Judgment. The “Prenotification…” addressed to the actors, and containing an appeal to take seriously and conscientiously the performance of the roles they were cast in, to pay special attention to the final scene, is an important component of Gogol’s strategy to bring back to his play the meanings lost due to inept staging. The presence of a number of motives in the “Prenotification…”, traditionally attributed only to the “late” Gogol, in the light of a new dating allows asserting the idea of the indissoluble unity and integrity of the artist’s creative path.