Again about Gogol

There are such people - Gogoleved. By the first of April, Gogol’s birthday, they come from different cities and even countries to Moscow to the conference in order to replenish scientific knowledge about Nikolai Vasilyevich. This time, scientists were first preparing to sit on the road - in their native Little Russian Nizhin. But the modern history of Russian-Ukrainian relations went so far that it confused all the plans of the Hogolevy historians.

Under the feet of the Gogolevs creak the sacrifices for them with a wide oak staircase, along which Gogol himself rose more than 150 years ago - to dinner. In the mansion of Count Tolstoy (not the writer, but the chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod) on Nikitsky Boulevard, he lived the last three years of his life, here he burned the very second volume of Dead Souls. He died here.

“Seal, sit down soon! -The director of the house of Gogol Vera Pavlovna is busy in a gogo-man-made hospitable mistress. “We already have a inein on the wire!” On the second floor in the theater living room with a large video screen, a familiar hall is looking at the Ukrainian scientists with interest - Academician Zhulinsky and Professor Miched. This year they were waiting for the Gogol conference for a visiting meeting to themselves, but after the events on the Maidan, the trip had to be canceled - the tour operator was afraid to take responsibility for organizing the trip of Russian scientists.

In the Moscow Presidium-the main authority of modern Gogoedia, 84-year-old Yuri Mann. Behind him with a portrait with a barely noticeable grin at the audience, the culprit of the celebration is looking at the gathered. Scientists are welcomed by the opera singer Anastasia Zavozenova. “Duma Parasi” from the “Sorochinsky Fair” by Mussorgsky sounds for Gogoleveda, separated by politics, but connected by beautiful and television, it is extremely relevant: the lyrical “you can’t be sad, my dear, / burning with sadness” is replaced by the perky “gop, gop, gopak, / Come once again!” Two next to the flag -standing flag - Ukrainian and Russian - tremble from piercing soprano. From the penetrating Ukrainian tuning, flying from Moscow to Nezhin live, at the director of the Institute of Literature named after T.G. Shevchenko Academician Zhulinsky on the TV rally tears. Or it seemed - the video signal is fuzzy: not without reason, the Ukrainian golden trident on a blue background - the coat of arms hanging on the wall in Zhulinsky’s office - is slightly shakes, as if to the soil of soprano.

The director of the Moscow House of Gogol Vera Vikulova loudly and clearly reads the appeal of the Department of Culture, so that on the other side of the video Moscow they also heard, "how important it is in the conditions of sociocultural processes to maintain the unity of the worldview paradigm as part of the fraternal relations between Russia and Ukraine." Despite the ornation of revolutions, everyone present understands that we are talking about problems that go far beyond literary criticism. Behind the director of Vikulova, there were as many as four Taras Bulba - with checkers at the ready: valuable exhibits from new receipts to the museum collection of porcelain.

“Look at our new collection of scientific articles-only yesterday they brought a circulation from the printing house-Vera Pavlovna brings a weighty volume to the webcam lens, but Ukrainian colleagues are unlikely to make out anything. “Let's give you today with the Night Lviv train!”

"We will meet, we will meet!" - Sudges sadly from the television screen of the regional conference, Nezhinsky scientist Pavel Miched. “Know, colleagues,” he adds, “I am very sorry that the brilliant idea of ​​holding a joint Ukrainian-Russian conference has been postponed. But we value Gogol readings, which have always been a free platform for various beliefs and views. I will meet a train at night and give you our collection “Novi Gogolenavchi Studii”. ”

“Well, you see,” the director of Vikulov laughs coquettishly. “We began to meet more and more at night, which once again emphasizes our close intimacy.”

“The participants of the Poltava Gogol conference also welcome us,” the director continues, reading the lines, more like letters of the circumstances of loved ones, which are forever separated by the circumstances of the circumstances: “We will pray for you in the Sorochinsky Church, which Nikolai Vasilievich loved so much, we will pray for the preservation of peace on Earth. Know that we are friends forever! "

“Yeah, but I decided not to meddle in Poltava for the conference this year,” Yegor’s young Moscow Gogoleved, who was sitting next to me, grins. - With my imperial views, I would be beaten there, probably! ” “No, I just wouldn’t reach,” I whisper in response. “They would have taken off the train on the border.”

“Well, you see,” the director of Vikulova laughs. “We began to meet more and more at night, which once again emphasizes our close intimacy.”

At lunchtime, completely unscientific passions boil between the readings of scientific reports (Gogoleveda nothing is alien). At one table were: the admirer of Gogol from Moscow, Gennady, the gray-haired doctor of sciences from Donetsk Alexander Kobblev (one of the few Ukrainian scientists who nevertheless came to Moscow readings), Andrei Okara from the Moscow Center of Eastern European research, concurrently, as it turned out, a political scientist who is freely owning Ukrainian, and an inoui Yukiyesi, a researcher from a researcher. Tokyo, perfectly owned Russian.

“The Crimean operation is a complete adventure, a trampled Budapest Agreement! After all, the Germans are also sad that we have the grave of Kant in Kaliningrad, and the Chinese can recall that Khabarovsk is actually the oldest kingdom of Qin! ” - Forgetting about the variors on the plate, Gennady seetches.

“I generally agree with you. But there was a precedent - Kosovo, ”notes Alexander Korenev from Donetsk, sipping the fruit drink.

“Yes, I myself threw stones at the American embassy when they bombed Belgrade! - agrees Gennady. - But Russia plays according to archaic laws. When the whole modern world thinks about overcoming borders, we fell into historical pride only because we have oil and gas. And jump, as a horseman without a head, according to the boundless expanses of Russian idiocy. We are already infected with the stuplation virus of the nation, nobody thinks on its own, thinking is delegated from the media. ”

“By the way, Yarosh - a colleague for us, began, by the way, as a philologist in Dneprodzerzhinsk.”

“Yeah,” Gogoleved sighs from Donetsk, “the stories about Bandera live only in a Russian TV.”

“And I’ve been hanging like a Bandera for a week for a week. Although Bandera was always disgusted to me, ”Gennady concludes in my hearts, pricking the last salty cucumber.

“Okay, colleagues, it's time to go to sit,” Andrei Obara calls on to return to science. “By the way, Yarosh - a colleague for us, began, by the way, as a philologist in Dneprodzerzhinsk.”

The Japanese researcher, who did not utter a word, gets up and leaves with everyone. "What do you think about all this?" - I ask him on the way to the theater living room. “You know, you must tell you that in our Japan, many began to be afraid of Russia,” Inoue answers Japanoly restrainedly.

Climbing the Gogol stairs, Yuri Mann, who wrote his first book about Gogol more than 50 years ago, says to me in a quiet voice: "I reason only in the aspect of literary criticism, it is too sad to observe the rest." “But I would very much like to believe,” he adds after a long pause, “that Gogol will also help us to unite, despite the escalation of the conflict. You understand that we went to joint work for so long. And we almost did it. For example, in 2009, a wonderful study was published in Kyiv by a student of the St. Petersburg professor Vatsuro, Ukrainian researcher Oksana Supronyuk, about the literary environment of the early Gogol ... ”The life who dedicated Gogol can talk about him for hours, but the meeting begins.

Gogoleveds do not forget about political correctness for a minute.

“I fell in love with this old fat woman Moscow, from which, except for the habit of and swear, you will not hear anything?” - with the expression, having read a quote from Gogol’s letter, Professor Oksana Kravchenko from Donetsk University with horror frozen on his face is immediately stipulated: “I want to say right away, colleagues, that I do not agree with Gogol!” The hall applauds applause.

“Usually I am inclined to problematize any topic,” Moscow Professor Ivan Yesaulov begins to go to the rostrum. - But today, when the battles are going on for the story, no matter what I say on the theme of the Russian, Cossack and Ukrainian at Gogol, I will find myself in the actual context, but I don’t want this at all. Thank you".

And only in Andrei Okar the political scientist defeated Gogoleved. Having hastily sketched the theses in the notebook, he went to the microphone and said that on the stated topic “Teurgical Motives in the Social and Philosophical Presentations of Gogol” he was ready to talk with anyone who is interested in individually, but the latest political events force him to change the topic: “I will talk about Gogol as a political writer!” Everything was mixed in this report: Yanukovych, Taras Bulba, Putin, Pereyaslavskaya Rada and Belovezhskaya Pushcha, and from all this, the archetypal figure of Gogol, personifying the public agreement between Russia and Ukraine, which, in fact, as a brave speaker concluded, sailed in conclusion. Questions from the audience rained down on Okar. "How do you feel about the ban on the Russian language in Ukraine?" - Correcting the glasses, the doctor of philological sciences from the Moscow RSUSU Alexander Ivanitsky asked. “Yes, no one forbade him. Ask Ukrainian colleagues. No one has killed them for Russian there yet! ” -began to boil the political scientist Gogoleved.

The revived audience pulled her hands in a fit to the discussion. But the bell rang persistently. Dangerous controversy was turned: the regulation is a holy cause. Gogol, who, by the way, himself did not understand what his “soul, Khokhlatskaya or Russian” seemed to have a look, looked disapprovingly from the portrait: in his time, disputes in this living room were not broken by the bell.