RESEARCHES ABOUT M. HOHOL

Viktor Petrov’s research on Mykola Hohol can probably be dated to the late 1920s and the first half of the 1930s. The literary critic Viacheslav Bryukhovetskyi reveals a special connection between these two writers, emphasising that Hohol was first in the Ukrainian literature to consciously use the principle of ‘the disabling of reality,’ which would later be revealed in Petrov’s historiosophical essays and fiction. As for the analysis of the ‘Petersburg Tales’ itself, V. Bryukhovetskyi argues as follows: V. Petrov ‘consciously paid tribute here to the then-current demands of pansociologism, though masterfully avoiding its militant, vulgar variant, and without losing the pulse of the then-current aesthetic vein, also on a very broad scale’ (p. 8).

The presented literary materials are also important because they illustrate the research process of V. Petrov-Domontovych. In his 1949 essay ‘Viktor Petrov, as I Saw Him’, Yurii Shevelyov described this process as follows: ‘He wrote his works on small neatly cut squares of paper. Each of them contained two or three phrases. These were formulas of individual thoughts. (This is how he wrote his scientific works and also his fiction.) He could sit over one card all day, thinking about the choice of words, their order. But it was not inspiration, delight, or madness – he remained calm, could break away from his work every minute, throw a wit, talk about something, and return to thinking again until the right formula was found. Then he would put the cards he had written into a whole. Where necessary, new bridge cards were inserted between them’ (p. 826).

It is equally important to study the reverse side of such papers in the presented materials. For example, in the ‘Materials on Hohol’ each sheet mostly consists of 2 to 6 pieces of paper glued together, sometimes there are some whole sheets. On the reverse side, there is sometimes a collage of V. Petrov’s drafts, including several notes on M. Hohol, Panteleimon Kulish’s “Memories of Childhood”, and the landmark work “Philosophie des Als Ob” (1911) by the German philosopher Hans Feichinger. The reverse side is also likely to contain a fragmentary and collaged autograph of the novel “The Girl with a Teddy Bear” or its possible variation “The Tykhmenev Family”, the autograph of certain sections of which is kept in the Central State Archive-Museum of Literature and Art of Ukraine (fond 243, description 1, case 103).

In general, the subfolder ‘Materials on Hohol’ contains a study of Mykola Hohol’s ‘Petersburg Tales’, in which the author addresses the economic, political and cultural contexts of the 30s and 40s of the XIX century; analyses the ‘idea of the artist’s discord with reality’ developed by Hohol (Fond 16, file 243, p. 3), as well as the writer’s aesthetic and philosophical interactions with the German Romantics.

This autograph is a draft of the article ‘Hohol’s Petersburg Stories’ by V. Petrov, which was published as a preface to the edition of Mykola Hohol’s stories by the “Literature and Art” publishing house: Петров В. «Петербурзькі повісті Гоголя». Гоголь М. Повісті. Х., К.: Література і мистецтво, 1932. P. I – XL. Among other publications of this text:
1. Петров В. «Гоголь та німецький романтизм». М. В. ГОГОЛЬ. Твори, т. IV. Петербурзькі повісті. Вступна стаття. Київ, в-во «Книгоспілка», 1931, 3 п. л. (Included in the list of scientific works to the abstract of V. Petrov’s dissertation ‘’Language. Ethnos. Folklore’, 81)
2. Петров В. Петербурзькі повісті Гоголя. Сорочинський ярмарок на невському простпекті. К.: Факт, 2003. P. 266-320.
3. Петров В. Петербурзькі повісті Гоголя. Розвідки. Том 1. К.: Темпора, 2013. P. 433-477.

Finally, a few remarks on the sub-case ‘The significance of Hohol’s work for the modern reader (article)’. The article with this title was not published. However, some of its fragments are present in parts I and V of V. Petrov’s article ‘M. Hohol’s Petersburg Stories’, which was published as a preface to the edition of Mykola Hohol’s stories by the publishing house ‘Literature and Art’: Петров В. «Петербурзькі повісті Гоголя». Гоголь М. Повісті. Х., К.: Література і мистецтво, 1932. — P. І – XL.

The researcher Viacheslav Bryukhovetskyi identifies part V of the article and the described manuscript, suggesting that they were created ‘later (perhaps at the request of the publisher?)’ (Петров В. Розвідки. Том 1, p. 588). The conclusions of the two texts differ considerably: in the published article, V. Petrov emphasises the consonance of M. Hohol ‘in his objections’ to the age of the proletariat, while in the described manuscript, the author writes at the end: ‘Creative and powerful in his criticism of property, in his anti-bourgeois tendencies, he was powerless to assess the ways of history’ (Fond 16, file 243, p. 5). In general, the text of this manuscript is limited to a discussion of the failed ‘«Roman» attempts at Hohol’s feudal reconstruction’ (Fond 16, folder 243, p. 3).

Subfolder ‘Hohol’s “The Viy”’. The autograph and typescript of some parts of the text ‘The Viy [Folklore and Literary Sources of N. V. Gogol’s The Viy]’, which was first published as sections of the preface to M. V. Hohol’s “The Viy”, are kept here: [Petrov V.] Viy. Gogol N.V. The complete works. Moscow: Publ. AN USSR, 1937. VOL. 2. PP. 735-748. According to V. Bryukhovetskyi, Petrov’s own text in this preface begins with Chapter III. Among the list of scientific works to the abstract of V. Petrov’s dissertation ‘Language. Ethnos. Folklore’ includes the title of this text: ‘Folklore and Literary Sources of N. V. Gogol’s Story “The Viy”’ (p. 45). Among other publications of this text:
1. Петров В. Петербурзькі повісті Гоголя. Сорочинський ярмарок на невському простпекті. К.: Факт, 2003. P. 266-320.
2. Петров В. Петербурзькі повісті Гоголя. Розвідки. Том 1. К.: Темпора, 2013. P. 433-477.

In addition, this subfolder also contains a large number of paper cards with extracts from M. Hohol’s works; works by other researchers, including literary critics, folklorists, and ethnographers; plots of folk tales and stories; research observations and theses by V. Petrov himself. Particular attention is paid to the comparison of M. Hohol with the German writer Ludwig Tieck.

The reverse side consists mainly of working papers of the Ethnographic Commission of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, some of which list academic Andrii Loboda as the commission’s chairman, Viktor Petrov as its head, and Volodymyr Bilyi as its secretary. Some of these papers are dated 1929. On some of the backs there are also notes on folklore, slash-and-burn agriculture, and extracts from the ‘Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte’ (1887-1892) by German law historian Heinrich Brunner, Herodotus, and Panteleimon Kulish. Some extracts, such as those from V. Hippius’s 1934 work, and some notes on the backs of the papers indicate that work on “The Viy” research continued throughout the 1930s.

References:

Yuliia Karpets