GOTHIC MYKOLA GOGOL IN FINLAND

The person of Mykola Gogol has always been enchanting and attracting the lovers of mystical stories. But if in Belarus, Russia or his native Ukraine - the writer comes from a Cossack family from Poltava region - his beiogaphy is well known to almost everyone from school, then abroad Mykola Gogol has earned his fame as a Slavic analogue of Edgar-Allan Po by his creativity and enigmatic spirit. In order to confirm this thesis last week, the University of Helsinki, together with the National Institute of Audiovisualization of the Republic of Finland, decided to present to all interested readers a series of lectures on Mykola Gogol's biography, writings with a complementary film show based on the Ukrainian dramatist's works.

The organizers of the cultural and educational event emphasize that their main goal is to show to Finish admirers of classic European literature the peculiarity of Gogol's figure through the cycle of public lectures devoted to the works and personality of the founder of Ukrainian gothic. Unfortunately, the European literature history often the Ukrainian dramatist as a representative of Muscovite literature, putting him in line with Aleksandr Pushkin and Ivan Krylov. However, quite interesting fact is that Mykola Gogol, who had happened to live in St. Petersburg for some time, was well known to a Finnish reader, since his works were translated into Finnish. But despite all the attempts of our eastern neighbour to arrogate the Ukrainian cultural and historical heritage to itself, Mykola Gogol's stories are rooted deep to Ukrainian folk culture and archaic mystical beliefs.

At the same time, Gogol's writings remain actual till now: first, it is precisely the early decadent style that characterizes the whole rottenness of Russia's landowner-bureaucratic system, where a "little man" from the urban slums is doomed to an obedient screw role; and secondly - Mykola Gogol laid the foundations for the so-called literature of absurd, depicting the vulgarity of a vulgar man in a satirical tone, exposing social contradictions in Russia of that time. Of course, the sharp social orientation of the Ukrainian writer is also reflected in the composition of his works. A conflict in tipical Gogolian plot isn't based on love or family circumstances, but on events of social significance, their mysticism and dark mystery, and sometimes even the uncertainty of the future and grief.

Actually, it is thanks to this that some literary scholars are inclined to believe that Mykola Gogol is our reflection of the founding father of the American bloody detective Edgar-Allan Po. Although not everyone agrees with it ... But, as the ancient Roman saying goes: "to each his own!"

Denis KOVALYOV