- Essays
- On literature
- Gogol
- Chichikov at Korobochka
Among the landowners with whom Chichikov met in search of his special goods, there was one woman. Before, Chichikov had not heard anything about the landowner Korobochka and was not going to visit her. Fate itself brought him to an unfamiliar estate, where he met an elderly mistress.
Korobochka's household made a favorable impression on Chichikov. The peasant huts are strong, surrounded by fences, and there are spare carts in the courtyards. It is noticeable that the condition of the houses here is monitored, and leaky boards are promptly replaced with new ones. The old landowner manages her household more successfully than Manilov or Plyushkin. The Korobochka estate cannot be called large. There are eighty souls in it, but the owner knows all her peasants by name. The serfs of Korobochka produce honey, hemp, lard, and bird feathers in abundance, and the hostess sells all this profitably to visiting merchants.
Nastasya Petrovna, although a resourceful housewife, is significantly behind other landowners in mental development. The box was completely immersed in petty farming. The landowner's feeblemindedness is expressed in her lack of spiritual life. She is only interested in hemp prices. The hostess fills the spiritual emptiness with gluttony: the table in front of her is bursting with all kinds of pancakes, pies and flatbreads.
Nastasya Petrovna hesitates for a long time to transfer her dead souls to Chichikov, first of all for fear of making things cheaper, but even more for practical reasons - in case they come in handy for something. In such a turn of thought lies the true essence of the “club-headed” landowner. She manages the household stupidly and short-sightedly. He is in a hurry to get a penny profit, but he doesn’t even know how to manage pennies: he puts them in bags and sends them to the chest of drawers for eternal storage.
Bargaining with Chichikov, Korobochka believed that the item for sale was some kind of extremely popular product. However, the landowner's worldview is narrow and wretched. She is accustomed to existing according to a once and for all established order; everything unusual worries her. Chichikov’s commerce frightened and excited Korobochka. The confused woman expressed her doubts and fears to Chichikov, which caused his indignation. Barely restraining himself, Chichikov patiently explained to the old woman that dead souls are dust, from which there is no benefit.
However, Chichikov should not be angry with Korobochka, the author notes. Sometimes such narrow-minded Korobochki are found even among statesmen, although they look respectable.
What's the matter? (The box killed Chichikov with her “club-headedness,” stupidity, stinginess, and desire to delay the sale of an unprecedented product. “Perhaps the merchants will come and I’ll adjust the prices,” she says to Chichikov.)
What is the tone of Chichikov’s conversation with Korobochka and why? (Chichikov decided not to stand on ceremony with Korobochka at all, since she is not rich. Korobochka introduces herself to Chichikov as a “college secretary,” that is, the widow of a collegiate secretary, which corresponded to the tenth grade of the “Table of Ranks.”)
The deal is finally done. The box decided to appease the angry Chichikov and invited him to have a snack: “Chichikov looked around and saw that on the table there were already mushrooms, pies, quick-witted cakes, shanishkas, harnesses, pancakes, flatbreads with all sorts of toppings: topping with onions, topping with poppy seeds, topping with cottage cheese, baked with film strips, and who knows what happened.”
How many times have I skimmed these lines, and everything in this delicious series seemed clear. But it was not there! Which modern schoolchildren understand the words “skorodumki, cakes with baked goods, spinners, snatches”? What is the difference between cheesecakes and shanishki? There is no interpretation of these words in S.I.’s dictionary. Ozhegov, nor in other explanatory dictionaries. Meanwhile, in the modern Russian literary language, these archaisms have completely usable synonyms. If you turn to the “Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language” by V.I. Dahl, then within a few minutes you can solve all the riddles of the hospitable Box. (Practical work with a dictionary or presentation by a trained student.)
It turns out that skorodumki are not quick baked goods at all, but scrambled eggs, or fried eggs. Shanga - cheesecake with porridge, mashed potatoes, cottage cheese, topped with sour cream. Expert in Russian cuisine V.V. Pokhlebkin in his “Culinary Dictionary” clarifies that shangi are round pies that have the appearance of a cheesecake, but are not filled, but only greased in the middle with sour cream, curd-egg mass, curd-buckwheat mixture, and so on. Gogol did not specify what Korobochka’s shawls were with.
Pokhlebkin continues: “... shangi are eaten hot, freshly baked with milk, with yogurt, with salted fish, with cabbage soup, with tea - they go well with all these various food accompaniments.” What, are you drooling? And in front of Chichikov on the table are some more mysterious “harnesses”. And even Dahl doesn’t have this word. How so? It’s good that the word “yarn” was nearby - fry in oil, and in the same vocabulary nest there is the word “yarn” - pancake, thick pancake, flatbread in oil, crumpet. Further, the author of the dictionary explains: “Conjugate, conjugate - fry. One pie is under-harnessed, the other is over-harnessed, I would like to harness more.” An attentive reader noticed a hint from Gogol: “...before breakfast, Chichikov heard the enticing smell of something hot in oil.” Flatbread is a thickened pancake of different diameters; it can be unleavened, yeast-based, buttery, baked, fried. Korobochka served flatbread with baked goods. Dahl's dictionary explains: baked - topping on flatbreads, pancakes (for example: poppy seeds, onions, eggs). What is the baking technology? Pokhlebkin writes: “...there is a type of baked pancake, when a pasty food product (cottage cheese, minced meat) is applied to the surface of the pancake in a thin layer and quickly baked to the pancake in a heated frying pan.”
A wonderful book “On the life, way of life and morals of the Russian people” by N.I. Kostomarov and I.E. Zabelina reports: “...Russian pies had an oblong shape and varied in size, large ones were called pirogi, small ones - pies. At Maslenitsa, they baked yarn (read: fried in oil) pies with cottage cheese and eggs... on fast days, pies were baked with all kinds of fish, especially whitefish, snitka...” So, snitka are fish? Dahl has a snetok (smelt) - a vandysh fish caught in Belozero, dried for sale. The mysterious vandysh is smelt, or more precisely, the lake form of smelt - smelt. How did it get baked into the flatbread if this small fish was also dried? Both V. Pokhlebkin and N. Kostomarov explain in their books: “Boil dried fish - dry fish, select bones, finely chop, mix with finely chopped onions, buckwheat or rice porridge (one-third of the volume) and fry in sunflower oil. This fish porridge could also be put into pies.”
Chichikov also liked the unleavened egg pie: “... I ate about half of it.” Why “fresh”? Because it is made from yeast-free dough, which, after kneading, is rolled out and immediately cut into pies.
Pancakes need no introduction, especially since Chichikov “rolled three pancakes together, dipped them in melted butter, put them in his mouth, and wiped his lips and hands with a napkin. Having repeated this three times, he asked the hostess to order the pawning of his chaise...
“Your pancakes, mother, are very tasty,” said Chichikov, starting to eat the hot ones that were brought.”
Well, you can’t deny Chichikov a good appetite. We, summing up the lesson, cannot help but note Korobochka’s hospitality and hospitality, noticing her thriftiness, stubborn suspicion, desire to sell the products of her subsistence economy at a profit, stupidity and “club-headedness”, which, whether Korobochka, Manilov, or economic life or not economical - bypass them!”
How do you understand these words of Gogol? (Korobochka fusses and fusses around the house, saves money, lives in the wilderness, there are no events in her life, she is ordinary, boring, the landowner is not interested in anything except the everyday, established order of things many years ago, in the end she is spiritually dead, primitive , which is why talking with her is so tiring for Chichikov.)
What new did you discover in Chichikov, what did Korobochka help us see in him? (Chichikov is different. Sweetly courteous with Manilov, rude with the clueless Korobochka, he can easily deceive by promising to stop by again.)
Homework. For an extracurricular reading lesson, read Gogol’s story “Old World Landowners” and compare Korobochka and the characters in the story (common features and differences).
Characteristics of the landowner Korobochka
Her personality combines complex and contradictory character traits. The landowner's ability to competently manage her household and attentive attitude towards the peasants endow her with some attractiveness. The female character of Nastasya Petrovna embodies the missing features of the Russian landowners previously presented by Gogol.
Overcoming the distance from the landowner Sobakevich to Manilov, the buyer of “dead souls” loses his way. The late time of day and bad weather force him to ask for an overnight stay at the nearest estate, where the lonely landowner Korobochka lives. Chichikov introduces himself as a nobleman, which immediately captivates Nastasya Petrovna. She warmly welcomes an unfamiliar guest into her home.
The author introduces us to the landowner as an elderly widow. She does not have external charm, but she attracts people with her attentive attitude. Nastasya Petrovna does not wear magnificent outfits and has a strange taste in clothes. His neck is constantly hung with some rags of unknown purpose.
Widow of old age
The name Korobochka emphasizes the “club-headedness” of the landowner. This phenomenon was very common among employees. The essence of this type of people lies in their narrow-mindedness and obsession with their own decisions.
Gogol writes very little about her family. The only relative is her Moscow sister, whom Nastasya Petrovna sometimes visits. It is not known whether the old woman has children, but in the conversation she mentions boots for the children given by her sister.
The old woman has some health problems. At night she is overcome by insomnia, and in bad weather her lower back and joints are bothered. Possessing valuable practical knowledge, the landowner actively uses folk remedies for treatment.
The landowner is repeatedly noted to have a thrifty attitude towards everything that surrounds her. She keeps everything clean and orderly. The interior and household accessories have not been updated for a long time, but they are time-tested and completely satisfy the hostess. The landowner's house can be safely called a box, which is chock full of ancient forgotten things.
- Nastasya Petrovna belonged to the category of people who constantly exaggerate their problems and complain about life: “one of those mothers, small landowners who cry about crop failures, losses and keep their heads somewhat to one side, and meanwhile they gradually collect little money in colorful bags placed along dresser drawers."
- Even in her savings, the landowner organized a certain order. “Treasury notes”, “quarter coins” and “fifty rubles” are stored separately, in multi-colored bags.
- She likes to count her savings daily and save without pursuing a specific goal. Having no close relatives, the landowner has no one to transfer her savings to. If she could, she would definitely take them to the “other world.” Natalya Petrovna skillfully makes herself poor in front of Chichikov, thus trying to influence the price of the goods offered.
The landowner's social circle perceives her as a stupid and uneducated woman . Nastasya Petrovna did not use beautiful words in conversation and did not pretend to be educated. She was simple and straightforward. The old woman's shortsightedness manifested itself in her denial of everything new and modern.
In people's actions, she first of all looked for negative aspects, after which it became very difficult to see something useful and positive. Nastasya Petrovna had a certain stubbornness, which became an obstacle to the right decisions. The most important thing for her was her own point of view; the arguments of others were practically not taken into account.
Greedy
The landowner combines contradictory actions. She often crosses herself and prays, which speaks of her faith in the Almighty. In conversation he mentions not only God, but also the devil. But at the same time, he allows himself to spread out the cards and tell fortunes immediately after the prayer. She sincerely believes that prophetic dreams result from card layouts. Excessive superstitiousness emphasizes Korobochka's ignorance.
Gogol's symbolic techniques indicate the mysticism of the image of Korobochka. The location of the house on the outskirts, the frightening details of the interior, the eternal lamentations of the old woman and her peculiar clothing bring her image closer to a fairy-tale character.
