The socio-historical originality of comism in the “Examiner” of Gogol (part I)

Laughter in literature has hardly been studied as a socio-historical phenomenon. Meanwhile, the classic comedies of the past for most modern viewers ceased to be amusing since they are unaware of the authors’ social and historical psychology as well as that of their contemporaries. Theater and film directors try to make these works funny with the help of techniques that have nothing to do with the texts. But literary scholars who know history can explain to the reader why those texts used to be funny for the people of a certain time and from a certain society. This article attempts to bridge the gap in question. For example, in Gogol’s “The Government Inspector” the widow of a non-commissioned officer gets a penalty for flogging by mistake would be “happiness”, because under the subsistent farming money was especially highly valued, and the educated spectators of the first half of the 19th century realized their human dignity unlike the people of the 18th century, that is why that idea of “happiness” was comical. Most of the literary scholars consider the chief of police to be someone like a mayor. In fact, he is the chief police officer of a small town as well as its most shameless fraudster. Nearly as prestigious was the position of judge who was not not appointed by the authorities but selected by the local gentry at their meetings. In Gogol’s comedy, both officials who were supposed to defend the law, turned out to be the first ones to take bribes, and very large ones (Gogol’s contemporaries immediately understood that they did not live on a salary). All the officials are presented to the imaginary inspector in full uniforms with fencing swords which should signify “nobility”, “dignity” and “knighthood”. Nevertheless, they all bring large sums of money with them and give bribes to the “inspector”. Gogol’s contemporaries found that funny as they knew the sociocultural realities and norms of their society