1. Reconstructing Gogol''s Project to Write a History of Ukraine.
- Author
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Karpuk, Paul A.
- Subjects
- *
UNFINISHED books , *RUSSIAN authors , *RUSSIAN manuscripts , *AUTHORS' correspondence , *19TH century Russian authors , *HISTORIOGRAPHY ,UKRAINIAN history ,RUSSIAN intellectual life, 1801-1917 - Abstract
This article constitutes an attempt, previously not undertaken in the critical literature, to collate all the known information concerning Nikolai Gogol''s work in 1833-1834 on a history of Ukraine, and, based on this evidence, to formulate a reasoned conclusion as to how much of the history he might have completed beyond what purports to be the introductory chapter, initially published under the title "Fragment from a History of Little Russia" and later as "A Glance at the Composition of Little Russia." Gogol''s original plan was to write a history of Ukraine from the time southern Rus' separated from the northern as a consequence of the conquest of Kyiv by the Mongols in 1240 and later the absorption of Kyivan Rus' by Lithuania in the mid-14th century. The "Fragment" is almost certainly the only part of it, as per this plan, ever written, and is itself probably unfinished, because the writer broke off work on it when he redesigned the history, intending now to begin with the early history of the Eastern Slavs and the founding of the Kyivan state. A two-page prose fragment found among what is represented in the 1937-1952 Academy edition of Gogol''s complete collected works as the writer's notes on Russian history, represents the new beginning, but this breaks off as well, and what would have constituted its continuation is still in the form of an outline and notes, so that, logically, no continuation of either beginning can be expected to surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2009
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