The problem of “Gogol and Dante” sprang up in Russian culture just after the poem “Dead Souls” (1842) had been published. The sharp critical discussion started around genre definition of the Gogol’s book. In it Stepan Shevyriev saw the work comparative with “The Devine Comedy” in its scale. The author of the first Russian dissertation about Dante and the translator of his poem also paid the attention to the similarity of spread comparisons or according to the other term “Homer’s” comparisons in Gogol and Dante’s. In connection with it another contemporary of Gogol Konstantin Aksakov said about Gogol as the author reviving the spirit and style of the ancient Homer’s epos in his poem. They were strongly opposed by Vissarion Belinsky noticing that the both critics absolutely ignored irony of Gogol’s comparisons. This irony points out to radical transformation of the traditional genre forms. From his point of view “Dead Souls” is a genius social psychological novel.
The first associations of the first volume of “Dead Souls” with “Hell” by Dante already appeared among contemporaries of the writer (A. Hertzen). And the comparison of the second and the third parts of Gogol’s book with “Purgatory” and “Paradise” by Dante became the subject of critical reflection after Gogol himself had half-discovered the veil from the idea of poem continuation in his book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with my Friends”. Firstly, it is the promise to show the heroes of the other type, “characters important than the previous ones”. Secondly, it is the aim of the spiritual transformation of such personages from the first volume, like Chichikov and Plyushkin, it is a certain way of their souls’ salvation. But only by the beginning of the XXth century “Gogol and Dante” problem had turned to the sphere of academic scientific research from the area of free critical opinions.
A few aspects or rounds if using Dante term in studying this problem were outlined here. The first round is connected with the comparison of three-part idea of “Dead Souls” with the plan of “Divine Comedy”. Aleksey Veselovsky who tried reconstructing the idea of Gogol poem continuation made concrete steps in this direction. Particularly he made the parallel between the second volume and Dante’s “Purgatory”. D. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky and S. Shambinago interpretated the Gogol’s idea as the aspiration of creating the “moral religious poem” of Dante type in the first decade of the XXth century.
The second round of the research is connected with comparative analysis of poetic structures created by Gogol and Dante. Here, firstly, one should point to the fundamental works by Yury Mann (70-90-s) who emphasized on different levels of the interpretation of Dante’s tradition in Gogol’s work, it was defined as ironic and serious. To his mind the special perculiarity of Gogol’s poem is created on the base of the same structural principles which were used by Dante: they are like that to assimilation the part as a whole, outside as inside, material human existence as his soul history. Y.Mann convincingly proves that in the first volume Gogol, like Dante, chooses “the ethical principle in characters disposition”. Meanwhile the researcher expressed the doubt in possibility of making concrete A. Veselovsky’s supposition that the division “Dead Souls” into three parts had been appeared under Dante influence. Three parts as “general symbolic form” (Shelling) can go back to the both Christian Trinity and conception of the triad in classical German philosophy. To Y.Mann’s mind the interchange with the conceptual ideas and characters of Dante’s poem (Last Judgment and the requital after death, the salvation and rebirth of the soul) which got “formmaking role” in Gogol’s work is more convincing. The creators of the two great poems are brought together with the idea of messiah role of their works. But Gogol, in contrast to Dante, reproduces the function of the hero “led by the way of trials, temptation and salvation” from the author to the central character. According to the scientist’s words this election of Gogol’s character “makes him close to the character of “Divine Comedy”.
In Mariya Virolinen’s work “The problem of the enclosed form in Gogol aesthetics” (1994) another approach to comparison of structural principles in Gogol and Dante’s poems was proposed. The researcher explains Gogol’s failure in the realization of the ternary Dante’s model in such a way. Gogol’s prosaic word, in contrast to Dante verse, is not in the distance from the object described so it can’t perform the role of the enclosing aesthetics beginning. “Dante’s terza rima was the both outside formal sign and spiritual principle in organizing every item of his poem. As for Gogol, his ternary was the thing enveloping all the composition as a whole and not observing every local point as each point in Gogol poem included the forth self-dependent element of the Earth and matters.” As for Dante, all mundane, material “is raised to the divine area” thanks to the terza rima. Gogol’s heroic attempt to transform stagnant substance spiritually, enclose the World in the word is radically different from the form of Dante’s poem where “the enclosing principle is the verse”. According to M. Virolinen “archetypes of Dante and Homer conventionally speaking came across in “Dead Souls”.
The third circle of works includes the research interest in finding out Dante’s echoes in Gogol’s work, in research direct and semantic textual coincidences. Thus F.C. Drissen in his book “Gogol as a Short-Story Writer” (1965) compared the posthumous fate of the fratricide, biting his bones, from the story under the title “Terrible Revenge” with the fate of Dante’s Ugolino. Elena Smirnova found out the most amount of “Divine Comedy”’ images appearing in “Dead Souls”. In her work about Gogol’s poem (1987) the both conceptual philosophical interchanging with Dante and almost verbal textual coincidences for example in landscapes, in portraits of Beatrice and governor’s daughter are represented.
A new quite perspective way of studying Dante’s problem in Gogol’s work was offered by Nina Perlina at the beginning of our century. She suggested approaching to the genre problem of the both poems from the point of historical poetics. As it is known one of the major genre models used by Dante there were medieval visions of Hell and Paradise. Being guided by B. Yarho’s work about the genre of visions Perlina comes to the conclusion that the structure of visions can be considered as a common typological paradigm of the idea of “Dead Souls” and “Devine Comedy” performs the concrete constructive modelling role in accordance to the poem of Gogol.
In spite of great results in studying “Dante and Gogol” problem in the XXth century its solution has not to be spoken yet. But “Terrible Revenge” and “Dead Souls” the other texts by the author have not been particularly compared with Dante’s. It is necessary to answer the question how the Catholic conception of the purgatory as the escape from the punishment for sins could be connected in Gogol’s creation with the Orthodox doctrine of soul’s salvation in the base of which the dogma of getting rid of sin itself lays. In this aspect the problem of apocryphical literature influence as join chain in Gogol’s understanding of Dante tradition should be paid a special attention to Pavel Chichikov trip the idea of whose rebirth (in our opinion) is oriented to archetype of apostle Pavel can be compared with apocryphical “The Vision of apostle Pavel” which can be mentioned by Dante in his poem. We can also suppose descriptions of the Dante earth’s Paradise in Dante’s work are one of the most important source of the Earth’s Paradise theme going through all Gogol’s works. However courageous conceptions and particular research can not replace summarizing works which could become the base for all-embracing investigation. That is why Y. Mann’s conclusion made in 1994 is still of current importance. It runs: “The whole comparison of “Dead Souls” and “Divine Comedy” is the major goal of future researchers”.