Is the "Inspector General" contemporary? Gogol is really relevant

Comedy "Inspector" Gogol, as you know, created, using the idea given by Pushkin. The prototype of the impostor-auditor was a real historical person - a certain Pavel Svinin. A complex and interesting task - to bring together and ridicule the Russian mechanism of provincial power - was pursued by the comedy that Gogol, the Inspector-General wrote.

The heroes of the work are typical contemporaries of the author of "Dikanka": the mayor Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky, who takes large bribes and knows everything about everyone; Judge Lyapkin-Tyapkin, who "executes justice" on the basis of personal gain and "turning the law as a drawbar"; Chronically cowardly inspector of colleges, "foul onions", afraid of both the authorities and subordinates; An unscrupulous curator of the charitable institutions of Strawberries (whose people in hospitals died like flies); Unsympathetic postmaster Shpekin, opening envelopes and reading letters "out of curiosity." The whole essence of the activities of power: externally - fussy efforts, deeper - bribery, theft showed NV Gogol. "Inspector" also clearly defines what motivates these people to work together. Everything is very simple: the fear of losing the "place" triggered by the governor. After all, everything is known about everyone. Everyone "sits on his pole". It is amazing that Anton Antonovich (the governor himself), breaking the law more than others, sincerely considers himself a bearer of morality and a believer.

A petty, insignificant official of Khlestakov, despised even by servant Osip, stayed by the way in a hotel in a provincial town. He follows in Saratov to his father. His success in the service - not brilliant. Father, apparently, is going to make his son "suggestion" and "reset" his career. But the twenty-three-year-old blunderer loses pocket money, remaining "on beans." At that time, the informative gossips and talkers, the landowners Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky, spurred on by the egoistic desire - the first to "calculate" the inspector who came to the city, decide because of their meanness that Khlestakov is an inspector. Gogol shows how they manage to convince even the governor. Then the circus begins. Khlestakov, realizing who he was being received, decided on a desperate deception, introducing himself as an inspector from the capital. A young man is not burdened with either intelligence, conscience, or decency. He lies in an inspired and selfless way about his high connections and patrons. He asks from high officials, starting with the governor, money in debt. Those willingly give them, without even assuming their return, considering the sum transferred to Khlestakov as a banal regular bribe. When a young scoundrel, wooing to the daughter of the governor, simultaneously "picks wedges" against his wife - the culmination of the absurd theater of the comedy "The Inspector General" is reached. Gogol, however, does not bring the matter to the wedding. The deceiver, obedient to the wise servant of Osip, escapes from an early exposure, taking the money.

At the end of the play, the Skvoznik-Dmukhanovsky character "speaks the bitter truth" already with the mouth of the author, saying the key phrase that the anecdotal situation described in the comedy is the laughter of Russians over themselves. The work ends with the famous scene of "stupor" of the province's beau monde from the news received about the arrival of this auditor in the city.

Is the "Inspector General" contemporary? Gogol, incidentally, has long been familiar to Israeli theater audiences. The real success for the production of comedy came after the localization of the plot and its complete transfer to the soil of this country. The Israeli direction proceeds from the fact that the classical playwright Gogol gave the main thing - the instrument for staging the play, but the modern governesses, judges, trustees of establishments are much more sophisticated than those originally shown by the writer. Therefore, the production is done in a modern colloquial language, using slang. Success exceeded all expectations. The internal potential inherent in Gogol's idea allowed the author of the Israeli performance to write the script of the whole series later, which also proved to be in demand.