HISTORICAL MYTHOLOGY IN THE FIRST LITTLE RUSSIAN SHORT STORY OF N. GOGOL “EVENING ON THE EVE OF IVAN KUPALA”

The article deals with Nikolai Gogol’s first novel “Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala” (1830), and studies the difference between its early and canonical editions, that argues for an attempt of an emerging author to create the “poetic history” of the people. The history in question is based on the traditional motifs of Slavic folklore: the love between two orphans, the separation of lovers (and the death of one or both of them afterwards), the soul selling, the “accidental” crime and God’s punishment for apostasy. Such a motif system of the story refers to an epic coverage of the events, that is characteristic for a fairy tale, while the description of the hero’s life — from his birth to his marriage and death — and of the typical for those times path to Cossacks can be attributed to the formal signs of the novel. However, the key feature of the novel is the negative characterization of the institution of Cossacs given here, conditioned by the previously existing official point of view, which contradicts its image in other Little Russian novels of the great writer. In the early prose of Gogol, Little Russia was first depicted as the land of miracles, the area of poetic world, with its history translated in legends, songs, and tales of its people