Character History
Captain Kopekin - Hero of Roman Nicholas Gogol "Dead Souls". His story, albeit a mansion from the main storyline, is also subordinated to the leading idea of the work - "surning soul." Kopekin is a typical "little man", forced to fight the system that suffers defeat and moves to revenge.History of character creation
The image of the captain goes back to the folklore source - a song about a retired soldier, who from a difficult life came to the robbers. Kopeikin's prototype was not an officer, but the rest of their fate is very similar.
With the main narrative line, the life of Captain Copeikina is connected weakly. We learn his story from the postmaster, a simple rude man, for whom it is no more than a funny bike, which he tells at the dining table. He recalls Kopeykin when it comes to the personality of Pavel Chichikov, assuming that the name of the Machinator-buyer of the "dead souls" is hidden by the hero of the old history.
The author, describing the image of an extra person, resorts to the reception of contrast: the close room of Captain Copeikin is compared with the luxurious quantities of a high-ranking official, his miserable lunch - with abundant trapes in restaurants where Veelmembrazheb. Gogol was proud of Novella about him, considering it the main decoration of the novel, and was very distressed when censorship forced him to change the appearance of Kopeikin beyond recognition.
History and image of Captain Copeikina
There is no fact that a detailed description of the character and its biography, but even a name. Gogol deliberately de blows the hero, because Kopekin is embodied suffering, a collective image of people seeking truth.
Captain - Hero of War of 1812, a disabled, who lost his leg and hand, is trying to receive material compensation from the authorities. Although Kopekin comes from the noble family, he threatens full poverty, since to contain his relatives are not able. Having collected the last funds, the retired officer goes from the far province to St. Petersburg.
The royal luxury of the city is striking the hero. The amazement of Kopeikina at the sight of buildings, the carriage and abundance of important persons around partly repeats the emotions described by Gogol in the story "Night before Christmas". But if the smith vacuum in St. Petersburg has gained his luck, then for Kopeykin, the journey turns into a crushing failure.
The captain comes to bow to the "Minister or Welcome", which is easy to find out the features of A. Arakcheev, and receives an encouraging answer. On joys, Kopekin spends almost all the money in the nearest restaurant. He does not suspect that in fact no one is going to help him: every day, coming to the reception, he hears only the request of "come back tomorrow."
Brought to despair, the hero breaks through the reception and requires promised assistance. For the audacity, he was immediately sent to his native province, where he scratching his hopelessness to a criminal road - he collects a gang and begins to rob in the surrounding forests.
In the first edition, the story about Kopeikin had a distinctly prescribed final in which Gogol described what exactly he was engaged in the hero after returning to his homeland. Collective the gang of the same retired soldiers, he began to take revenge on officials with fierce. The robbers did not touch the peasants sent by their affairs - their target was "all stateless": the gang chose money intended for payment of filters. So that the collectors do not require money from people for the second time, Ataman gave the fake receipts about the debt repayment before the treasury.
Later, the writer, fearing censorship, softened the sharp points of the plot and removed the ending - the postmaster only hints at the "dark cases", which Kopekin took up, but does not describe them. However, even in a softened form, the story came across difficulty in publication. In an ultimative tone, the publisher demanded to remove the plug-in novel or make radical edits into it. The author stubbornly fought in order to preserve the role of the captain in the work in primeval form, but everything turned out to be unsuccessful.
As a result, the story remained, but I had to muffle all satirical accents in it. Gogol greatly disassembled such an outcome of the case. Quotes from his letters have been preserved, in which it is mentioned that he considered the pummage of the novel, and the rejection of the initial intended image left in the narration "to break, which is nothing to patch."
In the published form, the characteristic of the character suggests that the captain himself is to blame for his misadventures. However, one hint of the ambiguity of the history of Nikolai Gogol still "dragged" to print: the postmaster, evading from the description of what Kopekin did in the forests, hints that this is "a whole poem" - at least in St. Petersburg, he no longer heard about him The hero was able to show himself and revenge.
Captain Kopekin in films
In the multi-sealer screenization of the "dead shower" of 1984, Kopeikina played actor Valery Zolotukhin. In 2005, a multi-sieuled film "The case of dead souls", "in which the image of Captain revealed Peter Soldiers.In 1934, Mikhail Bulgakov prepared a filmcenery based on Gogol's novel, in which rethought the image of Kopeykin. In it, the captain is no longer a pitiful, brought to despair: And the embodiment of the idea of the Russian people, ready to stand up for himself and take revenge on the oppression. The captain at Bulgakov comes closer to the image of Yemelyan Pugacheva: he has "unlaced physiognomy", the volatile beard, the icon on the neck and the causing behavior manner. In the course of his robbery, his robbery grows up to the Terrible Army, inspiring the panic fear of the authorities.
In the film, the idea of Bulgakov had to mitigate significantly. At one time, Kopekin did not like the tsar censorship, and his updated image did not approve the Soviet, having considered the image of the peasant leader so rude, unleashed and cruel.
Bibliography
- 1842 - "Dead Souls"
- 1934 - "Chichikov's adventures, or dead souls" (filmcenery)
Filmography
- 1909 - "Dead Souls"
- 1960 - "Dead Souls"
- 1984 - "Dead Souls"
- 2005 - "The case of" dead souls ""