Dead Souls

By Nikilai Gogal

I picked up this book because I understand that it is highly recommended by Putin.  It’s not that I am a Putin fan, but rather I wanted to understand the personality of Russia’s leader.  Apparently Dead Souls could be considered a Russian classic of the 19^th Century.  The work itself is actually incomplete and therefore needs an introduction to explain how a reader should grapple with incompleteness.  Later works by Gogal, separate from the book, present different endings.  In reality the original seems to draw a conclusion sufficient to claim an ending and so you have to wonder why the drama around incompleteness.  Ironically a German mathematician named Kurt Godel explored and wrote a theorem that nothing is complete.   And tragically ironic, few people know of Godel’s work and  so they possess the anxiety of leaving any work undone.  I do muse at the similarity of the names born in succeeding centuries.  The best I can conclude on this question is that the various endings would change the moral message of an otherwise bland though bizarre adventure through rural Russian villages of the mid 1800’s. Thus society is unnecessarily and therefore ironically appeased.

The story line begins with a middle aged member of the gentry class, Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, venturing through rural Russia with two serfs to manage the carriage and his belongings.  The scene setting is soaked in color and humor.  The reader cannot avoid appreciating the manor of dress that each character would wear.   AT books end one couldn’t help but go out and purchase a ‘frock coat’.   It’s as though color of scene helped the author make humorous quips about the character conflict with himself in the mirror and the interplay with other characters.  Irony places the book on par with Greek Tragedy.  So in that a theme of bizarre quest becomes the center of discussion for the author who tells the story in third person. 

Chichikov is a charismatic man who rides in his carriage into any town and instantly charms the people he meats.  Well aware of his skill to charm, Chichikov targets first city officials and then land owners.  If you owned a serf, you were a target.  The reader, becomes familiar with the cultural landscape of 19^th century Russia in terms of how towns a seem to thrive at the will of one land owner of upper aristocratic class of men with title, through the gentry to the, peasants and then serfs.  Chechikov’s quest is to purchase Dead Souls.  So this idea on its own is bizarre.  As the story unfolds understanding what exactly a dead soul is and where its usefulness only makes things slightly less bizarre.  Or you might look at it as bizarre from a bureaucratic perspective.

Amidst this drama, the reader first becomes attuned to Chichikov’s scheme.  His targeting methods include charm. His negotiating methods were brutal.  He would know by title those that would own serfs and so they are primary targets.  However, he is no stranger to pursue word-of-mouth references of which he wastes no time going from one home to another. He negotiates first as though he is helping out a lifelong friend, of whom he just met.  The conversation is logical until the target seller asks difficult questions.  As the layers of questions stack up, Chichikov will finally find himself red in the face demanding  the conveyance of deeds to souls of serfs who have died. 

Over time the town folks evolve from  first a unanimous opinion that this new-comer to town is to be revered as a person of nobility to a person of scandalous corruption.  The gossip begins with the women who then convince their husbands, who then convince each other that something must be done.  This is all done in a tornado of gossip that springs to a climax while Chichikov is nursing a cold.  By the time he is recuperated enough to come out on the town he learns he is being brought to trial.  His only saving grace is the town folks catch themselves being caught up in the folly of escalating gossip and nothing of fact to convict Chichikov.

None the less Chichikov realizes it’s time to move on as he has exacted all he can from the town.  In his ride to the next town, the author takes time to circle back on Chichikov’s past where the reader learns what formulated Chichikov’s motives and methods.  He was a man made by Russia and his methods were formulated by the bureaucracy of Royal Russia.  Ironically as history has it the 20^th century Communist  Russia changed nothing to improve the life of a rural Russian.  So far in to the 21^st century, it would be public opinion that corrupt bureaucracy is still at the core of Russian society.  And it seems they embrace it as a part of their heritage.   I would suggest that Putin as well as most Russian are charmed by the book because they have lifelong first and experience with a society that does not hold justice out as a centerpiece of their core values.  They are who they are.  Not being Russian I could be their accuser and public defender at the same time and say there is a sense of justice stemming from their Christian values, however it is covered with a heavy blanket of civil corruption.