The enigmas of “The Vij” and the plot developments in Gogol’s Ukrainian fairy-tales

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Boris A. Maximov

PhD in Philology, Senior Researcher at the Chair of Foreign Journalism and Literature, Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia

e-mail: esprit25@rambler.ru

Section: History of Journalism

Although Gogol has settled “The Vij” outside the “Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka”, this mysterious story literally crowns his Ukrainian fairy-tales, drawing together all their major plot elements. Therefore my investigation is aimed at tracing the development of Gogol`s plot structures from the “Evenings” to “The Vij”. The movement towards the “origins” may help us explain some enigmas of the latter.

Keywords: Gogol, The Vij, plot, probation, disbalance, purification