From Nozdrev, Chichikov ends up with Sobakevich. As usual, Gogol first introduces the reader to the character’s abode. This is typical of Gogol’s manner in general and is motivated by the negotiations of 1 Chichikov, who must carefully examine the economy and immediately realize with whom he is dealing. Chichikov notices that the village, house, peasant huts and other buildings, right down to the well, are strong and heavy.

Everything looked awkward. There was no symmetry in the house, although the struggle between the architect and the owner for the beauty of the house was visible. Of course, the owner won, and the house looked ugly. The wooden huts of the peasants were also strong, but again ugly and sad: “... there were no bricked walls, carved patterns and other devices...”. In a word, there was a clumsy, rough heaviness in everything that Chichikov saw. The owner himself, who seemed to Chichikov “very similar to a medium-sized bear,” matched the manor buildings. Nature thought a little about the figure and face of Mikhaila Semenovich: she “simply chopped from all over the shoulder, grabbed with an ax once - the nose came out, grabbed another - the lips came out, picked out the eyes with a large drill and, without scraping, let it into the light...”. In a word, a beast-like man came out, looking like both a bear and a dog.

"Dead Souls". Sobakevich. Artist P. Boklevsky

At the same time, the description of the situation convinces us that Sobakevich is a strong owner, that his peasants are well-fed, clothed and shod. Sobakevich is guided by monetary calculations. Mikhailo Semenovich is not stupid at all. Before Chichikov had time to evasively and vaguely hint at his negotiations, Sobakevich immediately asked: “Do you need dead souls?” And then the famous bargaining took place. It was all about the price. ridicule.

So, Sobakevich’s passion is calculation, money. Here he does not think about whether he commits or does not commit a crime. Sobakevich's prudence makes him businesslike, but ponderous, clumsy and rude. An intelligent man, he turned into an inert, dull, clumsy “bear”, sitting almost forever in his strong, but ugly, unkind estate-den.

Sobakevich had the makings. He is not indifferent to modern events, to what is happening in the world. In Sobakevich’s living room, as Chichikov examined, there were paintings that depicted “well done” - “Greek commanders”, and not from some ancient times, but fighters for the independence of Greece in the 1820s. Sobakevich understands well that contemporary Russian life has shrunk him, and that both the peasants and he himself are no longer such powerful people as their fathers were. Today's peasants, argues Sobakevich, “are not people, but flies.” To the assumption of the Chairman of the Chamber that he, Mikhailo Semenovich, like his father once, could knock down a bear, he replies: “No, I won’t.” All the makings, great health and remaining remarkable strength of Sobakevich are wasted in a remote outback. There is no space where they could turn around.

In the heroic body the soul dies, spiritually motionless, heavy and inert. It’s not for nothing that Sobakevich is a fierce opponent of education and science: “They interpret it as enlightenment, enlightenment, but this enlightenment is bullshit!” Instead of saturating the soul with the fruits of reason and feeling, Sobakevich devours a side of lamb and threatens to eat a pig, a goose, and a ram. A soul without spiritual food sooner or later dies, even if the mortal body and womb receive several dishes. He needs money to satisfy the exorbitant carnal capabilities of his powerful organism. Sobakevich's body lives at the expense of his soul, which is doomed to death. His guilt is incommensurable with the guilt of Manilov, Korobochka and Nozdryov. Gogol did not need to denounce Sobakevich with the author’s word: the pictures he painted are quite eloquent, especially since Sobakevich, like Nozdryov, is a bright, catchy character, ridiculing and exposing himself.

1 Negotiation - commercial transaction, trade.
2 Kirchen - smoothly hewn.

The landowner Sobakevich is a very colorful character in Gogol’s “Dead Souls”, outwardly reminiscent of a bear with his clumsiness, massiveness and tendency to gluttony. He prefers half a side of lamb or a whole sturgeon to French delicacies such as frog legs or oysters. At the same time, Sobakevich is proud of his Russian heroic stomach, capable of digesting any food, and even in huge quantities. He openly mocks the diets of the French and Germans, and Sobakevich’s characterization is already evident quite clearly in this episode. After lunch at Mikhail Semenovich's, Chichikov, who is buying dead souls from landowners, feels a whole pound heavier.

The guest is struck by the fact that Sobakevich gives only negative characteristics to everyone around the landowner: his governor is almost a highwayman, the prosecutor is a pig, and his neighbor Plyushkin is a dog. This is where the characterization of Sobakevich in Nikolai Gogol’s “Dead Souls” appears very clearly.

Conversation between Sobakevich and Chichikov

By nature, Sobakevich is so unperturbed that he doesn’t even raise an eyebrow at Chichikov’s amazing offer to sell him dead souls; he immediately begins to bargain, asking for an exorbitantly high price - 100 rubles per soul. If we remember Chichikov’s visit to Korobochka, then Nastasya Petrovna in a similar situation even bulged her eyes out of amazement.

He bargains on a kulak scale, but the price per head eventually drops to two and a half rubles. This behavior is typical of Sobakevich’s calculating and tight-fisted nature.

Also speaking about the characteristics of Sobakevich, we note that he is not distinguished by his fine mental organization, flexibility of mind and desire for enlightenment, but he is a strong business executive who owns a large, well-equipped village. He himself lives in a good-quality house with a mezzanine, and his peasants have strong and durable houses. In Mikhail Semenovich’s household, order and prosperity can be seen everywhere and in everything. You can also read quotes from the poem “Dead Souls”, which mention the words of the landowner Sobakevich.

Sobakevich loves everything strong, even if it is simple in appearance. The bulky and durable pieces of furniture surrounding Mikhail Semenovich seem to say that they, too, are Sobakevichs.

Of the gallery of landowners presented by Nikolai Gogol in Dead Souls, Sobakevich is the most positive and least vulgar literary hero, despite all his down-to-earthness.

E.V. Amelina

The main features of Sobakevich are intelligence, efficiency, practical acumen, but at the same time he is characterized by tight-fistedness, some kind of ponderous stability in his views, character, and lifestyle. These features are already noticeable in the portrait of the hero, who looks like a “medium-sized” bear. And his name is Mikhail Semenovich.
In Sobakevich’s portrait we can feel the grotesque motive of the hero’s rapprochement with an animal, with a thing. Thus, Gogol emphasizes the limited interests of the landowner in the world of material life.
Gogol also reveals the qualities of the hero through landscape, interior and dialogues. It is characteristic that the motif of heroism reappears here, “playing the role of a positive ideological pole in the poem.” This motif reflected Gogol’s dream of Russian heroism, which, according to the writer, lies not only in physical strength, but also in the “countless wealth of the Russian spirit.” However, in the image of Sobakevich, the “wealth of the Russian spirit” is suppressed by the world of material life. The landowner is concerned only with preserving his wealth and the abundance of the table. Most of all, he loves to eat well and tasty, not recognizing foreign diets. Here Gogol debunks gluttony, one of the human vices that Orthodoxy fights.
Sobakevich is insightful in his own way, endowed with a sober view of things. Sobakevich's intelligence, his insight and, at the same time, the “wildness”, unsociability, and unsociability of the landowner are manifested in his speech. Sobakevich expresses himself very clearly, concisely, without excessive “prettiness” or floridity. When discussing acquaintances, the landowner may swear and use “strong words.” The image of Sobakevich in the poem is static: readers are not presented with the hero’s life story, or any of his spiritual changes. However, the character that appears before us is lively and multifaceted.

"All the heroes of works of Russian literature": School curriculum: Dictionary-reference book

The name itself, used many times by the narrator, indicates the hero’s powerful “animal-likeness”, his bear-dog features. All this connects Sobakevich with the type of rude landowner Taras Skotinin from Fonvizin’s “Minor.” However, this connection is more external than internal; The author's attitude towards the hero is much more complicated here.
In Sobakevich’s house there are hanging paintings depicting entirely “well done” Greek heroic commanders of the early 1820s, whose images seem to have been copied from himself. This is Mavrocordato in red trousers and with glasses on his nose, Colocotroni and others, all with thick thighs and incredible mustaches. (Obviously, in order to emphasize their power, a “Georgian” one was inserted among the “Greek” portraits - the image of a skinny Bagration.) The Greek heroine Bobelina is also endowed with magnificent thickness - her leg is wider than the torso of some dandy. “Greek” images, sometimes in parody, sometimes in earnest, constantly appear on the pages of “Dead Souls” and run through the entire plot space of Gogol’s poem, which was initially likened to Homer’s “Iliad.” These images echo and rhyme with the central “Roman” image of Virgil, who leads Dante through the circles of Hell - and, pointing to the ancient ideal of plastic harmony, they clearly highlight the imperfection of modern life.
But for all his “heaviness” and rudeness, Sobakevich is unusually expressive. The fact that natural power and efficiency seemed to become heavy in him and turned into dull inertia is more a misfortune than a fault of the hero.
If Manilov lives completely outside of time, if time in Korobochka’s world has slowed down terribly, like her hissing wall clock, and tipped over into the past (as indicated by Kutuzov’s portrait), and Nozdryov lives only in each given second, then Sobakevich is registered in modern times, in 1820 's (the era of Greek heroes). Unlike all the previous characters and in full agreement with the narrator, Sobakevich - precisely because he himself is endowed with excess, truly heroic strength - sees how the present life has been crushed, how weakened. During the bargaining, he remarks: “However, even then: what kind of people are these? flies, not people,” are much worse than dead people.
The more God has built into a personality, the more terrible the gap between its purpose and real state. But the greater the chances for the revival and transformation of the soul. Sobakevich is the first in a series of types outlined by Gogol who is directly correlated with one of the characters in the 2nd volume, where the heroes are depicted, although by no means ideal, but still cleared of many of their passions. Sobakevich’s thriftiness, the “Greek” portraits on the walls, the “Greek” name of his wife (Feodulia Ivanovna) will echo in rhyme in the Greek name and social type of the zealous landowner Kostanzhoglo. And the connection between Sobakevich’s name - Mikhailo Ivanovich - and the “humanoid” bears from Russian fairy tales roots his image in the ideal space of folklore, softening the “animal” associations. But at the same time, the “negative” properties of Sobakevich’s zealous soul seem to be projected onto the image of the stingy Plyushkin, condensed in him to the last degree.

B.V. Sokolov

In the rough draft of the final chapter of either the first or second volume of the poem, Gogol defines him this way: “... the rogue Sobakevich, not at all noble in spirit and feelings, however, did not ruin the peasants, did not allow them to be either drunkards or loiterers " The image of Sobakevich reflected, in particular, M. Pogodin. The characterization of Sobakevich as a kulak, in all likelihood, goes back to Gogol’s quarrel with Pogodin, when the latter refused to hand over the previously agreed upon author’s reprints of the story “Rome.” As M. Shchepkin recalled, Gogol admitted to him: ““Oh, you don’t know what it means to deal with a fist!” - “So why are you contacting him?” – I picked up. - “Because I owe him six thousand rubles in banknotes: so he’s pressing. I hate being published in magazines - no, he snatched this article from me! So, how did he print it? He didn’t even let me correct it, even in proofreading. Why this is so, he alone knows.” Well, I thought, that’s because it’s so because he won’t be able to do it any other way: it’s his (Pogodin’s) nature to do everything, as they say, a clumsy mess.” Also, in Sobakevich, all the objects in the house and on the estate seem to have been cut out with an ax, one might say, a blunder, with concern only for their functional purpose, without any concern for grace.
Belinsky, in the article “Answer to the Muscovite” (1847), noted: “Sobakevich is the antipode of Manilov: he is rude, uncouth, a glutton, a rogue and a fist; but the huts of his men were built, although clumsily, but firmly, from good timber, and it seems that his men lived well in them. Let us assume that the reason for this is not humanity, but calculation, but a calculation that presupposes common sense, a calculation that, unfortunately, sometimes does not happen among people with a European education, who send their men around the world on the basis of a rational economy. The advantage is again negative, but if it had not been in Sobakevich, Sobakevich would have been even worse: therefore, he is better with this negative advantage.”
The characterization of Sobakevich as a “fist” is purely negative. We find confirmation of this in Gogol’s letter to A. Danilevsky dated October 29, 1848: “Life in Moscow has now become much more expensive. A barely single person can now live with just three thousand, but a married man can hardly manage without 8 thousand—I mean, a married man who would lead the most confident life and observe the strictest economy in everything. Almost all of my friends are sitting without money, in upset circumstances, and can’t figure out how to fix them. With money there are only fists, scoundrels, and all sorts of grabbers. This made both society and life in Moscow somehow noticeably more boring...” A. Galkin noticed the deep connection between Sobakevich and Korobochka at the level of their names and patronymics, Mikhailo Semenovich and Nastasya Petrovna, like a bear and a she-bear from a folk tale. This connection emphasizes the rudeness, uncouthness, in a cultural sense, of both characters, and at the same time - their acumen, thoroughness, and to some extent - their closeness to the people, to the same peasants, in tastes and habits.

The image of the landowner Sobakevich in the poem “Dead Souls”

The description of the village and the landowner's economy indicates a certain wealth. “The yard was surrounded by a strong and excessively thick wooden lattice. The landowner seemed to be concerned a lot about strength. The village huts of the peasants were also cut down in a marvelous way. everything fit tightly and properly.”

Describing Sobakevich's appearance, Gogol resorts to a zoological comparison - comparing the landowner with a bear. Sobakevich is a glutton. In his judgments about where, he rises to a kind of “gastronomic” pathos: “When I have pork, put the whole pig on the table, lamb, bring the whole lamb, goose, the whole goose!” However,

Sobakevich, and in this he differs from Plyushkin and most other landowners, except perhaps Korobochka, has a certain economic streak: he does not ruin his own serfs, achieves a certain order in the economy, profitably sells dead souls to Chichikov, knows very well the business and human qualities of his peasants.

The image of Sobakevich occupies a worthy place in the gallery of landowners. “A fist! And a beast to boot,” - this is how Chichikov described him. Sobakevich is undoubtedly a hoarding landowner. His village is large and well-equipped. All the buildings, although clumsy, are extremely strong. Sobakevich himself reminded Chichikov of a medium-sized bear - large, clumsy. In the portrait of Sobakevich there is no description at all of the eyes, which, as is known, are the mirror of the soul. Gogol wants to show that Sobakevich is so rude and uncouth that his body “had no soul at all.” In Sobakevich’s rooms everything is as clumsy and large as he himself. The table, armchair, chairs and even the blackbird in the cage seemed to be saying: “And I, too, are Sobakevich.” Sobakevich takes Chichikov’s request calmly, but demands 100 rubles for each dead soul, and even praises his goods like a merchant. Speaking about the typicality of such an image, Gogol emphasizes that people like Sobakevich are found everywhere - in the provinces and in the capital. After all, the point is not in appearance, but in human nature: “no, whoever is a fist cannot bend into a palm.” Rude and uncouth Sobakevich is the ruler over his peasants. What if someone like that were to rise higher and give him more power? How much trouble he could do! After all, he adheres to a strictly defined opinion about people: “The swindler sits on the swindler and drives the swindler around.”

/ Characteristics of heroes / Gogol N.V. / Dead souls / Sobakevich

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LITERATURUS: World of Russian Literature

Analysis of works. Characteristics of heroes. Essay materials

Sobakevich's peasants in the poem "Dead Souls": a description of the life of the peasants and Sobakevich's attitude towards them

Artist A. Laptev

Peasants of Sobakevich and their life in the village

On Sobakevich’s estate, the life of the peasants is organized and streamlined. The thorough Sobakevich likes everything to be done firmly and conveniently:

"The landowner seemed to be concerned a lot about strength." "In a word, everything he looked at was stubborn, without swaying, in some kind of strong and clumsy order." Outbuildings are made of thick logs that can stand for centuries:

"For the stables, barns and kitchens, full-weight and thick logs were used, determined to stand for centuries." "Even the well was lined with such strong oak, the kind that is used only for mills and ships."

Sobakevich's attitude towards the peasants

Sobakevich “tinkers” with his peasants and participates in farm work:

"... provincial life, grain crops, fussing with men." The landowner Sobakevich does not offend his peasants. It is in his own interest that the peasants are happy. After all, this is how serfs work better and bring more income to the master:

"... you have men under your power: you are in harmony with them and, of course, you will not offend them, because they are yours, but it will be worse for you." (Chichikov about Sobakevich) Sobakevich is proud of his peasants, including the dead. Selling “dead souls” to Chichikov, Sobakevich boasts of their skill:

". After all, this is what people are like! This is not something that some Plyushkin will sell you." "What kind of people are they? Just gold." Sobakevich knows his serfs personally. He can tell something about each “dead soul”:

". not only was the craft, rank, years and family fortune spelled out in detail, but even in the margins there were special notes about behavior and sobriety." Read more about some of Sobakevich’s peasants in the article: “Dead Souls” by Sobakevich.