The first performance of The Inspector at the theater takes place thanks to the intervention of the Tsar himself, overshadowing even Pushkin's masterpiece Boris Godunov. The play, particularly radical in both subject matter and style, caused a stir.
“...How did we let it happen like this? And I, how could I, the old fool! The foolishness has made me lose all sense!... For thirty years that I have served the State, not a single merchant, not a single businessman has outsmarted me. I deceived the most notorious scoundrels, the smartest thieves, those ready to steal the entire universe, I outmaneuvered them. I outsmarted three general inspectors! But the general inspectors too...”
The audience is divided in two. Those who see themselves in it become furious and call for its banning and the immediate punishment of Gogol. To be exiled immediately to Siberia! Those with a radical spirit view it from the correct perspective, as a strict, violent, decisive, yet humorous and liberating critique of the existing Russian reality, and not just that.
Because even today, The Inspector is a current, original, and youthful work, as bureaucracies exist, they are here, they oppress and complicate our lives, piling up woes and problems in all our lives.
Very few things would change if this work were set in our days, and it is certain that those who read it or see it will inevitably find someone next to them or even – if they have the courage – themselves within it. The proof is that the work is continuously staged and published in all countries around the world and in our homeland, achieving great success each time.
About the author: Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, the “cheerful melancholic,” as Pushkin referred to him, was born in Sorochyntsi, Ukraine, in March 1809 and died of hunger in February 1852 in Moscow. His childhood years were spent carefree in his ancestral home. Even from high school, he organized sketches and theater performances, in many of which he also acted. As a young man, he was appointed as a 14th-class clerk in Petersburg, where he barely survived among the poor, drowning in insignificance and misery.
Later, with the help of friends, he managed to be appointed as a teacher in a girls' school and then as a history professor at the University of Petersburg. Due to his precarious health, from 1836 to 1848, he spent most of his time in Rome, from where he went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1848. He returned from there to Moscow with severely disturbed nerves. Four years later, he was found in complete exhaustion, dead in front of the icons.
Gogol's work far exceeds the limits of his time. He is not only the one who penetrated and described plainly and convincingly the Russian reality, but he also became an unparalleled observer of even the smallest detail, possessing the most acute senses and sensitivity known, apart from Chekhov, in Russian literature. The dynamic of his work surpassed his intentions, giving it a universal dimension. For this reason, his masterpieces, such as The Inspector and Dead Souls, as well as Taras Bulba, Mirgorod, or The Arabesques, are continuously published and have devoted readers all over the world.
