Category of world centre in early works by N.V. Gogol

The Russian literature of the first third of the 19th century cannot be understood without studying physio-philosophy,which gave speculative ideas of the world in general. In particular, in Gogol's synthetic world outlook Nature was a universal categoryto explain the organization of the universe in terms of gnoseology and axiology (ethics, morale and aesthetics). In this context the ideaof the world centre turns out to be the key one in Gogol's physio-philosophy. The image of the world centre is a formal-substantialcomponent integrating his creative works. In his early works Gogol emphasizes the archetypical meaning in the image, converting ittherewith. Correlating archetypical semes with each other we will get their common semantic component - a point. which containsconcentrated energy and essence of everything, which possesses the harmonizing centripetal force. However, even in his early works thecentre of the world is different from the midpoint of stratification topology mainly proper to the medieval mind. The image of the centreof the world comes to be ambivalent, which is characteristic of young Gogol in general. Yet, this ambivalence is synthetic, which can beseen in his articles, letters and diaries. In these texts the writer creates an integral model of the world with a distinct center. In differenttexts they are objects with the semantics of the sacred centre: a tree, a garden, a house, a household, a church. The integrity of the worldwas sought by Gogol later in his first big literary work. In The Evening on a Farm Near Dikanka he represents ''the domestic space'' as auniverse where the plot of his stories develops. The local symbol of universal harmony with a clear-cut idea of centralization in the cycleis a village (and its centre - house, church), while the anthropological centre is the tribal unity of people. The world and the person aremost harmonious; the closer they are to the centre, the more clear-cut it is. Remoteness from the centre is associated with chaos andoblivion of tribal and natural laws. The author designs the world vertically by means of various objects with archetypical semantics ofthe world axis (which are mainly objects of nature, such as a tree, a mountain, an air ladder). This centre wants converging topologyrepresented by an ideal landscape in the author's space. The anti-centre is a variant of the world centre in the fantastic space of his storiesshowing false relations of people in the world. In its turn, the idea of the anti-centre comes from Gogol's idea of the world without asacral centre. In a situation like that the person has to look for individual guidelines and values, which depend on their spirituality, levelof peccancy, and others. The image of the world centre remains important in later works by the author, in which he sought to showNature as an objective givenness, as a scientific category.

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