Let's think about why Chichikov bought dead souls? It is clear that this question is of great interest to schoolchildren when doing homework on literature. Therefore, let’s intelligently talk about N.V. Gogol’s novel “Dead Souls”. So, why does Chichikov need dead souls? Thus, Chichikov wanted to get rich.
In the novel, “souls” were only on paper. In fact, Chichikov bought land and to develop new territories, he needed (dead) souls. In other words, each peasant was entitled to certain money in the form of
On their estates, which supposedly exist. Therefore, Chichikov was engaged in buying up dead souls. The hero of Gogol's novel did not find any other way to get rich.
Why did Chichikov buy dead souls? Actually, to answer this question in more detail, you need to find out who Chichikov is. Chichikov is a retired collegiate adviser. The hero of the poem (as Nikolai Gogol called his novel) “Dead Souls” Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov is a former official or schemer. All he did was buy up dead souls. What are dead souls? Dead souls are information written down by hand about deceased peasants.
He pawned these souls, as if they were alive, in a pawnshop, thereby acquiring a certain weight in society. Chichikov is a very well-groomed character. Always maintained good hygiene. Always clean and neatly dressed and shod. Even having arrived in the village, it looks as if it had just come from a barber or tailor.
In principle, it is now clear why Chichikov bought dead souls. Chichikov is a very non-conflict hero, it is difficult to quarrel with him. Clever, easy-going, courteous and pleasant, he is engaged in buying up dead souls from landowners. But in the second volume of the novel, Chichikov hardly succeeds in this, because other landowners have become fashionable for pawning souls in pawn shops. Financial fraud does not pass without a trace for Chichikov. At the end of the novel, he buys an estate and falls for an inheritance scam, almost dying in prison and hard labor.
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Essays on topics:
- Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” is based on the adventures of the main character Chichikov, who buys up “dead souls”. He is the personification of the Russian landowner...
- Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”, which appeared in the 40s of the 19th century, revealed the satirical talent of the writer, who rises in thunderous laughter...
- I consider Nikolai Vasilyevich’s poem one of the most important, great, interesting and significant works of Russian, and indeed world literature...
Fad or scam of the century..
Just go figure out why Mr. Pavel Ivanovich suddenly decided to acquire dead souls, not understanding the reasons and not knowing the laws of that time. Therefore, you should take a closer look at both the text itself and the current legislation regarding the serf souls of Gogol’s time.
In Chapter 11, the “respectable” gentleman comes to such an idea, suggested to him not by anyone, but by the Secretary of the Guardian Council himself. One only expressed the standards of the law, and the second, having a sharp mind, immediately realized how to turn this law to the benefit of his wallet.
In general, Gogol himself very clearly describes in the novel the whole process of fraud, scams with dead souls, here you have “revision tales”, here you have the settlement of certain territories for free, in general, the most favorable moments for the implementation of a daring adventure, so just act and don't be afraid of anything. And in general, you can’t say that the law is directly violated, right? So it turns out, translating economic scams into today’s terms, that the most difficult to prove are precisely the scams and frauds committed within the “framework of the law.” Sounds absurd? Well, that’s why we love Gogol, that’s why we appreciate him, because he was written not for the needs of the moment, but for centuries of history.
Chichikov's motivation
Benefit, enrichment? Yes. But referring to the lines of Gogol himself, it was not the money or capital itself that attracted Chichikov’s attention; he was more susceptible to desires to have luxurious carriages, a mansion, and the opportunity to live in grand style. As a result, the second reason follows - human envy.
Envy is a vice that is difficult to get rid of or escape.
Children's question? This can be attributed rather to the weakness of Chichikov’s nature, who found himself subjected to such a scrupulous “vice,” for the question: “What will the children think?” often tormented the hero. I see this detail of the character as an element of absurdism, by analogy with the description of images, in the same way.
However, thanks to one’s accumulated, preferably extensive capital, having an even more profitable marriage that can increase one’s fortune can also be considered one of the incentives for Chichikov’s enrichment. And wealth is power, respect, honor, high status. Those. If we take into account all the reasons for buying “dead souls”, then Chichikov bought them for his own enrichment...
Although, I will add a bit of my vision of the situation. I see Mr. Chichikov, among other things, as a kind of adventurer by nature. If you read the novel carefully, then already in childhood he showed the traits of an entrepreneur. The same episode with a trained mouse or the sale of buns from under the floor characterize his nascent commercial streak. There are many such real examples in politics or economics, when it is not the enrichment, although this is an important fact, that attracts, but the process itself. The hunter went out hunting, tracked down the tiger, killed it, and participates in the division of the spoils insofar as it is like an analogy... So it seems to me that Chichikov was from the same “breed of gambling hunters.”
Among the heroes of the poem, Chichikov’s “enterprise, or, to put it even more, so to speak, negotiation” caused complete bewilderment, turning into panic: both as an action illegal, dangerous and incomprehensible, and as a previously unprecedented formula that could mean that anything and certainly fraught with some kind of threat. They began to suspect a lot of things: from the kidnapping of the governor’s daughter to the murders that recently happened in the province and were neatly hushed up. What did Chichikov intend to do and how is it presented in the novel?
Who is Chichikov buying?
Chichikov at Manilov's. Engraving by Eustathius Bernardsky based on a drawing by Alexander Agin. 1846 Ivanovo Regional Scientific Library“I plan to acquire dead ones, which, however, would be listed as alive according to the audit,” Chichikov explains to Manilov. This explanation is not very satisfactory either for Chichikov’s interlocutor or for the modern reader. What kind of revision? An audit is a census of peasants subject to taxation. In 1724 he carried out a reform, replacing the household tax with a poll tax. Behind this historical event there is a plot in the spirit of Chichikov - about repeated attempts to deceive the law within the framework of the rule of law.
The essence of the household tax, which existed in Russia since 1678, was that the unit of taxation was the yard - a separate, fenced peasant farm, regardless of the number of people living there, and the number of economic and residential buildings. Against the background of continuously increasing during the Northern War The Northern War for the possession of the Baltic lands between Sweden and a coalition of Northern European states lasted from 1700 to 1721 and ended in the defeat of Sweden. Due to taxes, many peasants abandoned their farms and fled to the Don, the Urals, and Siberia. It turned out, however, that the reduction in the number of households was accompanied by an increase in their population, that is, several families were represented in the census as one “yard” and were taxed accordingly. This could be achieved in different ways: to unite several farms with one fence, to bribe a census taker, and not to separate one’s farm from the parent’s.
A household census conducted in 1710 recorded a 20% reduction in the number of households compared to the results of the previous census in 1678. The goal of Peter's reform was to introduce a more reliable unit of taxation - the “male soul”, regardless of age. At the end of 1718, Peter I issued a decree on conducting a capitation census, immediately accompanying it with terrible threats, just in case: confiscation of peasants hidden from the census, death penalty for elders responsible for concealment, and so on. Responsibility for submitting registers of peasants (fairy tales) rested with their owners, elders, clerks and elected peasants. Threats did not help much, and although fairy tales were sent during 1719, numerous cases of people hiding from the census were soon discovered (everyone understood that they were considered not good).
At the end of 1720, decrees were issued to begin an investigation into cases of concealment, to confiscate the estates of landowners who had not submitted audit reports at all, and to arrest the elders and clerks guilty of concealment. From 1722 until 1724, the census results were checked to clarify the “capita number”. This difficult task was entrusted to special military auditors selected by the Senate and Peter personally. All this made it possible to increase the number of revision souls from 3.8 million (according to the 1721 census) to 5.5 million. This is how the first audit of the tax-paying population took place. The revision soul could be erased from the revision tale only at the next revision, and before that it was taxed regardless of what actually happened to the person himself.
What's the use of the dead?
All of the above is a source of inconvenience for the owners of “dead souls” and the formal basis for their acquisition by Chichikov. What use should they be? Chichikov's idea was to pledge the audit souls he had purchased to the Board of Trustees. How was he going to do this?
The history of granting loans to nobles by the state at the time of the novel is not yet so long Wed. a mention of this practice in Pushkin’s story “The Young Lady-Peasant Woman” (1831): Grigory Ivanovich Muromsky “was considered a man not stupid, for he was the first of the landowners of his province to think of mortgaging his estate into the Guardian Council: a turn that seemed extremely complex and bold at that time.”. It begins in 1754, when by decree of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna the St. Petersburg and Moscow noble banks were created, which were supposed to, in order to support the nobility going bankrupt and mortgaging their estates, issue loans to the nobles at a low interest rate. What does the Board of Trustees have to do with it? In fact, the Guardian Council was created in 1763 to manage the Orphanage in Moscow (and later in St. Petersburg) - a charitable institution for orphans and foundlings. A significant part of the original budget of the Orphanage was made up of donations. There were many donors, and the most generous of them were members of the Board of Trustees, which as a result controlled enormous resources. Its history as an organization giving loans began with the fact that in 1771, Prince Pyotr Ivanovich Repnin asked the Council for a loan of 50,000 rubles secured by his estate. This request was granted, it was followed by similar ones, and soon this practice was legalized by the manifesto of 1772: loan and savings treasuries were organized under the Guardian Councils in Moscow and St. Petersburg. They issued loans secured by estates, houses, jewelry, and also accepted deposits. Over time, this became the main source of income for Orphanages and an excellent addition to the noble banks: the latter’s funds were not endless, and the need for loans was very great.
Why does Chichikov resettle dead souls in the Kherson province?
Map of Kherson province. 1821 kraeved.od.ua Chichikov buys peasants without land, “for withdrawal,” with the intention of relocating them to other places. Strictly speaking, there is nowhere to resettle them; Chichikov does not have his own estate, but it is very necessary, because it is the estate that is being mortgaged (the number of revision souls determines only the size of the loan). However, Chichikov’s plan also provides for this: he intends to resettle the men in the Kherson province. This territory, called Novorossiya, became part of Russia in the middle of the 18th century after the wars with Turkey and consisted of practically uninhabited steppes. Therefore, the government strongly encouraged those who were ready to occupy them and ennoble them. The distribution of land to private owners began in Novorossiya in 1764 in accordance with the “Plan for the distribution of state-owned lands in the Novorossiysk province for their settlement.” The peak occurred in the 1770-90s, but colonization was so difficult that, despite the huge volumes of land distributed at the end of the 18th century, the active resettlement of state peasants and the encouragement of the influx of foreign colonists, according to data for 1837, In the Kherson province there remained more than 180 thousand dessiatines of free government land, and in Tauride - more than 270 thousand The project of obtaining land in Novorossiya was hardly as simple as it seems to Chichikov in his fantasies. In the study of Vladimir Maksimovich Kabuzan, dedicated to the settlement of Novorossiya, it is argued that the distribution of land to landowners in this region at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries ceased, and from the second half of the 1820s, the active period of settlement of this territory also ceased ..
Here we are faced with chronological connections, which often contradict each other, creating that alarming, very characteristic effect when a seemingly very specific reality described in detail begins to blur before the reader’s eyes, disintegrate into pieces that cannot be assembled in any way. stable consistent picture. These are not the only conflicting chronological clues. For example, in plain text the narrator characterizes the time of action as the time “shortly after the glorious expulsion of the French” (and this is not contradicted by the discussion of the hypothesis that Chichikov is Napoleon in disguise), that is, we should be talking about the 1810s, at least until his death (1821). But the poem mentions a gendarmerie officer several times, and a special corps of gendarmes was formed in 1827. When concluding transactions, it is mentioned that “the fortresses were recorded, marked, entered in the book and where appropriate, with the acceptance of half a percent and for printing in the Vedomosti,” and the Provincial Vedomosti was published in Russia -si since 1838. The mention of a recent mass epidemic clearly refers to the cholera epidemic of 1831 (the previous epidemic was in 1823 in Transcaucasia and Astrakhan, and the next one will be in 1846).
Did similar scams exist in reality?
Moscow censors, according to Gogol’s letter to Pletnev dated January 7, 1842, feared that “others would follow the example and buy dead souls.” Nothing is known about whether anyone dared to repeat Chichikov’s phantasmagoric scam, but it is known that Gogol’s text became the impetus for searching for a prototypical plot for Chichikov’s scam. Stories about scams with revision souls, potentially familiar to Gogol (or Pushkin as a possible donor of the plot), began to be perceived as direct sources of the plot of “Dead Souls”. A good example of this is Gilyarovsky’s story about his uncle, the landowner Pivinsky:
“Suddenly... officials began to travel around and collect information about everyone who had distilleries. There was a conversation about the fact that whoever does not have fifty peasant souls has no right to smoke wine.<…>And he [Pivinsky] went to Poltava, and paid a quitrent for his dead peasants, as if for the living... And since there weren’t enough of his own, and even with the dead, there were far from fifty, he filled the chaise with vodka, and off he went neighbors and bought dead souls from them for this vodka, wrote them down for himself and, according to the papers, became the owner of fifty souls, until his death he smoked wine and gave this theme to Gogol, who visited Fedunki, and, in addition, to the entire Mirgorod region knew about Pivinsky’s dead souls.”
In general, there is nothing unusual in such a reader’s reaction, but in this case the temptation to find direct sources of the plot (as well as, for example, to discover the exact chronology) paradoxically plays into Gogol’s poetics, sharpening the contradiction between plausibility and absurdity, on the constant combination of which it is built .
What's wrong with the name?
Title page of the first edition of the poem “Dead Souls”. 1842 House of Antique Books “In Nikitsky” The phrase “dead souls” caused panic not only among the heroes of Gogol’s poem. The discussion of Gogol's novel in the Moscow Censorship Committee is very reminiscent of the discussion of Chichikov's scam directly in the novel:
“...The accusations, without exception, were a comedy to the highest degree. As soon as Golokhvastov, who occupied the place of president, heard the name “Dead Souls,” he shouted in the voice of an ancient Roman: “No, I will never allow this: the soul can be immortal; there cannot be a dead soul, the author is arming himself against immortality.” The smart president could finally understand that this was about Revizhsky souls. As soon as he understood, and the other censors understood with him, that the dead meant Revizh’s souls, an even greater mess occurred.”
This similarity is not too surprising, since the details of the discussion in the censorship committee are known to us from the same letter from Gogol to Pletnev. But this is not the only case when the phrase “dead souls” was read by contemporaries as a dangerous nonsense. An excellent example of this is Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin’s letter to Gogol, where we read the following: “There are no dead souls in the Russian language. There are revision souls, assigned souls, departed souls, and arrived souls.” If for a modern reader Gogol’s metaphor has long become familiar, then to Pogodin it seemed strange and out of place. Let us pay attention to the “waning souls” mentioned in this list - precisely the conventional designation of the subject of Chichikov’s “negotiation”. For example, it is used by Saltykov-Shchedrin in the collection of articles “Well-Intentioned Speeches”: “For ten years in a row I have been crying for lost souls - I know it very well! Some became soldiers, some were taken into warriors, and some died of their own accord - and I just pay and pay!”
Thus, on the one hand, a legally precise formula exists (and is never mentioned in Gogol’s text), on the other hand, the metaphor of the death of the soul, which replaces this formula in the text, was not something completely unusual for this time. It is found both in the lyrics of that time and in religious texts well known to Gogol. Let's give just a few examples. “Although the human soul is rightly recognized as immortal, there is, however, a certain kind of death for it.<…>But the death of the soul occurs when God leaves it...” writes St. Augustine in the book “On the City of God.” We see a similar interpretation from Gregory Palamas in the collection “Philokalia”, which Gogol carefully read: “Know... that the soul also has death, although it is immortal by nature.<…>…The separation of God from the soul is the death of the soul.” Thus, Gogol combines, in general, a metaphor familiar to his contemporaries with an equally familiar reality, but it is precisely this connection that creates that stylistic and semantic breakdown that made the title so disturbing, incomprehensible and provocative.
From the landowners
In order to understand what the main character’s actions were, the reader must familiarize himself with the original source - N.V. Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls”. From it it will become clear why Chichikov bought up dead souls. But sometimes there is not enough time to read, and somehow you need to write an essay. Well, of course, it’s difficult to sing like a Basque. Therefore, instead of conveying Gogol’s rich linguistic palette, I will limit myself to a simple retelling. It’s a pity, because what are the lyrical digressions in “Dead Souls” worth - you read it and it’s like you’re seeing picturesque paintings. Well, okay, the intrigued reader will read the work at his leisure, right? And I will continue.
What's the intrigue?
The key intrigue on which Gogol’s poem “Dead Souls” was built was the possibility of obtaining a loan - funds paid by the board of guardians. In this case, the collateral property was that which belonged to the landowner. The events described by Gogol could have taken place almost two hundred years ago, so it would be appropriate to inform the reader of some circumstances of Russian life of that era. And at the same time mention the position of the main character in society. Ultimately, we intend to understand the question of why Chichikov bought dead souls.
How it all started
At the end of 1718, Peter I issued a decree on a census of the male population. Since office equipment in those days was primitive, the time allotted for the execution of the royal decree was not enough. Instead of one year, three whole years were spent, and then another three, to carry out an “audit” - checking the accuracy of the compiled lists, called “fairy tales.” There were ten such “audits” before, the years of their implementation are known. And here there is one curious point - the time interval in which the events described in the poem could have occurred. Based on indirect evidence, one can judge that the action develops in the first third of the 18th century. And already a year has not only passed, but even been slightly forgotten.
Incident of the era
Even without having yet figured out why Chichikov was buying up dead souls, we know that he only bought men and only “for withdrawal,” that is, he had the intention of relocating them to another province. It is also known that in 1833 a decree was issued according to which it was not allowed to “separate families.” Consequently, the adventures of Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov fall on the period of time between the “revisions” of 1815 and 1833. So, one of the circumstances of Russian life of that era is the following incident: dead peasants were conditionally considered alive, and for them a tax was collected from the landowner until the next census - “revision”.
Tax obligations
Along with the acquired peasants, Pavel Ivanovich also took on tax obligations, which looks like a complete loss. It would seem that there is no logical explanation for such actions, and at first it is not clear why Chichikov bought up dead souls. But there were still some nuances in the legislation of that time that allowed the main character to build a fraudulent scheme to obtain money. At that time, the state exercised supervision over landowner farms in order to prevent a decrease in their numbers and prevent loss of profit. After all, the state needed to receive taxes and recruits. If the owner died without leaving adult (capable) heirs, or the management was conducted improperly, guardianship could be appointed over such estates.
Guardianship Councils
Imperial guardianship councils were established at the Moscow and St. Petersburg educational houses. Their task was to maintain noble land ownership, so that it would not cease to exist. Ruined estates could be sold at auction to a wealthier owner. Or the landowner could receive an interest-bearing loan to restore the farm on the security of the land and peasants. Such loans were issued by guardianship councils, whose main source of income was funds received from auctions. If interest was not paid on time or the loan was not repaid on time, the estate was alienated in favor of the credit institution and sold at auction. This “wheel” could spin for a long time, but the enterprising Chichikov figured out how to ride it to his advantage.
Fraud
He, in fact, wanted to get a loan secured by serf souls, but since he didn’t have any, he decided to buy them. At the same time, he intended to buy cheaply “on paper” peasants who had died, but were legally considered alive. Of course, Chichikov had no intention of paying interest on the loan in the future, much less repaying the loan. It would have been impossible to carry out his scam of obtaining collateral if Chichikov had only fictitious peasants, but no land. It would be expensive to buy land in the same province as the peasants. Moreover, it would be too noticeable that there are actually no serfs. Therefore, the wise Pavel Ivanovich decided to buy inexpensive land in the uninhabited Kherson province, and to bring peasants to it. According to the papers, everything matches, but no one will check, which means they will give you a loan.
An enterprising young landowner from N.V. Gogol's poem came up with an unusual way to get rich. He buys up dead peasants who are still alive on the lists.
Historical reference
To understand why Chichikov needed “dead souls”, you will have to look into history. The landowner dreams of acquiring the souls of men who died but were not included in the audit fairy tale. Then he offers them to the Guardian Council and receives money as if they were alive. The benefits are obvious. The problem arises: why do we need men without land? But even here Chichikov finds a solution: he will offer the peasants to leave, withdraw. Dead souls will migrate to the lands that are offered for settlement. It is necessary to pay for the land, but it is necessary to provide residents. These actions are incomprehensible to the modern reader of the poem. We'll have to figure out their essence.
What are Revision Tales
The census of serfs was called a revision tale. It was not held every year. Several years could pass between censuses of those living on the estates. Landowners paid taxes for workers. They suffered losses if the number of deaths became high. Children growing up during this period did not equalize the loss figures. Especially noticeable losses were suffered by those who managed poorly.
In the 19th century, the Board of Guardians managed financial resources. He gave money to the landowners - loans, but it was necessary to pledge serfs as collateral. That is, the peasants became property that made it possible to obtain a loan. Chichikov, who bought dead peasants cheaply, imagines that he is mortgaging them as if they were alive and receiving 200 rubles in pure money for each. Calculating the benefit is easy. How many times more expensive does a dead soul become in the hands of a swindler? If the lending conditions are known – 6% per annum. The term of the trial is 2 years.
Conclusion of the peasants
Chichikov has no estate. He sold what he inherited to move to the city. The state has figured out how to help those who decided to settle down and become land owners. Two provinces - Tauride and Kherson - were offered for free settlement. It was in the Kherson region that Chichikov decided to move his goods.
Chichikov's benefit
The landowner acquired an unknown number of dead souls. The author does not say the exact number - approximately 400:
- At Manilov's - no one knows how much for free.
- Korobochka has 18 “men” for 1 ruble 20 kopecks.
- Plyushkin has 198 souls for 32 kopecks.
- Sobakevich has about 100 souls for 2 rubles 50 kopecks.
- The enterprising Pavel Ivanovich will receive about 200 thousand rubles, acquire land with a real estate and become a landowner, practical and strong. A profitable purchase will allow him to live comfortably into old age.
The classic certainly did not carry out mathematical calculations. They are not that important. Those who trade in them become dead souls. One can imagine what Chichikov would do if he moved away from the city of N. To what remote places will the landowner’s desire for profit take him? How many soulless gentlemen will make a deal with Chichikov? One can only guess, but it is certain that Pavel Ivanovich will win.