Nikolay Gogol and Raphael Patkanyan: The Philosophy of Horror
prev
next
prev
next
Author(s)
Author(s)
Nikolay Gogol and Raphael Patkanyan: The Philosophy of Horror Haykanush SHARURYAN
The article is dedicated to the study of the artistic impact of the Russian writer Nikolay Gogol (1809-1852) on the creation of the Armenian author Raphael Patkanyan (1830-1892). The object of the research is the horror stories and their philosophy. From this perspective, Patkanyan appears as a student of the Gogol school of horrors by masterfully using the artistic technique of his teacher. The first parallel is the place and time of the action. Night becomes the time axis of the stories, and the plot turns around national holidays - Russian Navi day, Ivan Kupala, Christmas, Armenian Carnival, etc. Actions take place in a cursed or enchanted place (a scary house, an old church, hell, a mortuary, a cemetery, etc.), which allows the two realities to collide, as a result of which extramundane forces penetrate into our world. By taking the national folklore as a basis, both authors set the plot of mythical characters in motion portraying witches, demons, spirits, zombies and other terrible creatures as antagonists. The works of both authors are similar in terms of some functional motifs like the sale of the soul to the devil, metamorphoses, dance and laughter of death, implying specific rituals.
DOI: 10.24234/wisdom.v3i2.784 WISDOM - Special Issue 2(3), 2022 112-123
