of the Revizor.

That is not to say that the Russian is so defective in
the critical faculty as to balance the combined creative
output of the greatest English dramatist against Gogol's
one comedy, or even to attribute to it the literary value
of any of Shakespeare's better plays. What the Russian's
appreciation indicates is the pregnant role that
literature plays in the life of intellectual Russia. Here
literature is not a luxury, not a diversion. It is bone
of the bone, flesh of the flesh, not only of the intelligentsia,
but also of a growing number of the common
people, intimately woven into their everyday existence,
part and parcel of their thoughts, their aspirations, their
social, political and economic life. It expresses their
collective wrongs and sorrows, their collective hopes and
strivings. Not only does it serve to lead the movements
of the masses, but it is an integral component element of
those movements. In a word, Russian literature is completely
bound up with the life of Russian society, and its
vitality is but the measure of the spiritual vitality of that
society.

This unique character of Russian literature may be
said to have had its beginning with the Inspector-General.
Before Gogol most Russian writers, with few exceptions,
were but weak imitators of foreign models.
The drama fashioned itself chiefly upon French patterns.
The Inspector-General and later Gogol's novel, Dead
Souls, established that tradition in Russian letters which