Viy-Gogoli

Russian creepiness, gothic and mysticism - but that's on first read.
I reread Vij for the second time after school while I was drawing a picture - and it turned out to be an unrealistically erotanic novel.
There's love, death, all intertwined and seas of threads, but.
When rereading favorite places, it turns out that Tiberius, Halyava, and Brutus (naming as in comics, rather garish, but it's more than normal for Gogol and generally seems to be part of the exposition) are actually noble bastards.
Brutus, for example, is an asshole like Lieutenant Rzhevsky.
At first I wanted to make a drawing of the structure as in the first edition of Viy, where Nikolai Vasilievich describes it in its entirety:
"A strange creature in the form of a regular pyramid, covered with mucus, towered above them all. Instead of legs, it had half a jaw at the bottom on one side and the other on the other; above, at the very top of this pyramid, an incessantly long tongue stuck out and broke continuously in all directions. On the opposite wing sat a broad, white thing, with some white sacks sagging to the floor, instead of legs; instead of hands, ears, and eyes, the same white sacks hung down. A little farther on towered some black thing, all covered with scales, with many thin arms folded on its breast, and instead of a head above it had a blue human hand. A huge cockroach, almost the size of an elephant, stopped at the door and stuck out its whiskers. From the top of the dome itself, a black thing, made up of only legs, thumped into the middle of the church; these legs beat on the floor and wriggled as if the monster wanted to rise. One reddish-blue thing, without arms, without legs, stretched out its two trunks to a distant space, as if it were looking for someone.""
I mean, it's kind of too easy to draw here - everything is surreal but very clear - the pyramid, the mouth, the arms sticking out, the tongue, the scales.
It's like a neural network drew an abstract gross thing made of flesh (or bosses in Darkest Dungeon)
BUT - having listened to the criticism of Shevyryov and Belinsky Nikolai Vasilyevich changes the concept.
And it stays that way:
"He did not have the spirit to see them; he only saw some huge monster standing in the whole wall in his tangled hair, as in the forest; through the net of hair looked fearfully two eyes, raising his eyebrows a little upward. Above him held in the air something in the shape of a huge bubble, with a thousand pincers and scorpion stings stretching out from the middle. The black earth hung from them in shreds."
Because it was said to him that if you describe monsters, it is scary, but only for children.
And it's not serious for a grown man to be scared of a flesh pyramid.
But this is purely about Viy. I'll talk more in the next posts.
So far, at the top of the composition we see Pannochka on the left as a nasty old woman (blouse - American flag) flying on Homa Brutus (dressed in spades). Symmetrically on the top right is Homa Brutus, who with a big erect stick is already flying her (yes, they changed the pose there. And Homa has found a club. That is, Nikolai Vasilyevich is a great erotomaniac, no worse than Fyodor Mikhailovich and Bunin), and at the end, I remind you, he kills her to death with a club, well, how much does an old woman need.
Here we finish with the first part. In addition to these scenes, upstairs we have roosters heralding the beginning of the day and Nikolai Vasilievichs spending time on Viy in various ways. In the next part I want to write about the religious context and what a simple kid like me can read between the lines in the story "Viy" about it.
Well, when I roughly laid out the structure of the whole picture in my head, I thought: actually, fifty different Gogols fit here perfectly.
and I started filling up all the empty spaces with them. Because I've never done that before, and I like to do something new on every picture.
Well and I like that Gogol has a very nice black hairstyle, which goes well with my monochrome drawings.
In the middle is a certain number of devils that raise Viy's eyelids.
Perhaps we should dwell a little on what, in fact, is Viy and where this concept came from. Nikolai Vasilyevich himself wrote that it is a collective image of creepiness, according to the stories of peasants, children's rural horror stories and all that. Researchers raise Viy, according to different versions, or to Irish folklore (conceptually), where there was such a leader of the Fomors Balor, who possessed a deadly look. Fomors are such dark inhabitants of otherworldly Ireland, all as one ugly and jerks. And in Welsh mythology there was also a similar character - Ispadaden Penkaur (on a note to fans of unusual names for their children), a giant who had super-heavy eyelids, which had to be lifted by iron shutters. There is also a version that Viy's features go back to the ancient East Slavic god Veyu (Ukr. Viy), which corresponds to the Avestan god of death and wind Vayu in the pantheon of the ancient Iranians (Scythians).
But the linguist Ivanov showed off his undoubtedly excellent Soviet education a bit and said the following:
Vij is a mythological character, not a hoax, but he is not related to the Indo-Iranian god of wind, but belongs to a narrower, East Slavic-Alano-Celtic mythological (demonological) isoglossa (a note to those who are going to pick up philologists on the university embankment on a summer evening:
it is necessary to shout pathetically into an open book with illegible handwriting in the margins, ostensibly objecting to the author). Okay, Ostap is off the rails.
In short, if anyone has not understood about the isoglossa: researchers believe that the Viy to the Slavs came not conceptually, but purely through-across geography. Neighboring tribes, drunkenly shared tales, and so it came to Ukraine, where, accordingly, children were frightened by Viy already quite in Gogol's times.
And in general, the concept of the death stare has been with mankind since the most ancient times - remember Medusa Gorgon, all sorts of basilisks, the Hindu god Shani, all sorts of Beholder and, of course, such antiquity as improved bulls in the third heroes. So the motive is quite international. And if you go deeper - so I advise Essay on Blindness by Dmitry Korotkov, a very good teacher from the Philosophy Department.
i added two textbook packets of salt to make it easier for him to draw. Because salt is safer than chalk, any fool knows that. He draws with chalk for obvious reasons - because he believed not in God, but in magic. That's why he got burned!
But salt has been revered since ancient times as a reliable defense against evil forces. Salt was actively used by the Inquisition, which was vigilant about the health of ordinary medieval people.
Salt as a tool for effectively interrogating the demon within a person and at the same time a means against that demon played a significant role in the courts of the Inquisition. In Italy itself it was quite legally believed that if a handful of salt was thrown behind the back of a sorcerer, the sorcerer would disappear. But when the executioner threw a handful of salt behind the back of a suspected person and he did not disappear, it was considered a sign of his exceptional diabolical power, and he was tortured. That is, only a low-rank sorcerer would disappear, but a normal magical boss, for whom they could give a full sergeant of the Inquisition or two days off in a row - here he is, right here, caught!
It could also be like this: open wounds of a suspect, caused by the fact that he beat himself between interrogations (well, demons sit inside) were rubbed with salt, and if the person squirmed in pain, the inquisitors believed that it was the "unclean spirit" squirming in him from the touch of "sacred" salt. "Witches" were poured into the mouth salt water, and sometimes the accused for several days were given only over-salted food and completely deprived of water - salt was supposed to expel the "unclean" from his body. When a thirsty man was brought for interrogation and a ladle of clean water was placed in front of him, it was natural that he was ready to confess to any crime for the sake of one sip of saving moisture. His confession was explained by the fact that the salt drove out the demon, who at first resisted the truth. a normal Christian will not be cowardly, and he should have no use for salt.
In the Serene Republic of Venice, people accused of witchcraft were drowned in salted sea water. Caring for the salvation of their souls, the judges believed that in this case salt was more purifying than fire. A long plank was placed between two barques and the condemned were put on it. The barges would sail far out to sea. At the given signal the rowers started rowing in different directions, the plank fell down - and the convicts drowned. You see, there is even some interactivity here.
All in all, salt was a strongly useful tool, in some ways more useful than a gun.
All right, let's keep going.
I drew Pannochka and Brutus in the middle in a not quite canonical role - she has just died, and she looks pretty good, and even opens her eyes at nightfall. Brutus, reading Dead Souls (Vol. 2) to her, lustfully runs his fingers through her hair. Well, it is because they have Eros and Thanatos lavstori (if we turn to the original by N.V. Gogol, it becomes clear that she seduced him in the form of an old woman at night, and then he nailed her with a stick - it's practically Shakespearean passions). Two roses in Pannochka's hair are a symbol of what is clear.
I am not good at wooden architecture, for which I am ashamed, but Gogol's church is just a way of showing that if God is not in the soul, the temple will not help in any way.
Gogol's description of the church is as follows: in spite of the centurion's wealth and the abundance of people on his estate, the church has a completely neglected appearance: "blackened, covered with green moss." I didn't paint the moss, but my monochrome makes the church look burnt out anyway. Such an artistic find.
Then - about Khoma Brutus (and his friends Tiberius Gorobets (horobets - sparrow, Ukr.) and Khalyava)
Actually, what we know about Homa Brutus - A traveling philosopher and theologian, a bursar, a young guy.
A bursa (Latin bursa - "pocket, purse") is a dormitory at an ecclesiastical educational institution in pre-revolutionary Russia. In other words, a bursak is a student who also lives in a dormitory. As someone who graduated from the Philosophy Department and has been in its dormitories, I can honestly say: it's hard to imagine bigger assholes. That's why I'm not the least bit surprised by the following description:
The philosopher Homa Brutus had a cheerful disposition. He liked to lie down and smoke a cradle. If he drank, he hired musicians and danced the tropaka. He often tasted large peas, but completely with philosophical indifference, - saying that what is to be, that will not pass away.
and the future priest's first lines in "Vie" are a hint:
- What the devil!" said the philosopher Homa Brutus, "it gave up perfectly, as if there were going to be a farm.
The Theologian was silent, looked around the neighborhood, then took his cradle in his mouth again, and everyone continued on their way.
- By Jove! - said the philosopher, stopping again. - Not a bloody fist in sight.
I mean, the guy's obviously not a bad guy. He's got an attitude of disregard for both the commandments and Christianity.
It further reads:
...But the old woman was walking straight toward him with her arms outstretched.
"Ehehehe! - thought the philosopher. - Only no, my little dove! out of date." He moved a little farther away, but the old woman, without ceremony, approached him again.
- Listen, Granny! - said the philosopher, "It is fasting now; and I am such a man that even for a thousand gold pieces I would not be willing to disgrace myself.
In general, the guy from carnal pleasures clearly does not go far in life.
To recap briefly, the old woman saddled him with magic (read, seduced him), rode him until she got tired (hmm), then he seized the moment and jumped on her himself (read - changed the pose) and hit her so hard with his club that she died. Philosophy students keep the mark.
In general, the plot seems simple - Brutus, despite his studies in seminary, was a godless man, so the church did not help him, a circle of chalk as a pagan amulet did not help him (well, who fights the unclean force with unclean witchcraft - nonsense), friends, the same half-wit - did not help either. Finita, RIP.
The fish on Homa Brutus's garment is an ancient symbol of Christianity.
The fact is that the Greek word for fish - ΙΧΘΥΣ ("ichthys") - is an abbreviation of the Greek phrase "Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior". Thus, the image of a fish for a Christian was a kind of visual embodiment of the main theological idea of Christianity. So I am Brutus, who does not believe in God (Homa Brutus - Thomas the Unbeliever).
Well, and his friends - also, let's say, illustrations to proverbs about friendship will not serve. Nikolai Vasilyevich's words about the theologian Khalyava:
"The Theologian was a tall, broad-shouldered man and had an extremely strange disposition: whatever was lying near him, he would steal. In another case his character was extremely gloomy, and when he was drunk he would hide in the weeds, and the seminary had great difficulty in finding him there."
And Horobetz:
"Rhetor Tiberius Horobets had not yet the right to wear a mustache, drink burners and smoke cradles. He wore only a saddle, and therefore his character at that time had not yet developed much; but, judging from the large bumps on his forehead, with which he often appeared in class..."
like that! And also, as I said, Viy is full of eroticism, sometimes not particularly hidden. That's why I have Brutus' courtship of Pannochka at the center of the composition.
And then a little look at the pannochka's dress. This is where I drew on my love of faint man-made symmetry.