The Overcoat 🧥

I mean... This is The Overcoat. As Dostoevsky put it, "we all come from under Gogol’s The Overcoat," such as the entirety of Russian Literature can be deconstructed through Akaky Akakievich.

The tragedy and comedy of a life of a "little person," someone who is not of a particular value to society—someone, who is drifting through time, one moment entering life, and another time leaving it. Without really making much of an impression onto anyone or anything on its path.

Whereas Gogol sharpened his pencil to ridicule the indifferent society, the "little man," and then later make us grow closer to Akaky Akakievich, Dostoevsky had something different in his mind.

Hopefully this is intriguing enough to get started on "The Overcoat." If you want to understand the core of what it means for literature to be "Russian," this is its heart. Eugene Onegin would be its soul.

See the presentation I gave, Счастье маленького человека 🧥 ◼︎