Traditions of N. V. Gogol in prose by Jia Zhifang

Van Zhuangchu Graduate Student, Department of Russian and Foreign Literature, Buryat State University 670011, Russia, Republic of Buryatia, Ulan-Ude, Energetik Microdistrict, 60A, sq. 28 msdevine@126.com Other publications by this author

In the era of the formation of a multipolar world, the study of the reception of the work of Russian writers in foreign-language cultures is becoming especially in demand. Russian Russian classics, true to the traditions of preserving eternal values and giving the key to understanding the Russian national character, remains an object of scientific interest for domestic and foreign researchers. The work of N. V. Gogol as one of the most mysterious Russian writers invariably attracts the attention of literary critics, and his artistic traditions, including in the field of satirical representation of reality, continue to influence the authors of other countries. The creative heritage of N. V. Gogol in China has been studied since the beginning of the XX century. Due to the historical situation prevailing in the country at that time, the attention of the first researchers was attracted by the accusatory pathos of Gogol's satire. The reception of Gogol's satirical works in the works of Chinese authors requires separate consideration, since "foreign culture reveals itself more fully and more deeply only in the eyes of another culture… One meaning reveals its depths by meeting and coming into contact with another, someone else's meaning: a dialogue begins between them, as it were, which overcomes the isolation and one-sidedness of these meanings, these cultures" ^{[1, p. 353]}.

Jia Zhifang (1916-2008), a famous Chinese writer, representative of the "July school", translator of works of Russian literature, researcher of Chinese literature, worked in the best traditions of realism. The future professor of the Chinese Language Faculty of Fudan University was born into the family of a wealthy landowner in Nanhou village, Shanxi Province. The young man had excellent prospects and a clear future. However, already in high school, his progressive views at that time, which did not coincide with the official ideology, led to the fact that he went to prison. Jia Zhifang was tried three more times, and all three times for political reasons. In total, out of 92 years, the writer spent more than 20 years in prison. The echoes of these life events are reflected in the writer's work.

As a university lecturer, Jia Zhifang in the early 1950s brought up a galaxy of talented specialists and scientists, such as Zhang Peiheng, Shi Changdong, Zeng Huapeng, Fan Boqun, etc. As a writer and researcher, Jia Zhifang left behind writings and translations in 4 volumes: "Creativity", "Theory", "Letters and diaries" and "Translations".

Jia Zhifang's life was full of difficulties and trials. However, despite all this, after the writer was acquitted, he immediately returned to educational and scientific activities. After his release and rehabilitation, he published a number of literary works: the collection "A new collection of letters of outstanding people of China from antiquity to the beginning of the XX century" (1992), the collection "Diaries of V. Y. Bryusov" (1992), "Dictionary of aesthetic evaluation of modern prose in the genre of Sanwen (essay)" (2003).

The fate of the writer, the hardships of his long life, the acquired experience of communicating with people of the "bottom" and loneliness in difficult times are perceived by Chinese researchers of Jia Zhifang's creativity as one of the reasons why the writer "found an artistic and aesthetic correspondence for his way of displaying reality in Gogol's works" ^{[16, p. 66]}.

Nevertheless, the main reason for Jia Zhifan's perception and assimilation of Gogol's artistic discoveries is his active translation activity. Of the 17 works of Russian writers translated by Jia Zhifan, 8 belong to the pen of N. V. Gogol ^{[3, p. 24]}. Jia Zhifang's merit is not only the popularization of the works of the Russian writer in China, but also his desire to make the works of N. V. Gogol understandable to his people in the field of language features, plots, character images, satirical techniques.

The successful development of the artistic discoveries of Gogol's prose made Jia Zhifang's texts innovative, and also allowed the writer to reliably reproduce the mindset of an entire generation of Chinese people during the transition period at the beginning of the last century.

In addition to Jia Zhifang's translation work, historical events undoubtedly became decisive for his work, among which the influence of the spirit of the May Fourth epoch (the Cultural Revolution of 1919), as well as the similarity of socially significant events in the public life of Russia and China at the beginning of the XX century should be mentioned in the forefront. During this difficult period for the country, the Chinese intelligentsia, supporting the revolution, sought in Russian literature a spiritual correspondence to their time, sought to discover common cultural and artistic parallels.

Under the influence of the "Fourth of May" movement, translations of works of Russian literature and its study were in demand among writers. Jia Zhifang, a young man who has long devoted himself to literary creativity and artistic translation, and drew inspiration and writing experience from Russian literature, was no exception. Therefore, the works of Russian writers, especially N. V. Gogol, according to Jia Zhifang himself, became objects of imitation at an early stage of creativity: "at this special moment connected with the fate of the state and the nation, Gogol's sense of duty and desire to save the people from great troubles, enlighten and awaken them deeply inspired the young Jia Zhifang and forced him not only to actively borrow Gogol's artistic techniques, but also to fully master the skill of description, paying attention to the smallest details of life" ^{[6, p. 88]}.

The interest of modern Chinese researchers in Jia Zhifang's prose was expressed in an increasing number of scientific papers devoted to the writer's work. Since the name Jia Zhifang is new to Russian comparative literature, we consider it necessary to introduce the latest most significant works on the writer's work into scientific circulation. Literary critics of China analyze the plots of Jia Zhifang's works and the style of his stories ^[14], the ideological and thematic content of the writer's prose ^{[2, 10, 15]}.

Russian Russian writers Jia Zhifang, like many writers of the "Fourth of May" movement, consciously perceived the influence of Russian literature at the beginning of his work and used the achievements of Russian writers in terms of plot, character images, etc. However, as he improved his own writing skills Jia Zhifang created his own individual style, creatively processing and preserving individual traditions of Gogol's prose, which and it allowed the research of the writer's work to talk about the "gogolization" of Jia Zhifang's novels and short stories.

Studying the reception of satire in Jia Zhifang's works, it should be noted that in general, criticism of social vices in Jia Zhifang's works is more related to Gogol's principle of "laughter through tears". The traditions of Gogol's prose are realized by the Chinese prose writer, mainly at the level of the plot and individual stylistic techniques, which will be discussed further.

The thematic similarity of the prose of Jia Zhifang and N. V. Gogol, according to Chinese researchers, lies primarily in the writer's interest in the topic of the "little man", which was unexpected in the era of great political changes in China.: "in the heroic era in China, one should have written about great deeds and great people, but Jia Zhifang deliberately avoided this and described only small people from the lower strata of society, focusing on the living conditions of such people in the middle-class environment" ^{[6, p. 83]}.

As an example, Jia Zhifang's short story "Human Sorrows" (1936), which tells about a small merchant selling burlap. He is just a grain of sand in the cycle of historical changes, he can only observe the events happening around him, being in confusion and anguish. The main character of the story "The Theory of Surplus Value" (1942) is a weak–hearted Yu Zigu, who wanted to be happy, so he adjusted to circumstances, sought an easy and idle life, which, in the end, led him to a life collapse. The little man is also represented in the story about the unfortunate fate of the dentist "Prose of Life" (1942) and in the story "Lower and Lower" (1946), briefly representing the hero's path from a fighter against injustice to an opium drug dealer.

Of all the listed works, the novel "Prose of Life" is closest to the pathos of Gogol's "Overcoat", because the tragedy of the individual fate of the "little man", in which accusatory intonations are heard against those who created such conditions in the country, is shown with a "bitter smile" of the writer. The presented segment from the life of the "little man" clearly shows the impact of social upheavals on ordinary citizens and the general decline of humanistic ideas in this difficult period for China.

Jia Zhifang at the same time deliberately refuses to emphasize the depiction of heroic situations, patriotic deeds and historical events that could interfere with the life of the character, which is suitable for a more authoritative genre of the novel. The writer only touches on the above in the dialogues of the heroes of the story. Throughout the work, the narrative does not go beyond the limits of the carriage of a provincial train, endless, seemingly completely empty conversations of the passengers of the carriage.

The main character, a dentist, tells the neighbors about his tragic fate in fragments. From his stories, the reader learns that at first our hero lived in Shanghai. As a true patriot, he supported the anti-Japanese war of the Chinese people. And for this reason, he converted his private clinic into a hospital for wounded soldiers. When Shanghai fell, he had to flee from the pursuit of the enemy from the city, first to Chongqing, and then from Chongqing to Xi'an. In Xi'an, an unpleasant story happened to him: he came into conflict with his senior medical colleague, which caused him to lose his job. At the same time, he was deceived for a large sum, so at the time of the narration, the hero is in a very difficult financial situation. After fatal failures in his life, the hero of the story bitterly comes to the conclusion: "The content of a person's life is, firstly, money, secondly, money, and, thirdly, money too" ^{[12, p. 97]}.

Using the example of this hero, we see that in a difficult time, a good person, an ordinary citizen, lost faith in humanity, dried up his soul, lost spiritual values.

In the story "Prose of Life" the tradition of Gogol's prose is realized, firstly, in the contradiction of form and content. Thus, the dentist's life collapse, presented in the form of fragments of the hero's frivolous chatter during the empty conversations of fellow travelers, involuntarily causes pity among readers: here the tragedy of a person's life opens up in an ordinary life situation, and the relaxed, frivolous tone of the narrator contradicts the dramatic content of what is being told.

Secondly, Jia Zhifang uses Gogol's way of typification: the writer of China, following the author of The Overcoat, shows the tragedy of an entire social stratum by the example of the life of one person.

Thirdly, in this story, Gogol's technique is implemented, which Yu. V. Mann calls "the logic of inversion", when in the text there is "a perversion, a reversal of moral and moral norms: the most worthy suffers and suffers; insignificance and vice are rewarded" ^{[7, p. 350]}. Jia Zhifang's hero does not commit atrocities, on the contrary, he follows his conscience as a good citizen, but as a result of social upheavals suffers a life collapse. The most tragic thing about the fate of the hero of the work is that such falls "to the bottom" were massive and ubiquitous in China at that time, therefore, in Jia Zhifang's story, the tragedy of the "little man" becomes a sad symbol of an entire epoch, the embodiment of the fate of a social group, just as in the works of N. V. Gogol. In this context, the image of the railway acquires a symbolic meaning: a small person cannot influence the course of history, which, like a train, carries people with it, without giving them a choice.

Gogol's principle of "inverse logic" also underlies the plot of Jia Zhifang's story "Lower and Lower". The reader is presented with the story of a drug dealer He Tianming, who is trying to persuade a small man – an official of an administrative institution - into his dirty business. The plot of the story is built on the parallelism of human actions and the state of nature: He Tianming is increasingly persuading the young official Lao Xia to engage in the opium trade, just as the night darkness is increasingly seizing the space in the house and beyond.

In this story, in addition to Gogol's "logic of inversion", Jia Zhifan's transformation of the Gogol tradition of the fantastic image of the night, as well as the motive of laughter objectified by the writer for certain artistic purposes, is of interest.

Let's turn to the image of the night, which in Jia Zhifang's story is both a symbol and an actor, along with the characters of the work. The action takes place in the evening, when dusk is gathering outside the window. He Tianming has been waiting for a guest for half a day, and because of the long wait, he is not at all sure whether young Lao Xia will agree to his offer to engage in the opium trade.

The young man who finally came feels a strong fear, he is literally scared to death, as evidenced by his portrait characteristic: "In the dim light of sunset, the guest's face was lifeless" ^{[11, p. 91]} (here and further quotes from Jia Zhifang's works are presented in the translation of the author of the article, Ch. Wang). Before starting a serious conversation, both the host and the guest are very tense. They are both silent, as if gathering their thoughts. At this time, a third character appears – darkness (or darkness). The impersonation technique, combined with a metaphorical description of the army of darkness, speaks of the readiness for the upcoming "war" of the host of the house with the beliefs of his guest: "It was getting dark in the yard, and the outlines of the locust tree were already blurred. The darkness, as if afraid of being late, led its huge and glorious troops on the offensive, rolled in, created congestion, created a noise like the buzzing of a swarm of mosquitoes, making people's souls tremble with fear. The darkness in the house partially penetrated from the yard, partially crept out from all corners of the house, as from a shelter. Darkness multiplied" ^{[11, p. 92]}. This almost physically felt seizure of the house by darkness prepares the reader for the fact that the owner of the house is ready to capture the young guest and involve him in the networks of evil.  The gathering darkness becomes the host's ally in the fight against the guest's state of mind, with his doubts: "The guest did not try to defend himself from the attack of the host's laughter; his eyes were constantly looking out the door, which was a kind of escape. Now, almost tangible, like some substance, darkness filled the entire courtyard; it seemed to people that they could hear the sounds of its jostling, noise and struggle: Om, om, om, om... This made me feel more and more helpless and terrified. The laughter of the owner and the darkness outside the walls of the house were intertwined ..." ^{[11, p. 94]}.

In order to convince his guest, the drug dealer He Tianming begins to talk about his opium business as a completely ordinary trade, mentioning an army friend who helps to do illegal things ("He and I participated in the student movement in Beiping together. After the anti-Japanese struggle, we joined the army together, and now we are doing business together" ^{[11, p. 96]}). The double bottom of this phrase, its catch lies precisely in the fact that the owner combines the actions of true patriots, service to the state and illegal business as phenomena of the same order.

However, the guest is still confused, he doubts. The light of the candle lit by the host allowed to see the embarrassed face of the guest and his new trousers. He Tianming resolutely proceeds to accuse the guest of cowardice, painting before him a cruel picture of his future life in poverty, deprived of all material benefits. Young Lao Se is struggling to hold on, telling the owner about the prospects of his career. And then He Tianming, having switched the guest's attention, makes a fiery speech in front of the guest, in which he reveals the philosophy of life, teaching the younger one as a good old friend: "Money today is everything ... it's better to live happily for one minute than to live dissatisfied for a hundred years" ^{[11, p. 96]}. And young Lao Se falls into this trap of false kindness and deceptive pictures of a rich future life and agrees to participate in drug trafficking. 

Darkness, at first glance, won the story both on a physical level and on a spiritual one. She absorbs more and more (remember: the title of the story "Lower and lower"), but not the young Lao Se, but the drug dealer He Tianming. After Lao Se's departure, "in the courtyard, darkness has already built a solid foundation of complete dominion. Calmness – nothing is visible; silence – nothing is heard. Despite the fact that the weak light in the house was damaging the darkness in the yard, she stubbornly fought the light, resisting even more fiercely. The weak light of the lamp wavered for a second, swayed by the wind, and went out, and the power of darkness immediately took advantage of the opportunity to strengthen itself, not relaxing for a second... He Tianming continued to stay in the dark courtyard. Since he saw off the guest, he felt the joy of the winner" ^{[11, p. 98]}.

The half-fantastic image of darkness, night, used by Jia Zhifang in the story "Lower and Lower", directly refers us to the image of "demonic nights" in the works of N. V. Gogol. The researcher of the phenomenon of night in the works of the great Russian writer, I. A. Stanichuk, notes that "the image of "terrible" nights is characteristic of late Romanticism ..., therefore, "dark demonic" nights are the other side of Gogol's romantic worldview, expressing an increasingly acute sense of disharmony of life" ^{[9, p. 15]}. The researcher notes N. V. Gogol's "tendency to depict evil and its power as an integral part of exclusively demonic dark nights" [ibid.]. The analysis of the story allows us to talk about obvious parallels between the images of darkness/ night in Jia Zhifang's story and the story "Nevsky Prospekt" by N. V. Gogol. Yu. V. Mann points to the folklore tradition in Gogol's understanding of darkness and night, when darkness darkens a person's consciousness, and this symbolism of darkness also takes place in Jia Zhifang's work.

The heroes of the works of Gogol and Jia Zhifang are young, inexperienced people, representatives of a poor class of small officials. The action of the stories takes place at a dark time, "when twilight falls on the houses" ^{[5, p. 14]}. This is a "mysterious time", according to N. V. Gogol, when everything seems not to be what it really is. So, the occupation of the illegal opium trade is shown to young Lao Se as a normal business, which can be done by a person who fought yesterday for the freedom of China from Japanese oppressors. This plot situation echoes the deception of the artist Piskarev "Peruginova Bianka", illuminated by the light of a lantern in the St. Petersburg night.

Both heroes are deceived: the artist Piskarev, under the influence of opium, idealizes a stranger in his dreams even after he understands who she is. However, instead of a beauty from a dream, he encounters a woman selling herself, who does not want to change anything in her life. And the hero has no choice but to commit suicide. Deceived by Lao Se, blinded by dreams of a beautiful life and promised wealth ("In this vivid description, he seemed to see his magnificent future, like a pile of dazzling gold shining with a beautiful light" ^{[11, p. 96]}), agrees to participate in the sale of opium.

Jia Zhifang, following Gogol, uses a semi-fantastic image of night darkness to show the reader the night as a time of temptation and lies: "He lies at all times, this Nevsky Prospekt, but most of all when the night thickens on him and separates the white and pale walls of houses, ... when the demon himself lights the lamps in order only to show everything in an unreal form" ^{[5, p. 46]}. The difference with the story "Nevsky Prospekt" is that the reason for Gogol's deception is not so much night and darkness, but an artificial, fake lantern light in the St. Petersburg night, distorting everything that falls into the field of illumination. In Jia Zhifang's story, darkness increases the hero's fear, and talking in the dark makes him see everything in a false light. As we can see, in both works, "the night acquires a grotesque character and carries connotations of deception, temptation, and diabolical obsession" ^{[9, p. 17]}.

However, Jia Zhifang's story, unlike Gogol's novella Nevsky Prospekt, still leaves hope for a positive outcome of events. For the first time, the reader understands this when, after agreeing to follow all the instructions of a drug dealer, young Lao Se suddenly remembers that he is late for a seminar, which he must attend. He explains that the chief secretary will analyze the "Zhong Yun", part of the teachings of Confucius, the so-called Confucian "four books". This detail is introduced into the story for a reason: "Zhong Yun" is a philosophical treatise written by Tzu Si, the title of the work translates as "The Doctrine of the Middle and Unchangeable." The content of this treatise speaks about the avoidance of extremes, about fortitude and the "middle way" (avoiding extremes) as a source of life happiness. Also, by the negative reaction of the drug dealer ("The owner was dumbfounded for a moment, then lowered his head and swore" ^{[11, p. 98]}), and by the fact that Lao Se refused the owner's offer to conduct him, we understand that, most likely, after the seminar on the ideas of Confucianism, the illusion of rapid enrichment by criminal means will dissipate, the young man will rethink his actions and abandon the disastrous path.

In addition, the ending of Jia Zhifang's story speaks in favor of the epiphany of the young hero, where the "winner" of the inexperienced young man, the owner of the house, suddenly remembered his youth, when he was full of hope. At the same time, the drug dealer suddenly imagined his other victories: when he participated in the student movement in Beijing, when he opposed corruption in the army. These memories are a cruel contrast in comparison with the drug dealer's position in society at the present time: "All this has joined into one whole, becoming one surging wave, entering into a fierce battle with him. At first he defended himself by biting his lip and standing firmly in the middle of the courtyard; later, as if the line of defense had collapsed, he walked back and forth with incredible speed in short small steps. He seemed like a wounded beast surrounded by darkness, endlessly walking with quick and short steps, lowering his head lower and lower..." ^{[11, p. 98]}.

For a drug dealer, there is no way out of the darkness surrounding him, he realizes the depth of his fall, but as for a wounded animal, there will be no salvation for him in the darkness of his life. The finale of the story directly illustrates the antithesis often used by N. V. Gogol in his works, "the potential of a person and their concrete realization, the high purpose of a person and his vulgar real existence" ^{[7, p. 37]}.

Also, Jia Zhifang's story is partly similar to N. V. Gogol's novel "The Overcoat". And although the similarity is not so obvious, it is still possible to trace some roll calls in the disclosure of the topic of the "little man". The first similarity to the "Overcoat" is presented through Gogol's technique of objectification of laughter, used by Jia Zhifang. So, at the beginning of the story, a young official comes to a drug dealer with fear. To hide his fear and uncertainty, young Lao Xia justifies his lateness by saying that he was at boxing training. The owner of the house is surprised, he did not expect such a contrast: a sincere young man who lives by honest work and at the moment looks very scared, is engaged in a sport that requires a person to suppress the fear of pain. The host mockingly comments on Lao Se's excuses, accompanying his words with loud laughter. In the same way as in the "Overcoat", the episode of the department officials' mockery of Bashmachkin, according to Yu. V. Mann, is nothing but a manifestation of "the function of laughter as persecution, as asserting oneself by trampling on the human dignity of another" ^{[7, p. 452]}.

In this case, this episode is a pure illustration of laughter "at the 'unequal', officially, superficially – at the lowest, but in fact – higher and worthy" ^{[7, p. 452]}. This laughter "reveals a half-hidden or obvious malevolence and aggressiveness" ^{[7, p.452]}. The laughter of the owner over Lao Se, as well as the laughter of officials over Bashmachkin, sounds mocking, although a young man who has hopes of honestly achieving promotion, diligently studying Confucianism and engaged in boxing, is incomparably higher in moral terms than the drug dealer who invited him.

Another similarity of Jia Zhifang's story with Gogol's novel "The Overcoat" lies in the motive of the hero's temptation, it is "all kinds of temptations and "lures" that lie in wait for a person" ^{[7, p. 453]}. Thus, in Jia Zhifang's story, the hero, who has an inner, almost childlike purity and naivety, easily succumbs to the drug dealer's deception that the opium trade is just a business, believes his fiery speech about the philosophy of modern life, where "the brave eat their fill, and the timid die of hunger" ^{[11, p. 97]}. The last argument of the drug dealer who forced the young man to accept the offer is the threat of poverty.

In Jia Zhifang's story, the owner notices that Lao Se has new trousers, and an experienced drug dealer gives the last argument: "I'll tell you this: if you continue to go with the flow, I'm afraid in the future you won't be able to buy yourself even one pair of cloth pants" ^{[11, p. 97]}. Here the writer shows the reaction of a young man to these words: "the guest turned pale, he suddenly saw his miserable future. It was the collapse of his life" ^{[11, p. 97]}. The relationship of this episode with the loss of a new greatcoat by Bashmachkin, which led to the death of the hero, is not accidental: both heroes are "little people", and for them the loss of a new expensive thing, real or imaginary, is akin to a catastrophe, it is a real life collapse.

Lao Se agrees to the host's proposal. And then Jia Zhifang uses a laughing scene: "Not knowing what to say anymore, he just licked his dry lips and suddenly laughed, thereby ending the speech. The owner, looking at this awkward expression of feelings, laughed in unison. The guest felt that they were already infinitely close in these peals of laughter, so he laughed even harder, as if he was trying with all his heart to do the work assigned to him by the head" ^{[11, p. 97]}. Here we see, according to M. M. Bakhtin, fear defeated by laughter: the guest is now not afraid of future poverty and the host is not afraid that his offer will not be accepted.

The laughter of the heroes ends abruptly, and here Jia Zhifang also uses Gogol's technique, when the "mimic of sorrow" replaces the "mimic of laughter", while "the destruction of the solidarity of the narrator and the majority, the discrepancy of their view of the main character" is observed ^{[7, p. 458]}. This technique is presented in the "Overcoat" and is closely related to the phenomenon of the fool, when in the mind of one of the young people who mocked Bashmachkin, there is a "transition from laughter to compassion" ^{[7, p. 458]}, Bashmachkin's ridicule is replaced by pity for him.

Jia Zhifang most likely does not use such psychological findings of N. V. Gogol consciously. What was important to the author of the story was not a change of poles in the reader's attitude to his character, but a contrasting turn from the darkness of evil in the literal sense to the "light of wisdom", which should lead the young hero to the true path. So, Lao Se's laughter stops abruptly when he remembers that he needs to go to a seminar to study the basics of Confucianism. This episode with the naming of the treatises that form the basis of the teaching is of great importance for the fate of the heroes and for the edifying and at the same time optimistic ending of Jia Zhifang's story. The "mimicry of sorrow" here changes the "mimicry of laughter" not for a young and pure youth who succumbed to temptation, but for the drug dealer He Tianming, who remains alone with his youthful bright past and the impenetrable darkness of his present that defeated him.

In addition to similarities with the works of N. V. Gogol at the level of details and storylines in Jia Zhifang's prose, one can see Gogol's traditions of using individual satirical techniques, which together allow us to talk about the reception of Gogol's satire in the work of one of the best prose writers in China.

The influence of Gogol's satire is especially noticeable in Jia Zhifang's first novel "Human Sorrows", which was published in April 1937 in the fourth issue of the collection of literary works "Learning and Life", published under the editorship of Hu Feng. At that time, Jia Zhifang was a freshman student. To some extent, it was the work of an aspiring writer, so the moments of apprenticeship were still quite strong in it.

The main character of the story is a "little man", a burlap seller, whose soul is immersed in gloomy reflections, confusion and longing. He attentively observes everything that happens around. The work is a chain of sketches and reflections of the main character. His observations are presented in an ironic manner, and at the same time they give off bitterness and sadness. People around the main character drink, eat, use opium, use the services of corrupt women, gossip, work – the plot is built on the change of these everyday trifles. We can talk here about the Gogol tradition of depicting the picture of the world, when "... the deepening of meaning occurs due to the fact that "stupidity" follows "stupidity". And then at some point it is revealed to the reader that there will not be and cannot be any other persons and events, and that this sad current of vulgarity is "called life"" ^{[7, p. 348]}.

In the traditional Gogol manner, portraits of the heroes of the story "Human Sorrows" are presented, when the living is depicted as inanimate, which entails Gogol's grotesque effect of puppetry. Researchers of Gogol's creativity consider the motif of puppetry, automatism, deadness to be the greatest achievement of Russian and world culture ^[7]. In the spirit of Gogol's traditions, Jia Zhifang reveals the "living-dead" opposition in the portrait of the heroes of the story. As an example, we can give an ironic description of a cunning senior salesman in the shop where the main character works: "a short middle-aged man with a bald head. He has a bulging artificial eye, and he wears an old gray cloth robe very carefully… He made jokes to people passing by... Fine wrinkles radiated from his mouth on his square little face at a sudden laugh, similar to fireworks" ^{[13, p. 3]}. If we recall Gogol's heroes, then in his works "the contrast of the living and the dead, the necrosis of the living is often indicated precisely by the description of the eyes" ^{[7, p. 268]}. So, one-eyed was the Head from the story "May Night" and the tailor Petrovich, who sewed his overcoat to Bashmachkin in the story of the same name. Their companions called them "one-eyed devils" for this lack of appearance.

Also, as an example of a grotesque description of appearance, you can give a portrait of the cruel and soulless owner of the shop in which the main character works: "His square face became ruddy again, as it was during laughter, it widened, and both eyes were covered with a gray haze behind the lenses of his glasses; his voice was either animal or bird, and it seemed that there was a chill in the air" ^{[13, p. 7]}. Here the writer directly uses Gogol's grotesque technique in the image of the character's appearance: "The mask seemed to replace a person, ... as if it had fused with a human face, so that the human body or its parts would become, as it were, an inanimate thing" ^{[7, p. 263]}. All the characters that the protagonist of Jia Zhifang's story encounters are masks, things, soulless dolls, but not people. Sufferings, joys, and sorrows are alien to them. All the characters are kind of dead, and the main character is thinking about it.

Jia Zhifang first describes the appearance of the heroes in a half-joking, grotesque manner, and then forces them to reveal their ignorance, cynicism and indifference towards the ongoing revolutionary events and their participants, using a satirical method of self-exposure. So, the main character hears the joking and at the same time terrifying speech of the shopkeeper: "You young people, be patriots! Save society! Inequality! Revolution! Wow, people are upset and deaf! It's easy for people to do it, it's very simple! Put the bodies of the dead in a bag, sew it up and sing! Like a sack of grain — but grain is valuable, and grain can satisfy hunger! Load it on the train and take it to the seashore, fill the bags one by one so that even the spirits don't know and the demons don't smell it; the dead body will feed the fish, when the fish grows up, the fishermen will catch it and take it to the city, to the market, the fish will get into the kitchen and end up on the table, and the traitor will eat it... See, it's just such a cycle, how easy it is! Ha ha ha!" My pillow is cold and wet, and I feel like I'm crying. Perhaps it was a bad dream, but I distinctly heard the creaking of the bed downstairs, the words of the people who ate next to the owner" ^{[13, p. 18]} In this fragment, the transition from the "mimicry of laughter" to the "mimicry of sorrow" is emphasized in particular: the rude, almost naturalistic fun of the rich owner contrasts with the tears of the worker who he listens to these words. This is the same "transition from "cheerful" to "sad", a vague emotional tone that accompanies Gogol's ambivalence" ^{[7, p. 345]}. The above episode also illustrates Jia Zhifan's use of Gogol's "logic of inversion", which, according to Yu. V. Mann, is that "the most worthy suffers and suffers; insignificance and vice are rewarded... in Gogol, as a rule, the unworthy are happier than the worthy; in short, moral norms are also turned upside down" ^{[7, p. 350]}.

In a number of Gogol's satirical techniques that Jia Zhifang uses in his story, it is necessary to call the technique of "reverse comparison": "the writer, instead of likening a person to an animal, compares an animal with a person" ^{[8, p. 77]}, this achieves a special semantic effect: "if the human moves to a lower, "animal"a row, then the last one "rises" to the human" ^{[7, p. 269]}.

So, in the story "Human Sorrows", we observe this technique, for example, in an episode when the hero once sees a goat leading a flock of sheep to the slaughterhouse down the street. At the same time, the hero speaks of the goat as a person: "He was a kind guy, fat and neat, even luxurious; two horns, very cultured, the same color as the old ebony, a pair of narrow, but clear, kind eyes, protruding high on a long, thin and clean face; wide the mouth, like a slit, was confidently closed, and the long beard was fluttering.... It was just a gentleman in a herd that was blindly following him… I think I've seen such an old and neat animal before. This is a foreign pastor in a church around the corner" ^{[13, p. 23]}. In the above fragment, there is clearly a similarity with an episode from N. V. Gogol's novella "The Night before Christmas", when, describing the extensive economy of the Forelock, Gogol, in particular, writes: "A bearded goat climbed up to the roof and rattled from there in a harsh voice, like a city official, teasing turkeys who were performing in the yard and turning his back when he saw his enemies, boys who mocked his beard" ^{[4, p. 211]}.

When considering the text of Jia Zhifang's novella "Human Sorrows", the question arises again whether the writer was familiar with Gogol's poem "Dead Souls" in a foreign language (the translation of the poem into Chinese appeared after the publication of Jia Zhifang's works). At the same time, the analysis of the text of the story allows us to answer this question in the affirmative and assume that the writer read it in the original language. The fact is that Jia Zhifang preserves Gogol's traditions in the story "Human Sorrows" when he uses "multipolar" lyrical digressions that Russian researchers study using the example of the text of the poem "Dead Souls". Moreover, the reflections of the hero Jia Zhifang in the text of the story are multipolar, as well as in Gogol's poem, they are also based on "the antithesis of high and low, pathos and irony" ^{[7, p. 154]}.

As an example of an ironic digression, one can cite the reflections of the main character or the author of the story about a goat who led a flock of sheep to slaughter: "At least he should be a good person, but on the one hand, he can't believe it because he was born a goat. On the other hand, history and natural science say that the greatest benefit of these animals is to supply higher animals with food – would it be better to eat it fresh or in canned food? I wonder how the goat will feel? And he is probably no longer young" ^{[13, p. 24]}. As we can see, in this ironic reasoning, Jia Zhifang follows Gogol, up to the point of referring to the motif of food that characterizes the category of lowly, with a predominance of "carnivorous abundance" – the one that "characterizes Chichikov or Sobakevich" ^{[7, p. 154]}.

In parallel with the ironic reflections of the hero, pathetic arguments often develop in the story, revealing the hero's worldview, his attitude to the surrounding reality. As an example , the hero 's thoughts about the search for truth can be cited: "...I think the truth is buried deep in the sand of history, and I can't breathe a sigh of relief because of this…This world is probably all standing on sand. I want to turn into a shovel and get to the truth. In this regard, books will be as valuable to me as teachers!" ^{[13, p. 40]}.

Thus, the phenomenon of "gogolization of prose" by Jia Zhifang consists in the fact that the writer relies on the basic formula of Gogol's works "laughter through tears", using the artistic discoveries of the great Russian writer. To achieve his goal, the writer turns to the image of a "little man", because it is through the prism of one fate that the tragic path of an entire nation becomes clear. In all the works of Jia Zhifang considered here, the little man, one way or another, experiences the negative influence of the era. The analysis of Jia Zhifang's works allows us to talk about several components of the "phenomenon of gogolization". Firstly, these are, of course, plot roll calls with the texts of N. V. Gogol's works. This includes, first of all, direct or indirect references to individual plot elements: a deceptive "demonic night", misleading the hero, ridiculing the "little man", piling up the "vulgarities of life", changing the "mimicry of laughter" with the "mimicry of sorrow". In addition, we can note the roll call of details that allow us to say that when working on the story "Lower and Lower" Jia Zhifang relied on the stories "Nevsky Prospekt" and "Overcoat" by N. V. Gogol, and when creating the story "Human Sorrows" he focused on the cycle "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka". If we compare the role of fiction in Jia Zhifang's satire with the satirical works of N. V. Gogol, then we can also say that Jia Zhifang's works almost do not contain fiction, fantastic images remain only in details and are needed to embody the main idea of the work. Jia Zhifang preserves the stylistic techniques of Gogol's grotesque depiction of reality as a way of realizing the "living-dead" opposition. In particular, the puppetry in the portrayal of the characters remains, emphasizing their cynicism and callousness. Also noteworthy is the use of Gogol's satirical technique "reverse comparison" (Jia Zhifang retains even the image of the same animal as N. V. Gogol in the story "The Night before Christmas"), Gogol's technique of "the logic of the reverse", perceived by Jia Zhifang to convey a tragic worldview in his works.

At the level of composition, Gogol's traditions are represented in the work "Human Sorrows" by such techniques as the presence in the text of the "multipolar" reflections of the hero, ironic and pathetic, which in unity is designed to convey the complexity of the world order, just as lyrical digressions in "Dead Souls" convey this complexity. The difference lies in the fact that Jia Zhifang puts these reflections into the mouth of the hero, whereas N. V. Gogol withdraws from the content of the text, that is, there are no lyrical digressions in the story "Human Sorrows", since Jia Zhifang had other artistic tasks.

Preserving Gogol's traditions, the writer at the same time transforms them, forcing them to work on the disclosure of the author's idea. He uses his own artistic techniques that individualize the characters through plot situations and through their speech, which, together with the details of the objective world, allows us to reveal the characteristic features of negative characters, expose their ignorance and greed, show the way of the base transformation of petty civil servants, the moral decay of the military, the decadent moods of the intellectual heroes.

Jia Zhifang lived most of his life in a difficult time for China, having experienced all the hardships of the era of the first half of the XX century. Therefore, the helplessness of his characters, their search for themselves in troubled times tell the reader about the difficult life path of the author himself.