Customer Reviews

The Inspector General (Language - Russian) (Russian Edition)

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The Inspector General is a short comedy parodying the rampant low-level corruption in Russian towns at the time the play was written (1836). The officials of a small town, led by Chief of Police Anton Antonovich, are petrified when they learn that a government inspector is being sent to visit undercover to make sure everything is running as it should. Due to their fear, they quickly conclude that Hlestakov, a badly-in-debt guest at a local inn who is in reality just a 14th-rank clerk en route to his father's house, is in fact that inspector. Hilarity ensues, as the officials fall all over themselves to show Hlestakov the town and convince him that they are doing their jobs in a most upstanding manner, while Hlestakov, though no genius, is wise enough to exploit the situation, convincing the townfolk that he is an extremely important personage, securing over a thousand roubles in "loans," and becoming engaged to Anton Antonovich's daughter and nearly seducing his wife. After Hlestakov leaves, a letter arrives to the effect that he wasn't really the inspector, causing everyone in town to feel very silly, and the play ends.

Though both today and at the time he was alive some people have insisted on setting Gogol up as a biting social critic, at least to me it seems that in reality he was nothing more than a very funny author. The characters in The Inspector General (much like those in his novel Dead Souls) are generally not much more than comic caricatures, so if you're hoping for a lot of depth in that area you might wish to look elsewhere. But there are a number of very funny moments in the play, and it's quite an enjoyable story which had a good deal of influence on later writers. At just 72 pages, it's a quick read, so I would recommend it heartily.

A bit of a one-note satire on petty government officals and their abuse of power. A visiting clerk is mistaken for an important official from Petersburg and the local functionaries fall over themselves to impress him.

No characters really stand out as especially interesting or fresh. Not a bad piece, but nothing to get excited about.