The Government Inspector

3 hrs. 50 min.

Classics

Language Russian

Author Nikolai Gogol

Narrator Sergey Gorbunov

Description

The plot suggested by Pushkin becomes for Gogol a reason to gather “all the bad in Russia” into a single play—and through the humor of mistakes in his comedy, the horror is clearly visible.

A provincial town in the Russian wilderness is terrified by the news about an inspector—a government official who is about to arrive for an inspection. The local authorities, mired in theft and bribery, accidentally mistake Khlestakov—a young idler with no money of his own—who is stopping in the town on his way from Petersburg, for the inspector. Once he gets comfortable in his new role, Khlestakov leaves the whole town in fools’ boots.

According to Gogol’s later definition, in “The Inspector General” he decided to “gather in one heap all the bad in Russia that I knew then, all the injustices that are done in those places and in those cases where a person most of all needs justice—and for one time, laugh at everything.”

“The Inspector General” is satire, but the “bad” in the play doesn’t just make you laugh—it also creates an otherworldly, almost infernal world. Before us is the first Russian comedy in which the setting is as important as the characters and the plot.