ВІДТВОРЕННЯ УКРАЇНСЬКОГО НАЦІОНАЛЬНОГО ХАРАКТЕРУ Й ФОРМ УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ ДЕРЖАВНОСТІ В ТВОРЧОСТІ М.В. ГОГОЛЯ

The relevance of our article is explained by the importance of those historical lessons that we are referring to. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the art of increasing nationality – that is, not only the image of national identity, but also the expression of the indigenous interests of the people. This is what we see in the work of the great writer M.V. Gogol. Gogol comprehends the contradictory nature of his contemporary social and state life and advocates the pathos of moral and ethical transformation of man. The purpose of our article is to analyze the peculiarities of reproduction of the Ukrainian national character and forms of Ukrainian statehood in the works of MV. Gogol. For this purpose, the following tasks arise: to follow Gogol's analysis of the features of the Ukrainian national character and the reproduction of the Ukrainian historical process; to explore Gogol's depiction of epic paintings of folk life and heroism of Ukrainian during the period of the national liberation movement; to draw attention to Gogol's analysis of the degree of social differentiation and the development of forms of statehood, as well as distortion of natural relations between Ukrainians by the state authorities, alienation and separation of Ukrainians; understand how Gogol looks at the loss of integrity by Ukrainians and Ukrainian society through social and state circumstances; to interpret the social pathos of Gogol's work, the search for a way out of social inequality, and the critique of the national machinery of the 19th century. Gogol reveals the attraction of individuality to the life of mankind. But in Gogol's writings on Ukrainian subjects, the motives for the alienation of the individual, its split up and even collapse become more and more important. Gogol shows that human individuality – as well as life itself – is more complex and unexpected than the perceptions of it. Gogol paid a lot of attention to the collection and study of folk songs – they depicted him the Ukrainian national character, explained the essence of socio-historical processes, and clarified the attitude of Ukrainians towards different forms of statehood. But it is not only in the actual material but also in the interpretation of this material in folk poetry: after all, Gogol created an epic showing the poetic state of the world and the beginning of its tragic destruction – that is why the writer was based on the artistic vision of Ukrainian history that gave folklore . Gogol shows that the poetic state of the people's life ends and the prosaic comes – it happened in the late 16th – the first half of the 17th century; at the same time, Gogol reproduces the state that had developed in the past and formed the heroic Ukrainian character. Reproducing the individuality in its relations with humanity, Gogol shows the decisive role of circumstances. In the system of relations, «man and circumstances,» more often, unfortunately, the circumstances prevail. When reproducing the same circumstances Gogol discovers the contradiction between their essence and its socio-historical manifestations. Gogol analyzes the relationship between man and circumstances from the point of view of synthesis – the reproduction of life as a whole, with the disclosure of universal laws (based on the opposition of «poetry» and «prose» in human, social, folk and state life). Gogol constantly seeks for integrity – as a unity of individuality and peace; this unity is due to human belonging to mankind; This is the connection between people, which arises at one or another stage of historical development. No wonder classics of social science in the 19th century defined the definition of man as a «totality of all social relations.» Therefore, creating «Dead Souls» Gogol will be persuaded that he supposedly has a higher mission of the mission – to correct the «disorder», caused by the separation of people during the period of growth of mercantilism, and the exacerbation of social antagonism. Gogol's main goal is to find universal conciliation on the basis of Christian religion. Such a utopia of the late Gogol was due to the fact that the loss of the integrity of the world was just and stimulated the emergence of utopian ideas about harmonious life. The fragmentation is intensified with the transition to a new historical epoch in connection with the intensification of social and cultural differentiation: the heroic time, when, according to Gogol, individuality did not separate itself from the people, it is in the past – the substantive beginning now represents a state that dictates to people that now plunged into the world of personal interests, the forms of their participation in the life of the country. Personality loses independence, and with it integrity. Meanwhile, the identity of the interests of the state and the nation disintegrates, and the question of the attitude towards national interests arises before individuality. The national character is conceived by Gogol as a universal embodiment of the generic nature of mankind – therefore, the national harket is considered as a potential basis for the moral and spiritual resurrection of society.