摘要：The literary world described in the tales from Gogol´s so called "Ukrainian cycle", i.e. from the collections Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka and Mirgorod, is, we believe, in many ways similar to the literary world described in fairy tales. To be precise, what characterizes both fairy tales as a genre and Gogol´s early tales is the fact that fantastic characters (e.g. devils and witches) and events (e.g. magical transformations, flying) are perceived as relatively mundane. The wondrous,which leaves no one wondering, or rather, the amazing which fails to amaze anyone, is primarily a feature of fairy tales as a literary genre. The fact that it is also a feature shared by all of the stories from the Ukrainian cycle, leads us to the conclusion that Gogol´s early work must have been strongly influenced by Russian folklore, primarily the oral tradition, not least because his literary beginnings stem from the romantic tradition. By comparing between Gogol´s tales, on the one hand, and a corpus of Russian fairy tales on the other, we have detected a series of similarities between them in terms of the characters, plot, even style. The female characters in Gogol´s tales are either beautiful persecuted heroines or the evil (often nagging and therefore comical) stepmothers of fairy tales, while the male protagonists function either as (to use the stereotype) knights in shiny armours or helpless husbands. Fantastic characters as described by Gogol also stem from the fairy tale tradition (this is perhaps most evident in the case of the Russian witch Baba Yaga). Furthermore, Gogol´s plots often follow fairy-tale patterns.
