NIKOLAY GOGOL AND THE SERBIAN LITERATURE OF THE 19TH CENTURY: ADDRESSING THE PROBLEM
The purpose of the article is to detect the degree of the influence of Gogol's work on the Serbian literature of the second half of the XIX century. To identify intertextual relations the most popular Serbian comedy writer Branislav Nušić (1864-1938) was chosen, whose play “Suspicious person” is compared in detail with Gogol's “The Government Inspector.” As the research proves there is every reason to speak of “Gogol period” in the Serbian drama of the second half of the XIX century. Nevertheless, Gogol`s tradition is absorbed by the young Serbian literature not mechanically, so that Serbian writers (in particular, Nušić) stand closer to Gogol's traditions not in terms of direct borrowings, but in terms of their creative independence in ideological and aesthetic problems.