«Mister Prokharchin» is a short story by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, written in 1846 and published the same year in the tenth issue of Andrei Kraevsky’s journal «Otechestvennye zapiski». A separate lifetime edition of the story was published by F. Stellovsky in 1865.
History of creation
Initially, in the first half of 1846, Dostoevsky planned to write the stories «Shaved Sideburns» and «The Tale of the Destroyed Chancelleries». From his letter to his brother Mikhail dated April 1, 1846, it follows that these stories were intended for the almanac «Leviathan» conceived by literary critic Vissarion Belinsky. According to researchers of Dostoevsky’s work, it was the idea of »The Tale of the Destroyed Chancelleries» that was later modified or truncated to the story «Mister Prokharchin». This assumption is based on the fact that the poor official’s anxiety about the closure of his office became one of the central motifs of the story.
The main motif of the story — a half-destitute official putting money away in an «old, worn-out mattress» — could have arisen under the influence of the article «Extraordinary Stinginess» published in «The Northern Bee» on June 9, 1844. The article reported on the collegiate secretary N. Brovkin, who, like Prokharchin, rented «a very cramped corner from a soldier’s house» for five rubles in banknotes, fed «a piece of bread, with radish or onion, and a glass of water» and died of malnutrition, leaving behind 1,035 silver rubles in his mattress.
A letter to his brother from April 26, 1846 shows that at this time Dostoevsky was already actively working on the future story, initially planning to complete it before the beginning of the summer. But already in the letter of May 16, the writer revised this assessment: «I write and do not see an end to the work.» Dostoevsky spent the summer of 1846 with his brother’s family in Reval, where he continued to work on the work he had begun. Later in one of his letters, he noted that he «suffered all summer,» since the writing of «Mr. Prokharchin» was difficult, without «a spring of inspiration gushing straight from the soul.»
In August 1846, work on the story was completed. The first reader of the new work was the writer’s brother, in whose house Dostoevsky continued to visit. According to researchers, the story could have been sent to Andrei Kraevsky for publication in the journal «Otechestvennye Zapiski» even before the author’s return to St. Petersburg. On September 5, 1846, Dostoevsky wrote: «I was also with Kraevsky. He began to set «Prokharchin»; it will appear in October.»
Censorship and publication
In the first half of September, the story, along with other works for the October issue of Otechestvennye Zapiski, was sent to the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee, where it “suffered cruelly” from censorship interference. Thus, on September 17, 1846, Dostoevsky wrote to his brother: “‘Prokharchin’ is terribly disfigured in a certain place. These gentlemen of a certain place even banned the word ‘official’, and God knows why – everything was already too innocent – and crossed it out in all places.
Everything living has disappeared. Only the skeleton of what I read to you remains. I am retreating from my story.” Due to the lack of drafts of the work or its proofreading, researchers of Dostoevsky’s work rely only on the writer’s letter in the question of the censor’s distortions and differences from the original version. The re-publication of the story in 1865 completely repeats the original, with the exception of individual stylistic edits. At the same time, the version of the story published in Otechestvennye Zapiski contains the word «official», although it was initially prohibited. Researchers believe that Dostoevsky managed to partially lift the restrictions before the first publication.
On September 30, 1846, the story was approved by the censors. It was first published in 1846 in the tenth issue of Andrei Kraevsky’s magazine Otechestvennye Zapiski.
Plot
A minor official, Semyon Ivanovich Prokharchin, rented a corner in the apartment of his landlady Ustinya Fyodorovna for five rubles a month, while the landlady charged the other tenants twice as much. The young tenants made fun of him and called Prokharchin Ustinya Fyodorovna’s favorite. Everyone disliked Semyon Ivanovich’s stinginess, intractability, and unsociability. The neighbors decided to play a joke on the official: in his presence, they began to periodically tell incredible news about the upcoming unpleasant changes in the life of officials, including exams for all employees in the offices, promotions for married officials, and training for unmarried people in dancing and social manners at the expense of the officials themselves.
The mentally weak Semyon Ivanovich did not know what to believe, and fearing for his precarious and insecure existence, he completely lost his mind from these fables. Being unsociable, he did not consult with his colleagues in the department, but turned directly to the head of the department, Demid Vasilyevich. Prokharchin’s strange behavior finally reached the head of the department himself. Having lost his last sanity, Prokharchin stopped showing up for work, and he did not come home either. His search led to his being found in the indecent company of the «drunkard beggar» Zimoveykin and Remnev.
Zimoveykin had been expelled from one office at one time, and after that the office itself was abolished. Fear for his precarious position, the fear that his office could also be «abolished» completed their work: Prokharchin fell ill, no reasoning from his neighbors could bring him to his senses anymore, he fell into unconsciousness and soon died. Remnev and Zimoveykin pull the mattress out from under the corpse and open it, but while doing this they are caught by Ustinya Fyodorovna’s tenants, who report the incident to the police. As a result, the police extracted 2,497 rubles 50 kopecks from the mattress.
The main character
The main character of the story, Semyon Ivanovich Prokharchin, is a petty official, an old, lonely and insignificant character. He tries to save on everything: on food, on entertainment, on an apartment, on appearance, justifying himself by saying that he is helping a relative in Tver. At the same time, Prokharchin only pretends to be a beggar, deceiving those around him and his colleagues, however, after his death, a percentage of money is found in the mattress on which the official slept. Depending on the value, «in the most methodical and solid order» all the found coins were wrapped in different pieces of paper.
Throughout his life, Dostoevsky showed an interest in strange and sick people. The writer always tried to show the reader the «secrets» of the dark St. Petersburg courtyards that cannot be seen from the street. Characterizing his character, the author notes that he pretended to be a beggar exclusively «for his strange whims.» For many years, Prokharchin lived like a beggar, but every night, when no one was looking, he took out and counted his wealth.
Prokharchin saved money, not allowing it to be spent, since every person has a need for a «reward», even those around him do not know it. According to Dostoevsky, any person strives to realize their desires and change the environment. In the case of such recognition and the desire to be loved, in search of the meaning of life, a person becomes a slave to money. This is why Prokharchin finds joy in accumulating money. Dostoevsky’s personal fears are also reflected in the image of Prokharchin. At the end of the story, the already dead protagonist seems to say: «… it is now dead; but what if, like this, that is, it, perhaps, cannot be like this, but what if, like this, and did not die — listen, I will get up, so something will happen, huh?», which is a reference to the fantasy that haunted Dostoevsky with childhood fantasies that he could fall into a lethargic sleep.
Dostoevsky researchers note that the image of the «new Harpagon» or «new Plyushkin» was also developed and deepened by the writer in accordance with other types of world literature: the Miserly Knight by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, Father Goriot and Papa Grandet from the novel «Eugénie Grandet» by Honoré de Balzac.
In the image of Prokharchin, Dostoevsky contains the disclosure of the socio-psychological problems of the «little man», which he began in «Poor Lamps» and «The Double». According to Friedlander, Prokharchin collected money in order to «strengthen his position», protecting himself from the dangers that worried him in the form of work inspections or the closure of the chancery. In addition, behind the rumors about the rectangular closure of the «chancelleries» there could be hidden the idea of the instability of the Nicholas regime, which was felt by the great fear of the main character.
In the text of the work itself, the author hints that Prokharchin’s surname is formed from the word «kharchi», that the mother of the hero’s father is «prokharchil’sya». At the same time, the surname contains a hidden allusion, going back to Gogol’s characters, who also «went crazy», for example, like Aksenty Poprishchin from «Notes of a Madman».
The story repeats the phrase «Prokharchinets is a wise man!» as a refrain, which, as often happens in Dostoevsky’s stories, is key to understanding the image of the main character. In «The Double» there is a version of this verb: «isharkhitsya», meaning to spend money on food, on grub, to eat everything, which in the case of Dostoevsky’s hero, who exhausted himself with malnutrition, was an oxymoron.
Reviews and Criticisms
On October 17, 1846, after the story was published in the tenth issue of Otechestvennye Zapiski, Dostoevsky wrote to his brother Mikhail: “Prokharchin” is highly praised. Many opinions are important to me.” The reviews in print, however, were mostly negative. Vissarion Belinsky, in his article “A Look at Russian Literature in
