М. М. Зощенко

The article focuses on the notebooks of M. M. Zoshchenko. The materials from the museums of St. Petersburg, IRLI (the Institute of Russian Literature), and, first of all, of the funds of the State Literary Museum «XXth century». M. M. Zoshchenko’s working notebooks, pocket-books are undoubtedly the most important source for the scientific biography of the writer. They represent the test-bench or the testing ground for the development, masks, plots, a range of techniques in the course of M. M. Zoshchenko’s oeuvre.

Zoshchenko’s “The Goat” and Gogol’s “The Overcoat” have a strong intertextual connection. The quoted image of the “little man”, the plot, motif reminiscences, similar narrative peculiarities disclose the writers’ literary succession. In this article we will analyze the intertextuality of the writers’ prose on the example of “The Overcoat” and “The Goat”, and consider Zoshchenko’s transformation of Gogol’s plots, motifs; we will fi gure out what meaningful functions the intertexts are performing. The main results are summarized as follows.