Full Text: Viy

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**Viy / Вий**

"Viy" (Russian: Вий), also translated as "The Viy", is a horror novella by Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol, first published in the first volume of his collection of tales entitled Mirgorod (1835). The title is also the name of the demonic entity central to the plot.

## Author Info

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (31 March 1809 – 4 March 1852) was a Russian dramatist of Ukrainian origin.

Although Gogol was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in his work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of surrealism and the grotesque ("The Nose", "Viy", "The Overcoat", "Nevsky Prospekt"). His early works, such as Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka, were influenced by his Ukrainian upbringing, Ukrainian culture and folklore. His later writing satirised political corruption in the Russian Empire (The Government Inspector, Dead Souls). The novel Taras Bulba (1835) and the play Marriage (1842), along with the short stories "Diary of a Madman", "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich", "The Portrait" and "The Carriage", are also among his best-known works.

## Plot Summary

Three students from the Brothers’ Monastery at Kiev. Every summer, after classes have ended, there is usually a large procession of all the students moving around the area as they travel home, getting progressively smaller as each student arrives at his home. Eventually, the group is reduced to three students, the theologian Khaliava, the philosopher Khoma Brut, and the rhetorician Tibery Gorobets. As the night draws in, the students hope to find a village near the main road where they can find some rest and food. However, they become lost in the wilderness, eventually coming upon two small houses and a farm. An old woman there tells them she has a little room and cannot accommodate any more travelers, but she eventually agrees to let them stay. The rhetorician is put in the hut, the theologian in an empty closet, and the philosopher in an empty sheep’s pen. At night, the old woman comes to Khoma. At first, he thinks she is trying to seduce him, but then she draws closer and he sees that her eyes are glowing strangely. She leaps on his back, and he reluctantly finds himself galloping with her all over the countryside with a strength he previously never knew. He eventually slows her by chanting exorcisms out loud, and then rides on her back and later picks up a piece of wood and beats her as punishment. The old woman later collapses, and he discovers she has turned into a beautiful girl.

### Folkloric sources

Gogol states in his author's note that Viy, the King of the Gnomes, was an actual character from Ukrainian folklore. This was merely a literary device. In reality Gogol probably never heard of Viy at all. No discovery has been made of the folklore source of Viy, and as such it remains a part of Gogol's imagination. However, some scholars believe that the conception of Viy may have been at least partially based on old folk tradition surrounding St. Cassian the Unmerciful, who was said in some tales to have eyebrows that descended to his knees and which were raised only on Leap Year. It is likely that Gogol had heard about the character and designed Viy on his various forms.

The demons summoned into the church come from the Slavic superstitions of "midnight dead". Evil people, it was believed, automatically became Devil's subjects upon death. Earth would not hold them so that every night they would crawl out of their graves and torment the living. In the story, the demons have "black earth" clung to them, as if they crawled out of the ground.

The water sprite (Rusalka) seen by Khoma during his night ride bears relation to the "midnight dead". It was widely believed, in Russian and Ukraine, that rusalki were spirits of unbaptized children or drowned maidens, who were in league with the Devil. They were known to drown their victims or tickle them to death. They were described as beautiful, and deadly, and bear relation to the young version of the witch, and Gogol's frequent portrayal of women as beautiful yet evil.

Incantations, exorcism, and the magic circle come from Ukrainian beliefs of protection from evil forces. The circle relates to "chur", a magical boundary that evil cannot cross. Even though Khoma died from fear, the creatures could not touch him.

Additionally, the final notion that Khoma died only because he let fear win over him appears to stem from John of Damascus, who said "... all evil and impure passions have been conceived by evil spirits and they have been permitted to visit attacks upon man. But they are unable to force anyone, for it is in our power either to accept the visitation or not."

However, despite the facts described above, Viy is mentioned as the witch's husband in the Russian folk tale, "Ivan Bykovich". It says that Viy's assistants were rising his eyebrows and eyelashes with an iron fork.

## About this Version

This web edition published by eBooks@Adelaide.

Last updated Wednesday, December 17, 2014 at 13:40.

To the best of our knowledge, the text of this work is in the “Public Domain” in Australia.

HOWEVER, copyright law varies in other countries, and the work may still be under copyright in the country from which you are accessing this website. It is your responsibility to check the applicable copyright laws in your country before downloading this work.

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## The Story

The Viy

(The “Viy” is a monstrous creation of popular fancy. It is the name which the inhabitants of Little Russia give to the king of the gnomes, whose eyelashes reach to the ground. The following story is a specimen of such folk-lore. I have made no alterations, but reproduce it in the same simple form in which I heard it. — Author’s Note.)

## References and Sources

* Krys, Svitlana, “Intertextual Parallels Between Gogol' and Hoffmann: A Case Study of Vij and The Devil’s Elixirs.” Canadian-American Slavic Studies (CASS) 47.1 (2013): 1-20.
* Complete text in Russian: http://ilibrary.ru/text/1070/p.15/index.html
* Gogol, Nikolai. Pevear, R. and Volokhonsky, L. (Trans). The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol. 1998, Vintage Classics.
* Complete text in Russian: http://ilibrary.ru/text/1070/p.15/index.html
* Putney, Christopher. "Russian Devils and Diabolical Conditionality in Nikolai Gogol's Evenings on a farm near Dikanka." New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. 1999. Print.
* Kent, Leonard J "The Collected Tales and Plays of Nikolai Gogol." Toronto: Random House of Canada Limited. 1969. Print.

## Additional Links to Read Online:

1. https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/g/gogol/nikolai/g61v/
2. https://www.berfrois.com/2015/10/the-viy-nikolai-gogol/
3. http://www.online-literature.com/gogol/the-nose/4/

## Russian Images From:

* http://elib.tomsk.ru/purl/1-1237/

Gogol, N.V. Viy: a novella. - St. Petersburg, [1901]
Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich. Viy: story: illustrated edition / N. Gogol; rice R. Stein. - 3rd ed. - St. Petersburg, [1901]. - 79 s. : il. - From the collection of Tomsk ethnographer Eduard Kondratievich Maydanyuk.