The Government Inspector - Nikolai Gogol

The Government Inspector is a farce which exposes the greed and ambition of the bureaucracy in a small town in Russia. Developed around a question of mistaken identity, the main protagonist, Ivan Alexandrovich Khlestakov takes advantage of the bribes on offer, as venal administrators try to cover up their errors and their corruption in the mistaken belief that Khlestakov is the government’s official inspector.

It is said that laughter is the best medicine: but Gogol’s play which was very popular at the time, also caused an outcry as the satire exposed what everyone knew – that corruption, opportunism and ambition undermined any idea of good governance, and inevitably it was the poor and the weak who suffered most.

ISBN: 978-1-77922-317-3