The stereotyping of relations between Westernizers and Slavophiles, template view on representatives of both of them and those close to both of these circles, calling names like ‘revolutionary democrat’ and ‘reactionary’ are characteristic not only of Soviet history of Russian literature and public thought, but also of their foreign researchers. The most outstanding personalities in the history of Russian public and literary thought of the mid-19th century were Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) and Vissarion Belinsky (1811-1848), known not only for their writings, but also for their correspondence with each other; they are more than anyone else who suffered from stereotyped approach to their ideas and personalities. In particular, among the contemporaries of Gogol and Belinsky, their correspondence of 1847 widely covered in the Russian press (including the Russian abroad) generated a lot of clichés. These clichés dominated in the Soviet school and circulate in modern Russian cultural-philosophical community. In my short paper, I aspire to consider well known dispute of 1847 between Belinsky and Gogol and both of their personalities using textual and philosophical hermeneutics analysis of both their correspondence and memoirs of their contemporaries. Thanks to Belinsky’s ability, ones reckon Gogol in so-called ‘natural school’ that is a kind of realism, while already Russian philosopher Vasily Rozanov (1856-1919) stressed that Gogol’s characters are fictitious and formal. However, Gogol is still seen as a critic of social reality. In this incorrect assessment, both revolutionaries who used Gogol's "criticism" to justify their violent and immoral activities, and liberals who seek to belittle and blacken Russian history and reality in every way, are of the same mind. Accordingly, the fact that Gogol burned the second part of his "Dead Souls" is often explained by his ideological cowardice and decline of his creativity, while the writer was a victim of his own mental illness and spiritual hardness of his spiritual mentor. Substantially, Gogol continued in Russian metaphysical thought, and new generation of Russian metaphysical thinkers, first of all, Dostoevsky, continued Gogol’s literary and social-philosophical tradition. Another stereotype is related with perception of Belinsky as just about revolutionary-democrat and accomplished atheist. However, according to Belinsky do letters and memoirs of his contemporaries allow us to abandon such straightforward and unambiguous judgments. Belinsky appears as a developing personality whose views are influenced by various ideological preferences, especially Western European social and philosophical ideas, but Belinsky took these ideas quite critically. Despite his social pathos and demands for the immediate abolition of serfdom, Belinsky was not an adherent of overthrowing the monarchy. He was not also an atheist, although his religious beliefs were very peculiar and came close to Western European philosophical rationality. I conclude that personal predilections, ethical and aesthetic preferences of Belinsky, perceived a priori and brought to the logical limit, brought to the logical limit, became the banner of the revolutionary-democratic movement, and the victory of this movement in 1917 ‘canonized’ Belinsky as an ideal of revolutionary and atheist. Meanwhile, neither he nor Gogol was supporters of radical (revolutionary) political changes, but both of them believed in future historical role and cultural mission of Russia.

На примере известного спора В.Г. Белинского с Н.В. Гоголем, отталкиваясь от первоисточников (самой переписки 1847 г. и воспоминаний современников), а также литературной критики, была предпринята попытка преодоления отдельных стереотипов советской эпохи, бытующих до сих пор. Одним из таких стереотипов стало причисление Гоголя (с легкой руки Белинского) к так называемой «натуральной школе», своеобразному реализму, в то время как уже В. Розанов указывал на вымышленный и формальный характер персонажей Гоголя. В бытующей и поныне неправомерной оценке Гоголя как критика социальной действительности единодушны оказались как революционеры, использовавшие «критику» Гоголя для оправдания своей насильственной и аморальной деятельности, так и либералы, стремящиеся всячески принизить и очернить российскую историю и действительность, ее национальные идеалы. Другой стереотип связан с восприятием Белинского чуть ли не как революционера-демократа и законченного атеиста. Однако обращение к первоисточникам, прежде всего к письмам Белинского и воспоминаниям современников, позволяют отказаться от таких прямолинейных и однозначных суждений. Белинский предстает как развивающаяся личность, чьи взгляды испытывают воздействие различных идейных увлечений, прежде всего приходящих с Запада, воспринимаемых, тем не менее, критически. Однако хотя идеи Белинского подняла на щит и довела до логического конца исторически победившая революционно-демократическая общественность, в итоге приведшая страну к 1917 г., в то время как путь Гоголя продолжила русская метафизическая мысль, прежде всего Достоевский, обоих писателей волновали прежде всего культурно-историческое значение России и ее величие.