Perhaps the most consistent biographical reference to the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solov'ev (1853-1900) concerns his unusual guffaw: “When he laughed, his loud infectious laughter ‘with unexpected, outrageous, and hiccup-like high notes’ would drown out all other voices.” Scholars usually explain this laughter as a sign of Solov‘ev's otherworldly perception and his occasionally inappropriate descent into our mundane realm. Observing this “infectious laughter,” Evgenii Trubetskoi found an explanation in his friend's supposed ethereal character: “He was so nearsighted that he did not see what others saw. Squinting under his thick brows, he could make out items at close range only with difficulty. But when his glance searched into the distance, it seemed to penetrate beyond the surface accessible to our external senses and to see something otherworldly, hidden from all the rest. His eyes shone with some kind of internal light and gazed directly into the soul.” Aleksandr Blok, who claimed to have been greatly affected by a chance meeting with the strange philosopher, called him “pure spirit, as if an image instead of a living man–an outline, a symbol, a sketch.”

The revival of Russian Orthodoxy at the turn of the century coincided with a wave of anti- Semitism, and many Russian intellectuals of the time, following Vladimir Solov'ev, understood the defense of the Jews as their Christian duty. For Solov'ev, however, interest in the Jews went beyond ethical considerations and ran deeper through his philosophy than even his Utopian vision of a theocracy based on Hebrew Scriptures. Indeed, the expression of what may be Solov'ev's central concept–the Divine Sophia–achieved clarity through his selective reading of the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah. The argument that follows does not seek to prove influence, for Solov'ev approached the study of Kabbalah with well-formed philosophical convictions. Rather, Solov'ev's fascination with Jewish mysticism arises from affinity and recognition, as the Russian theologian sought a vocabulary with which to explain his own mystical intuitions.

The apparent preoccupation with nonliterary arts in Mirgorod suggests that Nikolai Gogol', an uncannily successful experimenter-in-words, sought "comic prose equivalents for the effects of other media and genres." One narrator laments: "Gde voz'mu ia kistei i krasok, chtob izobrazit' raznoobrazie s'ezda i velikolepnoe pirshestvo?" But paint obviously is not needed since the pen, misleadingly condemned as "vialo, mertvo," elicits an elaborate picture on its own.