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Background and aims: An inverse relationship between lipid levels and atrial fibrillation (AF) has been suggested, but whether the association is upheld for all age groups remains unclear. The aim of the study was to examine associations between lipid levels and AF by age groups in a nationwide study in Poland. Methods: Multivariate Poisson regression models were used to estimate prevalence ratios (PRs) for AF by lipid levels. Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), non-HDL-C and LDL-C/HDL-C ratios were grouped into quartiles. Results: Of the 13,724 participants, 5.2% (n = 708) had AF. People with AF were older with more comorbidities, but lower lipid levels (all p < 0.05). The prevalence of AF was inversely associated with LDL-C (Adjusted PR (95% Confidence Interval) highest versus lowest quartile: 0.60 (0.48, 0.75)), TC (0.61 (0.49, 0.75)) and non-HDL-C (0.63 (0.51, 0.78)). The prevalence of AF was inversely associated with HDL-C (0.58 (0.46, 0.74)), but this was not statistically significant for people aged 75 years and older. For the LDL-C/HDL-C ratio, the prevalence of AF was only inversely associated with higher levels for people aged 75 years and older (0.75 (0.61, 0.94)). There was no statistically significant difference in prevalence of AF by TG levels. Conclusions: The results suggest an inverse relationship between lipid levels and AF. The inverse association between higher HDL-C and AF was only significant for people aged

PUSHKIN: What the devil! Seems I've tripped over Gogol!GOGOL: (Getting up) What a vile abomination! You can't even have a rest. (Walks off, stumbles over PUSHKIN and falls) Seems I've stumbled over Pushkin!PUSHKIN: (Getting up) Not a minute of peace! (Walks off, stumbles over GOGOL and falls) What the devil! Seems I've tripped over Gogol again!GOGOL: (Getting up) Always an obstacle in everything! (Walks off, stumbles over PUSHKIN and falls) It's a vile abomination! Tripped over Pushkin again!PUSHKIN: (Getting up) Hooliganism! Sheer hooliganism! (Walks off, stumbles over GOGOL and falls) [etc., etc.] Daniil Kharms, "Pushkin and Gogol" (1934)INTRODUCTIONA tradition of contrasting the Pushkinian and Gogolian origins of modem Russian literature began famously with N. G. Chernyshevskii and was later reinvented by V. Rozanov.1 Yet Russian literary criticism has also produced an opposite critical trend, which has stressed the personal and artistic relationship between the two writers and noted Gogol" s apparent indebtedness to Pushkin in almost every aspect of his art. Gukovskii's famous monograph on Gogol' typifies this trend. It makes Pushkin an absolute reference point without which Gogol' would have been unthinkable, and situates a commentary on Pushkin as the sine qua non of any meaningful commentary on Gogol'.2 Russian literary criticism, both imperial and Soviet, eager to construct teleologies in the manner of royal lines of succession, placed Pushkin at the head of Russian literature and crowned Gogol' as his successor. Pushkin's purported gift to Gogol' of the plots of his two greatest works, The Government Inspector and Dead Souls, achieved a significance approaching the transfer of regalia. Gogol" s 1835 Arabesques article "Neskol'ko slov o Pushkine" [A Few Words about Pushkin], in which he eulogizes Pushkin as a national poet, has served as important evidence that Gogol' treated Pushkin as his mentor and placed him on a pedestal.What I propose here is a close reading of this article that finds Gogol" s praise of Pushkin double-edged and disingenuous. The text contradicts the idea of the two writers as amicable collaborators in the arts, at least as far as Gogol' - despite his mercenary posturing - was concerned. The text bears the stamp of characteristic Gogolian chutzpah that most students of Gogol' - myself included - find quite amusing and readily forgivable. But along with the fun of cheeky innuendo the article also carries a serious message with regard to Gogol"s conception of "national" art. In the course of discussing Pushkin's strategies of encoding nationality in literature, Gogol' develops his own conception of national literary expression, by which he aims to affix the stamp of nationality to his own writings, rather than Pushkin's.The complexities of Gogolian texts often echo the complexities of his biography and "A Few Words About Pushkin" proves a case in point. The nature and extent of the two writers' friendship is a matter of some controversy. Though most students of Russian literature inherit an image of the two writers as warm and respectful friends, some critics, like Vladimir Nabokov, Dmitry Mirsky, and Andrei Siniavskii, have doubted Gogol"s and Pushkin's personal closeness. Most recently, Yuri Druzhnikov has gathered known factual data and debunked this entrenched myth.3 Druzhnikov is right to note Pushkin's reserved, business-like tone in his scanty correspondence with Gogol' and his attempts to keep the young Ukrainian at arm's length. Gogol' himself, who shamelessly dropped Pushkin's name to impress his friends, wildly exaggerated and mischaracterized the scope of their personal contacts, particularly during the summer of 1831. 4 Gogol"s own claim of intimacy with Pushkin appears questionable also in light of his correspondence after Pushkin's death, in which Gogol" s lamentations ring hollow.5Gogol"s attitude to Pushkin was in fact quite self-serving. …

14ied Cavalry's form has perplexed critics since its first publication in 1926. The work has been described as an epic, a lyric poem, a baroque novel, a novel of stories, a loose collection of stories unified by a theme, and a series of anecdotes.' While each of these approaches illuminates a certain aspect of the work, a full appreciation of Red Cavalry's masterful design and its wealth and complexity of meanings requires an approach that will take the work for what it appears to be: a cycle of short stories, that is, a series of short narratives composed and arranged by the author to form a coherent whole. Despite acknowledgements of Red Cavalry's unified structure, the question of what exactly holds the cycle together has so far received only perfunctory treatment.2 In this article I will attempt a more comprehensive though by no means exhaustive analysis of Red Cavalry's basic patterns of cohesion. I also will demonstrate a close interdependence of formal structure and thematic developments in the work. In conclusion I will consider some implications of Mikhail Bakhtin's narrative theory for the genre of the story cycle and will discuss the cycle's differences from the novel form. Red Cavalry baffles its readers for what they take to be its unresolved tensions, stark juxtapositions, and ambiguities in the narrative voice. The work's open-endedness fully justifies this reaction. Yet an approach to Red Cavalry as a whole, as a work of a particular genre that generates meanings in ways peculiar to itself, is likely to dispel some of this bafflement.