Stepan Plyushkin (russian: link=no, Степан Плюшкин) is a fictional character in

Nikolai Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; uk, link=no, Мико́ла Васи́льович Го́голь, translit=Mykola Vasyliovych Hohol; (russian: Яновский; uk, Яновський, translit=Yanovskyi) ( – ) was a Russian novelist, ...

's novel ''

Dead Souls ''Dead Souls'' (russian: «Мёртвые души», ''Mjórtvyje dúshi'') is a novel by Nikolai Gogol, first published in 1842, and widely regarded as an exemplar of 19th-century Russian literature. The novel chronicles the travels and adve ...

''. He is a landowner who obsessively collects and saves everything he finds, to the point that when he wants to celebrate a deal with the protagonist Chichikov, he orders one of his

serf Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which developed ...

s to find a cake that a visitor brought several years ago, scrape off the mold, and bring it to them. At the same time, his estate is incredibly inefficient; the cut wheat rots on the ground and any potential income is lost. His surname is from the Russian word for ' cinnamon bun' (плюшка) or may be from '

plush Plush (from French ) is a textile having a cut nap or pile the same as fustian or velvet. Its softness of feel gave rise to the adjective "plush" to describe something soft or luxurious, which was extended to describe luxury accommodation, or s ...

' (плюш).

Background

Plyushkin had two daughters and a son, but upon the death of his wife he became a suspicious miser. The younger daughter died and the other two siblings left home. When his daughter Aleksandra Stepanovna visited him several times with gifts and grandchildren, but received no money in return, she stopped visiting. When Chichikov meets Plyushkin, he mistakes him for the steward due to his ignoble dress.

Plyushkin syndrome

Today in Russia, the name "Plyushkin" is semi-humorously applied to people who collect and amass various useless things, a behavior known as

compulsive hoarding Compulsive behavior is defined as performing an action persistently and repetitively. Compulsive behaviors could be an attempt to make obsessions go away. The act is usually a small, restricted and repetitive behavior, yet not disturbing in a pa ...

. Sometimes the terms "Plyushkin symptom" or "Plyushkin syndrome" are used to describe such people.Cybulska E."Senile Squalor: Plyushkin's not Diogenes Syndrome". Psychiatric Bulletin. 1998;22:319-320) In English, the words " pack rat" and hoarder are used for such people.

References

Russian culture Compulsive hoarding Literary characters introduced in 1842 Characters in Russian novels of the 19th century Fictional characters with obsessive–compulsive disorder {{novel-char-stub