But it seems perfectly natural in the story that he and his cohorts be drowned in the Dniper by the Cossack lords. Gogol's mother was a descendant of Polish nobility. In 1834 he was appointed assistant professor of medieval history at St. Petersburg University, but he felt inadequately equipped for the position and left it after a year. The educated classes still regarded Russian as inferior to French. Karpuk, Paul A. For much of the twelve years from 1836, Gogol was in Italy developing an adoration for Rome. A great comedy, The Government Inspector mercilessly lampoons the corrupt bureaucracy under Nicholas I. Gogol’s association with Pushkin was of great value because he always trusted his friend’s taste and criticism; moreover, he received from Pushkin the themes for his two principal works, the play Revizor (The Government Inspector, sometimes titled The Inspector General) and Dead Souls, which were important not only to Russian literature but also to Gogol’s further destiny. In 1828 he went to St. Petersburg, hoping to enter the civil service, but soon discovered that without money and connections he would have to fight hard for a living. [18][19], Gogol was born in the Ukrainian Cossack town of Sorochyntsi,[20] in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire. An eponymous poem "Gogol" by the poet-diplomat Abhay K refers to some of the great works of Gogol such as "The Nose", "The Overcoat", "Nevsky Prospekt", Dead Souls and The Government Inspector. [22] He followed it in 1832 with a second volume, and in 1835 by two volumes of stories entitled Mirgorod, as well as by two volumes of miscellaneous prose entitled Arabesques. Konstantinovsky seems to have strengthened in Gogol the fear of perdition (damnation) by insisting on the sinfulness of all his imaginative work. Gogol’s father Vasyl Hohol-Yanovsky, a Ukrainian writer best known for his plays, died when Gogol was 15 years old. There he distinguished himself by his biting tongue, his contributions of prose and poetry to a magazine, and his portrayal of comic old men and women in school theatricals. The sad conditions of Russia, in which serfs used to be bought and sold like cattle, are evident throughout the grotesquely humorous transactions. In 1926 Vsevolod Meyerhold staged The Government Inspector as a "comedy of the absurd situation", revealing to his fascinated spectators a corrupt world of endless self-deception. Gogol, however, began to see his leading role in a perspective of his own. Nikolai Gogol (born in Sorochyntsi, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire, present-day Ukraine) – Russian writer of Ukrainian descent. Федеральный образовательный портал: учреждения, программы, стандарты, ВУЗы, тесты ЕГЭ. Only literature gave him the opportunity to earn money and express himself. Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) won fame as a short story writer, and in 1836, his satirical comedy The Government Inspector created such a furore that Gogol left Russia to settle in Rome, in self-imposed exile. Ring in the new year with a Britannica Membership, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nikolay-Gogol, Theatre Database - Biography of Nikolai Gogol, RT Russiapedia - Biography of Nikolay Gogol, Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine - Biography of Nikolai Gogol, Nikolay Gogol - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), “Selected Passages from Correspondence with My Friends”. Gogol's originality does not mean that numerous influences cannot be discerned in his work. However, Gogol's satire was much more sophisticated and unconventional. Nikolay Gogol, in full Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol, (born March 19 [March 31, New Style], 1809, Sorochintsy, near Poltava, Ukraine, Russian Empire [now in Ukraine]—died February 21 [March 4], 1852, Moscow, Russia), Ukrainian-born humorist, dramatist, and novelist whose works, written in Russian, significantly influenced the direction of Russian literature. Romantic stories of the past were thus intermingled with realistic incidents of the present. Exaggerated ascetic practices undermined his health and he fell into a state of deep depression. But Gogol was afflicted by a more profound agony, a burden that, from childhood, oppressed him like an incubus and that he was never able to shake off. "Nikolai Gogol excavated vocabulary from folktales and was a collector of new and arcane words: He was an anti-intellectual, in a way. [38], The other main characteristic of Gogol's writing is his 'impressionist' vision of reality and people. According to Vissarion Belinsky and Nikolay Chernyshevsky, Gogol had a huge influence on Russian and world literature. Amelia Glaser has noted the influence of Gogol's literary innovations on Sholem Aleichem, who, "chose to model much of his writing, and even his appearance, on Gogol... What Sholem Aleichem was borrowing from Gogol was a rural East European landscape that may have been dangerous, but could unite readers through the power of collective memory. Between 1832 and 1836, Gogol worked with great energy, and though almost all his work has in one way or another its sources in these four years of contact with Pushkin, he had not yet decided that his ambitions were to be fulfilled by success in literature. Although he recognized "several young writers" who "have shown a particular desire to observe real life", he upbraided the deficient composition and style of their works. [65] The movie was directed by Arun Khopkar and dialogues are written by Satish Alekar. Alov." T hough he wrote in Russian, Gogol was born in a small village in the district of Poltava, in what is now central Ukraine. His brutal method of murder also most likely stems from the author's combination of realistic and grotesque elements. [74], The punk band Gogol Bordello take their name from Gogol; he serves as an ideological influence for the band because he "smuggled" Ukrainian culture into Russian society, which Gogol Bordello intends to do with Gypsy/East-European music in the English-speaking world. The stories adapted were "The Two Ivans", "The Overcoat", "Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt", "The Nose", "The Mysterious Portrait" and "Diary of a Madman". He eventually settled in Rome. Corrections? The religious painter Aleksandr Ivanov, who worked in Rome, became his close friend. Gogol's short story "Christmas Eve" was adapted into operatic form twice by Tchaikovsky, first as Vakula the Smith in 1874, then as The Tsarina's Slippers in 1885; Rimsky-Korsakov also wrote an opera based on the same story in 1894. Nikolai Gogol was one of the great geniuses of nineteenth century Russian literature, with a command of the irrational unmatched by any writer before or … [43], Even before the publication of Dead Souls, Belinsky recognized Gogol as the first Russian-language realist writer and as the head of the Natural School, to which he also assigned such younger or lesser authors as Goncharov, Turgenev, Dmitry Grigorovich, Vladimir Dahl and Vladimir Sollogub. "[47] Critics traditionally interpreted "The Overcoat" as a masterpiece of "humanitarian realism", but Nabokov and some other attentive readers argued that "holes in the language" make the story susceptible to interpretation as a supernatural tale about a ghostly double of a "small man". But during the triumph, after the bogus inspector’s departure, the arrival of the real inspector is announced—to the horror of those concerned. He even tried to become an actor, but his audition was unsuccessful. Outside of Russia, the film loosely served as the inspiration for Mario Bava's film Black Sunday (1960) and the South Korean horror film Evil Spirit: Viy (2008). Gogol was one of the first to use the techniques of surrealism and the grotesque in his works ("The Nose", "Viy", "The Overcoat", "Nevsky Prospekt"). As a child, Gogol helped stage Ukrainian-language plays in his uncle's home theater.[21]. Nikolai Gogol was born on March 20, 1809, in the little Ukrainian town of Sorochincy. He strains to pull the half dozen leeches off his nose, but his hands are too firmly tied to the bed. "[52] In Léon Poliakov's The History of Antisemitism, the author mentions that, "The 'Yankel' from Taras Bulba indeed became the archetypal Jew in Russian literature. He intensified his relationship with a starets or spiritual elder, Matvey Konstantinovsky, whom he had known for several years. The democratic intellectuals of Belinsky’s brand saw in this novel a work permeated with the spirit of their own liberal aspirations. Writing in 1941, Vladimir Nabokov called it "The greatest Russian short story ever written". The edition included, among his other writings, a sprightly comedy titled Zhenitba (Marriage) and the story “The Overcoat.” The latter concerns a humble scribe who, with untold sacrifices, has acquired a smart overcoat; when robbed of it, he dies of a broken heart. With the works of the Russian author Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) the period of Russian imitation of Western literature ended. Read 2 695 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Above all, Yankel is ridiculous, and the image of the plucked chicken that Gogol used has made the rounds of great Russian authors. In 1836 Gogol published in Pushkin’s Sovremennik (“The Contemporary”) one of his gayest satirical stories, “Kolyaska” (“The Coach”). Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. "Nikolai Gogol excavated vocabulary from folktales and was a collector of new and arcane words: He was an anti-intellectual, in a way. Looking for books by Nikolai Gogol? By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. In the 1920s a group of Russian short-story writers, known as the Serapion Brothers, placed Gogol among their precursors and consciously sought to imitate his techniques. With the works of the Russian author Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) the period of Russian imitation of Western literature ended. The Russian composer Alfred Schnittke wrote the eight-part Gogol Suite as incidental music to The Government Inspector performed as a play, and Dmitri Shostakovich set The Nose as his first opera in 1928 – a peculiar choice of subject for what was meant[by whom?] Gogol is mentioned several times in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Poor Folk and Crime and Punishment and Chekhov's The Seagull. His father was an amateur playwright who had a small estate with a number of serfs. Nikolai Gogol (18091852) was a Russian writer born in Ukraine and considered a founder of - Russian realism, although elements of romanticism and the grotesque permeate his work. He explained this as a mistake, a practical joke played on him by the Devil. This narrative was initially published in 1835 by the author in Part I of his collection Arabesques. Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852), Russia’s greatest comic writer, thoroughly baffled his contemporaries. Nikolai Gogol was engaged in needlework since childhood – he was able to knit on knitting needles, weave belts and cut out clothes for his sisters. It appeared in Moscow in 1842, under the title, imposed by the censorship, of The Adventures of Chichikov. This comic novel, or “epic,” as the author labeled it, reflects feudal Russia, with its serfdom and bureaucratic iniquities. Pushkin's death produced a strong impression on Gogol. His bright but criminal idea is to buy from various landowners a number of their recently deceased serfs (or “souls,” as they were called in Russia) whose deaths have not yet been registered by the official census and are therefore regarded as still being alive. This agonizing burden was a constant, pervasive fear of death. Shinel; sometimes translated as "The Cloak") is a short story by Ukrainian-born Russian author Nikolai Gogol, published in 1842. Quoted by Vasily Gippius in his monograph. His father Vasily Gogol-Yanovsky, a descendant of Ukrainian Cossacks (see Lyzohub family) who died when Gogol was 15 years old, belonged to the 'petty gentry', wrote poetry in Ukrainian and Russian, and was an amateur Ukrainian-language playwright. Such a splendid narrative of the Cossack past as “Taras Bulba” certainly provided an escape from the present. Works like The Overcoat and Dead Souls launched Gogol into the upper echelons of Russian writers, yet his greatest masterpiece, a continuation of Dead Souls, was cut short by his tragic death. His grave was marked by a large stone (Golgotha), topped by a Russian Orthodox cross. In this predicament he remembered a mediocre sentimental-idyllic poem he had written in the high school. A member of the petty Ukrainian gentry and a subject of the Russian Empire, Gogol was sent at the age of 12 to the high school at Nezhin. Nikolai Gogol was the most idiosyncratic of the great Russian novelists of the 19th century and lived a tragically short life which was as chaotic as the lives of the characters he created. It was also adapted into the Russian FMV video game Viy: The Story Retold (2004). In 1820, Gogol went to a school of higher art in Nizhyn (now Nizhyn Gogol State University) and remained there until 1828. Gogol himself, an adherent of the Slavophile movement, believed in a divinely inspired mission for both the House of Romanov and the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1841, the first part of Dead Souls was ready, and Gogol took it to Russia to supervise its printing. Gogol has been featured many times on Russian and Soviet postage stamps; he is also well represented on stamps worldwide. Gogol wrote dozens of books during his lifetime. He turned in a performance ludicrous enough to warrant satiric treatment in one of his own stories. The title is also the name of the demonic entity central to the plot. Nikolai Gogol. "[53], Despite his portrayal of Jewish characters, Gogol left a powerful impression even on Jewish writers who inherited his literary legacy. "Gogol's Research on Ukrainian Customs for the Dikan'ka Tales". [49] More recently, to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Gogol's birth in 1809, Vienna's renowned Theater an der Wien commissioned music and libretto for a full-length opera on the life of Gogol from Russian composer and writer Lera Auerbach. Having mistaken a well-dressed windbag for the dreaded incognito inspector, the officials of a provincial town bribe and banquet him in order to turn his attention away from the crying evils of their administration. In the same periodical also appeared his amusingly caustic surrealist tale, “Nos” (“The Nose”). Like Sterne before him, Gogol was a great destroyer of prohibitions and of romantic illusions. Even the idyllic motif of Gogol’s “Starosvetskiye pomeshchiki” (“Old-World Landowners”) is undermined with satire, for the mutual affection of the aged couple is marred by gluttony, their ceaseless eating for eating’s sake. Gogol's eccentric nature likely stems from the real Nikolai Gogol's reputation as a dramatist and satirist. The leading novelists of the period – notably Yevgeny Zamyatin and Mikhail Bulgakov – also admired Gogol and followed in his footsteps. "Sholem Aleichem, Gogol Show Two Views of Shtetl Jews. Gogol's "The Overcoat" was adapted as "Nayi Sherwani" by Shyam Benegal as an episode in the 1986 Indian anthology television series Katha Sagar.[64]. [16][17] His later writing satirised political corruption in the Russian Empire (The Government Inspector, Dead Souls). Amelia Glaser. In winter 1828, Gogol went to the cultural capital – St. Petersburg. Portrait of Nikolai Gogol, 1840/WikiCommons See all formats and … His stories often interweave pathos and mockery, while "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich" begins as a merry farce and ends with the famous dictum, "It is dull in this world, gentlemen!". Equally early he developed a talent for mimicry, which later made him a matchless reader of his own works and induced him to toy with the idea of becoming an actor. Whatever his reasons for undertaking such an irresponsible trip, he soon ran out of money and returned to St. Petersburg, where he got an ill-paid government post. Nikolai Gogol. Российское образование. “The longer and more carefully we look at a funny story, the sadder it becomes.” ― Nikolai V. Gogol. [51] Felix Dreizin and David Guaspari, for example, in their The Russian Soul and the Jew: Essays in Literary Ethnocentrism, discuss "the significance of the Jewish characters and the negative image of the Ukrainian Jewish community in Gogol's novel Taras Bulba, pointing out Gogol's attachment to anti-Jewish prejudices prevalent in Russian and Ukrainian culture. Nikolay Gogol, in full Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol, (born March 19 [March 31, New Style], 1809, Sorochintsy, near Poltava, Ukraine, Russian Empire [now in Ukraine]—died February 21 [March 4], 1852, Moscow, Russia), Ukrainian-born humorist, dramatist, and novelist whose works, written in Russian, significantly influenced the direction of Russian literature. Similar to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gogol sharply disagreed with those Russians who preached constitutional monarchy and the disestablishment of the Orthodox Church. More than 135 films[73] have been based on Gogol's work, the most recent being The Girl in the White Coat (2011). 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