Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809 - 1852) was born in Ukraine, in the village of Sorochintsy in the Poltava region. His father was from the landowners of the family of Bohdan Khmelnitsky. In total, the family raised 12 children.
Neighbors and friends constantly gathered at the Gogol family estate: the father of the future writer was known as a great admirer of the theater. It is known that he even tried to write his own plays. So Nikolai inherited his talent for creativity on his father’s side. While studying at the Nizhyn gymnasium, he became famous for his love of composing bright and funny epigrams about his classmates and teachers.
Since the teaching staff of the educational institution was not highly professional, high school students had to devote a lot of time to self-education: they wrote out almanacs, prepared theatrical performances, and published their own handwritten journal. At that time, Gogol had not yet thought about a writing career. He dreamed of entering the civil service, which was then considered prestigious.
Moving to St. Petersburg in 1828 and the much-desired public service did not bring moral satisfaction to Nikolai Gogol. It turned out that office work was boring.
At the same time, Gogol's first published poem, Hans Küchelgarten, appeared. But the writer is also disappointed in her. And so much so that he personally takes the published materials from the store and burns them.
Life in St. Petersburg has a depressing effect on the writer: uninteresting work, dull climate, financial problems... He increasingly thinks about returning to his picturesque native village in Ukraine. It was the memories of the homeland that were embodied in a well-represented national flavor in one of the writer’s most famous works, “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.” This masterpiece was warmly received by critics. And after Zhukovsky and Pushkin left positive reviews of “Evenings...”, the doors opened for Gogol into the world of real luminaries of the art of writing.
Inspired by the success of his first successful work, Gogol a short time later wrote “Notes of a Madman,” “Taras Bulba,” “The Nose,” and “Old World Landowners.” They further reveal the writer's talent. After all, no one before in his works had so accurately and vividly touched upon the psychology of “little” people. It is not for nothing that the famous critic of that time, Belinsky, spoke so enthusiastically about Gogol’s talent. One could find everything in his works: humor, tragedy, humanity, poetism. But despite all this, the writer continued to remain not completely satisfied with himself and his work. He believed that his civic position was expressed too passively.
Having failed in public service, Nikolai Gogol decides to try his hand at teaching history at St. Petersburg University. But even here another fiasco awaited him. Therefore, he makes another decision: to devote himself entirely to creativity. But no longer as a contemplative writer, but as an active participant, a judge of heroes. In 1836, the bright satire “The Inspector General” came out from the author’s pen. Society received this work ambiguously. Perhaps because Gogol managed to very sensitively “touch a nerve”, showing all the imperfections of the society of that time. Once again, the writer, disappointed in his abilities, decides to leave Russia.
Nikolai Gogol emigrates from St. Petersburg to Italy. The quiet life in Rome has a beneficial effect on the writer. It was here that he began to write a large-scale work - “Dead Souls”. And again, society did not accept a real masterpiece. Gogol was accused of slandering his homeland, because society could not take the blow to the serfdom. Even the critic Belinsky took up arms against the writer.
Not being accepted by society had a negative impact on the writer’s health. He made an attempt and wrote the second volume of Dead Souls, but he himself personally burned the handwritten version.
The writer died in Moscow in February 1852. The official cause of death was given as “nervous fever.”
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was born on April 1, 1809 in the town of Velikiye Sorochintsy, Mirgorod district, Poltava province, into the family of a landowner. The Gogol family had a large estate, about a thousand acres of land and about four hundred peasant souls.
Gogol spent his entire childhood on the Yanovshchina estate, which belonged to Nikolai Vasilyevich’s parents. His mother tried very hard to instill in her son a love of religion. Gogol was interested in this, but not so much in religion as a whole, as in the prophecies about the Last Judgment and the idea of \u200b\u200bretribution after death. Also in childhood, Gogol began to write poetry.
Nikolai Vasilyevich began to study. At first it was the Poltava district school, then private lessons, and then Nikolai Vasilyevich entered the gymnasium of higher sciences in Nizhyn. Here he begins to try himself in different literary genres, but he is not going to associate himself with this, because he dreams of a legal career.
After graduating from high school in 1828, Gogol goes to St. Petersburg, but there he is met with failure. The poem “Idyll in Pictures” he wrote evokes laughter and condescension. Then Nikolai Vasilyevich suddenly leaves for Germany, and just as suddenly he returns. But here again he fails, he does not enter the stage as a dramatic actor.
At the end of 1829, he served in the department of state economy and public buildings of the Ministry of the Interior. Between 1830 and 1831 he served in the department of appanages.
This experience gave Gogol disappointment in public service and a craving for literature. He begins to devote a lot of time to this matter. His works are beginning to be published. Gogol begins to spend a lot of time in the circle of Pushkin and Zhukovsky. And finally, in 1831–1832, “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” was published. After the release of the second part of this work, Gogol becomes famous, he goes to Moscow. But then he begins to have difficulties with censorship.
Gogol became more and more interested in history, and several times tried to teach at universities, but he was not accepted. A little later he became an adjunct professor at the Department of World History.
In parallel with this, he wrote stories that had their own style, a striking example of this was the work “The Nose” and “Taras Bulba”.
When Gogol wrote the work “The Inspector General,” the reaction to his work was mixed. The fact is that just two months after completing the comedy, Gogol was already staging it on stage. But after some time, criticism fell on Nikolai Vasilyevich, which greatly upset Gogol. The deterioration of relations with Pushkin also added fuel to the fire.
Nikolai Vasilyevich begins to spend a lot of time abroad. He goes to Germany, then to Switzerland. And at the same time he is working on the work “Dead Souls,” the idea of which, like the idea of “The Inspector General,” was suggested by Pushkin. And while in France, Gogol learns about his death. Then Nikolai Vasilyevich decided that this work was like a kind of “sacred testament” of the poet.
Since 1837, Gogol has been on the road again: Rome, Turin, Baden-Baden, Frankfurt, Geneva and Rome again.
Then Nikolai Vasilyevich’s life is in full swing. He goes to Moscow, reads the chapters of the first volume of Dead Souls, receives good reviews, leaves again, burns some chapters of the work, finishes it and submits it for censorship. And when he decided to write the second volume, Gogol began to have a crisis. He travels a lot, but the work is very difficult to write. And in the end he burns it.
Nikolai Vasilyevich begins his first mental crisis, he is being treated and only by the autumn of 1845 he began to feel better. He again moves on to the second volume of Dead Souls, but everything is just as difficult. Gogol is distracted a lot by other things. After writing the book “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” Gogol receives another blow. They start to criticize him a lot. This had a very bad effect on Nikolai Vasilyevich. After this, he reads a lot and decides to go on a pilgrimage to holy places. In 1849 - 1850, Nikolai Vasilyevich decided to read some chapters of the second volume of “Dead Souls” and Gogol’s friends liked them. Then he decides to finally think about family life and proposes to Anna Mikhailovna Vielgorskaya, but she refuses the writer.
Gogol continues to work on the second volume of Dead Souls. He leads a fairly active lifestyle, and in 1852 he completes the second volume, but Gogol begins a crisis. He meets with Father Matvey, and on February 7 he confesses and receives communion. On the night of 11 to 12, he burns the entire second volume, leaving only drafts of five chapters. On February 21, in the morning, Gogol died.
Nikolai Gogol appears. His books are familiar to everyone. Films and performances are based on his works. The work of this writer is very diverse. It contains both romantic stories and works of realistic prose.
Nikolai Gogol was born in Ukraine into the family of a regimental clerk. His talent as a satirist showed up early. Gogol showed a tireless thirst for knowledge already in childhood. Books played a big role in his life. At the Nizhyn school, where he received his education, he was not given sufficient knowledge. That’s why he subscribed to additional literary magazines and almanacs.
Even during his school years, he began to compose witty epigrams. The subject of ridicule of the future writer were teachers. But the lyceum student did not attach much importance to such creative research. After completing the course, he dreamed of leaving for St. Petersburg, believing that there he could get a job in the civil service.
The dream came true, and the lyceum graduate left his native land. However, in St. Petersburg he was able to get only a modest position in the chancellery. In parallel with this work, he created small ones. But they were bad, and he bought almost all copies of the first poem, which was called “Hans Küchelgarten,” in a bookstore and burned it with his own hands.
Soon, failures in creativity and financial difficulties plunged Gogol into despondency. The northern capital began to evoke melancholy in his soul. And more and more often the employee of the small office remembered the Ukrainian landscapes dear to his heart. Not everyone knows which book brought Gogol fame. But there is not a schoolchild in our country who would not be familiar with the work “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka.” The creation of this book was inspired by longing for my small homeland. And it was this literary work that brought fame to Gogol and allowed him to gain recognition from his fellow writers. Gogol was awarded a laudatory review by Pushkin himself. The books of the great poet and writer had a decisive influence on him in his youth. Therefore, the opinion of the luminary of literature was especially valuable for the young author.
Since then, Gogol has been well known in literary circles. He communicated closely with Pushkin and Zhukovsky, which could not but influence his work. From now on, writing became the meaning of life for him. He began to take this matter very seriously. And the result was not long in coming.
During this period, Gogol's most famous books were created. The list of them suggests that the writer worked in an extremely intensive mode and did not give particular preference to one genre or another. His works caused a stir in the world of literature. Belinsky wrote about the talent of the young prose writer, who was distinguished by his amazing ability to recognize unique abilities at an early stage. The realistic direction laid down by Pushkin developed at a decent level, as evidenced by Gogol’s books. Their list includes the following works:
Each of them is unique in its own way. In a sense, Nikolai Gogol became an innovator. His books were distinguished by the fact that for the first time in the history of Russian literature they touched on the topic. This was done superficially, but before that the fate of thousands of ordinary people was depicted in fiction only in passing.
But no matter how strong and unique the talent of the creator of “The Overcoat” was, he still made a special contribution to literature thanks to the writing of “The Inspector General” and “Dead Souls.”
Gogol's early works brought success. However, the writer was not satisfied with this. Gogol did not want to remain just a contemplator of life. The realization that the writer’s mission was extremely great grew stronger and stronger in his soul. The artist is able to convey to his readers his vision of modern reality, thereby influencing the consciousness of the masses. From now on, Gogol worked for the good of Russia and its people. His books testify to this good aspiration. The poem "Dead Souls" became the greatest work in literature. However, after the release of the first volume, the writer was subjected to severe attacks from adherents of conservative views.
The difficult situation that arose in the life and work of the writer led to the fact that he was never able to complete the poem. The second volume, which was written shortly before his death, was burned by the writer.
Born on March 20, 1809 in the town of Velikiye Sorochintsy, Mirgorod district, Poltava province, in the family of a poor landowner. The writer's father, Vasily Afanasyevich Gogol-Yanovsky (1777-1825), served at the Little Russian Post Office, in 1805 he retired with the rank of collegiate assessor and married Maria Ivanovna Kosyarovskaya (1791-1868), who came from a landowner family. According to legend, she was the first beauty in the Poltava region. She married Vasily Afanasyevich at the age of fourteen. There were six children in the family: in addition to Nicholas, son Ivan (died in 1819), daughters Marya (1811-1844), Anna (1821-1893), Lisa (1823-1864) and Olga (1825-1907).
My childhood years were spent on my parents’ estate Vasilyevka, near the village of Dikanka, a land of legends, beliefs, and historical stories. His father, Vasily Afanasyevich, a passionate admirer of art, a theater lover, and the author of poetry and witty comedies, played a certain role in the upbringing of the future writer. .In 1818-19, Gogol, together with his brother Ivan, studied at the Poltava district school, and then, in 1820-1821, took private lessons.
In May 1821 he entered the gymnasium of higher sciences in Nizhyn. Here he is engaged in painting, participates in performances - as a set designer and as an actor, and with particular success he plays comic roles. He also tries himself in various literary genres (writes elegiac poems, tragedies, historical poems, stories). At the same time he writes the satire “Something about Nezhin, or the law is not written for fools” (not preserved).
After graduating from high school in 1828, Gogol went to St. Petersburg. Experiencing financial difficulties, unsuccessfully fussing about a place, Gogol made his first literary attempts: at the beginning of 1829 the poem “Italy” appeared, and in the spring of the same year, under the pseudonym “V. Alov”, Gogol published the “idyll in pictures” “Ganz Küchelgarten”. The poem evoked very negative reviews from critics, which increased the difficult mood of Gogol, who throughout his life experienced criticism of his works very painfully.
In July 1829, he burns unsold copies of the book and suddenly leaves abroad, to Germany, and by the end of September, almost as suddenly, returns to St. Petersburg. At the end of 1829, he managed to decide to serve in the department of state economy and public buildings of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. From April 1830 to March 1831 he served in the department of appanages (first as a scribe, then as an assistant to the clerk), under the command of the famous idyllic poet V.I. Panaev. His stay in the offices caused Gogol deep disappointment in the “state service”, but it provided rich material for future works depicting bureaucratic life and the functioning of the state machine.
In 1832, Gogol’s book “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” was published, based on Ukrainian folk art - songs, fairy tales, folk beliefs and customs, as well as the personal impressions of the author himself. This book brought Gogol great success. The appearance of “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka,” according to Pushkin, was an extraordinary phenomenon in Russian literature. Gogol revealed to the Russian reader the wonderful world of folk life, imbued with the romance of folk legends and traditions, cheerful lyricism and playful humor.
At the end of 1832, Gogol came to Moscow as a well-known writer, where he became close to M.P. Pogodin, family S.T. Aksakova, M.N. Zagoskin, I.V. and P.V. Kireevsky, who had a great influence on the views of the young Gogol. In 1834, Gogol was appointed associate professor in the department of general history at St. Petersburg University. The study of works on the history of Ukraine formed the basis of the plan for "Taras Bulba".
In 1835 he left the university and devoted himself entirely to literary creativity. In the same year, a collection of stories “Mirgorod” appeared, which included “Old World Landowners”, “Taras Bulba”, “Viy”, etc., and a collection “Arabesques” (on themes of St. Petersburg life).
In the fall of 1835, he began writing “The Inspector General,” the plot of which was suggested by Pushkin; the work progressed so successfully that on January 18, 1836, he read the comedy at an evening with Zhukovsky (in the presence of Pushkin, P. A. Vyazemsky and others), and in February-March he was already busy staging it on the stage of the Alexandria Theater. The play premiered on April 19. May 25 - premiere in Moscow, at the Maly Theater.
Also in 1935, the work “The Nose” was completed - the height of Gogol’s fantasy (published in 1836), an extremely bold grotesque that anticipated some trends in the art of the twentieth century.
Soon after the production of The Inspector General, hounded by the reactionary press and the “secular rabble,” Gogol went abroad, settling first in Switzerland, then in Paris, and continued work on “Dead Souls,” which he had begun in Russia. The news of Pushkin's death was a terrible blow for him. In March 1837 he settled in Rome.
In September 1839, Gogol arrived in Moscow and began reading chapters of Dead Souls, which evoked an enthusiastic reaction. In 1940, Gogol left Russia again and at the end of the summer of 1840 in Vienna, he suddenly suffered one of the first attacks of a severe nervous illness. In October he comes to Moscow and reads the last 5 chapters of “Dead Souls” in the Aksakovs’ house. However, in Moscow, censorship did not allow the novel to be published, and in January 1842 the writer forwarded the manuscript to the St. Petersburg Censorship Committee, where the book was approved, but with a change in title and without “The Tale of Captain Kopeikin.” In May, “The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls” was published. And again Gogol’s work caused a flurry of the most controversial responses. Against the background of general admiration, sharp accusations of caricature, farce, and slander are heard. All this controversy took place in the absence of Gogol, who went abroad in June 1842, where the writer was working on the 2nd volume of Dead Souls.
Nikolai Vasilyevich spent the entire summer of 1842 in Germany and only in October moved to Rome. It takes him a lot of time to prepare for the publication of his collected works, but he manages to work on the second volume of Dead Souls. “The Works of Nikola Gogol” began to be published in 1843, however, there was also some delay (by one month) due to censorship quibbles. The beginning of 1845 is marked for Gogol by a new mental crisis. He begins to move from resort to resort in order to find peace of mind. At the end of June or beginning of July 1845, in a state of sharp exacerbation of the disease, Gogol burns the manuscript of the 2nd volume. Subsequently (in “Four Letters to Various Persons Concerning “Dead Souls” - “Selected Places”) Gogol explained this step by saying that the book did not show “paths and roads” to the ideal clearly enough. And starts working again.
In subsequent years, the writer often moved from one place to another, hoping that a change of environment would help him restore his health. By the mid-40s, the spiritual crisis deepened. Under the influence of A.P. Tolstoy, Gogol became imbued with religious ideas and abandoned his previous beliefs and works.
In 1847, a series of articles by the writer in the form of letters was published entitled “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends.” The main idea of this book is the need for internal Christian education and re-education of everyone, without which no social improvements are possible. The book was published in a heavily censored form and was considered an artistically weak work. At the same time, Gogol also worked on works of a theological nature, the most significant of which is “Reflections on the Divine Liturgy” (published posthumously in 1857).
His refuge remained a religious feeling: he decided that he could not continue work without fulfilling his long-standing intention to venerate the Holy Sepulcher. At the end of 1847 he moved to Naples and at the beginning of 1848 he sailed to Palestine, from where he finally returned to Russia through Constantinople and Odessa.
Spring 1850 - Gogol proposes marriage to A.M. Vielgorskaya, but is refused. 1852 - Nikolai Vasilyevich regularly meets and talks with Archpriest Matvey Konstantinovsky, a fanatic and mystic.
At 3 a.m. from Monday to Tuesday, February 11-12, 1852, Gogol woke up his servant Semyon, ordered him to open the stove valves and bring a briefcase with manuscripts from the closet. Taking out a bunch of notebooks from it, Gogol put them in the fireplace and burned them (only 5 chapters relating to various draft editions of “Dead Souls” were preserved in incomplete form). On February 20, a medical council decided to compulsorily treat Gogol, but the measures taken did not produce results. On the morning of February 21, N.V. Gogol died. The writer’s last words were: “Stairs, quickly, give me the stairs!”
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol- classic of Russian literature, prose writer, poet, playwright, critic, publicist.In 1831, with the help of Zhukovsky, he received a recommendation for the position of teacher at the Women's Patriotic Institute.
In 1831-1832 he published “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka,” his first major work, which was the beginning of his fame, published under the pseudonym Rudy Panko.
In 1834 he was appointed to the position of adjunct in the department of history at St. Petersburg University.
In 1836, a printed edition of the comedy “The Inspector General” and a theatrical production were published, thanks to the permission of Emperor Nicholas. The theme of The Inspector General was new to the Russian stage, which caused a split in public opinion. For conservatives it was a demarche, for freethinkers it was a manifesto.
Since June 1836 he moved abroad. Rome, which became like a second homeland for Gogol, France, Germany, Switzerland. At this time he is seriously working on “Dead Souls”. In 1839 he came to Russia, where he read completed chapters to friends. By the summer of 1841, the first volume was ready and Nikolai Vasilyevich went to Russia to print the poem. Here he faces great obstacles from censorship, but thanks to connections and support from influential friends, the work, with some exceptions, was allowed to be published and in 1842 it was published under the title “The Adventures of Chichikov or Dead Souls.” In 1845, due to a mental crisis, he burned the manuscript of the second volume of “Dead Souls” and planned to go to a monastery.
At the beginning of 1848, he went from Naples to Palestine to venerate the Holy Sepulcher. And from there, through Constantinople and Odessa, he returns to Russia.
In the last years of his life, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol became very religious. In 1852, a week before Lent, he almost stopped eating and stopped leaving the house. On February 18 (old style) he completely stops eating, and on February 20 the medical council decides to forcibly treat Gogol, but on February 21 (March 4, new style) Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol dies.
He was buried on February 24 (March 7, new style) at the cemetery of the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. On May 31, 1931 he was reburied at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.
