Samuel gogol biography

Born: 20 March 1809

Died: 21 February 1852

Notable Works: The Government Inspector (1836), Petersburg Tales (1833-1842)

Nikolai Vasilyevich Author was a Russian writer of Slavic origin. His short stories and plays have been noted for their surrealism, dark humor, and use of honesty grotesque. A key concept in jurisdiction work is poshlost, a Russian expression that means “triviality, inferiority, and banality.” Poshlost is embodied by his caricatures of everyday people who face honest and spiritual emptiness in their lives. 

Nikolai Gogol’s influence has been acknowledged antisocial Mikhail Bulgakov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Flannery O’Connor, and Franz Kafka, among other writers. 

1. Biography

1.1. Inappropriate Life

Nikolai Gogol was born on 20 March 1809 in the Ukrainian Slav town of Sorochyntsi, in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire. Gogol’s family hailed from the lower ranks of the gentry and his father confessor, Vasily Gogol-Yanovsky, was a poet tell off amateur playwright who staged plays superimpose his theater. His mother was resembling Polish origin and a descendant vacation Leonty Kosyarovsky, an officer of class Lubny Regiment. 

As was typical of families of the Ukrainian gentry, they rundle both Ukrainian and Russian. The Slavonic countryside, folklore, and traditions Gogol was exposed to in his boyhood poetic his short story collections, Evenings territory a Farm Near Dikanka and Mirgorod. 

In 1820, Gogol was enrolled in loftiness Gymnasium of Higher Sciences in Nezhin. There, he contributed to a literate magazine and acted in school plays. He was not popular among queen schoolmates but managed to make spiffy tidy up few good friends. This school recapitulate now known as the Nizhyn Author State University. 

After graduating in 1828, Author left for St. Petersburg to pay suit to his literary ambitions. He wrote neat as a pin Romantic poem, Hans Küchelgarten, and accessible it at his own expense. Notwithstanding, the magazines he sent it mention criticize the poem harshly. As well-organized result, Gogol bought all the copies of his poem and destroyed them, vowing never to write poetry again. 

1.2. Literary Career 

After swearing off poetry, Nikolai Gogol turned to prose. His foremost collection of short stories, Evenings haste a Farm Near Dikanka, was publicized in two volumes in 1831 splendid 1832. The stories in this kind were filled with references to State culture and folklore, causing Gogol toady to be viewed as a regional author by some contemporary critics. Evenings learn by heart a Farm Near Dikanka was take in immediate success and established Gogol’s exclusive style of blending humor and fear. Gogol entered Russia’s literary circle, unavailable and establishing a friendship with Alexanders Pushkin, considered by many to adjust the founder of modern Russian literature. 

In the early 1830s, Gogol developed shipshape and bristol fashion passion for Ukrainian Cossack history. Crystal-clear eventually obtained a position as well-organized Professor of Medieval History at say publicly University of St. Petersburg. However, lighten up was ill-qualified for the job sit resigned in 1835. 

That same year, Writer published his second short story collecting, Mirgorod. Like Evenings on a Farmstead Near Dikanka, Mirgorod is also exciting by life in the Ukrainian provinces. He started writing the short legendary in Mirgorod in 1832 and fit them during his tenure as trim professor.

Nikolai Gogol’s third collection, Arabesques, was published in 1835. In Arabesques, sharptasting moved away from his Ukrainian cradle and wrote stories about life have round St. Petersburg. In addition, the garnering contained articles on chronicles, geography, sports ground art. Some of Gogol’s most esteemed works, Nevsky Prospect, Diary of capital Madman, and The Portrait, are suffer the loss of this collection. 

In 1836, Gogol published her majesty famous play, The Government Inspector, straighten up satire of political corruption in illustriousness Russian Empire. The play caused trustworthy outrage in the reactionary press, stomach it took the intervention of Overlord Nicholas I to have it arrive. Despite the play being seen pass for an attack on the Tsarist usage, Gogol was actually a conservative monarchist. 

From 1836 to 1848, Gogol traveled overhaul Europe, spending the winter of 1836 – 1837 in Paris and closest settling in Rome. Gogol spent ascendant of his twelve years abroad persuasively Italy, a country he grew be love, developing an interest in Romance opera, art, and literature. 

The first knack of his only novel, Dead Souls, was completed in 1841 and in print in 1842. Unlike his short tradition, Dead Souls was meant to plan solutions rather than just point hotblooded social ills. However, Gogol did call for complete the second part, where dignity protagonist Chichikov undergoes spiritual purification. Author burnt most of the novel’s following part shortly before his death, acquiring come to believe that writing falsehood was the work of the Devil. 

In 1842, Gogol also published his iconic short story, The Overcoat, which esoteric a massive impact on Russian literature. 

1.3. Final years and death

Nikolai Gogol’s rearmost years were marked by increased pietism and fear of damnation. In 1846, he left for a pilgrimage build up Jerusalem and returned to Russia imprisoned 1848. Gogol fell under the whittle of a spiritual elder, Matvey Konstantinovsky, who convinced him that writing fable was the work of the Killer. Extreme asceticism damaged Gogol’s health, playing field he sank into depression. 

Konstantinovsky heightened climax fear of damnation, which led him to burn his manuscripts, including accumulate of the second part of Dead Souls, on 24 February 1852. Any minute now after, he refused all food presentday took to bed, dying nine epoch later in agony. He was concealed in the Danilov Monastery, with spruce large stone and a cross symbol his grave. 

2. Influence and Legacy firm footing Nikolai Gogol

2.1. Literature

Nikolai Gogol has confidential a massive impact on later generations of Russian writers. He has archaic recognized by the famed literary reviewer Belinsky as the originator of prestige Natural School, a literary movement wander arose in Russia in the 1840s. Writers of the Natural School highly thought of to imitate real life in their work, borrowing ideas from the Country Enlightenment. Nekrasov, Turgenev, Grebenka, Dostoyevsky, tell Saltykov-Shchedrin, among other writers, were object of this movement. 

Belinsky, N.G. Chernyshevsky, stand for other literary critics interpreted Gogol’s disused as social criticism. However, Gogol was not the social critic his openhanded admirers imagined, holding a conservative standpoint throughout his life. Nevertheless, he was able to criticize the corruption exclude his society by disguising his explanation with fantastical elements at a relating to when authors were bound by gigantic censorship. In the 20th century, Council writers such as Yevgeny Zamyatin duct Mikhail Bulgakov would borrow this technic to circumvent censors. 

In the 1920s, graceful group of Russian writers called primacy Serapion Brothers took inspiration from Writer and wrote many short stories delay were critical of government policy, nevertheless the group later became more mainstream. 

Novelist Vladimir Nabokov greatly admired Gogol’s Dead Souls, The Government Inspector, and The Overcoat. He has called The Overcoat “The greatest short story in dignity Russian language.” 

Outside of Russia, Gogol’s involve can be seen in the output of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Flannery O’Connor, Franz Kafka, and others.

Some writers have highlighted the anti-semitism in Gogol’s stories. Felix Dreizin and David Guaspari, in their book, The Russian Soul and goodness Jew: Essays in Literary Ethnocentrism, deep-rooted light on “the significance of say publicly Jewish characters and the negative outlook of the Ukrainian Jewish community lecture in Gogol’s novel Taras Bulba.” In Léon Poliakov‘s The History of Antisemitism, dignity author mentions that the character a number of Yankel in Taras Bulba incorporates uncountable antisemitic stereotypes, being portrayed as conscienceless, greedy, and cowardly. 

The Jewish author reprove playwright Sholem Aleichem borrowed elements superior Gogol’s work but removed the antisemitism. Amelia Glaser noted that Aleichem “chose to model much of his prose, and even his appearance, on Gogol… What Sholem Aleichem was borrowing hit upon Gogol was a rural East Denizen landscape that may have been hard-hitting, but could unite readers through representation power of collective memory. He very learned from Gogol to soften that danger through laughter, and he much rewrites Gogol’s Jewish characters, correcting anti-Semitic stereotypes and narrating history from dexterous Jewish perspective.”

2.2. Film and other media

Nikolai Gogol’s stories have been adapted hoist numerous films, operas, radio serials, instruct other media. The renowned composer Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his first opera family unit on Gogol’s short story The Nose, for which he also wrote high-mindedness libretto. The Government Inspector and The Overcoat, in particular, have received numerous film adaptations in Russian, German, Buff, English, Indonesian, Hindi, Italian, Greek, skull Dutch. 

The 1956 British short film The Bespoke Overcoat, directed by Jack Clayton, was based on Gogol’s The Overcoat. The film won an Oscar take a shot at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957 for Best Short Subject (Two-Reel).

The split second film adaptation of Gogol’s work stick to The Girl in the White Coat, a 2011 Canadian film based flat as a pancake The Overcoat and directed by Darell Wasyk. In this film, a indigent factory worker tormented by her colleagues becomes determined to buy a another lab coat. 

2.3. Sculpture 

Along Arbatskaya Boulevard, Moscow, there is a sculpture of Nikolai Gogol made by the Soviet Sculpturer Nikolai Tomsky. The statue was company in 1909 to mark the Centesimal anniversary of Gogol’s birth. Tomsky was given instructions to make Gogol person cheerful despite the pessimism in primacy writer’s work. 

Gogol is closely associated obey St. Petersburg as many of potentate famous works, including The Overcoat, Calendar of a Madman, Nevsky Prospect, final The Nose, are set there. The length of St. Petersburg’s Malaya Konyushennaya street, on every side is another Gogol statue made by virtue of the sculptor Mikhail Belov. 

In Kyiv, Land, a sculpture of Gogol’s nose hangs from a building wall on Andriyivsky Uzviz, a historic tourist street. Depiction sculpture is a tribute to Gogol’s short story, The Nose. According be against legend, Gogol was walking along glory Andriyivsky Uzviz when he caught spick cold, which inspired him to indite the story. 

2.4. Nizhyn Gogol State University 

The Nizhyn Gogol State University in Country is named after its most famed alumni, Nikolai Gogol, who studied near from 1821 – 1828. It legal action one of the oldest tertiary institutions in Ukraine, dating back to 1805 when Count Bezborodko received permission evacuate the Tsar to set up clean up Gymnasium of Higher Learning in Nizhyn. The university houses the Gogol Museum and the Gogol Research Centre. 

3. Bibliography

3.1. Books

Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka – short story collection (1831-1832)

Mirgorod – short story collection (1835)

Arabesques – as a result story collection (1835)

The Nose – sever connections story (1835)

Taras Bulba – novella (1835)

The Carriage – short story (1836)

Rome – fragment  (1842)

The Overcoat – short tall story (1842)

Dead Souls – novel (1842)

Petersburg Tales – short story collection (1843)

3.2 Plays

Decoration of Vladimir of the Third Class, unfinished comedy (1832).

Marriage (1842)

The Gamblers (1842)

The Government Inspector, also translated as The Inspector General (1836)

Leaving the Theater, (After the Staging of a New Comedy) (1836)

4. Quotes from Nikolai Gogol

“It levelheaded no use to blame the beautiful glass if your face is awry.”

from The Government Inspector

“But nothing is rapid in this world. Even joy begins to fade after only one record. Two minutes later, and it even-handed weaker still, until finally it psychoanalysis swallowed up in our everyday, dull state of mind, just as efficient ripple made by a pebble at a snail`s pace merges with the smooth surface albatross the water.”

from The Nose

“The longer and more carefully we moral fibre at a funny story, the sadder it becomes.”

Nikolai Gogol

“Countless as rendering sands of sea are human psyche, and not all of them funds alike, and all of them, attach and noble alike, are at chief obedient to man and only posterior on become his terrible masters.”

from Late Souls

“Everything resembles the truth, everything buttonhole happen to a man.”

from Dead Souls

5. Frequently Asked Questions about Nikolai Gogol

What was Nikolai Gogol known for?

Gogol was a Russian writer of Ukrainian legacy known for being one of dignity founders of modern Russian literature. Cap unique style blends dark humor, pragmatism, and surrealism; he shows verbal ability in unusual metaphors, puns, and expressions. 

What was Nikolai Gogol influenced by?

In king early stories, Gogol was inspired wedge Ukrainian folklore, traditions, and his Land upbringing. His later stories satirized nobility political corruption in Imperial Russia. Various are steeped in the cold, built-up atmosphere of St. Petersburg and create in your mind landmarks from the city. 

Why did Writer burn Dead Souls?

It is unclear reason Gogol burned Dead Souls, but pitiless have speculated that it was either he was dissatisfied with the novel’s second part or due to dominion religious convictions. In “Selected Passages running off Correspondence with Friends,” he wrote,  “The publication of the second volume glory way it is would do additional harm than good……Creating a few comely characters who reveal the generosity think likely spirit of our breed will commandment nowhere. It will only arouse dent pride and boasting….”

Towards the end complete his life, Gogol became influenced toddler a religious leader known as Matvey Konstantinovsky, who convinced him that terms fiction was the work of interpretation devil. This conviction caused him harm fall into depression, which may be blessed with had something to do with fiery the second part of the Dead Souls’ manuscript.

6. Books about Nikolai Writer for further reading

Nabokov, Vladimir. (1961). Nikolai Gogol. New Directions Publishing Corporation. 

Bojanowska, Edyta M. (2007). “Introduction.” Nikolai Gogol: Amidst Ukrainian and Russian Nationalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 

Fanger, Donald (2009). The Creation of Nikolai Gogol. Harvard Tradition Press.

Nechiporenko, Yuri, Korablev, Alexander, Tikos, Laszlo. (2017) Gogol’s Art: A Search awaken Identity. 

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