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Topic Pages contain an overview, definitions, biographies, related topics, images, plus links to relevant articles and other content provided by your library. Topic Page: Gogol, Nikolai Vasil'evich (1809 - 1852)

Summary Article: Gogol, Nikolai Vasilyevich from The Columbia Encyclopedia

(nyĭkəlì' vəsē'lyəvĭch gô'gəl), 1809–52, Russian short-story writer, novelist, and playwright, sometimes considered the father of Russian realism. Of Ukrainian origin, he first won literary success with fanciful and romantic tales of his native Ukraine in Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka (1831–32). His next stories, in Mirgorod (1835), contained elements of romance, humor, and the supernatural. "Taras Bulba," part of the collection, is a vigorous description of the adventures of a 17th-century Cossack. Gogol then wrote several tales set in St. Petersburg. The most famous of these is The Overcoat (1842), about a downtrodden clerk who sacrifices much to buy a new overcoat that is stolen the first time he wears it. As a dramatist Gogol's fame rests on The Inspector-General (1836), a satire on provincial officials. Petty vice and human folly are caricatured in this as in all his mature work. His picaresque novel Dead Souls (1842) concerns the rogue Chichikov who buys the names of dead serfs from landowners in order to mortgage them as property. This work is the culmination of Gogol's gift for caricature, imagery, and invention. Haunted throughout his life by moral and religious problems, and adverse criticism from his contemporaries, his powers declined as he attempted to write a second part to his novel, embodying positive spiritual values. In a frenzy he destroyed the manuscript; greatly depressed, his health ruined by fanatical fasting, he died shortly thereafter. Gogol's work is realistic in its concern for rich detail, but he is famed primarily for creating a fantastic world of the imagination. Most of his works have been translated into English.

  • See his letters, ed. by C. R. Proffer (1968);.
  • his Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends (tr. 1969);.
  • biographies by J. Lavrin (1926, repr. 1973) and H. Troyat (tr. 1973);.
  • studies by V. Erlich (1969), T. S. Lindstrom (1974), and D. Fanger (1979).
The Columbia Encyclopedia, © Columbia University Press 2017
"Gogol, Nikolai Vasilyevich." In The Columbia Encyclopedia, by Paul Lagasse, and Columbia University. 7th ed. Columbia University Press, 2017. https://search.credoreference.com/content/topic/gogol_nikolai_1809_1852
Gogol, Nikolai Vasilyevich. (2017). In P. Lagasse & Columbia University, The Columbia encyclopedia. (7th ed.). [Online]. New York: Columbia University Press. Available from: https://search.credoreference.com/content/topic/gogol_nikolai_1809_1852 [Accessed 25 April 2018].
"Gogol, Nikolai Vasilyevich." The Columbia Encyclopedia, Paul Lagasse, and Columbia University, Columbia University Press, 7th edition, 2017. Credo Reference, https://search.credoreference.com/content/topic/gogol_nikolai_1809_1852. Accessed 25 Apr. 2018.

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