Nikolai Gogol

Russian writer of Ukrainian origin (1809-1852) · Russia · Writers · Died at 42

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He made the ordinary monstrous and the absurd unbearable. Gogol wrote noses that walked off faces, overcoats that haunted their owners, and clerks losing their minds in diaries - grotesque, proto-surrealist tales that taught Russian literature how to see the world slant.

Writers Writer / Author Fiction Theatre History Poetry Literature 19th Century

A life in dates

1852Died21 February 18521848“...it's not my job to preach a sermon. Art is anyhow a homily. My job is to speak in living images, not in arguments. I must exhibit life full-face, not discuss life.”In their wordsJanuary 1848A letter to Zhukovsky, January 1848, quoted in Sculpting in Time (p49) by Andrei TarkovskyRead the whole statement

1843“In the course of reading he became more and more melancholy and finally became completely gloomy.”In their wordsOn Alexander Pushkin in Four Letters Concerning Dead Souls (1843)Read the whole statement

1835“What a dreary world we live in, gentlemen.”In their wordsHow the Two Ivans Quarrelled (1835)Read the whole statement

“Turn around, son! What a funny figure you are! Are those priests' cassocks you are wearing?”In their words"Taras Bulba" (1835)Read the whole statement

“When the priest went in, he stopped short at the sight of this defamation of God's holy place, and dared not serve the requiem on such a spot.”In their words"Viy" (1835)Read the whole statement

“Dogs are clever fellows; they know all about politics [...]”In their wordsDiary of a Madman (1835)Read the whole statement

1809Born19 March 1809

Also in Deutsch

Photos 8

N.Gogol by F.Moller (1840, Tretyakov gallery)

7307. Church of Saint Tatiana in Moscow State University

Gogol church register entry

History of Nikolay Gogol by mos.ru 01

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History of Nikolay Gogol by mos.ru 05

In their own words 10

Nikolai Gogol

10 statements, newest first

...it's not my job to preach a sermon. Art is anyhow a homily. My job is to speak in living images, not in arguments. I must exhibit life full-face, not discuss life.
Jan 1848, A letter to Zhukovsky, January 1848, quoted in Sculpting in Time (p49) by Andrei Tarkovsky, Own words
In the course of reading he became more and more melancholy and finally became completely gloomy.
1843, On Alexander Pushkin in Four Letters Concerning Dead Souls (1843), Own words
What a dreary world we live in, gentlemen.
1835, How the Two Ivans Quarrelled (1835), Own words

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About this person

Born in 1809 to Ukrainian roots, Gogol drew his early work - Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka - from folklore and the textures of his upbringing. Then came the defamiliarization: "The Nose," "Viy," "Diary of a Madman," stories that turned the familiar strange and cracked open new ways of seeing. He pivoted to savage satire with The Government Inspector and Dead Souls, skewering political corruption in Russia even as Tsar Nicholas I kept him in favor. Taras Bulba, Marriage, "The Overcoat" - the list lengthened, the influence deepened. Dostoevsky, Kafka, Nabokov, Bulgakov, O'Connor: they all traced lines back to him. He died in 1852, forty-two years old, having bent the grammar of fiction itself.

Country

Russia

Writers from Russia 6

Edvard Radzinsky78.5

Taras Shevchenko77.9

Ivan Turgenev80.8

Mikhail Lermontov76.8

Maxim Gorky81.3

Yevgeny Ponasenkov76.5

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