Editing Nikolai Gogol (section)

==Influence and interpretations==
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 younger or lesser authors such as [[Ivan Goncharov|Goncharov]], [[Ivan Turgenev|Turgenev]], [[Dmitry Grigorovich (writer)|Dmitry Grigorovich]], [[Vladimir Dahl]] and [[Vladimir Sollogub]]. Gogol himself appeared skeptical about the existence of such a literary movement. 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.<ref>"The structure of the stories themselves seemed especially unskilful and clumsy to me; in one story I noted excess and verbosity, and an absence of simplicity in the style". Quoted by Vasily Gippius in his monograph ''Gogol'' ([[Duke University Press]], 1989, p. 166).</ref> Nevertheless, subsequent generations of radical critics celebrated Gogol (the author in whose world a nose roams the streets of the Russian capital) as a great realist, a reputation decried by the ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]'' as "the triumph of Gogolesque irony".<ref>The latest edition{{which|date=December 2018}} of the Britannica labels Gogol "one of the finest comic authors of world literature and perhaps its most accomplished [[nonsense]] writer." See under "Russian literature."{{citation needed|date=December 2018}}</ref>

The period of literary [[modernism]] saw a revival of interest in and a change of attitude towards Gogol's work. One of the pioneering works of [[Russian formalism]] was [[Boris Eichenbaum|Eichenbaum]]'s reappraisal of "The Overcoat". 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. The leading novelists of the period – notably [[Yevgeny Zamyatin]] and [[Mikhail Bulgakov]] – also admired Gogol and followed in his footsteps. 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. In 1934, [[Andrei Bely]] published the most meticulous study of Gogol's literary techniques up to that date, in which he analyzed the colours prevalent in Gogol's work depending on the period, his impressionistic use of verbs, the expressive discontinuity of his syntax, the complicated rhythmical patterns of his sentences, and many other secrets of his craft. Based on this work, [[Vladimir Nabokov]] published a summary account of Gogol's masterpieces.<ref>Nabokov, Vladimir (2017) [1961]. Nikolai Gogol. New York: New Directions. p. 140. {{ISBN|0-8112-0120-1}}</ref>
[[Image:Gogol house.jpg|thumb|right|The house in Moscow where Gogol died. The building contains the fireplace where he burned the manuscript of the second part of ''[[Dead Souls]]''.]]

Gogol's impact on Russian literature has endured, yet various critics have appreciated his works differently. [[Vissarion Belinsky|Belinsky]], for instance, berated his horror stories as "moribund, monstrous works", while [[Andrei Bely]] counted them among his most stylistically daring creations. Nabokov especially admired ''Dead Souls'', ''The Government Inspector'', and "[[The Overcoat]]" as works of genius, proclaiming that "when, as in his immortal 'The Overcoat', Gogol really let himself go and pottered happily on the brink of his private abyss, he became the greatest artist that Russia has yet produced."<ref>{{cite book|last= Nabokov|first= Vladimir|title= Nikolai Gogol|orig-year= 1961|publisher= New Directions|location= New York|isbn= 978-0-8112-0120-9|page= 140 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=pt64DgAAQBAJ | year = 2017}}</ref> 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".<ref>Dostoevsky appears to have had such a reading of the story in mind when he wrote [[The Double: A Petersburg Poem|''The Double'']]. The quote, often apocryphally attributed to Dostoevsky, that "we all [future generations of Russian novelists] emerged from Gogol's ''Overcoat''", actually refers to those few who read "The Overcoat" as a ghost story (as did [[Aleksey Remizov]], judging by his story ''The Sacrifice'').</ref> Of all Gogol's stories, [[The Nose (Gogol)|"The Nose"]] has stubbornly defied all abstruse interpretations: [[D.S. Mirsky]] declared it "a piece of sheer play, almost sheer nonsense". In recent years, however, "The Nose" has become the subject of several postmodernist and postcolonial interpretations.

The portrayals of Jewish characters in his work have led to Gogol developing a reputation for [[antisemitism]]. Due to these portrayals, the Russian Zionist writer [[Ze'ev Jabotinsky]] condemned Russian Jews who participated in celebrations of Gogol's centenary. Later critics have also pointed to the apparent antisemitism in his writings, as well as in those of his contemporary, [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]].<ref>Vladim Joseph Rossman, Vadim Rossman, Vidal Sassoon. ''Russian Intellectual Antisemitism in the Post-Communist Era.'' p. 64. [[University of Nebraska Press]]. [https://books.google.com/books?id=pF-I25OC5ugC&dq=Nikolai+Gogol+and+anti-Semitism&pg=PA64 Google.com]</ref> 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."<ref>{{cite web |url= http://sicsa.huji.ac.il/demtext2.html |title= Antisemitism in Literature and in the Arts |publisher= Sicsa.huji.ac.il |access-date= 22 July 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130926150625/http://sicsa.huji.ac.il/demtext2.html |archive-date= 26 September 2013 |df= dmy-all }}</ref> In [[Léon Poliakov]]'s ''The History of Antisemitism'', the author mentions that<blockquote> "The 'Yankel' from ''Taras Bulba'' indeed became the archetypal Jew in Russian literature. Gogol painted him as supremely exploitative, cowardly, and repulsive, albeit capable of gratitude. But it seems perfectly natural in the story that he and his cohorts be drowned in the [[Dnieper|Dniper]] by the Cossack lords. Above all, Yankel is ridiculous, and the image of the plucked chicken that Gogol used has made the rounds of great Russian authors."<ref>Léon Poliakov. ''The History of Antisemitism.'' p. 75. [[University of Pennsylvania Press]], [https://books.google.com/books?id=94H61cGGGQ8C&dq=Nikolai+Gogol+and+anti-Semitism&pg=PA75 Google.com]</ref></blockquote>

Despite his portrayal of Jewish characters, Gogol left a powerful impression even on Jewish writers who inherited his literary legacy. Amelia Glaser has noted the influence of Gogol's literary innovations on [[Sholem Aleichem]], who <blockquote>
"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. He also learned from Gogol to soften this danger through laughter, and he often rewrites Gogol's Jewish characters, correcting anti-Semitic stereotypes and narrating history from a Jewish perspective."<ref>Amelia Glaser. "Sholem Aleichem, Gogol Show Two Views of Shtetl Jews." [[The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles|The Jewish Journal]], 2009. [http://www.jewishjournal.com/arts/article/sholem_aleichem_gogol_show_two_views_of_shtetl_jews_20090311/Jewish Journal: Jewish News, Events, Los Angeles]</ref>
</blockquote>

===In music and film===
Gogol's oeuvre has also had an impact on Russia's non-literary culture, and his stories have been [[Bibliography of Nikolai Gogol#Adaptations|adapted numerous times]] into opera and film. The Russian composer [[Alfred Schnittke]] wrote the eight-part ''Gogol Suite'' as [[incidental music]] to ''[[The Government Inspector#Other adaptations|The Government Inspector]]'' performed as a [[play (theater)|play]], and [[Dmitri Shostakovich]] set [[The Nose (opera)|''The Nose'']] as his first opera in 1928 – a peculiar choice of subject for what was meant to initiate the great tradition of Soviet opera.<ref>[http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/1045867/a/Schnittke:+Gogol+Suite,+Labyrinths+%2F+Lev+Markiz,+Malm%F6+Sym.htm Gogol Suite], CD Universe</ref> 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]].<ref>{{cite web|url= http://wien.orf.at/stories/262439/|title= Zwei Kompositionsaufträge vergeben|trans-title= Two Compositions Commissioned|language= de|work= wien.orf.at|url-status=unfit|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110725175353/http://wien.orf.at/stories/262439/|archive-date= 25 July 2011}} [https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwayback.archive.org%2Fweb%2F20110725175353%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fwien.orf.at%2Fstories%2F262439%2F Alt URL]</ref>

More than 135 films<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0324690/?ref_=ttfc_fc_wr3|title=Nikolai Gogol|work=IMDb}}</ref> have been based on Gogol's work, the most recent being ''[[The Girl in the White Coat]]'' (2011).