Editing Nikolai Gogol

{{Short description|Ukrainian-Russian writer (1809–1852)}}
{{Redirect-distinguish-for|Gogol|Googol||Gogol (disambiguation)}}
{{family name hatnote|Vasilievich|Gogol|lang=Eastern Slavic}}
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{{EngvarB|date=July 2017}}
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{{Infobox writer
| name             = Nikolai Gogol<br/>{{nobold|{{native name|ru|Николай Гоголь}}<br/>{{native name|uk|Микола Гоголь}}}}<br/>{{small|Mykola Hohol}}
| birth_name       = Nikolai Vasilyevich Yanovsky
| image            = N.Gogol by F.Moller (1840, Tretyakov gallery).jpg
| caption          = Portrait, early 1840s
| imagesize        = 
| pseudonym        = 
| birth_date       = {{birth date|df=yes|1809|3|20}}{{efn|name=“birthdate”|Some sources indicate he was born 19/31 March 1809.}} {{smaller|([[Adoption of the Gregorian calendar#Adoption in Eastern Europe|OS]])}}/{{birth date|df=yes|1809|4|1}} {{smaller|([[Adoption of the Gregorian calendar#Adoption in Eastern Europe|NS]])}}
| birth_place      = [[Sorochyntsi]], [[Russian Empire]] (now Ukraine)
| death_date       = {{death date and age|df=yes|1852|2|21|1809|4|1}}
| death_place      = [[Moscow]], Russian Empire
| resting_place    = [[Novodevichy Cemetery]]
| occupation       = Playwright, short story writer, novelist
| language         = Russian
| period           = 1840–51
| notableworks     = [[Nikolai Gogol bibliography|Full list]]
| genre            = 
| subject          = 
| movement         = 
| signature        = Nikolai Gogol Signature.svg
}}
[[File:NV Gogol.png|thumb|[[Daguerreotype]] of Gogol taken in 1845 by [[Sergei Lvovich Levitsky]] (1819–1898)]]
'''Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol'''{{efn|{{IPAc-en|ˈ|g|oʊ|g|əl|,_|ˈ|g|oʊ|g|ɔː|l}};<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/gogol "Gogol"]. ''[[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]''.</ref> {{lang-rus|Николай Васильевич Гоголь|p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪdʑ ˈɡoɡəlʲ}}; {{langx|uk|Микола Васильович Гоголь|translit=Mykola Vasyliovych Hohol}}; {{ne|'''Yanovsky'''}} ({{langx|ru|link=no|Яновский}}; {{langx|uk|link=no|Яновський|translit=Yanovskyi}}}} ({{OldStyleDate|1 April|1809|20 March}}{{efn|name=“birthdate”}}{{snd}}{{OldStyleDate|4 March|1852|21 February}}) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and [[playwright]] of Ukrainian origin.<ref name="Bojanowska-intro">{{Cite book|last=Bojanowska|first=Edyta M.|title=Nikolai Gogol: Between Ukrainian and Russian Nationalism|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2007|isbn=9780674022911|location=Cambridge, MA|chapter=Introduction|pages=1–13}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Fanger |first=Donald |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hkwhYxGP1AkC&q=nikolai+gogol+ukrainian&pg=PA88 |title=The Creation of Nikolai Gogol |date=2009-06-30 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=9780674036697 |pages=24, 87–88 |quote=Gogol left Russian literature on the brink of that golden age of fiction which many deemed him to have originated, and to which he did, very clearly, open the way. The literary situation he entered, however, was very different, and one cannot understand the shape and sense of Gogol's career—the peripeties of his lifelong devotion to being a Russian writer, the singularity and depth of his achievement—without knowing something of that situation. ... Romantic theory exalted ethnography and folk poetry as expressions of the Volksgeist, and the Ukraine was particularly appealing to a Russian audience in this respect, being, as Gippius observes, a country both '"ours" and "not ours," neighboring, related, and yet lending itself to presentation in the light of a semi-realistic romanticism, a sort of Slavic Ausonia.' Gogol capitalized on this appeal as a mediator; by embracing his Ukrainian heritage, he became a Russian writer. |quote-pages=24, 87–88}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Vaag|first=Irina|date=2009-04-09|title=Gogol: russe et ukrainien en même temps|trans-title=Gogol: Russian and Ukrainian at the same time|url=https://www.lexpress.fr/culture/livre/gogol-russe-et-ukrainien-en-meme-temps_752123.html|access-date=2021-04-02|website=L'Express|language=fr|type=Interview with Vladimir Voropaev|quote=Il ne faut pas diviser Gogol. Il appartient en même temps à deux cultures, russe et ukrainienne...Gogol se percevait lui-même comme russe, mêlé à la grande culture russe...En outre, à son époque, les mots "Ukraine" et "ukrainien" avaient un sens administratif et territorial, mais pas national. Le terme "ukrainien" n'était presque pas employé. Au XIXe siècle, l'empire de Russie réunissait la Russie, la Malorossia (la petite Russie) et la Biélorussie. Toute la population de ses régions se nommait et se percevait comme russe.|trans-quote=We must not divide Gogol. He belongs at the same time to two cultures, Russian and Ukrainian...Gogol perceived himself as Russian, mingled with the great Russian culture...Furthermore, in his era, the words "Ukraine" and "Ukrainian" had an administrative and territorial meaning, but not national. The term "Ukrainian" was almost never used. In the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire comprised Russia, Malorossia (Little Russia) and Byelorussia. The whole population of these regions called themselves, and perceived themselves as, Russian.}}</ref>

Gogol used the [[Grotesque#In_literature|grotesque]] in his writings, for example, in his works "[[The Nose (Gogol short story)|The Nose]]", "[[Viy (story)|Viy]]", "[[The Overcoat]]", and "[[Nevsky Prospekt (story)|Nevsky Prospekt]]". These stories, and others such as "[[Diary of a Madman (Nikolai Gogol)|Diary of a Madman]]", have also been noted for their [[Proto-Surrealism|proto-surrealist]] qualities. According to [[Viktor Shklovsky]], Gogol used the technique of [[defamiliarization]] when a writer presents common things in an unfamiliar or strange way so that the reader can gain new perspectives and see the world differently.<ref>[[Viktor Shklovsky]]. String: On the dissimilarity of the similar. Moscow: [[Sovetsky Pisatel]], 1970. – p. 230.</ref> His early works, such as ''[[Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka]]'', were influenced by his Ukrainian upbringing, [[Ukrainian culture]] and [[Ukrainian folklore|folklore]].<ref>Ilnytzkyj, Oleh. [https://web.archive.org/web/20130808195933/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3763/is_200709/ai_n21280110/pg_1 "The Nationalism of Nikolai Gogol': Betwixt and Between?"], Canadian Slavonic Papers Sep–Dec 2007. Retrieved 15 June 2008.</ref><ref>Karpuk, Paul A. "Gogol's Research on Ukrainian Customs for the Dikan'ka Tales". ''Russian Review'', Vol. 56, No. 2 (April 1997), pp. 209–232.</ref> His later writing satirised political corruption in contemporary [[Russian Empire|Russia]] (''[[The Government Inspector]]'', ''[[Dead Souls]]''), although Gogol also enjoyed the patronage of [[Nicholas I of Russia|Tsar Nicholas I]] who liked his work.<ref>{{cite web|title=Очень нервный вечер. Как Николай I и Гоголь постановку «Ревизора» смотрели|url=https://aif.ru/culture/theater/ochen_nervnyy_vecher_kak_nikolay_i_i_gogol_postanovku_revizora_smotreli|publisher=[[Argumenty i Fakty]]|date=1 May 2016|lang=ru}}</ref> The novel ''[[Taras Bulba]]'' (1835), the play ''[[Marriage (play)|Marriage]]'' (1842), and the short stories "[[The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich]]", "[[The Portrait (short story)|The Portrait]]", and "[[The Carriage]]" are also among his best-known works.

Many writers and critics have recognized Gogol's deep influence on [[Russian literature|Russian]], [[Ukrainian literature|Ukrainian]] and world literature. Gogol's influence was acknowledged by [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]], [[Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin]], [[Ryūnosuke Akutagawa]], [[Franz Kafka]], [[Mikhail Bulgakov]], [[Vladimir Nabokov]], [[Flannery O'Connor]] and others.<ref>{{cite web| date = 1968| url  = http://www.hrono.ru/organ/rossiya/natur_scol.php|title = Natural School (Натуральная школа)| publisher  = Brief Literary Encyclopedia in 9 Volumes. Moscow| access-date = 2013-12-01}}</ref><ref>Nikolai Gogol // [[Concise Literary Encyclopedia]] in 9 volumes.</ref> [[Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé]] said: "We all came out from under [[The Overcoat|Gogol's Overcoat]]."

==Early life==
Gogol was born in the [[Zaporozhian Cossacks|Ukrainian Cossack]] town of [[Velyki Sorochyntsi|Sorochyntsi]],<ref name="brittanica">{{cite encyclopedia|title=Nikolay Gogol|url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/237143/Nikolay-Vasilyevich-Gogol|access-date=31 December 2010|encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]}}</ref> in the [[Poltava Governorate]] of the [[Russian Empire]]. His mother was descended from Leonty Kosyarovsky, an officer of the [[Lubny Regiment]] in 1710. His father [[Vasily Gogol-Yanovsky]], who died when Gogol was 15 years old, was supposedly a descendant of Ukrainian Cossacks (see [[Lyzohub family]]) and belonged to the 'petty gentry'. Gogol knew that his paternal ancestor {{Ill|Ostap Hohol|uk|Остап Гоголь}}, a Cossack hetman in Polish service, received nobility from the Polish king.{{Sfn|Bojanowska|2012|p=160}} The family used the Polish surname "Janowski" (Ianovskii) and the family estate in Vasilevka was known as Ianovshchyna.{{Sfn|Bojanowska|2012|p=160}}

His father wrote poetry in Ukrainian as well as Russian, and was an amateur playwright in his own theatre. As was typical of the [[Left-bank Ukraine|left-bank Ukrainian]] gentry of the early nineteenth century, the family was trilingual, speaking Ukrainian as well as Russian, and using Polish mostly for reading.{{Sfn|Bojanowska|2012|p=160}} Gogol's mother called her son Nikola, which is a mixture of the Russian [[Nikolai (disambiguation)|Nikolai]] and the Ukrainian [[Mykola]].{{Sfn|Bojanowska|2012|p=160}} As a child, Gogol helped stage plays in his uncle's home theater.<ref name="Bojanowska-78">{{Cite book|last=Bojanowska|first=Edyta M.|title=Nikolai Gogol: Between Ukrainian and Russian Nationalism|publisher=Harvard University Press|year=2007|isbn=9780674022911|location=Cambridge, MA|pages=78–88}}</ref>

In 1820, Nikolai Gogol went to a school of higher art in [[Nezhin]] (Nizhyn) (now [[Nizhyn Gogol State University]]) and remained there until 1828. It was there that he began writing. He was not popular among his schoolmates, who called him their "mysterious dwarf", but he formed lasting friendships with two or three of them. Very early he developed a dark and secretive disposition, marked by a painful self-consciousness and boundless ambition. Equally early he developed a talent for mimicry, which later made him a matchless reader of his own works and induced him to toy with the idea of becoming an actor.

On leaving school in 1828, Gogol went to Saint Petersburg, full of vague but ambitious hopes. He desired literary fame, and brought with him a [[Romantic era|Romantic]] poem of German idyllic life – ''Hans Küchelgarten'', and had it published at his own expense, under the pseudonym "V. Alov." The magazines he sent it to almost universally derided it. He bought all the copies and destroyed them, swearing never to write poetry again.

==Literary development==
[[Image:Nikolai Gogol - Revizor cover (1836).jpg|upright|thumb|Cover of the first edition of ''[[The Government Inspector]]'' (1836)]]

His stay in St. Petersburg forced Gogol to make a certain decision regarding his self-identification. It was a period of turmoil; the [[November Uprising]] in the lands of the former [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth|Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth]] led to a rise of [[Russian nationalism]].{{Sfn|Bojanowska|2012|p=160}} Initially, Gogol used the surname Gogol-Ianovskii, but it soon became inconvenient. At first he tried to shorten it to the Russian-sounding "Ianov", but in the second half of 1830 he abandoned the Polish part of his surname altogether.{{Sfn|Bojanowska|2012|p=160}} He even admonished his mother in a letter to address him only as "Gogol", as Poles had become "suspect" in St. Petersburg.{{Sfn|Bojanowska|2012|p=160}} Tsarist authorities encouraged the Ukrainian intellectuals to sever ties with the Poles, promoting a limited, folkloric Ukrainian particularism as part of the heritage of the Russian empire.{{Sfn|Bojanowska|2012|p=160}}

In 1831, the first volume of Gogol's Ukrainian stories (''[[Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka]]'') was published under a pen name "Rudy Panko", was in line with this trend, and met with immediate success.<ref>Krys Svitlana, ''“Allusions to Hoffmann in Gogol’s Ukrainian Horror Stories from the Dikan'ka Collection.”'' Canadian Slavonic Papers: Special Issue, devoted to the 200th anniversary of Nikolai Gogol'’s birth (1809–1852) 51.2–3 (June–September 2009): 243–266.</ref> A second volume was published in 1832, followed by two volumes of stories entitled ''[[Mirgorod (Gogol)|Mirgorod]]'' in 1835, and two volumes of miscellaneous prose entitled ''Arabesques''. Although Gogol wrote in Russian, Russian editors and critics of that time such as [[Nikolai Polevoy]] and [[Nikolai Nadezhdin]] saw Gogol as a regional Ukrainian writer, and used his works to illustrate the specific of Ukrainian national characters.<ref name="Bojanowska-78" /> In 1981, literary scholar [[George Grabowicz]] argues that [[Ukrainian literature]] of Gogol's times was multilingual, with Ukrainian writers using Polish and Russian alongside Ukrainian. Therefore Gogol should be understood as both Russian and Ukrainian writer, especially in his early writings.<ref>{{Cite book |last=GRABOWICZ |first=GEORGE |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mTYMAQAAMAAJ&q=these+writings,+or+these+writers,+any+less+a+part+of+Ukrainian+literature.+At+the+same |title=Three Perspectives on the Cossack Past: Gogol', Sevcenko, Kulis - Harvard Ukrainian Studies, June 1981, Vol. 5, No. 2 (June 1981) |date=1981 |publisher=Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute |pages=172 |language=en}}</ref>

The themes and style of these early prose works by Gogol, as well as his later drama, were similar to the work of Ukrainian-language writers and dramatists who were his contemporaries and friends, including [[Hryhory Kvitka-Osnovyanenko]]. However, Gogol's satire was much more sophisticated and unconventional.<ref name="Peace2009">{{cite book|author=Richard Peace|title=The Enigma of Gogol: An Examination of the Writings of N.V. Gogol and Their Place in the Russian Literary Tradition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=thki88thwNgC&pg=PA152|access-date=15 April 2012|date=30 April 2009|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-11023-5|pages=151–152}}</ref> Although these works were written in Russian, they were nevertheless full of Ukrainianisms, which is why a glossary of Ukrainian words was included at the end of the volumes.{{Sfn|Bojanowska|2012|p=160-161}} 

At this time, Gogol developed a passion for Ukrainian Cossack history and tried to obtain an appointment to the history department at [[Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv|Saint Vladimir Imperial University of Kiev]].{{Sfn|Bojanowska|2012|p=161}} Despite the support of [[Alexander Pushkin]] and [[Sergey Uvarov]], the Russian minister of education, the appointment was blocked by a [[bureaucracy|bureaucrat]] on the grounds that Gogol was unqualified.<ref name="Luckyj">{{cite book| author=Luckyj, G. | title=The Anguish of Mykola Ghoghol, a.k.a. Nikolai Gogol| location= Toronto | publisher= Canadian Scholars' Press | year = 1998 | page = 67 | isbn = 1-55130-107-5 | author-link= George S. N. Luckyj}}</ref> His fictional story ''[[Taras Bulba]]'', based on the history of [[Zaporozhian Cossacks|Zaporozhian Сossacks]], was the result of this phase in his interests. During this time, he also developed a close and lifelong friendship with the historian and naturalist [[Mykhaylo Maksymovych]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wumag.kiev.ua/index2.php?param=pgs20033/52 |title=Welcome to Ukraine |publisher=Wumag.kiev.ua |access-date=22 July 2013}}</ref>

In 1834, Gogol was made Professor of Medieval History at the [[University of St. Petersburg]], a job for which he had no qualifications. The academic venture proved a disaster:<blockquote>He turned in a performance ludicrous enough to warrant satiric treatment in one of his own stories. After an introductory lecture made up of brilliant generalizations which the 'historian' had prudently prepared and memorized, he gave up all pretence at erudition and teaching, missed two lectures out of three, and when he did appear, muttered unintelligibly through his teeth. At the final examination, he sat in utter silence with a black handkerchief wrapped around his head, simulating a toothache, while another professor interrogated the students.<ref name="comic-grotesque">{{cite book| author=Lindstrom, T. | title=A Concise History of Russian Literature Volume I from the Beginnings to Checkhov| location= New York | publisher= [[New York University Press]] | year = 1966 | page = 131|lccn=66-22218}}</ref></blockquote> Gogol resigned his chair in 1835.

[[Image:Nicolas Gogol.jpg|upright|thumb|Commemorative plaque on his house in Rome]]

Between 1832 and 1836, Gogol worked with great energy, and had extensive contact with Pushkin, but he still had not yet decided that his ambitions were to be fulfilled by success in literature. During this time, the Russian critics [[Stepan Shevyryov|Stepan Shevyrev]] and [[Vissarion Belinsky]], contradicting the earlier critics, reclassified Gogol from a Ukrainian to a Russian writer.<ref name = "Bojanowska-78"/> It was only after the premiere of his comedy ''[[The Government Inspector]]'' (''Revizor'') at the [[Alexandrinsky Theatre]] in St. Petersburg, on 19 April 1836,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.act-sf.org/content/dam/act/education_department/words_on_plays/The%20Government%20Inspector%20Words%20on%20Plays%20(2008).pdf|title=The Government Inspector|date=2008|website=American Conservative Theater|access-date=31 August 2016|archive-date=24 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200924154423/https://www.act-sf.org/content/dam/act/education_department/words_on_plays/The%20Government%20Inspector%20Words%20on%20Plays%20(2008).pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> that he finally came to believe in his literary vocation. The comedy, a satire of Russian provincial bureaucracy, was staged thanks only to the intervention of the emperor, [[Nicholas I of Russia|Nicholas I]]. The Tsar was personally present at the play's premiere, concluding that "there is nothing sinister in the comedy, as it is only a cheerful mockery of bad provincial officials."<ref>{{cite web|title=Очень нервный вечер. Как Николай I и Гоголь постановку «Ревизора» смотрели|url=https://aif.ru/culture/theater/ochen_nervnyy_vecher_kak_nikolay_i_i_gogol_postanovku_revizora_smotreli|publisher=[[Argumenty i Fakty]]|date=1 May 2016|lang=ru}}</ref>

From 1836 to 1848, Gogol lived abroad, travelling through Germany and Switzerland. Gogol spent the winter of 1836–37 in [[Paris]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://fr.rbth.com/art/2013/06/24/le_nom_de_nikolai_gogol_est_immortalise_a_la_place_de_la_bourse_a_paris_24311|title=Le nom de Nikolaï Gogol est immortalisé à la place de la Bourse à Paris|last=RBTH|date=2013-06-24|language=fr-FR|access-date=2016-08-30}}</ref> among Russian [[expatriate]]s and Polish [[exile]]s, frequently meeting the Polish poets [[Adam Mickiewicz]] and [[Józef Bohdan Zaleski|Bohdan Zaleski]].{{Sfn|Bojanowska|2012|p=165}} He eventually settled in [[Rome]]. For much of the twelve years from 1836, Gogol was in Italy, where he developed an adoration for Rome. He studied art, read Italian literature and developed a passion for opera.

[[Alexander Pushkin|Pushkin]]'s death produced a strong impression on Gogol. His principal work during the years following Pushkin's death was the satirical epic ''Dead Souls''. Concurrently, he worked at other tasks – recast ''[[Taras Bulba]]'' (1842)<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ilnytzkyj |first1=Oleh S. |title=Is Gogol's 1842 Version of Taras Bul'ba really 'Russified'? |journal=Journal of Ukrainian Studies |date=2010–2011 |volume=35–36 |pages=51–68}}</ref> and ''[[The Portrait (short story)|The Portrait]]'', completed his second comedy, ''[[Marriage (play)|Marriage]]'' (''Zhenitba''), wrote the fragment ''[[Rome (Gogol)|Rome]]'' and his most famous short story, "[[The Overcoat]]".

In 1841, the first part of ''[[Dead Souls]]'' was ready, and Gogol took it to Russia to supervise its printing. It appeared in [[Moscow]] in 1842, under a new title imposed by the censorship, ''The Adventures of Chichikov''. The book established his reputation as one of the greatest prose writers in the language.

==Later life==
[[File:Gogol Portrait.jpg|upright|thumb|One of several portraits of Gogol by [[Fyodor Moller]] (1840)]]
After the triumph of ''Dead Souls'', Gogol's contemporaries came to regard him as a great satirist who lampooned the unseemly sides of Imperial Russia. They did not know that ''Dead Souls'' was but the first part of a planned modern-day counterpart to the ''[[Divine Comedy]]'' of [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]].{{Citation needed|date=July 2017}} The first part represented the ''[[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]]''; the second part would depict the gradual purification and transformation of the rogue Chichikov under the influence of virtuous publicans and governors – ''[[Purgatorio|Purgatory]]''.<ref>Gogol declared that "the subject of ''Dead Souls'' has nothing to do with the description of Russian provincial life or of a few revolting landowners. It is for the time being a secret which must suddenly and to the amazement of everyone (for as yet none of my readers has guessed it) be revealed in the following volumes..."</ref>

In April 1848, Gogol returned to Russia from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and passed his last years in restless movement throughout the country. While visiting the capitals, he stayed with friends such as [[Mikhail Pogodin]] and [[Sergey Aksakov]]. During this period, he also spent much time with his old Ukrainian friends, [[Mykhaylo Maksymovych|Maksymovych]] and [[Osyp Bodiansky]].<!--The hilarious detail is out of place in this part of Gogol's biography, which was a continuous nightmare: Describing Gogol's 41st birthday celebration, [[Sergey Aksakov]] wrote that "the three Ukrainians were charming. They sang without the music and Gogol read to me some [[Duma (epic)|dumy]] of the Ukrainian [[Homer]]." --> He intensified his relationship with a [[starets]] or spiritual elder, Matvey Konstantinovsky, whom he had known for several years. Konstantinovsky seems to have strengthened in Gogol the fear of perdition (damnation) by insisting on the sinfulness of all his imaginative work.

==Death==

Exaggerated [[ascetic]] practices undermined his health and he became deeply depressed. On the night of 24 February 1852, he burned some of his manuscripts, which contained most of the second part of ''Dead Souls''. He explained this as a mistake, a practical joke played on him by the [[Satan|Devil]].{{citation needed|date=July 2019}} Soon thereafter, he took to bed, refused all food, and died in great pain nine days later.

Gogol was mourned in the Saint Tatiana church at the Moscow University before his burial and then buried at the [[Danilov Monastery]], close to his fellow [[Slavophile]] [[Aleksey Khomyakov]]. His grave was marked by a large stone (Golgotha), topped by a Russian Orthodox cross.<ref>[http://www.newsru.com/cinema/29dec2009/gogole.html Могиле Гоголя вернули первозданный вид: на нее поставили "Голгофу" с могилы Булгакова и восстановили крест.]{{in lang|ru}}</ref>
[[Image:Николај Гогољ, Гробље Новодевичје.jpg|thumb|right|Gogol's grave at the [[Novodevichy Cemetery]], as it looked in 1952–2009]]
[[File:Post-2009 gravesite of Nikolai Gogol in Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, Russia.jpg|thumb|The original design of the gravesite was restored in 2009. Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, Russia.]]

In 1931, with Russia now ruled by communists, Moscow authorities decided to demolish the monastery and had Gogol's remains transferred to the [[Novodevichy Cemetery]].<ref name=pass>{{cite news|title=Novodevichy Cemetery|url=http://www.passportmagazine.ru/article/1099/|access-date=12 September 2013|work=Passport Magazine|date=April 2008}}</ref> His body was discovered lying face down, which gave rise to the conspiracy theory that Gogol had been buried alive. The authorities moved the Golgotha stone to the new gravesite, but removed the cross; in 1952, the Soviets replaced the stone with a bust of Gogol. The stone was later reused for the tomb of Gogol's admirer [[Mikhail Bulgakov]]. In 2009, in connection with the bicentennial of Gogol's birth, the bust was moved to the museum at the Novodevichy Cemetery, and the original Golgotha stone was returned, along with a copy of the original Orthodox cross.<ref>[http://www.newsru.com/cinema/29dec2009/gogole.html Могиле Гоголя вернули первозданный вид: на нее поставили "Голгофу" с могилы Булгакова и восстановили крест.]{{in lang|ru}} Retrieved 23 September 2013</ref>

The first Gogol monument in Moscow, a [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolist]] statue on [[Arbatskaya Square|Arbat Square]], represented the sculptor [[Nikolay Andreyev (sculptor)|Nikolay Andreyev]]'s idea of Gogol rather than the real man.<ref>[http://www.artclassic.edu.ru/attach.asp?a_no=9444 Российское образование. Федеральный образовательный портал: учреждения, программы, стандарты, ВУЗы, тесты ЕГЭ.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110904095416/http://www.artclassic.edu.ru/attach.asp?a_no=9444 |date=4 September 2011 }} {{in lang|ru}}</ref> Unveiled in 1909, the statue received praise from [[Ilya Repin]] and from [[Leo Tolstoy]] as an outstanding projection of Gogol's tortured personality. Everything changed after the [[October Revolution]]. [[Joseph Stalin]] did not like the statue, and it was replaced by a more orthodox [[Socialist Realism|Socialist Realist]] monument in 1952.<ref>{{cite web|title=Зачем Сталин убрал памятник Гоголю в Москве|url=https://rg.ru/2017/06/01/reg-cfo/zachem-stalin-ubral-pamiatnik-gogoliu-v-moskve.html|publisher=rg.ru|date=1 June 2017|lang=ru}}</ref> It took enormous efforts to save Andreyev's original work from destruction; {{as of | 2014 | lc = on}} it stood in front of the house where Gogol died.<ref>For a full story and illustrations, see [http://artclassic.edu.ru/cross_search.asp?s1=1851&f1=1875&s2=1876&f2=1900&s3=1901&f3=1925&pg=8 Российское образование. Федеральный образовательный портал: учреждения, программы, стандарты, ВУЗы, тесты ЕГЭ.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071017104818/http://artclassic.edu.ru/cross_search.asp?s1=1851&f1=1875&s2=1876&f2=1900&s3=1901&f3=1925&pg=8 |date=17 October 2007 }} {{in lang|ru}} and [http://www.m-mos.ru/10/06.htm Москва и москвичи] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181213220908/http://www.m-mos.ru/10/06.htm |date=13 December 2018 }} {{in lang|ru}}</ref>

==Style==
[[Image:Korobochka.jpg|thumb|Among the illustrators of ''Dead Souls'' was [[Pyotr Sokolov (painter)|Pyotr Sokolov]].]]
[[D. S. Mirsky]] characterizes Gogol's universe as "one of the most marvellous, unexpected – in the strictest sense, original<ref>This does not mean that numerous influences cannot be discerned in his work. The principle of these are: the tradition of the Ukrainian folk and [[puppet theatre]], with which the plays of Gogol's father were closely linked; the heroic poetry of the Cossack ballads (''[[Duma (epic)|dumy]]''), the ''[[Iliad]]'' in the Russian version by [[Nikolay Gnedich|Gnedich]]; the numerous and mixed traditions of comic writing from [[Molière]] to the vaudevillians of the 1820s; the [[picaresque novel]] from [[Alain-René Lesage|Lesage]] to [[Vasily Narezhny|Narezhny]]; [[Laurence Sterne|Sterne]], chiefly through the medium of German romanticism; the German romanticists themselves (especially [[Ludwig Tieck|Tieck]] and [[E.T.A. Hoffmann]]); the French tradition of [[Gothic romance]] – a long and yet incomplete list.{{citation needed|date=June 2015}}</ref> – worlds ever created by an artist of words".<ref>[[D.S. Mirsky]]. ''A History of Russian Literature''. [[Northwestern University Press]], 1999. {{ISBN|0-8101-1679-0}}. p. 155.</ref>

Gogol saw the outer world strangely metamorphosed, a singular gift particularly evident from the fantastic spatial transformations in his Gothic stories, "[[A Terrible Vengeance]]" and "[[A Bewitched Place]]". His pictures of nature are strange mounds of detail heaped on detail, resulting in an unconnected chaos of things: "His people are caricatures, drawn with the method of the caricaturist – which is to exaggerate salient features and to reduce them to geometrical pattern. But these cartoons have a convincingness, a truthfulness, and inevitability – attained as a rule by slight but definitive strokes of unexpected reality – that seems to beggar the visible world itself."<ref>Mirsky, p. 191</ref> According to [[Andrey Bely]], Gogol's work influenced the emergence of [[Gothic romance]], and served as a forerunner for [[Literary nonsense|absurdism]] and [[Impressionism (literature)|impressionism]].<ref>{{Cite book|language=ru|author=Andrey Bely|title=The Mastery Of Gogol|publisher=Ogiz|location=Leningrad|date=1934|url=http://gogol-lit.ru/gogol/kritika/belyj-masterstvo-gogolya/index.htm}}</ref>

The aspect under which the mature Gogol sees reality is expressed by the Russian word ''[[poshlost']]'', which means something similar to "triviality, banality, inferiority", moral and spiritual, widespread in a group of people or the entire society. Like [[Laurence Sterne|Sterne]] before him, Gogol was a great destroyer of prohibitions and of romantic illusions. He undermined Russian Romanticism by making vulgarity reign where only the sublime and the beautiful had before.<ref> According to some critics, Gogol's grotesque is a "means of estranging, a comic hyperbole that unmasks the banality and inhumanity of ambient reality". See: Fusso, Susanne. ''Essays on Gogol: Logos and the Russian Word''. Northwestern University Press, 1994. {{ISBN|0-8101-1191-8}}. p. 55.</ref> "Characteristic of Gogol is a sense of boundless superfluity that is soon revealed as utter emptiness and a rich comedy that suddenly turns into metaphysical horror."<ref>"Russian literature." [[Encyclopædia Britannica]], 2005.
</ref>
His stories often interweave pathos and mockery, while "[[The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich]]" begins as a merry farce and ends with the famous dictum "It is dull in this world, gentlemen!"

==Politics==
[[File:Gogol moscow.jpg|thumb|upright|The first Gogol memorial in Russia (an impressionistic statue by [[Nikolay Andreyev (sculptor)|Nikolay Andreyev]], 1909)]]
[[Image:Monumento di Nikolay Gogol (Villa Borghese, Roma, Italia).jpg|thumb|A more conventional statue of Gogol at the [[Villa Borghese gardens]], Rome]]
[[Image:Gogol by Repin.jpg|thumb|''Gogol burning the manuscript of the second part of ''Dead Souls, by [[Ilya Repin]]]]
[[File:Russia-Stamp-2009-NGogol.jpg|thumb|upright|Postage stamp, Russia, 2009]]

It stunned Gogol when some critics interpreted ''[[The Government Inspector]]'' as an indictment of [[Tsarism]] despite Nicholas I's patronage of the play. Gogol himself, an adherent of the [[Slavophile]] movement, believed in a divinely inspired mission for both the [[House of Romanov]] and the [[Russian Orthodox Church]]. Like [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]], Gogol sharply disagreed with those Russians who preached [[constitutional monarchy]] and the disestablishment of the Orthodox Church. Gogol saw his work as a critique that would change Russia for the better.<ref>{{cite web|title=Очень нервный вечер. Как Николай I и Гоголь постановку «Ревизора» смотрели|url=https://aif.ru/culture/theater/ochen_nervnyy_vecher_kak_nikolay_i_i_gogol_postanovku_revizora_smotreli|publisher=[[Argumenty i Fakty]]|date=1 May 2016|lang=ru}}</ref>

After defending [[autocracy]], [[serfdom]], and the Orthodox Church in his book ''Selected Passages from Correspondence with his Friends'' (1847), Gogol came under attack from his former patron [[Vissarion Belinsky]]. The first Russian intellectual to publicly preach the economic theories of [[Karl Marx]], Belinsky accused Gogol of betraying his readership by defending the ''status quo''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.marxists.org/subject/art/lit_crit/works/belinsky/gogol.htm |title=Letter to N.V. Gogol |publisher=marxists.org |date=February 2008 |access-date=12 December 2017}}</ref>

== National identity ==
{{undue section|reason=Only one viewpoint is presented, large passages devoted to a single Ukrainian author|date=January 2025}}
Gogol was born in the [[Zaporozhian Cossacks|Ukrainian Cossack]] town of [[Velyki Sorochyntsi|Sorochyntsi]]. According to [[Edyta Bojanowska]], Gogol's images of [[Ukraine]] are in-depth, distinguished by description of [[Ukrainian folklore|folklore]] and [[History of Ukraine|history]]. In his [[Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka|Evenings on a Farm]], Gogol pictures Ukraine as a "nation ... united by organic [[Ukrainian Culture|culture]], historical memory, and [[Ukrainian language|language]]". His image of [[Russia]] lacks this depth and is always based in the present, particularly focused on Russia's bureaucracy and corruption. ''[[Dead Souls]]'', according to Bojanowska, "presents Russian uniqueness as a catalog of faults and vices."<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Bojanowska |first=Edyta M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m6JiAAAAMAAJ |title=Nikolai Gogol: Between Ukrainian and Russian Nationalism |date=2007-02-28 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-02291-1 |pages=370, 371 |language=en |quote=The strength of Gogol’s commitment to Ukraine before 1836 is also reflected in his plans to move to Kiev in order to devote himself to ethnographic and historic research on Ukraine. Only when these plans fell through did Gogol decide to become a Russian writer, a role that he understood as concomitant to serving Russian nationalism.}}</ref> The duality of Gogol’s national identity is frequently expressed as a view that "in the aesthetic, psychological, and existential senses Gogol is inscribed ... into Ukrainian culture", while "in historical and cultural terms he is part of Russian literature and culture".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ilchuk |first=Yuliya |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ArImEAAAQBAJ&dq=Polish+writers+in+the+database,+which+reinforces+my+argument+of+his&pg=PA169 |title=Nikolai Gogol: Performing Hybrid Identity |date=2021-02-26 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |isbn=978-1-4875-0825-8 |pages=3-18,167-172 |language=en}}</ref> Slavicist [[Edyta Bojanowska]] writes that Gogol, after arriving in St. Petersburg, was surprised to find that he was perceived as a Ukrainian, and even as a [[Oseledets#Khokhol|''khokhol'']] (hick). Bojanowska argues that it was this experience that "made him into a ''self-conscious Ukrainian''". According to Ilchuk, dual national identities were typical at that time as a "compromise with the [[Russian Empire|empire]]'s demand for national homogenization".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Ueland |first1=Carol |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SmFkEAAAQBAJ&dq=gogol+russian+ukrainian+colonial&pg=PA96 |title=Literary Biographies in The Lives of Remarkable People Series in Russia: Biography for the Masses |last2=Trigos |first2=Ludmilla A. |date=2022-03-14 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-7936-1830-6 |pages=95,96 |language=en}}</ref>

Professor of Russian literature Kathleen Scollins notes the tendency to politicize Gogol's identity, and comments on the erasure of Gogol's Ukrainianness by the Russian literary establishment, which she argues "reveals the insecurity of many Russians about their own imperial identity". According to Scollins, Gogol's narrative [[Dialogue_(Bakhtin)#Double-voiced_discourse|double-voicedness]] in both ''[[Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka|Evenings]]'' and ''[[Taras Bulba]]'' and "pidginized Russian" of the [[Zaporozhian Cossacks|Zaporizhian Cossacks]] in "[[Christmas Eve (Gogol)|The Night before Christmas]] represents a "strateg[y] of resistance, self-assertion, and divergence"".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Scollins |first=Kathleen |date=2022 |title=Nikolai Gogol: Performing Hybrid Identity by Yuliya Ilchuk (review) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/28/article/903273 |journal=Pushkin Review |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=97–101 |doi=10.1353/pnr.2022.a903273 |issn=2165-0683}}</ref> Linguist Daniel Green notes "the complexities of an imperial culture in which Russian and Ukrainian literatures and identities informed and shaped each other, with Gogol´ playing a key role in these processes".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Green |first=Daniel |date=2023 |title=Nikolai Gogol: Performing Hybrid Identity by Yuliya Ilchuk (review) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/427/article/923986 |journal=Slavonic and East European Review |volume=101 |issue=4 |pages=784–785 |doi=10.1353/see.2023.a923986 |issn=2222-4327}}</ref>

Gogol's appreciation of Ukraine grew during his discovery of Ukrainian history, and he concluded that "Ukraine possessed exactly the kind of cultural wholeness, proud tradition, and self-awareness that Russia lacked." He rejected or was critical of many of the postulates of official Russian history about Ukrainian nationhood. His unpublished "[[Ivan Mazepa|Mazepa’s]] Meditations" presents Ukrainian history in a manner that justifies Ukraine’s "historic right to independence". Before 1836, Gogol had planned to move to Kyiv to study Ukrainian ethnography and history, and it was after these plans failed that he decided to become a Russian writer.<ref name=":0" />

Professor of literature and Gogol researcher [[:uk:Ільницький_Олег_Романович|Oleh Ilnytzkyj]] also argues against the traditional classification of Nikolai Gogol as a Russian writer, saying that he should be viewed as a Ukrainian writer operating within an imperial culture. The "Russian" view of Gogol, he contends, arises from "all-Russianness," an ideology aimed at [[All-Russian nation|assimilating the East Slavs into a singular "Russian" nation]]. Gogol was appropriated by an underdeveloped Russian literature, which downplayed his Ukrainian heritage and nationalism to bolster its own prestige. Ilnytzkyj emphasizes that Russian functioned as an imperial lingua franca rather than a marker of nationality, serving as a literary language adopted by Ukrainian society to advance a Ukrainian national agenda before Ukrainian became the preferred option. He refutes the notion that Gogol’s Ukrainian and Russian works reflect a "divided soul," portraying them instead as unified expressions of Ukrainian nationalism—rooted in a deep love for Ukraine and disdain for Russia, from which he self-exiled for twelve years. Gogol’s struggle, Ilnytzkyj argues, was not with his identity but with the demands placed on him by Russian imperial expectations.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Ilnytzkyj |first=Oleh S. |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783111373263/html |title=Nikolai Gogol: Ukrainian Writer in the Empire: A Study in Identity |date=2024-07-22 |publisher=De Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-137326-3 |language=en |doi=10.1515/9783111373263}}</ref>

In his interpretation of [[Taras Bulba|Taras Bulba (1842)]], Ilnytzkyj argues that the second edition of the novel is a profound assertion of Ukrainian nationalism, supported by a meticulous examination of Gogol’s use of terms such as russkii, Rossiia, and tsar'. According to Ilnytzkyj, Gogol deliberately linked his [[Cossacks|Ukrainian Cossack]] characters to the legacy of [[Kievan Rus'|Kyivan Rus’]], crafting a distinct [[Ruthenians|Ukrainian-Rus’ian]] identity with the term russkii—a direct challenge to the "all-Russian" narrative advanced by Russian imperial ideology. While Gogol’s legacy occupies a place in both Ukrainian and Russian literary traditions, Ilnytzkyj cautions against confusing his dual influence with a hyphenated identity, emphasizing instead Gogol’s fundamental Ukrainian identity within a transnational imperial framework. Finally, Ilnytzkyj asserts that nothing Gogol wrote after 1842 undermines his identity as a Ukrainian writer. After publishing Dead Souls and the revised Taras Bulba, Gogol ceased to function as an artist, despite attempts to sustain his earlier creative efforts. His later non-fiction, shaped by a religious crisis and pressure to revise his views on Russia, cannot negate the Ukrainian nationalist and anti-Russian achievements of his earlier fiction.<ref name=":1" />

==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).

==Legacy==
Gogol has been featured many times on Russian and Soviet postage stamps; he is also well represented on stamps worldwide.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.marka-art.ru/catalogs/StampSeries.jsp?id=11543433|title=ru:200 лет со дня рождения Н.В.Гоголя (1809–1852), писателя|trans-title=200 years since the birth of Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852), writer|language=ru|publisher=marka-art.ru|date=1 April 2009|access-date=3 April 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090322092541/http://www.marka-art.ru/catalogs/StampSeries.jsp?id=11543433|archive-date=22 March 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kraspost.ru/node/1357|script-title=ru:К 200-летию со дня рождения Н.В. Гоголя выпущены почтовые блоки|trans-title=Stamps issued for the 200th anniversary of N.V. Gogol's birthday|language=ru|work=kraspost.ru|date=2009|access-date=3 April 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120317102703/http://www.kraspost.ru/node/1357|archive-date=17 March 2012}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.stamp.kiev.ua/ukr/stamp/observe.php?coupl_id=104|script-title=uk:Зчіпка 200-річчя від дня народження Миколи Гоголя (1809–1852)|trans-title=Coupling for the 200th anniversary of the birth of Mykola Hohol (1809–1852)|language=uk|work=Марки|publisher=Ukrposhta|access-date=3 April 2009}}{{dead link|date=June 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.otpusk.com/news/17064/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140819174837/http://www.otpusk.com/news/17064/|url-status=dead|archive-date=19 August 2014|script-title=ru:Украина готовится достойно отметить 200-летие Николая Гоголя|trans-title=Ukraine is preparing to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Nikolai Gogol's birth|language=ru|publisher=otpusk.com|date=28 August 2006|access-date=24 August 2016}}</ref> Several commemorative coins have been issued in the USSR and Russia. In 2009, the [[National Bank of Ukraine]] issued a [[List of commemorative coins of Ukraine|commemorative coin]] dedicated to Gogol.<ref>[http://photo.unian.net/eng/themes/11966 Events by themes: NBU presented an anniversary coin «Nikolay Gogol» from series "Personages of Ukraine"], [[UNIAN]]-photo service (19 March 2009)</ref> Streets have been named after Gogol in various cities, including Moscow, Sofia, [[Lipetsk]], [[Odesa]], [[Myrhorod]], [[Krasnodar]], [[Vladimir, Russia|Vladimir]], [[Vladivostok]], [[Penza]], [[Petrozavodsk]], [[Riga]], [[Bratislava]], Belgrade, [[Harbin]] and many other towns and cities.

Gogol is mentioned several times in [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]]'s ''[[Poor Folk]]'' and ''[[Crime and Punishment]]'' and [[Anton Chekhov|Chekhov]]'s ''[[The Seagull]]''.

[[Ryūnosuke Akutagawa]] considered Gogol along with [[Edgar Allan Poe]] his favorite writers.

==Adaptations==
[[BBC Radio 4]] made a series of six Gogol short stories, entitled ''Three Ivans, Two Aunts and an Overcoat'' (2002, adaptations by Jim Poyser) starring [[Griff Rhys-Jones]] and [[Stephen Moore (actor)|Stephen Moore]]. The stories adapted were "[[The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich|The Two Ivans]]", "[[The Overcoat]]", "[[Ivan Fyodorovich Shponka and His Aunt]]", "[[The Nose (Gogol)|The Nose]]", "[[The Portrait (Gogol short story)|The Mysterious Portrait]]" and "[[Diary_of_a_Madman_(Nikolai_Gogol)|Diary of a Madman]]".

Gogol's short story "[[Christmas Eve (Gogol)|Christmas Eve]]" (literally the Russian title «Ночь перед Рождеством» translates as "The Night before Christmas") was adapted into operatic form by at least three [[East Slavs|East Slavic]] composers.  Ukrainian composer [[Mykola Lysenko]] wrote his [[Christmas Eve (Lysenko)|''Christmas Eve'']] («Різдвяна ніч», with libretto in Ukrainian by [[Mykhailo Starytsky]]) in 1872.  Just two years later, in 1874, [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky]] composed his version under the title ''[[Vakula the Smith]]'' (with Russian libretto by [[Yakov Polonsky]]) and revised it in 1885 as ''[[Cherevichki|Cherevichki (The Tsarina's Slippers)]]''. In 1894 (i.e., just after Tchaikovsky's death), [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov|Rimsky-Korsakov]] wrote the libretto and music for his own [[Christmas Eve (opera)|opera based on the same story]]. "Christmas Eve" was also adapted into a film in 1961 entitled [[The Night Before Christmas (1961 film)|The Night Before Christmas]]. It was adapted also for radio by [[Adam Beeson]] and broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 24 December 2008<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00g3cfq |title=Christmas Eve |publisher=BBC Radio 4 |date=24 December 2008 |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090110204616/http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00g3cfq |archive-date=10 January 2009}}</ref> and subsequently rebroadcast on both Radio 4 and [[BBC Radio 4 Extra|Radio 4 Extra]] on Christmas Eve 2010, 2011 and 2015.<ref>{{cite web|first=Nikolai |last=Gogol |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wsymb |title=Nikolai Gogol – Christmas Eve |publisher=BBC Radio 4 Extra |date=24 December 2015 |access-date=24 August 2016}}</ref>

Gogol's story "Viy" was adapted into film by Russian filmmakers four times: the original ''[[Viy (1967 film)|Viy]]'' in 1967; the horror film ''Vedma'' (aka ''The Power of Fear'') in 2006; the action-horror film ''[[Viy (2014 film)|Viy]]'' in 2014; and the horror film ''Gogol Viy'', released in 2018. It was also adapted into the Russian [[full-motion video]] game ''Viy: The Story Retold'' (2004). Outside of Russia, the film loosely served as the inspiration for [[Mario Bava]]'s 1960 film ''[[Black Sunday (1960 film)|Black Sunday]]'' and the 2008 South Korean horror film ''Evil Spirit ; VIY''.

In 2016, Gogol's short story "The Portrait" was announced to be adapted into a feature film of the same name, by Anastasia Elena Baranoff and Elena Vladimir Baranoff.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.screendaily.com/news/patrick-cassavetti-boards-lenin/5073427.article|title=Patrick Cassavetti boards Lenin?!}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.russianartandculture.com/news-gogols-short-story-the-portrait-to-be-made-into-feature-film/|title=Gogol's short story The Portrait to be made into feature film|publisher=russianartandculture.com|date=4 July 2014|access-date=24 August 2016|archive-date=10 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160410232701/http://www.russianartandculture.com/news-gogols-short-story-the-portrait-to-be-made-into-feature-film/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>Screen International [http://www.screendaily.com/festivals/berlin/david-oakes-simon-callow-to-star-in-russian-period-drama-the-portrait/5100200.article],  Berlin Film Festival, 12 February 2016.</ref><ref>Russian Art and Culture [http://www.russianartandculture.com/news-gogols-the-portrait-adapted-for-the-screen-by-an-international-team-of-talents/ “Gogol’s “The Portrait” adapted for the screen by an international team of talents”] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160701085915/http://www.russianartandculture.com/news-gogols-the-portrait-adapted-for-the-screen-by-an-international-team-of-talents/ |date=1 July 2016 }}, London, 29 January 2016.</ref><ref>Kinodata.Pro [http://kinodata.pro/vse-o-kino/novosti-rus-kino/11597-zvezda-doma-solnca-sygraet-v-ekranizacii-rasskaza-gogolya-portret.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190503171257/http://kinodata.pro/vse-o-kino/novosti-rus-kino/11597-zvezda-doma-solnca-sygraet-v-ekranizacii-rasskaza-gogolya-portret.html|date=3 May 2019}} Russia, 12 February 2016.</ref><ref>Britshow.com [http://britshow.com/index.php/russian-news/1938-britantsy-snimutsya-v-ekranizatsii-gogolya] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180829173940/http://britshow.com/index.php/russian-news/1938-britantsy-snimutsya-v-ekranizatsii-gogolya|date=29 August 2018}} 16 February 2016.</ref>

The Russian TV-3 television series ''Gogol'' features Nikolai Gogol as a lead character and presents a fictionalized version of his life that mixes his history with elements from his various stories.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.vedomosti.ru/technology/articles/2017/09/05/732340-serial-o-gogole|newspaper=[[Vedomosti]]|title=Сериал о Гоголе собрал за первые выходные в четыре раза больше своего бюджета}}</ref> The episodes were also released theatrically starting with ''[[Gogol. The Beginning]]'' in August 2017. A sequel entitled ''[[Gogol. Viy]]'' was released in April 2018, and the third film, ''[[Gogol. Terrible Revenge]]'', debuted in August 2018.

In 1963, an animated version of Gogol's classic surrealist story "The Nose" was made by [[Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker]], using the [[pinscreen animation]] technique, for the National Film Board of Canada.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last1=Nowell-Smith |editor-first1=Geoffrey  |title=The Oxford History of World Cinema |year=1996 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=274 |isbn=978-0-19-874242-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MZwVDAAAQBAJ&dq=gogol%27s+the+nose+1963+animation+canada&pg=PA274 |access-date=13 November 2021}}</ref> A definitive animated movie adaptation of the story was released in January 2020. Meanwhile, ''[[The Nose or Conspiracy of Mavericks]]'' has been in production for about fifty years.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Если бы речь шла только об отрицании, пароход современности далеко бы не уплыл|work=Коммерсантъ|url=https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4467472?query=%D0%9D%D0%BE%D1%81%20%20%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%B8%20%D0%97%D0%B0%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%80%20%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%85#id1941340|access-date=2020-11-28}}</ref>

==Bibliography==
{{Main|Nikolai Gogol bibliography}}

== Notes ==
{{notelist}}

==Citations==
{{Reflist}}

==References==
* [http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/fapi/datastream/unsworks:10059/SOURCE02 Townsend, Dorian Aleksandra, ''From Upyr' to Vampire: The Slavic Vampire Myth in Russian Literature'', Ph.D. Dissertation, School of German and Russian Studies, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, May 2011.]
* {{Mirsky}}

== Further reading ==

* {{Cite book |last=Bojanowska |first=Edyta |title=Russia's People of Empire: Life stories from Eurasia, 1500 to the present |publisher=[[Indiana University Press]] |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-253-00176-4 |editor-last=Norris |editor-first=Stephen M. |chapter=Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809–1852) |editor-last2=Sunderland |editor-first2=Willard}}
* {{Cite web |last=Poliukhovych |first=Olha |date=2023-02-20 |title=Stolen identity: how Nikolai Gogol usurped Mykola Hohol |url=https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books/stolen-identity-how-nikolai-gogol-usurped-mykola-hohol |access-date=2023-03-02 |website=Prospect}}

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
{{wikisource author}}
*{{Commons-inline|Николай Васильевич Гоголь|Nikolai Gogol}}
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/nikolai-gogol}}
* {{gutenberg author|id=531|name=Nikolai Gogol}}
* {{librivox author|id=644}}
* {{IMDb name | 0324690}}
* {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20190516230451/http://www.thebhopalpost.com/index.php/2010/07/gogol-magic-realism/ Gogol : Magical realism]}}
* {{Books and Writers |id=gogol |name=Nikolai Gogol}}
* [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nikolay-Gogol Nikolay Gogol] in ''[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]''
* [https://www.loc.gov/item/2008700200/ A manuscript of part of Gogol's ''Dead Souls''], held by the [[Library of Congress]]
* [https://artsandculture.google.com/partner/gogol-house Gogol House at Google Cultural Institute]
{{Nikolai Gogol|state=expanded}}
{{Navboxes
|title = Associated subjects
|list1=
{{Taras Bulba}}
{{Viy}}
{{Christmas Eve (Gogol)}}
{{Dead Souls}}
{{The Overcoat}}
{{The Government Inspector}}
}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gogol, Nikolai}}
[[Category:Nikolai Gogol| ]]
[[Category:1809 births]]
[[Category:1852 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Poltava Oblast]]
[[Category:People from Mirgorodsky Uyezd]]
[[Category:Eastern Orthodox writers]]
[[Category:Magic realism writers]]
[[Category:Mythopoeic writers]]
[[Category:Dramatists and playwrights from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:Russian male dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:Russian satirists]]
[[Category:Russian satirical novelists]]
[[Category:Monarchists from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:Russian male novelists]]
[[Category:Russian male short story writers]]
[[Category:Ukrainian novelists]]
[[Category:Ukrainian satirists]]
[[Category:Ukrainian satirical novelists]]
[[Category:19th-century short story writers from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:19th-century writers from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:Nizhyn Gogol State University alumni]]
[[Category:Saint Petersburg State University alumni]]
[[Category:Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery]]
[[Category:Ukrainian male writers]]