Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (Ukrainian: Микола Васильович Гоголь; Russian: Николай Васильевич Гоголь; sometimes adapted to Spanish as Nicolás Gógol; Soróchintsy, Poltava Governorate, March 20^Jul./ Apr 1, 1809^greg.-Moscow; Feb 21^Jul./ 4 March 1852^greg.) was a Russian writer of Ukrainian origin. He cultivated several genres, but was notably known as a playwright, novelist, and writer of short stories. His best-known work is probably Dead Souls, considered by many to be the first modern Russian-language novel.

Biography

Gógol was born in Soróchintsy, in the Poltava Governorate (now Ukraine) near the Psel River, into a family of Ruthenian lower nobility. Some of his ancestors identified themselves as part of the Polish nobility (Szlachta), due to Polish cultural influence from the Ruthenian upper classes. His own grandfather, Afanasi Gogol, wrote in census documents that his "ancestors, surnamed Gogol, belong to the Polish nation." However, his great-grandfather Yan (Ivan) Gogol, after having studied at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, an institution with strong Ukrainian and Orthodox roots, moved to the eastern part of Ukraine, more culturally linked to Muscovy, and settled in the Poltava region, giving rise to the Gogol-Yanovsky family line. Gogol himself considered the second part of his surname "an artificial Polish addition", using only the first part, Gogol. His father died when young Nikolai was fifteen years old. The deep religious beliefs of the mother must undoubtedly have influenced Gogol's worldview, which was also highly conditioned by his low-nobility family environment in a rural environment.

He moved to Saint Petersburg in 1828 and there he worked in a very modest job as a bureaucrat in the tsarist administration. In 1831, he met Aleksandr Pushkin, who helped his career as a writer and became his friend. Later, he taught medieval history at the University of Saint Petersburg from 1834 to 1835. He wrote several short stories set in Saint Petersburg, such as Nevsky Avenue, Diary of a loco, The cape and The nose. The latter would be adapted as an opera by Dmitri Shostakovich. However, it would be his comedy The Inspector, published in 1836, which would make him a well-known writer. The satirical tone of the work, which it shares with other of his writings, generated some controversy, and Gogol emigrated to Rome.

Gógol spent almost five years living in Italy and Germany, also traveling a bit in Switzerland and France. It was during this period that he wrote Dead Souls, the first part of which was published in 1842, and the historical novel Taras Bulba, starring the Cossack of the same name and set in the 18th century. XVI on Ukrainian lands that were partially occupied by the Poles. It is said that the idea for the plot of Dead Souls was suggested to Gogol by Pushkin. In 1848, Gogol made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, prompted by his deeply held Orthodox Christian beliefs. After returning from Jerusalem, Gogol decided to abandon literature to concentrate on religion, under the influence of the Orthodox priest Father Konstantinovsky. So, Gogol burned what he had written from the second part of Dead Souls ten days before his death on February 21 / March 4 of that year in Moscow. Some fragments of that second part of Dead Souls survived the burning and have been published.

It is important to say that this second part of Dead Souls was really going to be called White Souls. The Argentine poet Luis Tedesco relates:

Gógol a perfectly installed man in the tsarist court had written Dead souls like a ferocious fresco on his contemporary fists. When this attack is reproved, unpredictable in someone of his position, Gógol begins to write a second part of his novel to which Almas Blancas owned with the conscious purpose of reversing his previous vision. He then tells (Gógol), that while he was describing in benevolent ways the behavior of his characters, the pen was diverted to the grotesque, to the denunciation, to the dissecting of a society vicious of corruption. So, the White Souls It was never published since Gógol burned how much or little he had written in the fireplace of his comfortable working room.

The last four years of his life were spent in a comfortable two-story house located on what is now known as Nikitsky Boulevard in Moscow. This residence is preserved as a museum and houses almost all the furniture and personal belongings of the author; including his desk, in which he worked standing up and crowned with an image of the poet Pushkin, his pens and personal pictures, where stand out photos of Orthodox religious with whom he dealt. His plaster death mask is also on display. Gogol died right there in his bedroom, mentally very ill and in great physical deterioration.

Context

Gogol at the monument of the Millennial of Russia.

Gógol's life and literary works illustrate the debate between pro-Western and Slavophile trends in Russian culture. Russian liberal reformers initially interpreted Gogol's stories as satires on the negative aspects of Russian society. However, at the end of his life, these same reformers saw him as a reactionary and pathetic figure, lost in religious fanaticism. Thus, in his famous Letter to Gogol, Vissarion Belinsky branded him "a preacher of the whip and an apostle of obscurantism."

The Veladas en un farmhouse of Dikanka or Veladas de Dikanka, was a collection of eight stories published between 1831 and 1832, in which he resorted to folkloric themes derived from the puppet theater and fantastic oral tradition, as in his second collection of stories, Mírgorod. Although it has been said that Gogol wrote influenced by folklore as a nostalgic representation of Russia, it it must be taken into account that the author was a professional writer and, therefore, had to publish works that were in demand in the publishing market. These styles and themes were progressively abandoned by Gogol to explore in greater depth the "realism fantastic" that manifests itself with greater notoriety in St.

While there is no doubt that Dead Souls reflects a desire to reform Russia, it is not clear whether the suggested reforms would be political or moral. The first part of the book shows the mistakes made by the protagonist, while the second, more confusing, shows the amendments to those mistakes.

Gogol's desire for a moral reform of Russia became much more radical late in his life, as seen in the fanaticism that pervades some of his published letters. This radicalization of his thinking led him to the decision to burn the draft of the second part of Dead Souls , while his health was rapidly deteriorating.

Gógol follows the literary tradition of E. T. A. Hoffmann, with frequent use of the fantastic. In addition, Gogol's works display an excellent sense of humor. This blend of humor with social realism, fantasy elements, and unconventional prose forms are the key to his popularity.

Gógol wrote at a time of political censorship. His use of fantastical elements is, as in Aesop's fables, a way of evading the censor.

Gogol had an enormous and permanent impact on Russian literature. Gogol's influence can be seen in writers such as Yevgueni Zamyatin, Mikhail Bulgakov or Andrei Siniavsky (Abram Terts).

Legacy

Gogol has appeared many times on Russian and Soviet postage stamps; he is also well represented on stamps around the world Russia and the USSR have issued several commemorative coins. In 2009, the National Bank of Ukraine issued a commemorative coin dedicated to Gogol. Streets have been named after Gogol in several cities, including Moscow, Sofia, Lipetsk, Odessa, Myrhorod, Krasnodar, Vladimir, Vladivostok, Penza, Petrozavodsk, Riga, Bratislava, Belgrade, Harbin and many other cities.

Gogol is mentioned several times in Fyodor Dostoevsky's works Poor People and Crime and Punishment, and in Chekhov's The Seagull.

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

Works

Cover of the first edition The inspector. 1836.

Cover of the second edition Dead souls. Poem. 1846.

• Getman (Incomplete, 1831)
• Sailing in a village of Dikanka or Dikanka sails (eight accounts, 1831-1832)
  • Soróchintsy fair
  • The night before San Juan
  • May night or drowned
  • The lost letter
  • Christmas Eve
  • Terrible revenge
  • Ivan Fiódorovich Shponka and his aunt
  • The haunted place
• Look. (four accounts, 1832-1834)
  • "Tomorrows of old"
  • "Tarás Bulba"
  • "The Viyi" or "Vi"
  • "Why did the two Ivanes fight?" or "Why did Ivan Ivan Ivánovich and Ivan Nikíforovich argue."
• Stories of Saint Petersburg o Brief peterbourgeois Novels (five stories, 1835-1842)
  • Nevski Avenue
  • The portrait
  • Diary of a Crazy
  • The nose
  • The capote
• The inspector (1836)
• Dead souls (1842)

Accommodations

Theatrical adaptations

• The diary of a madman was performed in theater and played for 25 years by Mexican actor Carlos Ancira until the day of his death. This work was premiered in 1960 at the Reforma Theatre led by Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Film Adaptations

• Files of cinematic adaptations of his works on Internet Movie Database.
• Adaptation The missing letter (Прoпавшая грамота(i) Cartoons of 1945, produced by Soyuzmultfilm and directed by Lamis Bredis (Lamis Bredis), Valentina Brumberg (Валентина Bрумберг, 1899-1975) and Zinaída Brumberg (Zинаида TURрумберг, 1900-1975):
  • English page of the animation short film on the site Animator.
    • Sign in Russian.
• The work The Capote bases on the argument of the film The good name by Mira Nair in 2006.