In what year did gogol become famous? Biography of Gogol - one of the most mysterious writers

Biography
Russian writer. He was born on April 1 (according to the old style - March 20), 1809 in the village of Bolshiye Sorochintsy (on the border of Poltava and Mirgorod districts). He came from an old Little Russian family - he was born into a family of poor landowners V. A. and M. I. Gogol-Yanovsky. Gogol's grandfather, Afanasy Demyanovich, wrote in an official paper that "his ancestors, with the surname Gogol, of the Polish nation," although he himself was a real Little Russian, and others considered him the prototype of the hero of "Old World Landowners." Great-grandfather, Yan Gogol, a graduate of the Kyiv Academy, settled in the Poltava region, and from him came the nickname "Gogol-Yanovsky". Gogol himself was probably unaware of the origin of this addition and subsequently discarded it, saying that the Poles invented it. Gogol's father, Vasily Afanasyevich, was the author of several comedies in the Ukrainian language. He died when his son was 15 years old. The inclinations of religiosity, which later took possession of Gogol's entire being, and the shortcomings of upbringing are attributed to the influence of his mother, who surrounded him with real adoration, which could be one of the sources of his conceit. At the age of 10, Gogol was taken to Poltava for preparation at the Gymnasium, then he entered the gymnasium of higher sciences in Nizhyn (from May 1821 to June 1828), where he was first a self-employed, then a boarder at the gymnasium. Gogol was not a diligent student, but he had an excellent memory, preparing for exams in a few days and moving from class to class. He was weak in languages ​​and made progress only in drawing and Russian literature. In the theater he was the most zealous participant, distinguished by unusual comedy. By the end of his stay at the gymnasium, he dreams of a wide social activities, which, however, he sees not at all in the literary field, but in the service, for which in fact he was completely incapable. In December 1828, Gogol left for St. Petersburg, where he was in for a severe disappointment, because. his modest means ended up in big city very scarce: he was not accepted as an actor; the service was so empty of content that he immediately became weary of it. In 1829, under the pseudonym V. Alov, he published "Hanz Kühelgarten", written back in Nizhyn in 1827. Soon he himself destroyed it when the critics reacted unfavorably to the work. 1829 - 1830 - occupied the position of a clerical clerk in the Department of State Economy and Public Buildings of the Ministry of the Interior. In April 1830, he joined the department of appanages and remained there until 1832. From the first months of 1828, Gogol besieged his mother with requests to send him information about Little Russian customs, traditions, costumes, as well as to send "notes kept by the ancestors of some old surname, ancient manuscripts, etc. In 1830, Svinin’s old Fatherland Notes published The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala. In February 1831, Pletnev recommended Gogol to the post of teacher at the Patriot Institute, where he himself was an inspector. that he could enter the scientific field, dreaming of getting a chair of history at the newly opened Kiev University. The chair was given to another, but he was offered the same one at St. Petersburg University. Once or twice he managed to deliver an effective lecture, but the task turned out to be 1835 Gogol, who became an adjunct professor at St. Petersburg University in the department of all common history(a memorial plaque in the office of university researchers), he himself refused a professorship. In 1832 he was at home for the first time after completing a course in Nizhyn. By 1834, the first concept of "The Government Inspector" dates back, the main plot of which, like the plot " dead souls", was suggested to Gogol by Pushkin, by 1835 - the idea of ​​"Dead Souls". Unsatisfied with the premiere of "The Inspector General" in St. Russia, for many years: he lived in Germany, Switzerland, spent the winter in Paris, was in Rome in March 1837. In the autumn of 1839 he went to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg. Having arranged his affairs, he again went to Rome. By the summer of 1841, the first volume " Dead Souls" was ready, and in September Gogol went to Russia to print his book. The book was first presented to the Moscow censorship, which was going to completely ban it, but in St. Petersburg, with some exceptions and thanks to the participation of Gogol's friends, the book was allowed. A new stay abroad, which became the last, led to a final turning point in Gogol's state of mind.He lived in Rome, in Germany, in Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, in Nice, in Paris, in Ostend.He came to the conclusion that what he had done so far op was unworthy of that high purpose to which he now considered himself called. Once, in a moment of heavy thought about the fulfillment of his duty, he burned the second volume of Dead Souls, offering it as a sacrifice to God. At the end of 1847 he moved to Naples and at the beginning of 1848 to Palestine, from where he finally returned to Russia via Constantinople and Odessa. The stay in Jerusalem did not produce the effect he expected. “Never before have I been so little satisfied with the state of my heart, as in Jerusalem and after Jerusalem,” he says. “I was at the Holy Sepulcher, as if in order to feel there on the spot how much coldness of the heart is in me, how much selfishness and selfishness." From the autumn of 1851 he settled in Moscow, where he lived in the house of Count A.P. Tolstoy, continuing to work on the second volume of Dead Souls. In January 1852 he was seized by the fear of death and he threw literary pursuits. One day, when he was spending the night in prayer, he heard voices saying that he would soon die. One night he was seized with a doubt that he had not so fulfilled the duty imposed on him by God; he woke the servant, ordered him to open the chimney of the fireplace, and taking the papers from the briefcase, burned them. In the morning he repentantly told Count Tolstoy about this. Since then, he fell into a gloomy despondency and a few days later, March 4 (Old Style - February 21), 1852, he died. He was buried in Moscow, in the Danilov Monastery. In 1931 the ashes were transferred to Novodevichy cemetery.
Among the works - a novel, novels, plays, short stories - "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka" (1831 - 1832, a collection that included the stories "Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala", "Sorochinsky Fair", "May Night, or the Drowned Woman", "Terrible Revenge "), "Arabesques" (1835, a collection that included "Petersburg stories" "Nevsky Prospekt", "Notes of a Madman", "Portrait", "Nose"), "Mirgorod" (1835, a collection that included the stories "Old World Landowners", "The Tale of how Ivan Ivanovich quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich", "Viy", "Taras Bulba"), "The Government Inspector" (1836, comedy), "The Overcoat" (1842, story), " Dead Souls"(1842; novel-poem, 1st volume)
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Sources of information:
"Russian biographical dictionary"
Encyclopedic resource www.rubricon.com (Large soviet encyclopedia, Encyclopedic reference book "St. Petersburg", Encyclopedia "Moscow")
Project "Russia congratulates!" - www.prazdniki.ru

(Source: "Aphorisms from around the world. Encyclopedia of wisdom." www.foxdesign.ru)

Consolidated encyclopedia of aphorisms. Academician. 2011 .

See what "Gogol N.V. - biography" is in other dictionaries:

Nikolai Vasilievich (1809-1852), Russian writer. Literary fame for Gogol was brought by the collection Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka (1831-32), saturated with Ukrainian ethnographic and folklore material, marked by romantic moods, ... ... Russian history

Nikolai Vasilievich (1809-1852) one of the largest representatives of the local style of the 30s and early 40s. R. in Ukraine, in the town of Sorochintsy, on the border of Poltava and Mirgorod counties. The main stages of his life are as follows: his childhood up to 12 ... ... Literary Encyclopedia

A bird from the breed of diving ducks (2): And Igor prince jumped ermine to a cane, and white gogol to the water ... 40 41. Igor said: “Oh Doncha! not a little of your greatness, cherishing the prince on the waves ... guarding him with gogol on the water, teacups on the jets, blacks ... ... Dictionary-reference book "The Tale of Igor's Campaign"

GOGOL, gogol, husband. (zool.). A bird from the breed of diving ducks. “The river mirror shines, announced by the sonorous bellowing of swans, and the proud goldeneye quickly rushes along it.” Gogol. ❖ Walk like a gogol (colloquial irony) keep a dandy, a dandy. Dictionary… … Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov

Husband. as a family name for fat-headed flat and round ducks, it includes the genera: goldeneye, gagk, dzyng and blacken; as a species, it is a beautiful dive close to the merganser or duck Fuligula round-beaked; | duck Anas clangula. | ural. Cossack float, ... ... Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary

Cm … Synonym dictionary

Nikolai Vasilyevich (1809-52), Russian writer. Literary fame for Gogol was brought by the collection Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka (1831-32), saturated with national color (Ukrainian ethnographic and folklore material), marked ... ... Modern Encyclopedia

GOGOL, a large diving duck. Length up to 45 cm, weight up to 1.4 kg. In flight, it makes a ringing sound (whistling) with its wings. It lives in the forest zone of the Northern Hemisphere. Nests in hollows tall trees near water bodies. The object of the hunt... Modern Encyclopedia

GOGOL, me, husband. Diving duck. To walk like a gogol (colloquial) to hold on proudly, with an independent look. | adj. gogoliny, oh, oh. Explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 ... Explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov

GOGOL- N. V. Gogol. Portrait. Artistic F. A. Muller. 1841 (TG) N. V. Gogol. Portrait. Artistic F. A. Muller. 1841 (TG) Nikolai Vasilyevich (03/20/1809, locality Sorochintsy, Mirgorod district of Poltava province, 02/21/1852, Moscow), writer. Great-grandfather G. was ... ... Orthodox Encyclopedia

I Gogol Nikolai Vasilievich, Russian writer. Born into a family of poor landowners V. A. and M. I. Gogol Yanovsky. Father G. wrote several comedies on ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

He was born on March 20 (April 1), 1809 in the village of Sorochintsy, Poltava province, in the family of a landowner. Gogol was the third child, and in total there were 12 children in the family.

Training in the biography of Gogol took place at the Poltava School. Then in 1821 he entered the class of the Nizhyn gymnasium, where he studied justice. AT school years the writer was not distinguished by special abilities in his studies. Well, he was given only drawing lessons and the study of Russian literature. He only wrote mediocre works.

The beginning of the literary path

In 1828, Gogol moved to St. Petersburg in his life. There he served as an official, tried to get a job as an actor in the theater and was engaged in literature. Actor career did not go well, and the service did not bring Gogol pleasure, and sometimes even weighed down. And the writer decided to prove himself in the literary field.

In 1831, Gogol met representatives of the literary circles of Zhukovsky and Pushkin, undoubtedly these acquaintances greatly influenced him further fate and literary activities.

Gogol and theater

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol's interest in the theater manifested itself in his youth, after the death of his father, a wonderful playwright and storyteller.

Realizing the full power of the theater, Gogol took up dramaturgy. Gogol's The Inspector General was written in 1835 and staged for the first time in 1836. Due to the negative reaction of the public to the production of "The Inspector General", the writer leaves the country.

last years of life

In 1836, in the biography of Nikolai Gogol, trips were made to Switzerland, Germany, Italy, as well as a short stay in Paris. Then, from March 1837, work continued on the first volume in Rome. greatest work Gogol's "Dead Souls", which was conceived by the author in St. Petersburg. After returning home from Rome, the writer publishes the first volume of the poem. While working on the second volume, Gogol had spiritual crisis. Even a trip to Jerusalem did not help to rectify the situation.

At the beginning of 1843, Gogol's famous story "The Overcoat" was first published.

April 1 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. It is difficult to find a figure more mysterious in the history of Russian literature. ingenious artist words left behind dozens immortal works and the same number of secrets that are still not subject to researchers of the life and work of the writer.

Even during his lifetime, he was called a monk, a joker, and a mystic, and his work intertwined fantasy and reality, the beautiful and the ugly, the tragic and the comic.

Many myths are associated with the life and death of Gogol. For several generations of researchers of the writer's work, they cannot come up with an unequivocal answer to the questions: why Gogol was not married, why he burned the second volume of "Dead Souls" and whether he burned it at all, and, of course, what ruined the brilliant writer.

Birth

The exact date of birth of the writer for a long time remained a mystery to his contemporaries. At first it was said that Gogol was born on March 19, 1809, then on March 20, 1810. And only after his death from the publication of the metrics it was established that future writer was born on March 20, 1809, i.e. April 1, new style.

Gogol was born in a land full of legends. Near Vasilievka, where his parents' estate was, there was Dikanka, now known to the whole world. In those days, an oak tree was shown in the village, near which Mary's meetings with Mazepa took place, and the shirt of the executed Kochubey.

As a boy, Nikolai Vasilievich's father went to church in the Kharkov province, where there was a miraculous image Mother of God. Once he saw in a dream the Queen of Heaven, who pointed to a child sitting on the floor at Her feet: "...Here is your wife." Soon he recognized in the seven-month-old daughter of his neighbors the features of the child whom he had seen in a dream. For thirteen years, Vasily Afanasyevich continued to follow his betrothed. After the vision recurred, he asked for the girl's hand. A year later, the young people got married, writes hrono.info.

Mysterious Carlo

After some time, the son Nikolai appeared in the family, named after St. Nicholas of Myra, before miraculous icon whom Maria Ivanovna Gogol made a vow.

From his mother, Nikolai Vasilyevich inherited a fine mental organization, a penchant for God-fearing religiosity and an interest in foreboding. His father was inherently suspicious. It is not surprising that from childhood Gogol was fascinated by secrets, prophetic dreams, fatal signs, which later appeared on the pages of his works.

When Gogol studied at the Poltava School, he suddenly died younger brother Ivan, in poor health. For Nikolai, this shock was so strong that he had to be taken away from the school and sent to the Nizhyn gymnasium.

In the gymnasium, Gogol became famous as an actor in the gymnasium theater. According to his comrades, he tirelessly joked, played pranks on friends, noticing their funny features, and performed tricks for which he was punished. At the same time, he remained secretive - he did not tell anyone about his plans, for which he received the nickname Mysterious Carlo after one of the heroes of Walter Scott's novel "The Black Dwarf".

First burnt book

In the gymnasium, Gogol dreams of broad social activities that would allow him to accomplish something great "for the common good, for Russia." With these broad and vague plans, he arrived in Petersburg and experienced the first severe disappointment.

Gogol publishes his first work - a poem in the spirit of the German romantic school "Hans Küchelgarten". The pseudonym V. Alov saved Gogol's name from criticism, but the author himself took the failure so hard that he bought up all unsold copies of the book in stores and burned them. Until the end of his life, the writer did not admit to anyone that Alov was his pseudonym.

Later, Gogol received a service in one of the departments of the Ministry of the Interior. "Rewriting the stupidities of the clerk gentlemen," the young clerk carefully looked at the life and life of his fellow officials. These observations will be useful to him later to create the famous stories "The Nose", "Notes of a Madman" and "The Overcoat".

"Evenings on a farm near Dikanka", or childhood memories

After meeting Zhukovsky and Pushkin, inspired Gogol begins to write one of his the best works- "Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka". Both parts of "Evenings" were published under the pseudonym of the beekeeper Rudy Panka.

Some episodes of the book, in which real life intertwined with legends, were inspired by Gogol's childhood visions. So, in the story "May Night, or the Drowned Woman", the episode when the stepmother, who turned into a black cat, tries to strangle the centurion's daughter, but as a result loses her paw with iron claws, recalls real story from the writer's life.

Somehow, the parents left their son at home, and the rest of the household went to bed. Suddenly Nikosha - that's what they called Gogol in childhood - heard a meow, and in a moment he saw a crouching cat. The child was scared half to death, but he had the courage to grab the cat and throw it into the pond. “It seemed to me that I had drowned a man,” Gogol later wrote.

Why was Gogol not married?

Despite the success of his second book, Gogol still refused to count. literary work its main task. He taught at the Women's Patriotic Institute, where he often told young ladies entertaining and cautionary tales. The fame of a talented "teacher-storyteller" even reached St. Petersburg University, where he was invited to lecture at the Department of World History.

In the personal life of the writer, everything remained unchanged. There is an assumption that Gogol never intended to marry. Meanwhile, many of the writer's contemporaries believed that he was in love with one of the first court beauties, Alexandra Osipovna Smirnova-Rosset, and wrote to her even when she left St. Petersburg with her husband.

Later, Gogol was fascinated by Countess Anna Mikhailovna Vielgorskaya, writes gogol.lit-info.ru. The writer met the Vielgorsky family in St. Petersburg. educated and kind people They warmly received Gogol and appreciated his talent. The writer especially made friends with youngest daughter Vielgorskikh Anna Mikhailovna.

In relation to the Countess, Nikolai Vasilyevich fancied himself a spiritual mentor and teacher. He gave her advice on Russian literature, tried to keep her interested in everything Russian. In turn, Anna Mikhailovna was always interested in health, literary success Gogol, which supported in him the hope of reciprocity.

According to the Vielgorsky family tradition, Gogol decided to propose to Anna Mikhailovna in the late 1840s. "However, preliminary negotiations with relatives immediately convinced him that their inequality social position precludes the possibility of such a marriage," the latest edition Gogol's correspondence with the Vielgorskys.

After failed attempt arrange your family life Gogol wrote to Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky in 1848 that he should not, as it seems to him, bind himself with any bonds on earth, including family life.

"Viy" - " folk tradition"invented by Gogol

Passion for the history of Ukraine inspired Gogol to create the story "Taras Bulba", which was included in the 1835 collection "Mirgorod". He handed over a copy of Mirgorod to the Minister of Public Education Uvarov for presentation to Emperor Nicholas I.

The collection includes one of the most mystical works Gogol - the story "Viy". In a note to the book, Gogol wrote that the story "is a folk tradition," which he conveyed exactly as he heard it, without changing anything. Meanwhile, researchers have not yet found a single piece of folklore that would exactly resemble "Viy".

The name of the fantastic underground spirit - Viya - was invented by the writer as a result of combining the name of the ruler of the underworld "iron Niy" (from Ukrainian mythology) and Ukrainian word"Viya" - eyelid. Hence - the long eyelids of Gogol's character.

Escape

The meeting in 1831 with Pushkin was of crucial importance for Gogol. Alexander Sergeevich not only supported the novice writer in the literary environment of St. Petersburg, but also presented him with the plots of The Government Inspector and Dead Souls.

The play The Government Inspector, first staged in May 1836, was favorably received by the Emperor himself, who presented Gogol with a diamond ring in exchange for a copy of the book. However, critics were not so generous with praise. The disappointment experienced was the beginning of a protracted depression of the writer, who in the same year went abroad "to open his longing."

However, the decision to leave is difficult to explain only as a reaction to criticism. Gogol was going on a trip even before the premiere of The Government Inspector. He went abroad in June 1836, traveled almost all Western Europe, having spent the longest time in Italy. In 1839, the writer returned to his homeland, but a year later he again announced his departure to his friends and promised to bring the first volume of Dead Souls next time.

One May day in 1840, Gogol was seen off by his friends Aksakov, Pogodin and Shchepkin. When the crew was out of sight, they noticed that black clouds covered half the sky. It suddenly became dark, and gloomy forebodings about Gogol's fate took possession of the friends. As it turns out, it's no coincidence...

Disease

In 1839, in Rome, Gogol caught the strongest swamp fever (malaria). He miraculously managed to avoid death, but a serious illness led to a progressive mental and physical disorder of health. As some researchers of Gogol's life write, the writer's illness. He began to experience seizures and fainting, which is characteristic of malarial encephalitis. But the most terrible for Gogol were the visions that visited him during his illness.

As Gogol's sister Anna Vasilievna wrote, abroad the writer hoped to receive a "blessing" from someone, and when the preacher Innokenty presented him with the image of the Savior, the writer took it as a sign from above to go to Jerusalem, to the Holy Sepulcher.

However, the stay in Jerusalem did not bring the expected result. “Never before have I been so little satisfied with the state of my heart, as in Jerusalem and after Jerusalem,” said Gogol. and selfishness."

Only for a short time the disease receded. In the autumn of 1850, once in Odessa, Gogol felt better, he again became cheerful and cheerful as before. In Moscow, he read individual chapters of the second volume of "Dead Souls" to his friends, and, seeing universal approval and enthusiasm, began to work with redoubled energy.

However, as soon as the second volume of Dead Souls was completed, Gogol felt empty. More and more he began to take possession of the "fear of death", which his father once suffered from.

The difficult condition was aggravated by conversations with a fanatical priest - Matvey Konstantinovsky, who reproached Gogol for his imaginary sinfulness, demonstrated the horrors of the Last Judgment, thoughts about which tormented the writer from early childhood. Gogol's confessor demanded to renounce Pushkin, whose talent Nikolai Vasilievich admired.

On the night of February 12, 1852, an event occurred, the circumstances of which are still a mystery to biographers. Nikolai Gogol prayed until three o'clock, after which he took a briefcase, removed several papers from it, and ordered the rest to be thrown into the fire. Crossing himself, he returned to bed and wept uncontrollably.

It is believed that on that night he burned the second volume of Dead Souls. However, later the manuscript of the second volume was found among his books. And what was burned in the fireplace is still unclear, writes Komsomolskaya Pravda.

After that night, Gogol went deeper into his own fears. He suffered from taphophobia, the fear of being buried alive. This fear was so strong that the writer repeatedly gave written orders to bury him only when there were clear signs of cadaveric decomposition.

At the time, doctors couldn't recognize him. mental illness and treated with drugs that only weakened him. If the doctors had begun to treat him for depression in a timely manner, the writer would have lived much longer, writes Sedmitsa.Ru, citing M. I. Davidov, associate professor of the Perm Medical Academy, who analyzed hundreds of documents while studying Gogol's illness.

skull mystery

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol died on February 21, 1852. He was buried in the cemetery of the St. Danilov Monastery, and in 1931 the monastery and the cemetery on its territory were closed. When Gogol's remains were transferred to, they discovered that a skull had been stolen from the coffin of the deceased.

According to the professor of the Literary Institute, writer V.G. Lidin, who was present at the opening of the grave, Gogol's skull was removed from the grave in 1909. That year, Alexei Bakhrushin, a patron and founder of the theater museum, persuaded the monks to get Gogol's skull for him. “In the Bakhrushinsky Theater Museum in Moscow there are three skulls belonging to unknown persons: one of them, according to the assumption, is the skull of the artist Shchepkin, the other is the skull of Gogol, nothing is known about the third,” Lidin wrote in his memoirs “Transferring the Ashes of Gogol”.

Rumors about the stolen head of the writer could later be used by Mikhail Bulgakov, a great admirer of Gogol's talent, in his novel The Master and Margarita. In the book, he wrote about the head of the chairman of the board of MASSOLIT stolen from the coffin, cut off by tram wheels on the Patriarch's Ponds.

The material was prepared by the editors of rian.ru based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

Square

Amazing mysterious world N. Gogol surrounds many since childhood: delightful images of "The Night Before Christmas", bright festivities at the Sorochinskaya Fair, creepy stories about “May Night”, “Viya” and “Terrible Revenge”, from which the whole body is covered with small goosebumps. This is just little list famous works of N.V. Gogol, which is considered the most mystical Russian writer, and abroad, his stories are equated with the gothic stories of Edgar Allan Poe. In this article, you will learn Interesting Facts from the biography of Gogol, which are considered mysterious and mystical. Get ready to get goosebumps!

Gogol was born in a rural Ukrainian large family, he was the third child of twelve. His mother is a woman of rare beauty - she was 14 years old when she became the wife of a man twice her age. They say that it was the mother who developed the religious and mystical worldview in her son. Maria Ivanovna was distinguished by her natural view of religion, she told her son about ancient Russian pagan traditions, Slavic mythology. Gogol's letters to his mother dating back to 1833 have been preserved. In one of them, Gogol writes that the mother, in childhood, told the child in colors what Last Judgment what will await a person for virtuous deeds, and what fate will overtake sinners.

Childhood, adolescence and youth

Nikolai Gogol with early years was a closed and uncommunicative person, even close relatives could not imagine what was going on in his head and soul. The boy lived apart, had little contact with his brothers and sisters, but spent a lot of time with his beloved mother.

Gogol later said that at the age of five he first experienced panic fear.

“I was 5 years old. I was sitting alone in Vasilievka. Father and mother left ... Twilight descended. I clung to the corner of the sofa and, in the midst of complete silence, listened to the sound of the long pendulum of the old wall clock. There was a buzzing in my ears, something approaching and leaving somewhere. Believe me, it already seemed to me then that the knock of the pendulum was the knock of time passing into eternity. Suddenly, the faint meow of a cat broke the peace that weighed on me. I saw her, meowing, cautiously creeping towards me. I will never forget how she walked, stretching, and her soft paws weakly tapped her claws on the floorboards, and her green eyes sparkled with an unkind light. I got scared. I climbed onto the couch and leaned against the wall. “Kitty, kitty,” I muttered, and, wanting to encourage myself, I jumped off and, grabbing the cat, which easily surrendered to my hands, ran into the garden, where I threw it into the pond and several times, when it tried to swim out and go ashore, pushed her sixth. I was scared, I was trembling, but at the same time I felt some satisfaction, maybe revenge for the fact that she scared me. But when she drowned, and the last circles on the water fled, complete peace and silence settled in, I suddenly felt terribly sorry for the “kitty”. I felt remorse. I felt like I drowned a man. I cried terribly and calmed down only when my father, to whom I confessed my deed, whipped me.

Nikolai Gogol from childhood was sensitive person, giving in to fears, experiences, life's troubles. Any negative situation was reflected in his psyche, when another person could withstand such a thing. The child drowned the cat out of fear, he seemed to have overcome his fear through cruelty and violence, but he realized that panic cannot be overcome in this way. It can be assumed that the writer was left alone with his fears, since his conscience did not allow him to use violence again.

This situation is very reminiscent of the moment in the work “May Night, or the Drowned Woman”, when the stepmother turned into a black cat, and the lady hit her in fear and cut her paw.

It is known that Gogol drew as a child, but his drawings seemed mediocre, incomprehensible to others. Such an attitude towards his art, again, could have a negative impact on self-esteem.

From the age of 10, Nikolai Gogol was sent to the Poltava gymnasium, where the boy became a member literary circle. It is not known why Gogol developed such low self-esteem, but it was precisely this self-isolation that provoked a mental breakdown in maturity.

The first attempt to bring his work to the people's court

Nikolai Gogol began to create, he wrote a lot, but he ventured to show his work " Ganz Küchelgarten". It was a failure, criticism was unfavorable to the story, then Gogol destroyed the entire circulation. Before becoming a writer, Gogol tried to become an actor and enter the official service. But the love of literature still captured the young man, who was able to find a new approach to this type of art. It was Gogol who touched on the other side of life and showed how they live in Little Russia! The collection "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka" made a splash! His mother Maria Ivanovna helped to collect material and develop plots for the writer. For many years Gogol successfully worked in the literary field, corresponded with Pushkin and Belinsky, who were delighted with his works. Despite his fame, Gogol never became an open person, but on the contrary, over the years he led an increasingly reclusive lifestyle.

By the way, Pushkin gave Gogol the pug Josie, after the death of the dog Gogol was attacked by longing, because the writer definitely had no one closer to Josie.

The Question of the Writer's Homosexuality

Gogol's personal life is surrounded by conjectures and assumptions. The writer has never been married to a woman, perhaps even had no intimacy with them. There are references in a letter to his mother that Gogol wrote about a beautiful divine person whom he did not want to correlate with an ordinary woman. Contemporaries say that it was an unrequited love for Anna Mikhailovna Vielgorskaya. After this incident, there were no more women in Gogol's life, as well as men. But researchers believe that letters to men are highly emotional. In the unfinished work "Nights at the Villa" there is a motif of love for a young man suffering from tuberculosis. The work is autobiographical, hence the researchers had a hunch that, perhaps, Gogol had feelings for men.

Semyon Karlinsky argued that Gogol is a very religious person, God-fearing, therefore he could not include any intimate relationships in his life.

But Igor Kon believes that it was God-fearing that prevented Gogol from accepting himself as he is. Therefore, depression developed, fears of being incomprehensible appeared, as a result, the writer completely fell into religion and brought himself to death, the sea of ​​hunger - these were attempts to cleanse himself of sinfulness.

Candidate of Philological Sciences L. S. Yakovlev names attempts to define sexual orientation Gogol "provocative, outrageous, funny publications."

Eggnog

Nikolai Gogol was madly in love with goat's milk combined with rum. The writer jokingly called his amazing drink “mogul-mogul”. In fact, the mogul-mogul dessert appeared in ancient times in Europe, was first made by the German confectioner Keukenbauer. So famous whipped egg yolk with sugar has nothing to do with the famous writer!

Writer's phobias

• Gogol was terribly afraid of thunderstorms.
• When stranger in society, he left so as not to collide with him.
• AT last years generally ceased to go out and communicate with writers, led an ascetic lifestyle.
• I was afraid to look ugly. Gogol terribly disliked him a long nose, so he asked the artists to depict a nose close to the ideal in portraits. On the basis of his complexes, the writer wrote the work "The Nose".

Lethargy or death?

Gogol constantly thought about being buried alive and was terribly afraid of such a fate. Therefore, 7 years before his death, he made a will, where he indicated that he should be buried only when visible signs of decomposition appeared. Gogol died at the age of 42, after fasting before Lent for 15 days. On the night of February 11-12, a week before his death, the writer burns the second volume of Dead Souls in the oven, explaining that he was beguiled by an evil spirit. The writer was buried on the third day after his death. In 1931, the necropolis where Gogol was buried was liquidated and a decision was made to transfer the writer's grave to the Novodevichy cemetery. After opening the grave, they discovered the absence of Gogol's skull (according to Vladimir Lidin), later there is a rumor that the skull was in the grave, but turned on its side. publicity this information long years did not indulge, and only in the 90s they again started talking about whether Gogol was accidentally buried in a state of lethargic sleep?

There are some facts confirming that Gogol could have been buried alive. I am posting what I have been able to find.

After suffering from malarial encephalitis in 1839, Gogol often fainted, which led to many hours of sleep. Based on this, the writer developed a phobia that he could be buried alive while he was unconscious.

But there is no official evidence that in 1931, during the opening of the grave, a skull turned on its side was found. Witnesses to the exhumation give different testimonies: some say that everything was in order, others claim that the skull was turned to the side, and Lidin did not see the skull at all in its proper place. The presence of a death mask completely debunks these myths. It cannot be done on a living person, even if he is in a lethargic sleep, because the person will still react to the high temperature during the procedure and begin to suffocate from filling the external respiratory organs with plaster. But this was not the case, Gogol was buried after a natural death.

Death mask Gogol

Date of birth: April 1, 1809
Date of death: February 21, 1852
Place of birth: Sorochintsy, Poltava province

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol- Russian writer, playwright, Gogol N.V.- poet and essayist.

One of the classics of Russian and world literature.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol - a famous Russian playwright, publicist and prose writer, was born in Sorochintsy (Poltava Province) on April 1, 1809. His father, Vasily Afanasyevich, was a very wealthy landowner who had about 400 serfs, his mother was very young and active woman.

The writer spent his childhood in the conditions of colorful Ukrainian life, which he loved very much and remembered well. He knew the life of the lords and peasants very well, at the age of ten he began to study with a teacher in Poltava, and then entered the Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences. Researchers say that Gogol could not be called a successful student, most of the subjects were given to him with great difficulty, but he stood out among his peers with an excellent memory, the ability to use the Russian language correctly, and also in drawing.
Gogol was actively engaged in self-education, wrote a lot, subscribed to metropolitan magazines with his friends. Even in his youth, he began to write a lot, tried himself in both prose and poetry. Gogol concentrated his attention on managing the estate after his father's death. In 1828 he graduated from the gymnasium and went to St. Petersburg.

metropolitan life was very expensive, the wealth in the provinces was not enough to lead a frivolous life in St. Petersburg. At first he decided to become an actor, but the theaters refused to accept him. Work as an official did not attract him at all, and therefore he turned his attention to literature. In 1829, his idyll "Hanz Küchelgarten" was harshly received by critics and readers, and therefore Gogol personally destroyed the entire first edition.

In 1830 he nevertheless entered public service and began to work in the department of appanages. In the same year he started a large number of a variety of useful acquaintances in literary circles. The story "Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala" was immediately published, and one year later "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka" saw the light of day.

In 1833, Gogol was attracted by the prospect of working in the scientific field, he began to cooperate with St. Petersburg University in the department of general history. Here he spent the next two years of his life. In the same period, he completed the collections "Arabesques" and "Mirgorod", which were published immediately after his departure from the university.

There were those who desperately criticized his work. Pressure from critics was one of the reasons why Gogol decided to take a break from literature and went to Europe. He lived in Switzerland, France and Italy. It was at this time that he completed the first volume of Dead Souls. In 1841, he decided that he needed to return to Russia, where he was warmly received by Belinsky and contributed to the publication of the first volume.

Immediately after the publication of this book, Gogol set to work on the second volume, at which point the writer was experiencing a creative crisis. Belinsky's devastating review of the book "Selected passages from correspondence with friends" was a big blow to his literary pride. This criticism was received very negatively. At the end of 1847, Gogol went to Naples, from where he left for Palestine.

Return to Russia in 1848 was characterized by inconstancy in the life of the writer, he still could not find a place for himself. He lived in Moscow, Kaluga, Odessa, then again in Moscow. He was still working on the second volume of Dead Souls, but he felt a significant deterioration in his state of mind. He became interested in mysticism, he was often haunted by strange thoughts.

On February 11, 1852, in the middle of the night, he unexpectedly decided to burn the manuscript of the second volume. He said that evil spirits made him do it. A week later, he felt weak all over his body, took to his bed and refused any treatment.

The doctors decided that it was necessary to start compulsory procedures, but no tricks of the doctors improved the patient's condition. On February 21, 1852, Gogol died. He rests in the cemetery of the Danilov Monastery in Moscow.

Gogol was one of the strangest representatives of the Russian classical literature. His work was received in different ways, critics praised and loved him. On the other hand, he was strongly constrained by the Nikolaev censorship.

Bulgakov and Nabokov looked back at Gogol in their work, many of his works were filmed in Soviet time.

The main milestones in the life of Nikolai Gogol:

Birth in Sorochintsy April 1, 1809
- Moving to Poltava in 1819
- Beginning of studies at the Gymnasium of Higher Sciences in Nizhyn in 1821
- The beginning of the Petersburg period in 1828
- Publication of the idyll "Hanz Küchelgarten" in 1829
- Publication of "Evenings on the eve of Ivan Kupala" in 1830
- Print "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka" in 1831
- Work at the Faculty of History at St. Petersburg University in 1834
- The publication of the collections "Arabesques" and "Mirgorod" in 1835
- Beginning of European travel in 1836
- Publication of the first volume of "Dead Souls" in 1841
- Destruction of the second volume for unknown reasons in 1852
- Death of N. V. Gogol on February 21, 1852

Interesting facts from the biography of Nikolai Gogol:

The writer was not married, was suspicious of women and was a reserved person; researchers speak of his latent homosexuality and the presence of a secret love for several women
- There is a version that the writer did not die, but plunged into Sopor after which he was buried alive
- The skull of the writer was stolen from the grave in 1909 until the perestroika period, the public did not know about this incident
- Gogol could hardly endure a thunderstorm, he was very afraid of thunder and lightning
- The writer did a lot of needlework, was an excellent cook and had a sweet tooth