Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol is an outstanding personality of Russia.

Childhood

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was born on March 20 (April 1), 1809 in the village of Bolshye Sorochyntsy, on the border of Poltava and Mirgorod counties. He was named Nicholas in honor of the miraculous icon of St. Nicholas. According to family legend, he came from an ancient Ukrainian Cossack family and was a descendant of the famous Cossack Ostap Gogol, who was at the end of The 17th century Hetman of the Right Bank Ukraine. Gogol spent his childhood years at his parents' estate in Vasilyevka.

Youth

In 1818-19, Gogol studied with his brother Ivan at the Poltava county School, and then, in 1820-1821, took lessons from the Poltava teacher Gavriil Sorochinsky, living in his apartment. In May 1821 he entered the Gymnasium of Higher Sciences in Nizhyn. Here he is engaged in painting, participates in performances - as a decorative artist and as an actor, and performs comic roles with particular success. He also tries himself in various literary genres . However, the idea of writing has not yet "come to mind" for Gogol, all his aspirations are connected with "public service", he dreams of a legal career.

Saint-Petersburg

After graduating from the gymnasium in 1828, Gogol, together with another graduate A. S. Danilevsky (1809-1888), went to St. Petersburg in December. At the end of 1829, he managed to get a job in the Department of State Economy and Public Buildings The Ministry of Internal Affairs. From April 1830 to March 1831, he served in the Department of Estates. During this period, "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka" (1831-1832) were published. In the autumn of 1835, he began to write the "Auditor", the plot of which was suggested Pushkin; the work progressed so successfully that on January 18, 1836, he read a comedy at an evening at Zhukovsky's, and in February-March he was already busy staging it on the stage of the Alexandriysky Theater. The play premiered on April 19. On May 25, the premiere in Moscow, at the Maly Theater.

Abroad

In June 1836, Gogol left St. Petersburg for Germany. He spends the end of summer and autumn in Switzerland, where he begins to continue "Dead Souls". The plot was also suggested by Pushkin. In November 1836, Gogol moved to Paris, where he met A. Mickiewicz. Then he moves to Rome. Here in February 1837, in the midst of work on "Dead Souls". In September 1839, accompanied by Pogodin, Gogol arrived in Moscow and began reading the chapters of "Dead Souls". In May 1842, "The Adventures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls" was published. The three years (1842-1845) that followed the writer's departure abroad was a period of intense and difficult work on the 2nd volume of Dead Souls. At the beginning of 1845, Gogol showed signs of a new mental crisis. The writer goes to Paris for rest and "recuperation", but returns to Frankfurt in March.

Return to Russia

Gogol spends the winter of 1847-1848 in Naples, he was intensively engaged in reading Russian periodicals, novelties of fiction, historical and folklore books - "in order to plunge deeper into the indigenous Russian spirit." At the same time, he is preparing for a long-planned pilgrimage to holy places. In January 1848, he was sent by sea to Jerusalem. In April 1848, after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land Gogol finally returns to Russia, where he spends most of his time in Moscow, visits St. Petersburg, as well as in his native places of Little Russia.

House N°7 on Nikitsky Boulevard. Gogol has lived here for his last five years.

In October 1850, Gogol arrived in Odessa. His condition is improving; he is active, cheerful, cheerful; he willingly converges with the actors of the Odessa troupe, to whom he gives lessons in reading comedy performances, with A. S. Pushkin, with local writers. In March 1851, he left Odessa and, after spending the spring and early summer in his native places, returned to Moscow in June.

Death

On February 21, in the morning, Gogol died in his last apartment in the Talyzin house in Moscow. The funeral of the writer took place with a huge gathering of people at the cemetery St. Daniel's Monastery, and in 1931 Gogol's remains were reburied at Novodevichy cemetery.

N. V. Gogol is a magician of the word, a patriot writer. He felt the richness of the Russian language perfectly and possessed the ability to create a vivid literary image very accurately and truthfully. In the early works of N. V. Gogol, the Russian language is intertwined with flowery Ukrainian speech. "Gogol does not write, but draws; his images breathe the living colors of reality. You see and hear them... " Belinsky wrote.