Nikolay Gogol

Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol was born in 1809 to a Ukrainian family of petty gentry in Poltava province in the Russian Empire. Gogol was brought up by his deeply religious mother and his father, a poet and amateur playwright, who died when Gogol was 15 years old. From 1820 to 1828, Gogol attended school in Nezhin. Afterward, he moved to St. Petersburg, where he unsuccessfully tried to become an actor. Eventually he secured a minor government position and began writing stories about Ukraine, drawing from his own childhood memories and Ukrainian folklore. He published these stories as Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka in 1831, which quickly made him famous. Gogol continued to write short stories, and at this time he met and befriended Alexander Pushkin, a prominent Russian Romantic poet. In 1835, Gogol asked Pushkin for a plot for a five-act comedy. This comedy became The Government Inspector, which premiered in 1836. Due to controversy stirred up by the satirical play, Gogol left Russia and afterward resided mainly in Rome. In 1842, Gogol published two of his most well-known works: the short story “The Overcoat” and the acclaimed novel Dead Souls. Throughout the following years, Gogol suffered from psychological and religious turmoil. He died on March 4, 1852, in Moscow.