Nikolai gogol biography definition

Go·gol

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Gogol

ˌGoˈgolianadj

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

Go•gol

Nikolai Vasilievich, 1809–52, Russian writer.

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by Professor Robin Milner-Gulland, Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Sussex

Nikolay Gogol (1809-52) was less than ten years younger than Pushkin (1799-1837), but the historical - no less than the social and geographical - circumstances of his world differed greatly from those of his older contemporary (whom he knew personally). Pushkin grew up and became a mature writer in the age of Alexander I (reigned 1801 - late 1825), with its memories of the victorious events of 1812, its sense that Russian culture had "come of age" in European terms, its hope that Russian enlightenment and progress had not yet run their course. Gogol by contrast lived all his working life in the age of Nicholas I (reigned 1825-1855), an authoritarian figure nicknamed "the Gendarme of Europe"; after the traumatic "Decembrist" revolt at the start of his reign he never trusted intellectuals (several of whose leaders exiled themselves from Russia), and though Russia to some extent economically modernised itself during this period, the country made no socio-political progress, and a strengthened (though inefficient) police force did all it could to keep disaffection and plotting in check. Nicholas I's reign ended with another trauma, that of the unsuccessful so-called "Crimean War" (1853-1856).

Pushkin was from an ancient aristocratic family (even if down on its luck), had an élite education and was at home in Moscow and Petersburg society. Gogol, though also from the land-owning class, was a country boy, whose provincialism of upbringing and mindset was made brutally apparent when he moved to St. Petersburg and took a civil service job at 19. He immediately launched into his early stories (of which "May Night" is one) collected as Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, that brought him instant fame. They capitalise on, reflect and distort the Ukrainian countryside of his boyhood

BORN: 1809, Great Sorochyntsi, Poltava, Russia

DIED: 1852, Moscow, Russia

NATIONALITY: Russian

GENRE: Fiction, poetry

MAJOR WORKS:
The Inspector General (1836)
Dead Souls (1842)
“The Overcoat” (1842)
The Gamblers (1843)

Overview

Nikolai Gogol was an initiator of the Russian naturalist movement, which focused on descriptions of the lives of the lower classes of society. Gogol himself explored contemporary social problems, often in a satirical fashion. His best-known works—the novel Dead Souls (1842), the short story “The Overcoat” (1842), and the drama The Inspector General (1836)—are widely praised as masterpieces of Russian naturalism. Gogol is also seen by many as a progenitor of the modern short story. His fiction, written in a unique style that combines elements of realism, fantasy, comedy, and the grotesque, typically features complex psychological studies of individuals tormented by feelings of impotence, alienation, and frustration.

Works in Biographical and Historical Context

Boarding School, Vanity Publishing, and Friends in High Places Born into a family of Ukrainian landowners, Gogol attended boarding school as a young boy, developing there an interest in literature and drama. After failing both to find employment as an actor and to sell his writing, Gogol used his own money to publish his epic poem Hans Kuechelgarten in 1829. When this work received only negative reviews, the ambitious young man collected and burned all remaining copies of the book. Soon after, he obtained a civil service position in St. Petersburg and began writing Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka (1831), a volume of mostly comic folktales set in his native Ukraine. In these stories, Gogol depicted the world of the Cossack peasantry through an engaging mixture of naturalism and fantasy. Immediately acclaimed as the work of a brilliant young writer, Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka brought Gogol to the attention of celebrated poet A