Gogol, NICOLAI VASILIEVITCH, a Russian writer of decided power as a satirical humorist and delineator of conventional Russian life, and next to Pushkin and Turgénief the most popular of Russian writers, was born at the village of Sorochintsi, in the government of Poltava, 31st March 1809 or 1810. Soon after quitting the gymnasium of Niezhin, he went (in 1829) to St Petersburg, hoping to gain a living by literature. At first one disappointment followed another; however, in 1831 he became all at once famous by the publication of Evenings in a Farm near Dikanka, a collection of stories and sketches illustrating the life, customs, beliefs, and superstitions of the people of Little Russia. Originality, the fresh breath of nature, weirdness, dreamy sadness, poetic feeling, sly humour, keen observation, realistic description—these are the most striking traits in the book. A second series followed in 1834; amongst these were Taras Bulba (Eng. trans. 1887), a prose epic having for its subject the heroic chief of the Zaporogian Cossacks, a work aglow with martial ardour and vivid richness of imagination. Two other tales in the same collection, Old-World Proprietors and How the Two Ivans Quarrelled (Eng. trans. in St John's Eve, 1887), are wrought of entirely different materials. They are realistic studies of Russian provincial life, in which accurate portraiture of the monotonous days, the narrowly circumscribed self-centred interests, the trivial details, the humdrum duties, the contemptible vanities, prejudices, and ideas of the landed gentry are set forth in the light of a satirical and bantering humour, not unmingled with genuine pathos, and in which the drawing of the characters is marked by inexorable fidelity to life and strict logical consequence. Precisely the same vein was worked, and in the same way, in various short stories illustrative of typical figures of St Petersburg life, amongst which the best are Nevskii Prospect (or The Painter) and Alakia Akakievitch's New Cloak (Eng. trans. in St John's Eve).
In 1836 there came from Gogol's pen one of the best of Russian comedies, The Revising Inspector (Eng. trans. by Hart-Davies, 1891, and by Sykes, 1893), which exposes with severity, yet with good-humour, the corruption, dishonesty, hypocrisy, self-satisfied ignorance, and vanity of the provincial administrative officials. In the following year (1837) he wrote his masterpiece, Dead Souls, or better Dead Serfs (Eng. trans. 1887), a story reflecting in sombre hues the more sordid, degraded, and commonplace aspects of provincial life. Throughout this work a heavy sadness prevails, a sort of hopeless abandonment of hope, which, however, does not prevent the reader from enjoying the humour, the stern characterisation, the subtle armour-piercing satire, the melancholy pathos which are there in abundant fullness. The ideas for both this book and the comedy were suggested to Gogol by the great Russian writer Pushkin, who was a personal friend. After unsatisfactory trials of official life, and, twice, of public teaching, including university lectures on history at St Petersburg in 1834, Gogol left his native land in 1836 to live abroad, mostly in Rome, until 1846, when he again settled in Russia. He died at Moscow, 3d March 1852. Shortly before his death he burned the second and concluding part of Dead Serfs. From his boyhood he was a prey to religious pessimism—doubtless partly the consequence of his own habits. His works are frequently printed in Russia. A complete edition, with his correspondence, appeared at Moscow in 6 vols. (1856–57). See C. E. Turner's Studies in Russian Literature (1883).