Classics of Russian Literature | Nikolai Vasil’evich Gogol’, 1809–1852 (Lecture 8)

Lecture 8: Partly contemporary with Pushkin came the first great master of Russian prose, a man with a long, prominent nose that he immortalized in literature. Born in Ukraine, brought up with the rich folklore and devilish tales of that rich western region of the tsar’s empire, Gogol’ came to the capital in 1828, the year of Tolstoy’s birth. After a short, spectacularly unsuccessful career as a teacher, in 1836, he wrote a play, The Inspector General, whose performances attracted enormous attention among Russian spectators and readers, not least of all from Tsar Nikolai I. The play’s off-center sense of humor, combined with its bitingly mordant presentation of Russian corruption and civic disorder, made an impression that has lasted for 180 years with undiminished strength. Five years after writing the play, Gogol’ wrote one of the greatest masterpieces of the European novella form - The Overcoat. This portrayal of the travails experienced by a low-ranking St. Petersburg copyist and bureaucrat, a sort of human typewriter, has captured the sympathies and imagination of countless generations.

Suggested Reading:
Nikolai Gogol’, The Inspector General.
Nikolai Gogol’, The Nose, The Overcoat, Diary of a Madman and Other Stories, translated and with an introduction by Ronald Wilks.
Vladimir Nabokov, Nikolai Gogol.