Nikolai Gogol (1809 1852) Gogol is generally considered Russias greatest comic writer of the Nineteenth Century.

. He is also widely regarded as one of the greatest masters of Russian prose. 1809 Gogol is born on March 20, in a village in Greater Sorochintsy, Mirgorod province. His parents ask the village priest of Dikanka to pray for a safe delivery. Contemporaries remember him as a sickly, introspective child, serious beyond his years. Completes his studies at the Nezhin Lyceum and moves to Petersburg. There he begins to publish his writing under a pseudonym. Hans Kuchelgarten receives terrible reviews and Gogol buys all the remaining copies and burns them.

1828

1829-1830 Works on literary reviews, publishing St.Johns Eve and other stories that are later collected in Village Evenings Near Dikanka. Enters the Civil Service, working as a scribe in the property tax (cadastral) department. 1831 Leaves the Civil Service and takes a position as an assistant history teacher in a girls school. He seeks the acquaintance of Pushkin, then at the height of his fame. They become great friends. Pushkin supported Gogols writing publically and personally. Reportedly, he gave Gogol the idea for his play The Inspector General and Dead Souls, and praised his Village Evenings Near Dikanka, which is published this year. Village evenings Near Dikanka, Part Two, is published.

1832

1832-1833 Works on Mirgorod stories. 1834 Appointed Assistant Professor of History at St. Petersburg University; his lectures are boring and not well prepared and students quickly stop coming to his class. Arabesques, a collection including Nevsky Prospect, Notes of a

1835

Madman, and The Portrait is published. Mirgorod is published. He completes Marriage (a play) and works on The Government Inspector (a play). At the end of the year, he leaves St. Petersburg University. 1836 Continues publishing stories. The Government Inspector is staged and Nicholas I attends the premiere and enjoys it immensely; the play is a huge success.

1836 -1848 After The Government Inspector is staged, Gogol spends the second half of the year in Switzerland and France. He travels throughout Europe at this time ,spending most of his time in Italy, particularly Rome and Naples. He returns to Moscow briefly in 1839 to nurse his friend Prince Vielgorsky through an illness, from which the Prince dies. Gogol is believed to have had a romantic attachment to Prince Vielgorsky. After he returns to Europe, he works on Dead Souls, published in 1842. In 1846, he works on Dead Souls, Part 2. He also works on Selected Passages from Correspondence with my Friends, which is published in 1847. 1848 1849 1850 1852 Gogol returns to St. Petersburg via the Holy Land and Odessa. Gogol complains of a serious nervous disorder and spiritual distress and an inability to write anything. After a long correspondance, Gogol proposes to Prince Vielgorskys sister, who refuses him. He burns his unpublished manuscript of Dead Souls, Part 2. Apparently on the verge of madness, Gogol refuses to eat anything despite several homeopathetic remedies employed (leeches attached to his nose, and hot loaves of bread applied to his body). On February 4, he dies and is buried in the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. Rumors circulate that Gogol was buried alives and could be heard banging on the coffin. In 1931, his remains are transferred to the Novodevichy Cemetary.