Escritor ruso, cuyas obras de teatro, relatos y novelas se encuentran entre las obras maestras

de la literatura realista rusa del siglo XIX. Naci el 31 de marzo de 1809, en Mirgorod, provincia
de Poltava, de padres cosacos. En 1820 march a vivir a San Petersburgo, donde consigui
trabajo como funcionario pblico y se dio a conocer entre los crculos literarios. Su volumen de
relatos cortos sobre la vida en Ucrania, titulado Las veladas en Dikanka (1831) fue recibido con
entusiasmo. A sta sigui otra coleccin, Mirgorod (1835), en la que se incluye el relato Taras
Bulba, que fue ampliado en 1842 para convertirse en una novela completa; esta obra, que
describe la vida de los cosacos en el siglo XVI, puso de manifiesto la gran maestra del autor a
la hora de retratar personajes, as como su chispeante sentido del humor. En 1836 public su
obra teatral El inspector, una divertida stira acerca de la codicia y la estupidez de los
burcratas. Escrita en forma de comedia de errores, es considerada por muchos crticos
literarios como una de las obras ms significativas del teatro ruso. En ella, los burcratas
locales de una aldea confunden a un viajero con el inspector gubernamental al que estaban
esperando y le ofrecen todo tipo de regalos para que pase por alto las irregularidades que han
estado cometiendo. Entre 1826 y 1848 Ggol vivi principalmente en Roma, donde trabaj
sobre una novela que es considerada como su mejor trabajo y una de las mayores novelas de
la literatura universal, Las almas muertas (1842). En su estructura, Almas muertas es
semejante al Don Quijote de Cervantes. Sin embargo, su extraordinaria vena humorstica se
deriva de una concepcin nica, extremadamente sardnica: el consejero colegial Pvel
Ivanovich Chichikov, un aventurero ambicioso, astuto y falto de escrpulos, va de un lugar a
otro comprando, robando y estafando para conseguir los ttulos de propiedad de los sirvientes
que aparecen en los censos anteriores pero que han muerto recientemente, por lo cual se les
llamaba 'almas muertas'. Con estas 'propiedades' como aval, planea conseguir un crdito para
comprar una propiedad con 'almas vivas'.

Los viajes de Chichikov ofrecen una ocasin perfecta al autor para llevar a cabo profundas
reflexiones sobre la degradante y sofocante influencia de la servidumbre, tanto para el siervo
como para el amo. En esta obra aparecen asimismo un gran nmero de personajes,
brillantemente descritos, de la Rusia rural. Almas muertas fue un modelo para las
generaciones posteriores de escritores rusos. Adems, muchos de los ingeniosos proverbios
que aparecen a lo largo de la narracin, han entrado a formar parte del refranero ruso. En el
momento de su publicacin, Almas muertas estaba llamada a constituir la primera parte de
una obra ms amplia; Ggol comenz a escribir la continuacin pero, en un ataque de
melancola debido a una crisis religiosa, quem el manuscrito. En 1842, en cambio, public
otro famoso trabajo El capote, un relato corto acerca de un ocupado funcionario, vctima de la
injusticia social, tan frecuente en la Rusia de su tiempo. Al ao siguiente, Ggol viaj en
peregrinacin a Tierra Santa y a su regreso cay bajo la influencia de un sacerdote fantico,
quien le convenci de que sus obras narrativas eran pecaminosas. A raz de ello, Ggol
destruy una gran cantidad de manuscritos inditos. La figura de Ggol se puede comparar
con la de otros grandes escritores rusos, como los novelistas Leon Tolstoi, Ivan Turgueniev y
Fedor Dostoievski, y el poeta Alexandr Pushkin, que fue amigo ntimo durante toda su vida y el
mejor crtico de su literatura. Muri el 4 de marzo de 1852, en Mosc, al borde de la locura.

scritor ucraniano en lengua rusa. Hijo de un pequeo terrateniente, a los diecinueve aos se
traslad a San Petersburgo para intentar, sin xito, labrarse un futuro como burcrata de la
administracin zarista. En 1831 se incorpor como profesor de historia a la universidad, donde
conocera a Pushkin.
genre
Classics, Satire, Fantasy & Horror
influences
Alexander Pushkin, Ukrainian Folklore
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol ( ) was born in the Ukrainian Cossack
village of Sorochyntsi, in Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire, present-day Ukraine. His
mother was a descendant of Polish nobility. His father Vasily Gogol-Yanovsky, a descendant of
Ukrainian Cossacks, belonged to the petty gentry, wrote poetry in Russian and Ukrainian, and
was an amateur Ukrainian-language playwright who died when Gogol was 15 years old.
In 1820 Gogol went to a school of higher art in Nizhyn and remained there until 1828. It was
there that he began writing. Very early he developed a dark and secretive disposition, marked
by a painful self-consciousness and boundless ambition. Equally early he developed an
extraordinary talent.
Nikolay Gogol, in full Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol (born March 19 [March 31, New Style], 1809,
Sorochintsy, near Poltava, Ukraine, Russian Empire [now in Ukraine]died February 21 [March
4], 1852, Moscow, Russia), Ukrainian-born Russian humorist, dramatist, and novelist, whose
novel Myortvye dushi (Dead Souls) and whose short story Shinel (The Overcoat) are
considered the foundations of the great 19th-century tradition of Russian realism.
Youth and early fame

The Ukrainian countryside, with its colourful peasantry, its Cossack traditions, and its rich
folklore, constituted the background of Gogols boyhood. A member of the petty Ukrainian
gentry, Gogol was sent at the age of 12 to the high school at Nezhin. There he distinguished
himself by his biting tongue, his contributions of prose and poetry to a magazine, and his
portrayal of comic old men and women in school theatricals. In 1828 he went to St.
Petersburg, hoping to enter the civil service, but soon discovered that without money and
connections he would have to fight hard for a living. He even tried to become an actor, but his
audition was unsuccessful. In this predicament he remembered a mediocre sentimental-idyllic
poem he had written in the high school. Anxious to achieve fame as a poet, he published it at
his own expense, but its failure was so disastrous that he burned all the copies and thought of
emigrating to the United States. He embezzled the money his mother had sent him for
payment of the mortgage on her farm and took a boat to the German port of Lbeck. He did
not sail but briefly toured Germany. Whatever his reasons for undertaking such an
irresponsible trip, he soon ran out of money and returned to St. Petersburg, where he got an
ill-paid government post.

In the meantime Gogol wrote occasionally for periodicals, finding an escape in childhood
memories of the Ukraine. He committed to paper what he remembered of the sunny
landscapes, peasants, and boisterous village lads, and he also related tales about devils,
witches, and other demonic or fantastic agents that enliven Ukrainian folklore. Romantic
stories of the past were thus intermingled with realistic incidents of the present. Such was the
origin of his eight narratives, published in two volumes in 183132 under the title Vechera na
khutore bliz Dikanki (Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka). Written in a lively and at times
colloquial prose, these works contributed something fresh and new to Russian literature. In
addition to the authors whimsical inflection, they abounded in genuine folk flavour, including
numerous Ukrainian words and phrases, all of which captivated the Russian literary world.
Mature career

The young author became famous overnight. Among his first admirers were the poets
Aleksandr Pushkin and Vasily Zhukovsky, both of whom he had met before. This esteem was
soon shared by the writer Sergey Aksakov and the critic Vissarion Belinsky, among others.
Having given up his second government post, Gogol was now teaching history in a boarding
school for girls. In 1834 he was appointed assistant professor of medieval history at St.
Petersburg University, but he felt inadequately equipped for the position and left it after a
year. Meanwhile, he prepared energetically for the publication of his next two books,
Mirgorod and Arabeski (Arabesques), which appeared in 1835. The four stories constituting
Mirgorod were a continuation of the Evenings, but they revealed a strong gap between Gogols
romantic escapism and his otherwise pessimistic attitude toward life. Such a splendid narrative
of the Cossack past as Taras Bulba certainly provided an escape from the present. But
Povest o tom, kak possorilsya Ivan Ivanovich s Ivanom Nikiforovichem (Story of the Quarrel
Between Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan Nikiforovich) was, for all its humour, full of bitterness about
the meanness and vulgarity of existence. Even the idyllic motif of Gogols Starosvetskiye
pomeshchiki (Old-World Landowners) is undermined with satire, for the mutual affection of
the aged couple is marred by gluttony, their ceaseless eating for eatings sake.

The aggressive realism of a romantic who can neither adapt himself to the world nor escape
from it, and is therefore all the more anxious to expose its vulgarity and evil, predominates in
Gogols Petersburg stories printed (together with some essays) in the second work,
Arabesques. In one of these stories, Zapiski sumasshedshego (Diary of a Madman), the
hero is an utterly frustrated office drudge who finds compensation in megalomania and ends
in a lunatic asylum. In another, Nevsky prospekt (Nevsky Prospect), a tragic romantic
dreamer is contrasted to an adventurous vulgarian, while in the revised finale of Portret
(The Portrait) the author stresses his conviction that evil is ineradicable in this world. In 1836
Gogol published in Pushkins Sovremennik (The Contemporary) one of his gayest satirical
stories, Kolyaska (The Coach). In the same periodical also appeared his amusingly caustic
surrealist tale, Nos (The Nose). Gogols association with Pushkin was of great value
because he always trusted his friends taste and criticism; moreover, he received from Pushkin
the themes for his two principal works, the play Revizor (The Government Inspector,
sometimes titled The Inspector General), and Dead Souls, which were important not only to
Russian literature but also to Gogols further destiny.

A great comedy, The Government Inspector mercilessly lampoons the corrupt bureaucracy
under Nicholas I. Having mistaken a well-dressed windbag for the dreaded incognito inspector,
the officials of a provincial town bribe and banquet him in order to turn his attention away
from the crying evils of their administration. But during the triumph, after the bogus
inspectors departure, the arrival of the real inspector is announcedto the horror of those
concerned. It was only by a special order of the tsar that the first performance of this comedy
of indictment and laughter through tears took place on April 19, 1836. Yet the hue and cry
raised by the reactionary press and officialdom was such that Gogol left Russia for Rome,
where he remained, with some interruptions, until 1842. The atmosphere he found in Italy
appealed to his taste and to his somewhat patriarchalnot to say primitivereligious
propensity. The religious painter Aleksandr Ivanov, who worked in Rome, became his close
friend. He also met a number of traveling Russian aristocrats and often saw the migre
princess Zinaida Volkonsky, a convert to Roman Catholicism, in whose circle religious themes
were much discussed. It was in Rome, too, that Gogol wrote most of his masterpiece, Dead
Souls.

This comic novel, or epic, as the author labeled it, reflects feudal Russia, with its serfdom and
bureaucratic iniquities. Chichikov, the hero of the novel, is a polished swindler who, after
several reverses of fortune, wants to get rich quick. His bright but criminal idea is to buy from
various landowners a number of their recently deceased serfs (or souls, as they were called
in Russia) whose deaths have not yet been registered by the official census and are therefore
regarded as still being alive. The landowners are only too happy to rid themselves of the
fictitious property on which they continue to pay taxes until the next census. Chichikov intends
to pawn the souls in a bank and, with the money thus raised, settle down in a distant region
as a respectable gentleman. The provincial townsmen of his first stop are charmed by his polite
manners; he approaches several owners in the district who are all willing to sell the souls in
question, knowing full well the fraudulent nature of the deal. The sad conditions of Russia, in
which serfs used to be bought and sold like cattle, are evident throughout the grotesquely
humorous transactions. The landowners, one more queer and repellent than the last, have
become nicknames known to every Russian reader. When the secret of Chichikovs errands
begins to leak out, he hurriedly leaves the town.

Dead Souls was published in 1842, the same year in which the first edition of Gogols collected
works was published. The edition included, among his other writings, a sprightly comedy titled
Zhenitba (Marriage) and the story The Overcoat. The latter concerns a humble scribe who,
with untold sacrifices, has acquired a smart overcoat; when robbed of it he dies of a broken
heart. The tragedy of this insignificant man was worked out with so many significant trifles
that, years later, Fyodor Dostoyevsky was to exclaim that all Russian realists had come from
under Gogols greatcoat. The apex of Gogols fame was, however, Dead Souls. The democratic
intellectuals of Belinskys brand saw in this novel a work permeated with the spirit of their own
liberal aspirations. Its author was all the more popular because after Pushkins tragic death
Gogol was now looked upon as the head of Russian literature. Gogol, however, began to see
his leading role in a perspective of his own. Having witnessed the beneficent results of the
laughter caused by his indictments, he was sure that God had given him a great literary talent
in order to make him not only castigate abuses through laughter but also to reveal to Russia
the righteous way of living in an evil world. He therefore decided to continue Dead Souls as a
kind of Divine Comedy in prose; the already published part would represent the Inferno of
Russian life, and the second and third parts (with Chichikovs moral regeneration) would be its
Purgatorio and Paradiso.
Creative decline

Unfortunately, having embarked upon such a soul-saving task, Gogol noticed that his former
creative capacity was deserting him. He worked on the second part of his novel for more than
10 years but with meagre results. In drafts of four chapters and a fragment of the fifth found
among his papers, the negative and grotesque characters are drawn with some intensity,
whereas the virtuous types he was so anxious to exalt are stilted and devoid of life. This lack of
zest was interpreted by Gogol as a sign that, for some reason, God no longer wanted him to be
the voice exhorting his countrymen to a more worthy existence. In spite of this he decided to
prove that at least as teacher and preacherif not as artisthe was still able to set forth what
was needed for Russias moral and worldly improvement. This he did in his ill-starred
Bybrannyye mesta iz perepiski s druzyami (1847; Selected Passages from Correspondence with
My Friends), a collection of 32 discourses eulogizing not only the conservative official church
but also the very powers that he had so mercilessly condemned only a few years before. It is
no wonder that the book was fiercely attacked by his one-time admirers, most of all by
Belinsky, who in an indignant letter called him a preacher of the knout, a defender of
obscurantism and of darkest oppression. Crushed by it all, Gogol saw in it a further proof that,
sinful as he was, he had lost Gods favour forever. He increased his prayers and his ascetic
practices; in 1848 he even made a pilgrimage to Palestine, but in vain. Despite a few bright
moments he began to wander from place to place like a doomed soul. Finally he settled in
Moscow, where he came under the influence of a fanatical priest, Father Matvey
Konstantinovsky, who seems to have practiced on Gogol a kind of spiritual sadism. Ordered by
him, Gogol burned the presumably completed manuscript of the second volume of Dead Souls
on February 24 (February 11, O.S.), 1852. Ten days later he died, on the verge of semimadness.
Influence and reputation

Whatever the vagaries of Gogols mind and life, his part in Russian literature was enormous.
Above all, it was from the nature of such works as The Government Inspector, Dead Souls, and
The Overcoat that Belinsky derived the tenets of the natural school (as distinct from the
rhetorical, or Romantic, school) that was responsible for the trend of subsequent Russian
fiction. Gogol was among the first authors to have revealed Russia to itself. Yet in contrast to
the simple classical-realistic prose of Pushkin, adopted by Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Goncharov, and
Ivan Turgenev, Gogols ornate and agitated prose was assumed by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Gogols realism of indictment found many followers, among them the great satirist Mikhail
Saltykov. He was also a champion of the little man as a literary hero. His vexation of spirit, too,
was continued (but on a higher level) by both Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky as was his effort to
transcend mere literature.
ikolai Ggol amb les seves novelles va representar la prosa russa de la primera meitat del
segle XIX (segle dOr de la literatura russa).

Forma part del moviment conegut com el realisme.

Va cultivar teatre, poesia i prosa.
BIOGRAFIA
Va nixer el dia 1 dabril de 1809 a Sorodinc, Ucrania, fill d'una famlia noble.
Va anar a San Petersburg per fer dactor. Va ser refusat i ingress en lAdministraci civil, per
ell no volia dedicar-se a aix.
Conegu a Punshki amb aquesta trobada, Ggol va determinar la seva obra.
Es va dedicar a observar el seu voltant i va sentir atracci pels elements populars de la seva
ptria.
Impulsat per les seves profundes creences cristianes ortodoxes, va fer un viatge a Jerusalem al
1848, quan va tornar, l'autor decid abandonar la literatura per concentrar-se en la religi.Amb
aquest viatge no va aconseguir la pau que ell volia, estava ple dinquietuds i obsessions.
Va morir en un estat de bogeria al 1852 a Mosc.
IMPORTNCIA DE GGOL
Ggol va ser lintroductor del realisme a Rssia, amb aix es va donar pas a un apropament de
la realitat ms dura. s un autor important perqu va ser capa dexplicar la realitat utilitzant
lhumor.
El realisme va ser un corrent esttic que va suposar una ruptura amb el romanticisme, tant en
els aspectes ideolgics com en els formals, en la segona meitat de segle XIX.
Les seves caracterstiques sn:
-Mostra fidelment la realitat dins del context histric
-Fa un s minucis de la descripci, per mostrar perfils exactes dels temes, personatges,
situacions i fins i tot llocs.
-El llenguatge s divers perqu sadapta a la parla dels diferents personatges.
-L'autor analitza, reprodueix i denuncia els mals que afligeixen a la seva societat.
LES INFLUNCIES

Ggol va agafar de lautor, tamb rus, Pushkin el tema per al seu llibre Les nimes mortes, i,
amb aix, va donar entrada a Rssia en la literatura universal.
Lautor considerava que era un tema molt bo perqu li donava plena llibertat per anar amb el
seu heroi per tota Rssia i descriure el elements diversos.

Posteriorment, a causa de que va ser lescriptor que va iniciar el realisme rus, va servir
dinfluncia per altres autors del seu pas com ara Len Tolsti i Dostoievski.
Van ser dos escriptor realistes que van adoptar el moviment iniciat per Ggol i intentaven
reflectir fidelment la societat russa en la que vivien.
CARACTERSTIQUES
En els seus contes, es troba concentrat tot all que Ggol tenia de caracterstic, el seu
macabre sentit de l'humor, la seva precisi i perspiccia a l'hora de descriure a la classe
mitjana de la Rssia prerevolucionria o la seva capacitat de caricaturitzar perfils sense arribar
a deformar en excs als seus personatges.
Personatge de lobra Diari dun boig
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martes, 29 de enero de 2013
OBRES
Lautor va publicar un primer poema al 1829 sota pseudnim, per va ser un fracs, va
comprar tots els exemplar i els va cremar. Dos anys ms tard va publicar una collecci de
relats que va tenir molt dxit, per no es sentia a gust amb el romanticisme i va iniciar sense
donar-se compte el realisme
En les seves obres, salterna les llargues descripcions de la realitat amb algun que altre
toc de fantasia (dimonis, bruixots...)
PROSA: NIMES MORTES
Obra que inicia el realisme, escrita al 1840. Va tenir dificultats per ser publicada perqu la
censura no veia b que es posessin al descoberts diversos aspectes de la societat russa.
Narra un estafador que opera amb les possessions de persones mortes que no han sigut
donades de baixa en els censos del seu poble i que, per tant, estan legalment vives.
Ggol va iniciar la segona part de lobra anomenada nimes blanques per mai va sortir a la
llum ja que desprs de tornar del viatge a Jerusalem. Noms es van salvar de la crema alguns
fragments que han sigut publicats.
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EL TEATRE

Al 1832 va escriure "Jugadors" i "El casament", que van ser una mena d'esborrany per donar
pas a les seves dues grans obres "L'inspector" i "nimes mortes".
L'INSPECTOR
Ambientada en un petit llogaret de Rssia.
Es narren les bogeries dels habitants d'aquesta vila, a les odes dels quals ha arribat el rumor
de la visita d'un inspector provinent de Sant Petersburg.

En aquesta obra Ggol:
-Representa els tipus i perfils de la Rssia del segle XIX.
-Deixa veure tot el seu talent
-Dna una classe magistral de com tractar la comdia des del punt de vista literri.
A continuaci trobem el triler de l'obra, representada per uns actors contmporanis, dirigida
per Sergi Belbel i elaborada pel Teatre Nacional de Catalunya.

CONTES
Cal destacar la faceta de contista de Ggol, va ser important ja que va escriure bastants contes
i els tenim agrupats en dos llibres:
El primer s:
"Histries de Sant Petersburg", escrites durant el 1835 i 1842, cont 5 relats que sn:
-L'avinguda Nevski
-El retrat
-Diari d'un boig "
-El nas
-El capot (aquesta obra va fer de base en l'argument de la pel lcula El bon nom de Mira Nair
el 2006).
Podem destacar el conte anomenat"El nas" dient que s una creaci inolvidable per el seu
carcter absurd i stira social.
L'argument del conte s un nas que de cop i volta falta en la cara d'un funcionari i desprs se li
apareix en forma de funcionari superior.
El segon llibre s "Vetllades en un mas de Dikanka", agrupa 8 relats que sn:
-La fira de Sorchintsy
-La nit de Sant Joan
-La nit de maig o la ofegada
-La carta perduda
-La nit de Nadal
-Terrible venjana
-Ivn Fidorovich Shponka i la seva tia
-El lloc embruixat
CONCLUSI
Com a conclusi destaquem que Ggol:
-s molt important per la literatura Russa perqu va iniciar el realisme.
-Dna una nova visi de la literatura grcies al seu humor i la manera de descriure la realitat.


Esta pequea novela quiz sea la ms perfecta destilacin del genio de Nikolai Gogol: una
historia que conjuga un sentido del humor bufo y travieso con un resignado cinismo sobre la
condicin humana.

Por qu se pelearon los dos ivanes es la historia de dos amigos de toda la vida que se
enemistan cuando uno llama ganso al otro. Su enfrentamiento aumenta de intensidad con
el tiempo y deviene cada vez ms absurdo. El juez, el comisario y pronto todos los vecinos del
pueblo se vern implicados en la disputa. Conservando siempre el caracterstico estilo de
Gogol, la historia, conforme avanza hacia su conmovedor final, nos hace reflexionar sobre la
amistad y la vida.
. Divierte mucho la forma de narrar de Gogol, su juego de palabras, de situaciones
comprometidas... todo en su conjunto hace de esta historia una pequea gran novela de la
literatura rusa/ucraniana del siglo XIX.