Gogol+and+Dostoevsky

Nikolay Gogol was a Russian writer who lived 1809-1849. He may have been a unknown writer if not for the fact that his grandfather had taken the name 'Gogol" to claim a noble Cossack ancestry. He attended school until 1828 and in 1829 he published his first play, [|Hans Küchelgarten], which turned out to be a disaster. Gogol then began teaching history at the Patriotic Institute and worked as a private tutor. There he became friends with Aleksandr Pushkin and the two remained friends until death. He didn't become a full time writer until he failed as an assistant lecturer of world history at the University of St. Petersburg (1834-35). His early work [|Mirgorod](1835) described the city life of St. Petersburg and compared Moscow to St. Petersburg; he concluded that "Russia needs Moscow; Petersburg needs Russia." Gogol also continued to examine social relationships and disorders of the mind. Gogol's influence can be seen among others in Dostoevsky's //Notes from Underground// (1864) and //The Crime and the Punishment// (1866). Gogol in 1836 wrote several short stories in Pushkin's journal //Sovremennik.// His famous play [|The Inspector General] also appeared there. The Inspector General is the story of a serf who gets mistaken for a government inspector and plays the role until he gets discovered. The first stage production in St. Petersburg was in the presence of the tsar. The tsar, on the way out of his box commented: "Hmm, what a play! Gets at everyone, and most of all at me!" Gogol than fled Russia to Western Europe and visited several countries before finally settling in Rome. He was abroad for almost 12 years, minus a two short visits to Russia. While in Rome, Gogol wrote his major work [|The Dead Souls]. In the story a man is buying land with dead serfs a.k.a. "dead souls," trying to get rich. [|Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends](1847) showed a change in attitude from Gogol as he supported and upheld the autocratic tsarist regime and the patriarchal Russian way of life. Gogol struggled to finish the ending of //Dead Souls// and in the final years of his life he came under the influence of fanatical priest, Father Konstantinovskii, and burned sequels for //Dead Souls//, just 10 days before he died on the verge of madness on the 4th of March 1852.

A tabletop puppet production of Gogol's //The Nose//, a story about a man who loses his own nose: media type="youtube" key="iWTc4tmrdYs" height="364" width="445"