What really happened

In January 1852, Gogol’s close friend, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Khomyakova, died in Moscow. This death, caused by a serious illness, struck the writer so much that when he came to the funeral service, all he could say, looking into the face of the deceased, was: “It’s all over for me...”.

Immediately after this shock, Gogol fell into severe depression, began to spend sleepless nights praying, refused food and, without saying a word, just lay on his bed for days, not even bothering to take off his boots.

Modern researchers are inclined to argue that Gogol suffered from a severe form of bipolar affective disorder, or, as it is also called, manic-depressive psychosis. This disease consists of alternating two opposite phases of mood. Manic periods are accompanied by a highly elevated mood and irrepressible energy. But with the onset of the depressive phase, Gogol went to the opposite extreme - he lost the motivation to do anything, suffered from thoughts that tormented him until his appetite completely disappeared.

IN mid-19th century, this disease had not yet been described by anyone, so doctors of that time did not connect the writer’s behavior with mental illness, preferring to look for the cause in physical illness. As a result, when Gogol’s condition became extremely serious by February, a assembled council of the best doctors in Moscow treated him for anything but exhaustion due to mental anguish.

When the patient's condition became worse than ever, the doctors gave him another incorrect diagnosis - meningitis, after which they began to forcibly treat the patient. The writer was bled from the nose, leeches were placed on his face and doused with cold water, although Gogol himself resisted the procedures as best he could. But with their joint efforts, holding his arms and legs, the doctors continued to treat him for a non-existent illness.

Against the backdrop of extreme exhaustion of the body and poor health of Gogol since childhood, such procedures worsened his condition so much that he eventually could not stand it. On the night of February 20-21, old style, Gogol died. From that very day, all sorts of speculation began on the topic of the death of a genius, the cause of which was, for the most part, himself.

What did they talk about after?

In 1839, Gogol, while in Italy, suffered from encephalitis, after which he began to experience prolonged fainting, turning into lethargic sleep. Being in such a state, Gogol could show virtually no visible to an ordinary person signs of life - his pulse and breathing were barely noticeable, and there was no way to wake up the sleeping man. These circumstances gave rise to a fairly common mental illness in Gogol - taphophobia, or the fear of being buried alive.

History knows several examples when people who were plunged into lethargic sleep were mistakenly declared dead and buried. This prospect frightened the writer so much that for 10 years he could not bring himself to sleep in bed. Gogol spent the night on armchairs and couches, being in a sitting and semi-sitting position.

In his will, Gogol specifically asked not to bury him until he appeared obvious signs decomposition of the body. This writer’s will was never fulfilled - precisely because this fact Stories have become popular that Gogol was buried alive.

Widely discussed this version became only in the second half of the 20th century and is connected with the fact of the writer’s reburial in 1931. Then Soviet authority wished to convert the Danilovsky Monastery, where the writer’s grave was located, into a children’s boarding school. It was decided to rebury Gogol at the Novodevichy cemetery.

The exhumation ceremony was attended by several significant writers of that time, including Vladimir Lidin. It was he who later said that after the opening of the coffin, everyone saw Gogol’s head lying turned on its side. At the same time, the inner lining of the coffin was allegedly torn to shreds, which could testify in favor of the version of burial alive. But modern researchers do not take this version too seriously. And there are several weighty arguments for this.

Firstly, the same Lidin told some acquaintances a completely different version - supposedly Gogol’s skull was not in the coffin at all, since it had previously been dug up by the famous Moscow collector Alexei Bakhrushin. This rumor also became very popular, although no one could be found to confirm it.

The second argument suggests that in the 80 years that have passed since the writer’s funeral, the lining of the coffin should have completely decayed. And if his head nevertheless turned out to be turned on its side, then there is a simpler explanation for this - due to subsidence of the soil, the lid of the coffin lowers over time and begins to put pressure on the head, since it is located higher than the rest of the body. Changes in the position of the head of the deceased, discovered after the exhumation of graves, are a fairly common phenomenon.

And finally, thirdly, even despite the erroneous diagnosis, there is no doubt about the professionalism of the doctors who treated Gogol. These were truly some of the best doctors in Russian Empire. And the likelihood that all of them could incorrectly record the death of a person was extremely small, even if he fell into a very deep lethargic sleep. Many people knew about this feature of the writer’s body and they simply could not help but check him.
In addition, the morning after his death, Gogol’s face was removed death mask. This procedure is accompanied by the application of very hot material to the face and, if Gogol were alive, his body could not help but react to such an irritant. Which, of course, didn't happen. That is why, despite the writer’s will, the decision to bury him was made almost immediately.

But, despite all rational arguments, you can be sure that rumors about mysterious death geniuses will not disappear anywhere. And it’s not just about society’s need for this kind of speculation. No matter how paradoxical it may sound, Nikolai Gogol, in part, himself became the author of rumors about his mysterious death. And it will be discussed as long as the classic himself is remembered.

There were many circumstances in Gogol’s life that are still difficult and even impossible to explain. He led a strange lifestyle, wrote strange but brilliant works. He could not be called a healthy person, but doctors could not classify his illness.

Gogol was... a clairvoyant! Hence his striking phrase in a letter to Zhukovsky about a completely new country - the USA: “What is United States? CARRION. The person in them has weathered to the point that he’s not worth a damn.”

Having realized that there is plenty of “dead stuff” around and in “ native fatherland", Gogol wondered, for WHOM did he write the continuation of “Dead Souls” on January 1 (old style), 1852?

The “abyss of the fall of human souls” in the Nikolaev Russian Empire, captured by Gogol, inevitably led to the idea that almost the entire population of the country was “directly heading” to... Hell.

And a damn question arose for a thinking writer: “What to do?”

Even after death, his body did not find rest (the skull mysteriously disappeared from the grave)…

Gogol was no different from childhood good health and diligence, was “unusually thin and weak,” with an elongated face and a large nose. The Lyceum management in 1824 repeatedly punished him for “untidiness, buffoonery, stubbornness and disobedience.”

Gogol himself recognized the paradoxical nature of his character and believed that it contained “a terrible mixture of contradictions, stubbornness, daring arrogance and the most abject humility.”

As for health, he also had strange illnesses. Gogol had a special view of his body and believed that it was structured completely differently than other people. He believed that his stomach was upside down and constantly complained of pain. He constantly talked about the stomach, believing that this topic was interesting to everyone. As Princess V.N. wrote Repin: “We constantly lived in his stomach”...

His next “attack” was strange seizures: he fell into a somnambulistic state when his pulse almost died down, but all this was accompanied by excitement, fears, and numbness. Gogol was very afraid that he would be buried alive when he was considered dead. After another attack he wrote a will in which he demanded “not to bury the body until the first signs of decomposition.”

But the feeling of serious illness did not leave Gogol. Beginning in 1836, productivity began to decline. Creative inspirations became rare, and he sank deeper and deeper into the abyss of depression and hypochondria. His faith became frantic, filled with mystical ideas, which prompted him to undertake religious “deeds.”

On the night of February 8-9, 1852, Gogol heard voices telling him that he would soon die. He tried to give away the papers with the manuscript of the second volume Dead souls gr. A.P. Tolstoy, but he did not take it, so as not to strengthen Gogol’s thoughts about his imminent death. Then Gogol burned the manuscript! After February 12, Gogol's condition deteriorated sharply. On February 21, during another severe attack, Gogol died.

Gogol was buried in the cemetery of the Danilovsky Monastery in Moscow. But immediately after his death, terrible rumors spread throughout the city that he was buried alive.

Sopor, medical error or suicide? The mystery of Gogol's death

Main versions of what happened.

Sopor

Partly, rumors about his burial alive were created, without knowing it... Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. The fact is that the writer was subject to fainting and somnambulistic states. Therefore, the classic was very afraid that during one of his attacks he would be mistaken for dead and buried.

This fact is almost unanimously denied by modern historians.

“During the exhumation, which was carried out in conditions of a certain secrecy, only about 20 people gathered at Gogol’s grave...,” writes an associate professor at the Perm Medical Academy in his article “The Mystery of Gogol’s Death” Mikhail Davidov. - Writer V. Lidin became essentially the only source of information about Gogol’s exhumation. At first he talked about the reburial to students of the Literary Institute and his acquaintances, and later left written memories. Lidin's stories were untrue and contradictory. It was he who claimed that the writer’s oak coffin was well preserved, the upholstery of the coffin was torn and scratched from the inside, and in the coffin lay a skeleton, unnaturally twisted, with the skull turned to one side. So with light hand Lidin, inexhaustible in his inventions, went for a walk around Moscow scary legend that the writer was buried alive.

To understand the inconsistency of the version lethargic sleep, just think about the following fact: the exhumation was carried out 79 years after the burial! It is known that the decomposition of a body in a grave occurs incredibly quickly, and after just a few years, only bone tissue remains from it, and the discovered bones no longer have close connections with each other. It is not clear how, after eight decades, they could establish some kind of “twisting of the body”... And what remains of the wooden coffin and upholstery material after 79 years of being in the ground? They change so much (rot, fragment) that it is absolutely impossible to establish the fact of “scratching” the inner lining of the coffin.”

And according to the recollections of the sculptor Ramazanov, who removed the writer’s death mask, post-mortem changes and the beginning of the process of tissue decomposition were clearly visible on the face of the deceased.

However, Gogol's version of lethargic sleep is still alive.

On May 31, 1931, twenty to thirty people gathered at Gogol’s grave, among whom were: historian M. Baranovskaya, writers Vs. Ivanov, V. Lugovskoy, Y. Olesha, M. Svetlov, V. Lidin and others. It was Lidin who became perhaps the only source of information about the reburial of Gogol. With his light hand, terrible legends about Gogol began to walk around Moscow.

“The coffin was not found right away,” he told the students of the Literary Institute, “for some reason it turned out not to be where they were digging, but somewhat further away, to the side.” And when they pulled it out of the ground - covered in lime, seemingly strong, from oak boards - and opened it, then bewilderment was mixed with the heartfelt trembling of those present. In the fob lay a skeleton with its skull turned to one side. No one found an explanation for this. Someone superstitious probably thought then: “The publican is like not alive during life, and not dead after death—this strange great man.”

Lidin’s stories stirred up old rumors that Gogol was afraid of being buried alive in a state of lethargic sleep and seven years before his death he bequeathed: “My body should not be buried until obvious signs of decomposition appear. I mention this because even during the illness itself, moments of vital numbness came over me, my heart and pulse stopped beating.” What the exhumers saw in 1931 seemed to indicate that Gogol’s behest was not fulfilled, that he was buried in a lethargic state, he woke up in a coffin and experienced nightmarish minutes of dying again...

To be fair, it must be said that Lida’s version did not inspire confidence. The sculptor N. Ramazanov, who removed Gogol’s death mask, recalled: “I did not suddenly decide to take off the mask, but the prepared coffin... finally, the constantly arriving crowd of those who wanted to say goodbye to the dear deceased forced me and my old man, who pointed out the traces of destruction, to hurry... “There was also an explanation for the rotation of the skull: the side boards of the coffin were the first to rot, the lid lowers under the weight of the soil, pressing on the dead man’s head, and it turns to one side on the so-called “Atlas vertebra.”

Then Lidin launched new version. In his written memoirs about the exhumation, he told new story, even more terrible and mysterious than his oral histories. “This is what Gogol’s ashes were,” he wrote, “there was no skull in the coffin, and Gogol’s remains began with the cervical vertebrae; the entire skeleton of the skeleton was enclosed in a well-preserved tobacco-colored frock coat... When and under what circumstances Gogol’s skull disappeared remains a mystery. When the opening of the grave began, a skull was discovered at a shallow depth, much higher than the crypt with a walled coffin, but archaeologists recognized it as belonging to young man».

This new invention of Lidin required new hypotheses. When could Gogol's skull disappear from the coffin? Who could need it? And what kind of fuss is being raised around the remains of the great writer?

They remembered that in 1908, when a heavy stone was installed on the grave, it was necessary to build a brick crypt over the coffin to strengthen the base. It was then that mysterious attackers could steal the writer’s skull. As for the interested parties, it was not without reason that rumors circulated around Moscow that in unique collection A. A. Bakhrushin, a passionate collector of theatrical relics, secretly kept the skulls of Shchepkin and Gogol...

And Lidin, inexhaustible in inventions, amazed listeners with new sensational details: they say, when the writer’s ashes were taken from the Danilov Monastery to Novodevichy, some of those present at the reburial could not resist and grabbed some relics as souvenirs. One allegedly stole Gogol's rib, another - a shin bone, a third - a boot. Lidin himself even showed the guests a volume of the lifetime edition of Gogol’s works, in the binding of which he had inserted a piece of fabric that he had torn from the frock coat lying in Gogol’s coffin.

In 1931, the remains were exhumed to transfer the writer’s body to Novodevichy Cemetery. But then a surprise awaited those present at the exhumation - there was no skull in the coffin! The monks of the monastery said during interrogation that on the eve of the centenary of Gogol’s birth in 1909, restoration of the grave of the great classic was carried out at the cemetery. During restoration work, Moscow collector and millionaire Alexei Bakhrushin, an extravagant personality of those times, appeared at the cemetery. Presumably, it was he who decided to commit sacrilege by paying gravediggers to steal the skull. Bakhrushin himself died in 1929 and forever took the secret of the current location of the skull to his grave.

The merchant crowned the writer's head with a silver wreath and placed it in a special rosewood casket with a glass window. However, “finding the relic” did not bring happiness to the collector - Bakhrushin began to have troubles in business and in his family. Moscow inhabitants associated these events with “a blasphemous disturbance of the peace of a mystical writer.”

Bakhrushin himself was not happy with his “exhibit.” But where should he put it? Throw it away? Sacrilege! Giving to someone means publicly
admit to desecrating a grave, incur shame and prison! Bury it back? Difficult, since the crypt was solidly bricked by order of Bakhrushin.

The unfortunate merchant was rescued by chance... Rumors about Gogol’s skull reached Nikolai Vasilyevich’s nephew, Lieutenant navy Yanovsky. The latter decided to “restore justice”: to obtain by any means the skull of a famous relative and bury it in the earth, as required Orthodox faith. In this way, Gogol’s remains will be “calmed.”

Yanovsky came to Bakhrushin without an invitation, put a revolver on the table and said: “There are two cartridges here. One in the barrel is for you, if you don’t give me Nikolai Vasilyevich’s skull, the other in the drum is for me, if I have to kill you. Make up your mind!

Bakhrushin was not afraid. On the contrary, I gladly gave away the “exhibit.” But Yanovsky was unable to carry out his intention for a number of reasons. Gogol's skull, according to one version, came to Italy in the spring of 1911, where it was kept in the house of naval captain Borghese. And in the summer of the same year, the relic skull was stolen. And now it is unknown what happened to him... Whether this is true or not, history is silent. Only the absence of a skull has been officially confirmed - this is stated in the NKVD documents.

According to rumors, at one time a secret group was formed whose purpose was to search for Gogol’s skull. But nothing is known about the results of its activities - all documents on this topic were destroyed.

According to legends, the one who owns Gogol's skull can directly communicate with dark forces, fulfill any desires and rule the world. They say that today it is kept in the personal collection of a famous oligarch, one of the Forbes five. But even if this is true, it will probably never be announced publicly.

A ceremonial bust was placed over the new grave by order of Stalin. The mystery of the death of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol has not yet been solved.

When in 1931 Gogol’s ashes were transferred to the Novodevichye cemetery and the sculptor Tomsky made a bust of Gogol with a gold inscription under it “From the Soviet Government”, a symbol stone with a cross was not needed... At the writer’s grave they left only a black marble tombstone with an epitaph from the prophet Jeremiah: “They will laugh at my bitter words.” And “Golgotha”, along with a white marble bust of Gogol on a column, was thrown into a pit.

This multi-ton stone, at the request of Bulgakov’s widow, was with difficulty removed and dragged along the boards to the grave of the creator of the mystical creation “The Master and Margarita”, placing the top down... So Gogol “gave over” his crossstone to Bulgakov.

By the way, in 1931, during the opening of the coffin of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, Soviet writers revealed their “dead souls”: they robbed the deceased, tearing off shreds from the frock coat of the great “soul-loving” writer, from his boots “as a keepsake”... They did not even hesitate to take some bones... Soon, these “creators of new Soviet literature” fully experienced what the fetishist merchant Bakhrushin had...

Suicide

IN recent months In his life, Gogol experienced a severe mental crisis. The writer was shocked by the death of his close friend, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Khomyakova, who died suddenly from a rapidly developing disease at the age of 35. The classic stopped writing, spent most of his time praying and fasting furiously. Gogol was overcome by the fear of death; the writer reported to his acquaintances that he heard voices telling him that he would soon die.

It was during that feverish period, when the writer was semi-delirious, that he burned the manuscript of the second volume of Dead Souls. It is believed that he did this largely under pressure from his confessor, Archpriest Matthew of Konstantinovsky, that was the only person, who read this unpublished work and advised them to destroy the records.

The writer's depressive state intensified. He grew weaker, slept very little and ate practically nothing. In fact, the writer voluntarily extinguished himself from the light.

According to the doctor's testimony Tarasenkova, observed Nikolai Vasilyevich, in the last period of his life he “at once” aged in a month. By February 10, Gogol’s strength had already left him so much that he could no longer leave the house. On February 20, the writer fell into a feverish state, did not recognize anyone and kept whispering some kind of prayer. A council of doctors gathered at the patient’s bedside prescribes “forced treatment” for him. For example, bloodletting using leeches. Despite all efforts, at 8 a.m. on February 21, he was gone.

However, most researchers do not support the version that the writer deliberately “starved himself to death,” that is, essentially committed suicide. And for a fatal outcome, an adult must not eat for 40 days. Gogol refused food for about three weeks, and even then periodically allowed himself to eat a few spoons of oatmeal soup and drink linden tea.
CONTACTS WITH ANGELS

There is a version that the mental disorder could not have happened due to illness, but “on religious grounds.” As they would say these days, he was drawn into a sect. The writer, being an atheist, began to believe in God, think about religion and wait for the end of the world.

It is known: having joined the “Martyrs of Hell” sect, Gogol spent almost all his time in an improvised church, where, in the company of parishioners, he tried to “establish contact” with angels, praying and fasting, bringing himself to such a state that he began to have hallucinations, during which he saw devils, babies with wings and women whose vestments resembled the Virgin Mary.

Gogol spent all his money savings to go, together with his mentor and a group of sectarians like him, to Jerusalem to the Holy Sepulcher and to meet the end of times on the holy land.

The organization of the trip takes place in the strictest secrecy, the writer informs his family and friends that he is going for treatment, only a few will know that he is going to stand at the origins of a new humanity. Leaving, he asks everyone he knew for forgiveness and says that he will never see them again.

The trip took place in February 1848, but no miracle happened - the apocalypse did not happen. Some historians claim that the organizer of the pilgrimage planned to give the sectarians an alcoholic drink containing poison so that everyone would go to the next world at once, but the alcohol dissolved the poison and it did not work.

Having suffered a fiasco, he allegedly fled, abandoning his followers, who, in turn, returned home, barely scraping together enough money for the return journey. However, documentary evidence no to this.

Gogol returned home. His trip did not bring mental relief; on the contrary, it only worsened the situation. He becomes withdrawn, strange in communication, capricious and unkempt in clothes.
As Granovsky later recalled, a black cat suddenly approached the grave into which the coffin had already been lowered.

No one knew where he came from at the cemetery, and church workers reported that they had never seen him either in the church or in the surrounding area.

“You can’t help but believe in mysticism,” the professor would later write. “The women gasped, believing that the writer’s soul had entered the cat.”

When the burial was completed, the cat disappeared as suddenly as it appeared, no one saw him leave.

Medical error

DRAMA IN A HOUSE ON NIKITSKY BOULEVARD

Gogol spent the last four years of his life in Moscow in a house on Nikitsky Boulevard.

Gogol met the owners of the house - Count Alexander Petrovich and Countess Anna Georgievna Tolstoy in the late 30s, the acquaintance grew into a close friendship, and the count and his wife did everything to ensure that the writer lived freely and comfortably in their house. It was in this house on Nikitsky Boulevard that Gogol’s final drama took place.

On the night from Friday to Saturday (February 8-9), after another vigil, he, exhausted, dozed off on the sofa and suddenly saw himself dead and heard some mysterious voices.

On Monday, February 11, Gogol became so exhausted that he could not walk and went to bed. He received friends who came to see him reluctantly, spoke little and dozed off. But I still found the strength to defend the service in Count Tolstoy’s home church. At 3 o'clock in the morning from February 11 to 12, after fervent prayer, he called Semyon to him, ordered him to go up to the second floor, open the stove valves and bring a briefcase from the closet. Taking a bunch of notebooks out of it, Gogol put them in the fireplace and lit them with a candle. Semyon begged him on his knees not to burn the manuscripts, but the writer stopped him: “It’s none of your business! Pray!” Sitting on a chair in front of the fire, he waited until everything burned down, stood up, crossed himself, kissed Semyon, returned to his room, lay down on the sofa and cried.

“That's what I did! - he said to Tolstoy the next morning, - I wanted to burn some things that had been prepared for a long time, but I burned everything. How strong the evil one is - this is what he has brought me to! And I understood and presented a lot of useful things there... I thought I’d send out a notebook to my friends as a souvenir: let them do what they wanted. Now everything is gone."

AGONY

Stunned by what had happened, the count hastened to call the famous Moscow doctor F. Inozemtsev to Gogol, who at first suspected the writer of typhus, but then abandoned his diagnosis and advised the patient to simply lie down. But the doctor’s equanimity did not reassure Tolstoy, and he asked his good friend, psychopathologist A. Tarasenkov, to come. However, Gogol did not want to accept Tarasenkov, who arrived on Wednesday 13 February. “You have to leave me,” he said to the count, “I know that I have to die”...

Tarasenkov convinced Gogol to start eating normally in order to regain strength, but the patient was indifferent to his admonitions. At the insistence of the doctors, Tolstoy asked Metropolitan Philaret to influence Gogol and strengthen his confidence in the doctors. But nothing had any effect on Gogol; to all persuasion he quietly and meekly answered: “Leave me alone; I feel good." He stopped taking care of himself, didn’t wash, didn’t comb his hair, didn’t dress. He ate crumbs - bread, prosphora, gruel, prunes. I drank water with red wine and linden tea.

On Monday, February 17, he went to bed in a robe and boots and never got up again. In bed, he began the sacraments of repentance, communion and blessing of oil, listened to all the gospels in full consciousness, holding a candle in his hands and crying. “If God wills me to live longer, I will live,” he said to his friends who urged him to undergo treatment. On this day, he was examined by the doctor A. Over, invited by Tolstoy. He didn't give any advice and postponed the conversation until the next day.

Doctor Klimenkov appeared on stage and amazed those present with his rudeness and insolence. He shouted his questions to Gogol, as if there was a deaf or unconscious person in front of him, trying to forcibly feel his pulse. "Leave me!" - Gogol told him and turned away.

Klimenkov insisted on active treatment: bloodletting, wrapping in wet cold sheets, etc. But Tarasenkov suggested postponing everything to the next day.

On February 20, a council gathered: Over, Klimenkov, Sokologorsky, Tarasenkov and the Moscow medical luminary Evenius. In the presence of Tolstoy, Khomyakov and other Gogol acquaintances, Over outlined the history of the disease to Evenius, emphasizing the oddities in the patient’s behavior, allegedly indicating that “his consciousness is not in its natural state.” “Leave the patient without benefits or treat him as a person who does not control himself?” asked Over. “Yes, we need to force-feed him,” Evenius said importantly.

After this, the doctors entered the patient and began to question him, examine him, and feel him. Moans and screams of the patient were heard from the room. “Don’t bother me, for God’s sake!” - he finally shouted. But they no longer paid attention to him. It was decided to put two leeches on Gogol’s nose and do a cold douse on his head in a warm bath. Klimenkov undertook to carry out all these procedures, and Tarasenkov hastened to leave, “so as not to witness the torment of the sufferer.”

When he returned three hours later, Gogol had already been taken out of the bath; six leeches hung from his nostrils, which he tried to tear off, but the doctors forcibly held his hands. At about seven in the evening, Over and Klimenkov arrived again and ordered to maintain the bleeding as long as possible, put mustard plasters on the limbs, a front sight on the back of the head, ice on the head, and a decoction of marshmallow root with cherry laurel water inside. “Their treatment was inexorable,” recalled Tarasenkov, “they gave orders as if he were crazy, shouted in front of him as if in front of a corpse. Klimenkov pestered him, crushed him, tossed him around, poured some caustic alcohol on his head...”

After their departure, Tarasenkov stayed until midnight. The patient's pulse dropped, breathing became intermittent. He could no longer turn on his own; he lay quietly and calmly when he was not treated. Asked for a drink. By the evening he began to lose his memory, muttering indistinctly: “Come on, come on! Well, what then? At the eleventh hour he suddenly shouted loudly: “The ladder, quickly, give me the ladder!” I tried to get up. He was lifted out of bed and sat on a chair. But he was already so weak that his head could not hold up and fell, like that of a newborn child. After this outburst, Gogol fell into a deep faint, around midnight his legs began to get cold, and Tarasenkov ordered jugs of hot water to be applied to them...

Each of the three versions of the writer’s death has its adherents and opponents. One way or another, this mystery has not yet been solved.

“I’ll tell you without exaggeration,” he also wrote Ivan Turgenev Aksakov, - since I can remember, nothing has made such a depressing impression on me as the death of Gogol... This strange death - historical event and is not immediately clear; This is a mystery, a heavy, formidable mystery - we must try to unravel it... But the one who unravels it will not find anything gratifying in it.”

“I looked at the deceased for a long time,” wrote Tarasenkov, “it seemed to me that his face expressed not suffering, but calmness, a clear thought carried into the coffin.” “Shame on the one who is attracted to the rotting dust...”

Gogol's ashes were buried at noon on February 24, 1852 by parish priest Alexei Sokolov and deacon Ioann Pushkin. And after 79 years, he was secretly, thieves removed from the grave: the Danilov Monastery was transformed into a colony for juvenile delinquents, and therefore its necropolis was subject to liquidation. It was decided to move only a few of the graves dearest to the Russian heart to the old cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent. Among these lucky ones, along with Yazykov, Aksakovs and Khomyakovs, was Gogol...

In his will, Gogol shamed those who “would be attracted by any attention to rotting dust that is no longer mine.” But the flighty descendants were not ashamed, they violated the writer’s will, and with unclean hands they began to stir up the “rotting dust” for fun. They also did not respect his covenant not to erect any monument on his grave.

The Aksakovs brought to Moscow from the Black Sea coast a stone shaped like Golgotha, the hill on which Jesus Christ was crucified. This stone became the basis for the cross on Gogol's grave. Next to him on the grave was a black stone in the shape of a truncated pyramid with inscriptions on the edges.

These stones and the cross were taken somewhere the day before the opening of Gogol’s burial and sunk into oblivion. Only in the early 50s, the widow of Mikhail Bulgakov accidentally discovered Gogol’s Calvary stone in the lapidary barn and managed to install it on the grave of her husband, the creator of “The Master and Margarita.”

No less mysterious and mystical is the fate of the Moscow monuments to Gogol. The idea of ​​the need for such a monument was born in 1880 during the celebrations of the opening of the monument to Pushkin on Tverskoy Boulevard. And 29 years later, on the centenary of the birth of Nikolai Vasilyevich on April 26, 1909, a monument created by the sculptor N. Andreev was unveiled on Prechistensky Boulevard. This sculpture, depicting a deeply dejected Gogol at the moment of his deep thoughts, caused mixed reviews. Some enthusiastically praised her, others fiercely condemned her. But everyone agreed: Andreev managed to create a work of the highest artistic merit.

The controversy surrounding the original author's interpretation of the image of Gogol did not continue to subside in Soviet time, which did not tolerate the spirit of decline and despondency even among the great writers of the past. Socialist Moscow needed a different Gogol - clear, bright, calm. Not the Gogol of “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” but the Gogol of “Taras Bulba,” “The Inspector General,” and “Dead Souls.”

In 1935, the All-Union Committee for Arts under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR announced a competition for a new monument to Gogol in Moscow, which marked the beginning of developments interrupted by the Great Patriotic War. She slowed down, but did not stop these works, in which they participated greatest masters sculptures - M. Manizer, S. Merkurov, E. Vuchetich, N. Tomsky.

In 1952, on the centenary of Gogol’s death, a new monument was erected on the site of the St. Andrew’s monument, created by the sculptor N. Tomsky and the architect S. Golubovsky. St. Andrew's monument was moved to the territory of the Donskoy Monastery, where it stood until 1959, when, at the request of the USSR Ministry of Culture, it was installed in front of Tolstoy's house on Nikitsky Boulevard, where Nikolai Vasilyevich lived and died. It took Andreev’s creation seven years to cross Arbat Square!

Disputes around Moscow monuments to Gogol continue even now. Some Muscovites tend to see the removal of monuments as a manifestation of Soviet totalitarianism and party dictatorship. But everything that is done is done for the better, and Moscow today has not one, but two monuments to Gogol, equally precious for Russia in moments of both decline and enlightenment of the spirit.

For more than 150 years, many doctors, historians, analysts and other experts have been trying to understand how Gogol died, what caused him to be so painful, and what kind of ailments did he suffer in the last years of his life? Some believe that the famous author was simply “crazy,” others believe that he committed suicide by starving himself to death. However, the truth, as it turned out, in this whole story is only apparent, somewhat ephemeral. The facts that have survived to this day, and the research of contemporaries, make it possible to draw certain conclusions about how Gogol died. Therefore, now we will consider in detail all these materials and his last years of life.

A few words about the life of the writer

The now famous playwright, writer, critic, writer and poet was born in the Poltava province in 1809. On my native land He graduated from high school, after which he entered the Academy of Higher Sciences for children of the provincial nobility. There he learned the basics of literary criticism, painting and other forms of art. In his youth, Gogol moved to the capital - St. Petersburg, where he met a number of famous poets and critics, among whom it is important to highlight A. Pushkin. It was he who became the closest friend of the then young Nikolai Gogol, who opened new doors for him in literary studies and influenced the formation of his social and cultural views. In St. Petersburg, the writer begins to compile the first volume of Dead Souls, but in his homeland the work begins to be criticized very harshly. Nikolai Vasilyevich goes to Europe and, having visited a number of cities, stops in Rome, where he finishes writing the first volume, after which he begins the second. It was after he returned from Italy that doctors (and all his close people) began to notice changes in the writer’s state of mind, not at all in good side. We can say that it was from then on that the very story of Gogol’s death begins, which exhausted him mentally and physically and made him last days his life was extremely painful.

Was there schizophrenia?

There was a time when rumors circulated in Moscow that the writer, who had just returned from Rome, was a little out of his mind and was suffering from schizophrenia. His contemporaries believed that it was because of such a mental disorder that he himself brought himself to complete exhaustion. In fact, everything was a little different, and several other circumstances caused the death of this writer; if you read into it in more detail, it tells that for the last 20 years of his life the author suffered from I mean, he had periods when his mood became especially cheerful, but they were quickly replaced by the opposite - severe depression. Not knowing such a definition in those years, doctors gave the most ridiculous diagnoses to Nikolai - “intestinal catarrh”, “spastic colitis” and others. It is now believed that it was the treatment of these imaginary ailments that played a fatal role in his fate.

Did the author wake up in his own coffin?

Very often, in a conversation about how Gogol died, many argue that he was buried alive. They say that the writer plunged into something that everyone took for death. The rumors are based on the fact that during exhumation, Nikolai’s body in the coffin was unnaturally bent, and the upper part of the lid was scratched. In fact, if you think about it, you can understand that this is fiction. By the time the exhumation took place, only ashes were found in the coffin. The wood and upholstery were completely rotten (which, in principle, is natural), so they could not find any scratches or other traces there.

Interesting fact about... the fear of being buried alive

In fact, there is another circumstance that has led people for many years to believe that famous writer was buried alive, in a state of lethargic sleep. The fact is that Gogol suffered from taphephobia - this is precisely the fear of being buried in the ground during his lifetime. This fear was based on the fact that after suffering from malaria in Italy, he often fainted, which caused his pulse to slow down too much, and his breathing almost completely stopped. Then the author of “Viy” and “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” woke up and felt normal. It was for this reason that he hardly went to bed for the last 10 years of his life. Nikolai Vasilyevich dozed in his chair, falling asleep over his manuscripts in constant anxiety and readiness to awaken. Moreover, in his will he indicated that he wished to be buried only after his body began to show signs of complete decomposition. His will was fulfilled. The official date of Gogol's death is February 21, 1852 (old style), and the date of his burial is February 24.

Other ridiculous versions

Among the conclusions of doctors who personally saw how Gogol died and how he spent his last days, or indirectly knew about this, guided by his analyzes and examination results, there were many absurd notes. Among them is that the writer took mercury poison to take his own life. They say that due to the fact that he ate practically nothing and his stomach was empty, the poison was corroding him from the inside, which is why he died for a long time and painfully. The second theory is typhoid fever, which caused Gogol's death. The author’s biography indicates that he did not actually suffer from this illness, and moreover, not a single similar symptom appeared in his entire life. Therefore, at a consultation held among doctors after this version was put forward, the latter was officially rejected.

Causes of severe dying condition

It is believed that the story of Gogol's death dates back to January 1852, when Ekaterina Khomyakova, the sister of his close friend, died. The poet experienced the funeral service of this person with particular horror, and during the burial he said very terrible words: “Everything is over for me too...” Physically weak, prone to various ailments, with poor immunity, Nikolai Vasilyevich completely gave way that day. It is also worth considering the fact that for 20 years he had suffered from a bipolar personality, which is why such a significant and sorrowful event drove him into the phase of depression, and not hypomania. Since then, he began to refuse food, despite the fact that previously he always preferred hearty meat dishes. Eyewitnesses claimed that the writer seemed to have left reality. He stopped communicating with friends, often closed in on himself, and would go to bed in a robe and boots, while muttering something. The culmination of his depression was the fact that he burned the second volume of Dead Souls.

Cure attempts

For for long years analysts and researchers did not understand why Gogol died. The poet and playwright, stricken by an unknown disease at that time, was under careful medical supervision and care. Although it is worth noting that the doctors treated him very harshly, however, trying to do the best. They treated imaginary “meningitis”. They forced me into a hot bath, poured ice water over my head, and then didn’t allow me to get dressed. Leeches were placed under the writer’s nose to increase bleeding, and if he resisted, his hands were twisted, causing pain. It is likely that another of these procedures is the answer to the question of why Gogol died so suddenly. At 8 a.m. on February 21, he fell into unconsciousness when no one was nearby except the nurse. By 10 am, when the doctors had already gathered at the writer’s bed, they found only a corpse.

An unbroken chain leading to demise

Thanks to the research of contemporaries, it is possible to build a logical and correct connection between all the events and circumstances during which the playwright died. Initially, the place where Gogol died (Moscow) had a negative impact. Rumors about his madness often circulated here; many of his works were not recognized. Due to these factors, it began to worsen mental illness, and as a result, Nikolai Vasilyevich came to the conclusion that he should refuse food. Complete bodily exhaustion and distortion of the perception of reality weakened the person indescribably. What became fatal was that he was subjected to sudden changes in temperature, shock and other harsh therapeutic methods. The date of Gogol's death was the last day of such bullying for him. After a long and painful night, on the morning of February 21, he did not wake up.

Was it possible to save the writer?

It's definitely possible. To do this, it was necessary to force-feed highly nutritious foods, inject saline solutions under the skin, and also force the person to drink a lot of water. Another factor is taking antidepressants, but given the year Gogol died, we can say that this was impossible. By the way, one of the doctors, Tarasenkov, insisted on exactly these methods, in particular, on forcing Nikolai Vasilyevich to eat. However, most doctors rejected this prescription - they began to treat non-existent meningitis...

Afterword

We briefly reviewed all the circumstances of his death famous writer and playwright Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. It was he who, with his works, won the hearts of ordinary readers and directors, children and adults. You can read his works avidly, without looking up from the book, because each of his creations is extremely interesting. Now you know when Gogol was born and died, how he lived his life, and in particular, what his last years were like. And most importantly, we tried to understand at least a little about how this genius died and why there are so many rumors around his death.

There has long been debate about whether Gogol was buried alive.
Indeed, the writer was haunted by the fear of being buried during his lifetime. In 1827, Gogol wrote to his friend Vysotsky: “ How hard it is to be buried together with the creatures of the low unknown in the silence of the dead».

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809-1852)

Gogol begins his collection “Selected Places of Correspondence with Friends” with a will: “ Being in the full presence of memory and common sense, I express here my last will. I bequeath the body not to be buried until obvious signs of decomposition appear... I mention this because even during the illness itself, moments of vital numbness came over me, my heart and pulse stopped beating...».

Photo - Gogol and artists in Rome

Andrei Voznesensky dedicated poetry to Gogol (1972), describing an eerie version of his death:

You carried a living thing across the country.
Gogol was in a lethargic sleep.
Gogol thought in the coffin on his back:

“My underwear was stolen from under my tailcoat.
It blows into the crack, but you can’t get through it.
What are the torments of the Lord?
before waking up in a coffin.”

Open the coffin and freeze in the snow.
Gogol, curled up, lies on his side.
An ingrown toenail tore through the lining of the boot.

Enlarged photo of Gogol (1845), the writer is 36 years old

According to the memoirs of Gogol's contemporaries in Last year life was haunted by the fear of death.

Ekaterina Khomyakova

There is an assumption that Gogol predicted the prophecy of his death in “Old World Landowners”, describing the death of Afanasy Ivanovich: “ ;He completely submitted to his spiritual conviction that Pulcheria Ivanovna was calling him: he submitted with the will of an obedient child, withered, coughed, melted like a candle, and finally died out like she did, when there was nothing left that could support her poor flame».
It was assumed that the death of Ekaterina Khomyakova had a similar detrimental effect on the writer.

Friends recalled that Gogol was “melting before our eyes,” he was weakening - but refused to eat, he was sick - but he rejected the advice of doctors.
"It was difficult to do anything with a person who rejected all treatment“- his attending physician later said.

Gogol in the coffin

Gogol foresaw a quick end to his life.
On February 7, he confessed and received communion. On the night of February 12, he burned the second volume of Dead Souls.

The next day the writer regretted what he had done. Gogol told A.P. Tolstoy: “ Imagine how strong evil spirit! I wanted to burn papers that had been determined for a long time, but I burned the chapters of Dead Souls, which I wanted to leave it as a souvenir for my friends after my death ».

According to another version, Gogol’s words sounded like this:
“Now everything is gone!” Gogol said to Tolstoy as he entered, pointing to the burning papers.
He said and cried.
“That’s what I did! I wanted to burn some things specially prepared for this, but I burned everything. How strong the evil one is - that’s what he led me to! And I explained and explained a lot of useful things there.”

9 days later (February 21), Gogol died at the age of 42. His last phrase was: “ How sweet it is to die...».
The writer was famous during his lifetime; all of Moscow came to say goodbye to Gogol.

Portrait by F. Moller (1841), Gogol is 32 years old

In June 1931, the writer's ashes were reburied from the cemetery of the St. Daniel's Monastery to the Novodevichy Cemetery.
That’s when the legend arose that Gogol was buried alive.

One of the participants in the reburial, professor of the Literary Institute V.G. Lidin described another unexplained incident. The writer's skull was missing from the coffin.
«... Gogol's grave was opened for almost the whole day. It turned out to be at a much greater depth than ordinary burials. Having started to dig it out, they came across a brick crypt of unusual strength, but did not find a bricked-up hole in it; Then they began to dig in a transverse direction in such a way that the excavation would be to the east, and only in the evening a side aisle of the crypt was discovered, through which the coffin was pushed into the main crypt. The work of opening the crypt took a long time.

It was already dusk when the grave was finally opened. The top boards of the coffin were rotten, but the side boards with preserved foil, metal corners and handles and partially surviving bluish-purple braid were intact. This is what Gogol's ashes represented: there was no skull in the coffin, and Gogol's remains began with the cervical vertebrae: the entire skeleton of the skeleton was enclosed in a well-preserved tobacco-colored frock coat; Even underwear with bone buttons survived under the frock coat; there were shoes on his feet... The shoes were with very high heels, approximately 4-5 centimeters, this gives absolute reason to assume that Gogol was of short stature.

When and under what circumstances Gogol's skull disappeared remains a mystery. When the opening of the grave began at a shallow depth, significantly higher than the crypt with the walled coffin, a skull was discovered, but archaeologists recognized it as belonging to a young man... Unfortunately, I could not remove (photograph) the remains of Gogol, since it was already twilight, and the next morning they were transported to the cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent, where they were interred..."

The famous film adaptation of the story "Viy" with Natalya Varleya

Comrade Pompolitians did not disdain to grab grave items as souvenirs:
« Thus, Vsevolod Ivanov took Gogol’s rib, Malyshkin took foil from the coffin, and the director of the cemetery, Komsomol member Arakcheev, even appropriated the shoes of the great writer. What blasphemy! But the historian Bantysh-Kamensky, who in the era of Nicholas I opened the grave of Prince Menshikov, an associate of Peter I, in Berezovo and took his cap “as a souvenir,” was accused of looting and blasphemy. Soviet morality was somewhat different!»

Lidin commented on the emerging version of the writer being buried alive:
« Apparently, due to the foil lid of Gogol’s coffin warping over time and the displacement of his remains in the coffin due to natural subsidence of the earth, a terrible legend about a writer buried alive appeared!».

Where Gogol’s head could have gone, Lidin suggested:
« In 1909, when during the installation of the monument to Gogol on Prechistensky Boulevard in Moscow (in honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great writer), the restoration of Gogol’s grave was carried out, one of the most famous collectors in Moscow and Russia, Bakhrushin, who is also the founder of the Theater Museum, allegedly persuaded the monks St. Daniel's Monastery to get Gogol's skull for him, and what is really in Bakhrushinsky theater museum in Moscow there are three skulls belonging to someone unknown: one of them, according to assumption, is the skull of the artist Shchepkin, the other is Gogol, nothing is known about the third».

According to legend, Yanovsky, the great-nephew of the writer, managed to take the skull of his ancestor from Bakhrushin. He threatened the desecrator of the ashes with violence - “There are two cartridges here. One in the barrel. The other in the drum. The one in the barrel is for you, if you refuse to give me Nikolai Vasilyevich’s skull. The one in the drum is for me.”...
Yanovsky, a lieutenant in the Russian Imperial Navy, took the casket with the skull to Sevastopol, where he served. In 1910, Italian ships arrived in Sevastopol. Yanovsky gave the skull to Captain Borghese with a request to bury the skull in Italy, which Gogol considered his second home. But the captain was unable to fulfill the request.
In a letter of apology to Yanovsky, Borghese writes a strange phrase “A person’s destiny does not end with his life”. Having set sail, the captain handed the skull over to his younger brother for safekeeping.
Borghese Jr. told how he encountered an unidentified phenomenon. On July 14, 1911, setting off by train from Rome, he took with him a casket with a skull. The traveler suddenly felt uneasy and decided to jump off the train. Then he saw a white cloud in which the train disappeared. This is how Gogol's skull ended up on the ghost train.

According to legend, the writer’s ashes were reburied without a skull.

Postcard with a portrait of Gogol

According to the memoirs of a contemporary of Gogol, the writer was very loved in his native land, waited for his return, refusing to believe the words about his death:
« Strange thing. Neighboring farmers, as I verified at that time, indeed, perhaps due to Gogol’s frequent and long stay abroad, were convinced for a long time that he had not died, but was in foreign lands. Some of them, who owed him something in their lives, even used it to tell fortunes by placing an empty watered pot at night and planting a spider in it. Gogol’s mother, whom all the neighbors knew and loved closely, told me about this. According to local belief, if a spider crawls out of a pot with convex, slippery walls at night, then the person being told is alive and will return. The spider, who was entrusted by the farmers with deciding whether Rudy Panko was alive, covered the side of the pot with a web at night and crawled out along it; but Gogol, to the chagrin of those who were guessing, did not return»

Gogol (E. Redko) and Smirnova-Rosset (A. Zavorotnyuk)
Film "Gogol. The Closest"

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol - (1809 - 1852) - classic of Russian literature, writer, brilliant satirist, publicist, playwright, critic. Belonged to the ancient noble family Gogol-Yanovskikh.

Although the mysterious mystical aura around Gogol’s personality was to a certain extent generated by the blasphemous destruction of his grave and strange inventions, much of the circumstances of his illness and death remain a mystery. In reality, from what and how could Gogol die at the 43rd year of his life?

Writer's Oddities

Nikolai Vasilyevich was a difficult person to understand. For example, he slept only sitting up, being careful not to be mistaken for dead. He took long walks around... the house, while drinking a glass of water in each room. From time to time he fell into a state of prolonged stupor. And Gogol’s death was mysterious: either he died from poisoning, or from cancer, or from mental illness...

Doctors have been trying to determine the cause of death and how Gogol died for more than a century and a half to no avail.

Causes of death (Versions)

Khomyakov put forward the first version of depression, according to which the root cause of Gogol’s death was severe mental shock which the writer experienced due to sudden death Khomyakova Ekaterina Mikhailovna, sister of the poet N.M. Yazykov, with whom Gogol was friends. “From that time on, he was in some kind of nervous disorder, which took on the character of religious insanity,” from Khomyakov’s memoirs. “He fasted and began to starve himself, reproaching himself for gluttony.”

Ekaterina Mikhailovna Khomyakova (1817-1852), born Yazykova.

This version is allegedly confirmed by the testimony of people who saw the impact that the accusatory conversations of Father Matthew Konstantinovsky had on the writer. It was he who insisted that Gogol observe strict fasting, demanded from him special zeal in fulfilling strict church instructions, and reproached both Nikolai Vasilyevich himself and, whom Gogol revered, for their sinfulness and paganism. The denunciations of the eloquent priest shocked the writer to such an extent that one day he, interrupting Father Matthew, literally groaned: “Enough! Leave me alone, I can’t listen any longer, it’s too scary!” An eyewitness to these conversations, Terty Filippov, was sure that the sermons of Father Matthew set Nikolai Vasilyevich in a pessimistic mood, and he believed in the inevitability of imminent death.

Yet there is no reason to believe that great poet gone crazy. An involuntary witness to the last hours of Gogol’s life, a servant of a Simbirsk landowner, paramedic Zaitsev, noted in his memoirs that a day before his death Gogol was in clear memory and sound mind. Having come to his senses after the “therapeutic” torture, he had a friendly conversation with Zaitsev, was interested in his life, he even made amendments to the poems written by Zaitsev on the death of his mother.

The version that Nikolai Vasilyevich died from starvation is also not confirmed. A healthy adult can go without food for 30-40 days. The writer fasted only 17 days, and even then he did not completely give up food...

However, if not from madness and hunger, then could Gogol’s death be caused by some kind of infectious disease? In Moscow in the winter of 1852, an epidemic of typhoid fever raged, from which, it should be noted, Khomyakova died. That is precisely why Inozemtsev, at the first examination, suspected that Nikolai Vasilyevich had typhus. However, a week later, a council of doctors, which was convened by Count Tolstoy, announced that the writer did not have typhus, but meningitis, and he was prescribed that strange course of treatment, which can only be called “torture”...

1902 - Dr. N. Bazhenov published a small work, “The Illness and Death of Gogol.” After a careful study of the symptoms described in the memoirs of Nikolai Vasilyevich’s acquaintances and the doctors who treated him, Bazhenov came to the conclusion that it was precisely this incorrect, debilitating treatment for meningitis that destroyed Gogol, which in reality did not exist.

First symptoms

Bazhenov is probably only partly right. The treatment, which was prescribed by a council of doctors, applied when the writer was already hopeless, increased his suffering, but was not the cause of the disease itself, which began much earlier. In their Notes from Dr. Tarasenkov, who examined Nikolai Vasilyevich for the first time on February 16, described the symptoms of the disease as follows: “... the pulse was weakened, the tongue was clean but dry; the skin had a natural warmth. By all accounts, it was clear that he did not have a fever... once he had a slight nosebleed, complained that his hands were cold, his urine was thick, dark-colored..."

Was Gogol accidentally poisoned by doctors?

One can only regret that Bazhenov, while writing his work, did not think to consult a toxicologist. Because the symptoms of the disease that he described are practically indistinguishable from the symptoms of chronic mercury poisoning - the main component of the same calomel that every doctor who began treatment fed the writer. In fact, chronic calomel poisoning may result in both thick, dark urine and various kinds bleeding, most often gastric, but sometimes nasal. A weak pulse could be either a consequence of the weakening of the body from polishing, or the result of the action of calomel. Many noted that throughout his illness Nikolai Vasilyevich often asked to drink: thirst is one of the characteristic signs of chronic poisoning.

Apparently, the beginning of the fatal chain of events was an upset stomach and the “too strong effect of the drugs,” about which the writer complained to Shevyrev on February 5. Because at that time gastric disorders were treated with calomel, it is possible that the medicine prescribed to him was calomel and was prescribed by Inozemtsev, who a few days later fell ill himself and stopped observing the patient. Gogol came under the tutelage of Tarasenkov, who, not knowing that the writer was already taking a dangerous drug, could once again prescribe him calomel. For the third time, Nikolai Vasilyevich received calomel from Klimenkov.

The peculiarity of calomel is that it does not cause harm only if it can quickly be eliminated from the body through the intestines. If it lingers in the stomach, then after some time it begins to act as the strongest mercury poison, sublimate. This is exactly what could have happened to Gogol: the large doses of calomel he took were not removed from the stomach, since Gogol was fasting at the time and there was simply no food in his stomach. The gradually increasing amount of calomel in his stomach caused chronic poisoning, and the weakening of the body from malnutrition, loss of spirit and Klimenkov’s barbaric treatment only brought the onset of death closer...

The room where Gogol died

Sopor

According to experts, contrary to popular belief, the classic did not have schizophrenia. But he suffered from manic-depressive psychosis. This disease could manifest itself in different ways, but its most powerful manifestation was that the writer was terrified of being buried alive. Perhaps this fear appeared in his youth, after he suffered from malarial encephalitis. The disease was quite severe and was accompanied by deep fainting.

This is one of the most common versions. Rumors about the allegedly terrible death of Gogol, who was buried alive, turned out to be so persistent that to this day many consider it a completely proven fact.

To a certain extent, rumors about his burial alive were created, without knowing it... by the writer. All because, as already mentioned, Nikolai Vasilyevich was prone to fainting and somnambulistic states. Therefore, the writer was very afraid that during one of his attacks he would be mistaken for dead and buried.

This fact is essentially unanimously denied by modern historians.

“During the exhumation, which was carried out in conditions of a certain secrecy, no more than 20 people gathered at the classic’s grave...,” Mikhail Davidov, associate professor at the Perm Medical Academy, wrote in his article “The Mystery of Gogol’s Death.” — Writer V. Lidin became, in fact, the only source of information about the exhumation of Nikolai Vasilyevich. At first he talked about the reburial to students of the Literary Institute and his acquaintances, and later wrote written memoirs. What Lidin said was untrue and contradictory. It was according to him that Gogol’s oak coffin was well preserved, the upholstery on the inside was torn and scratched, and in the coffin there was a skeleton, unnaturally twisted, with the skull turned to one side. So, with the light hand of Lidin, who is inexhaustible in inventions, the gloomy legend that Gogol was buried alive began to walk around Moscow.

To understand the inconsistency of the lethargic dream version, you need to think about this fact: the exhumation was carried out 79 years after the burial! Known fact that the decomposition of the body in the grave occurs incredibly quickly, and after just a few years, only bone tissue remains from it, and the bones no longer have close connections with each other. It is unclear how, after so many years, they could establish some kind of “twisting of the body”... And what can remain of a wooden coffin and upholstery material after 79 years of being in the ground? They change so much (rot, fragment) that it is absolutely impossible to establish the fact of “scratching” the inner lining of the coffin.”

And from the memoirs of the sculptor Ramazanov, who removed the death mask of the classic, post-mortem changes and the beginning of the process of tissue decomposition were clearly visible on the face of the deceased.

And yet, Gogol’s version of lethargic sleep is still alive today.

Vanished Skull

Gogol died on February 21, 1852. He was buried in the cemetery of the St. Daniel Monastery, and in 1931 the monastery and the cemetery on its territory were closed. When the writer’s remains were transferred to the Novodevichy cemetery, they discovered that the skull had been stolen from the deceased’s coffin.

And the writer Lidin, inexhaustible in inventions, amazed listeners with new sensational details: According to the version of the same V. Lidin, who was present, Gogol’s skull was stolen from the grave in 1909. At that time, the philanthropist and founder of the theater museum Alexei Bakhrushin was able to persuade the monks get Nikolai Vasilyevich’s skull for him. “The Bakhrushinsky Theater Museum in Moscow contains three skulls that belong to someone unknown: one of them is presumably the skull of the artist Shchepkin, the other is Gogol’s, nothing is known about the third,” Lidin wrote in his memoirs “The Transfer of Gogol’s Ashes.”

Interesting Fact (Tombstone)

Exists interesting story, which is still told to this day at Gogol’s grave... 1940 - another famous Russian writer, who considered himself a student of Nikolai Vasilyevich, died. His wife, Elena Sergeevna, went to choose a stone for the gravestone of her late husband. By chance, she chose only one from a pile of prepared gravestones. When they lifted it to engrave the writer's name on it, they saw that it already had another name on it. When we looked at what was written there, we were even more surprised - it was a tombstone that had disappeared from Gogol’s grave. Thus, Nikolai Vasilyevich seemed to give a sign to Bulgakov’s relatives that he was finally reunited with his outstanding student.