Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809-1852) - famous Russian playwright, prose writer, publicist. Today we would like to talk briefly about this wonderful writer and classic of Russian literature. Therefore, we will be happy to tell you the most Interesting Facts about Gogol, his biography and difficult mysterious life. Everyone knows firsthand about this man, since he is compulsorily studied at school, in the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and even 9th grade. Gogol wrote many works, including such famous ones as “Dead Souls”, “Viy”, “The Inspector General”, “Taras Bulba”, “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” and much more. We hope that our information will be useful to you for reports, abstracts, communications on literature, or just general development.

1. In total, Gogol's family had 12 children (6 boys and 6 girls). Gogol was the third oldest child, but essentially the oldest, since the first two children were stillborn. All middle children also died either in infancy or in childhood, before even reaching the age of 10. Long life only three lived little sisters Gogol - Anna, Elizaveta and Olga, and himself, respectively.

2. At school, Gogol wrote essays that were not at all good, a C grade at most, but he could draw very well.

3. Gogol was very fond of sweets and always carried at least a few pieces of sugar in his pocket. During a conversation, he could take out a piece and easily gnaw on it. An interesting fact from the writer’s life is that Gogol always hid pieces of this sugar in his pockets. And if he accidentally forgot to pick up these pieces before the servants took the dishes, then he literally forbade her to take everything away until he put the sugar in his room to nibble on later.

4. Gogol had unconventional hobbies. He loved to cut, knit, sew and cook. It was a strange hobby, but everyone accepted it.

5. The work about “The Inspector General” is quite real story, which occurred in the city of Ustyuzhina, in the Novgorod Province. Moreover, what is most interesting is that Gogol himself told this story. In general, Pushkin played big role in Gogol's life and it was he who persuaded him to continue writing. He and Alexander Sergeevich were good friends and often held get-togethers together. On one of these evenings, they even drew friendly caricatures of each other.

6. Gogol himself claimed that he did not invent Viy, and he took the entire plot from urban legends and tales, but no matter how they tried to find or hear at least any mention of Viy or anything reminiscent of him, nothing came of it. As a result, they came to the conclusion that Gogol was just joking, and Viy was entirely his work.

7. Gogol never married and it is still believed that he did not have any relationships with women. Maybe it was because he was very shy, since everyone knew this very well. The only time in his life he proposed to A. M. Vielgorskaya in 1850, but she refused.

There is also an opinion that he was afraid of the wrath of God, and therefore in every possible way denied intimate intimacy. Well, the third most delusional reason for his virginity was that some suspected him of homosexuality. But this version is rejected.

8. Several years before his death, Gogol bequeathed that he should not be buried until they were completely sure of his death, i.e. there will be no obvious signs of decomposition. When the reburial took place in 1931, they discovered that Gogol’s remains were not in their original position, but turned on their side. This gave rise to many rumors that in fact Gogol was able lethargic sleep and woke up in a coffin. Many also spread rumors that inside Scratches were found on the coffin lid, indicating that the writer was trying to get out. Horrible, and that's all.

9. Towards the end of his life, Gogol experienced a “Phase Shift” and told him to bring his briefcase, which contained the manuscript of the second volume of Dead Souls. After which he took out these manuscripts and threw them into the fireplace. The next morning, he himself regretted his action and blamed everything on the evil one, and the fact that he did not want to burn this manuscript.

10. Gogol's last words were “Stairs! Hurry up and give me the stairs!” This is explained by the fact that when he was little, his grandmother told him that before a person dies, angels lower a divine ladder for him so that the soul of the deceased can ascend to heaven.

11. It was also noted that Gogol was very afraid of thunderstorms. Moreover, the fear was so genuine and great that the writer simply lost his nerves.

12. The strange love for the miniature simply reached the point of absurdity. Gogol, not understanding mathematics and not wanting to study it in any way, wrote out for himself a real encyclopedia mathematics. The fact is that it was so miniature that it was 16 times smaller than the size of a standard sheet.

13. Nikolai Vasilyevich was literally shrouded in something otherworldly. Either he was going crazy, or he really had some strange visions. For example, literally a few days before his death, he said that he saw his own lifeless body from the side and heard otherworldly voices. No one attached any importance to this, but soon Gogol really died.

14. Gogol was such a shy person that he tried to immediately leave when people unfamiliar to him appeared in society.

15. The great writer was terribly embarrassed about his appearance. But most of all he didn’t like his nose, so he asked artists to artificially reduce his breathing image so that it wouldn’t make him ugly. By the way, it was precisely because of this complex that he wrote the work “The Nose”.

16. Many people believe that the famous egg-sugar dessert Gogol-Mogol is named after the writer, but in fact this is not so. The dessert appeared much earlier than Nikolai himself was born, so it’s just a coincidence. But this name, of course, did not pass by the writer; he even came up with his own recipe for Gogol-Mogol. To prepare it, you had to mix rum with goat's milk.

17. After his death, Gogol left virtually no legacy. Among the valuable property there were only 43 rubles 88 kopecks worth of things and a gold watch, which was a memory of his best friend Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. The clock had not worked for a long time and this was done on purpose. The fact is that they were set to 14:45. It was at this time that Pushkin died.

All his things were so worthless that it was not possible to get much money for them. Even his collection of 150 books, half of which were hardcover, was not of interest to the appraisers. The books were sold for only 1 kopeck each.

18. More than 70 films were made based on Gogol’s works. Some works have been filmed several times. "Viy" alone has been filmed 6 times, including the film "The Witch", "Viy 3D" and "Gogol: Viy". Unfortunately, the very first copies of the early 20th century have not survived, so the coolest version is the 1967 film starring Leonid Kuravlev and Natalya Varleya.

19. More than 15 monuments to the writer were erected in different parts of Russia and other countries of our planet. One of them, created by Zurab Tseretelli, stands in Rome.

20. People around were constantly arguing about whether Gogol was Russian or Ukrainian. The writer himself tried to abstract himself from such questions. The fact is that he did not identify himself with any of these nations separately. He simply briefly said that he was leaning towards a synthesis of these two cultures.

21. Shortly before his death, Gogol gave more than 2,000 rubles to the critic Stepan Shevyrev so that he would donate them to charity for Moscow students. For some reason, Nikolai Vasilyevich did not consider that this was his money. Therefore, after his death, Shevyrev did not give them to his heirs.

22. Perhaps the writer would have survived if he had trusted the doctors, but he refused all help, mentally preparing for death. The council of doctors decided to begin compulsory treatment, but unfortunately this completely exhausted Nikolai. He fell into unconsciousness, and on February 21, 1852, just shy of 43 years old, he died.

But despite the fact that Nikolai Vasilyevich lived such a short life, he left behind a lot of interesting and great things, becoming a true classic of Russian literature.

On April 1, 1809, the great Russian writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was born. The whole life of a writer is one big secret. There are many rumors and legends associated with his name, some of which Nikolai Vasilyevich spread about himself. He was a great inventor and mystifier, which certainly affected his work. We offer 7 interesting facts from the life of Gogol.

Fact 1 - Gogol's family

There were 12 children in Gogol's family: six boys and six girls, Gogol was the third. The first two babies died immediately after birth. And they named him Nikolai in honor miraculous icon St. Nicholas, kept in the church of Bolshie Sorochintsi, where the writer’s parents lived. By the way, at birth the writer’s surname was Yanovsky, and only at the age of 12 did he become Nikolai Gogol-Yanovsky. According to family legend, he came from an old Cossack family and was supposedly a descendant of Ostap Gogol, who led Right Bank Ukraine in the 17th century. It was from the image of his famous relative that the writer “copied” Taras Bulba.

Fact 2 - Gogol’s interesting hobbies

Along with writing and interest in theater with youth Gogol was passionate about painting. Nikolai Vasilievich was considered enough strange person. His favorite hobby was needlework, and in the writer’s everyday life one could often find him knitting or sewing needle. He sewed all the neckerchiefs for himself, and spoiled his sisters with dresses of his own design.

Among Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol’s various hobbies was an interest in the plant kingdom and botany. He enjoyed reading about plants, collecting them, learning about beneficial features, application in everyday life and medicine. This hobby was inextricably linked with his work.

Fact 3 - the comedy “The Inspector General” and Alexander Pushkin

Gogol did not invent the plot of The Inspector General - he played it out in the play real case, which occurred in the town of Ustyuzhna. And I told him this story and “pushed” him to create dramatic work Pushkin. During the work, Nikolai Vasilyevich more than once wanted to quit the play, but his friend and mentor each time persuaded him to continue what he started. If translated into modern language, Pushkin acted as the “creative producer” of Gogol’s “The Inspector General”.

Fact 4 - Nikolai Vasilievich and women

According to Gogol's correspondence, he fell in love with women twice. However, these feelings did not end in anything: living alone, he remained alone. At the same time, he had a beloved mother and sisters. But they also did not have the power to destroy his loneliness.

Fact 5 - writer's nose

Gogol was very worried about his big nose. Even in the portraits it is noticeable that this part of the writer’s face was truly outstanding. But they are not entirely reliable: the writer’s nose was even longer, and Nikolai Vasilyevich always asked the painters who painted him to embellish reality a little. That's why his brush images different artists so dissimilar. Many literary scholars believe that Gogol wrote the story “The Nose” precisely in order to get rid of the complex.

Fact 6 - why did you burn the second volume of the work “Dead Souls”?

On February 24, 1852, Nikolai Gogol burned the almost completed second volume of Dead Souls, which he had been working on for more than 10 years. The story itself was originally conceived by Gogol as a trilogy. In the first volume, the adventurer Chichikov, traveling around Russia, encountered exclusively human vices; in the second part, fate brought the protagonist together with some positive characters. In the third volume, which was never written, Chichikov had to go through exile in Siberia and finally take the path of moral purification.

Archpriest Matthew Konstantinovsky, whom Gogol met in 1849, became the only lifetime reader of the manuscript of the second volume of Dead Souls. Returning it to the author, he spoke out against the publication of a number of chapters, “even asked to destroy” them (previously, he also gave a negative review of “Selected Passages ...”, calling the book “harmful”).

On the night of February 11-12, 1852, Nikolai Vasilyevich ordered his faithful servant Semyon to open the valves on the stove and bring a briefcase. From it he took out a bunch of notebooks, put them in the fireplace and set them on fire. This is how the second volume of the poem “Dead Souls”, the main work of his life, burned down. The next morning he repented of what he had done and blamed everything on the evil one, who forced him to commit the most terrible “crime.”

The third volume of Dead Souls was not written at all

Fact 7 - the mysteries of Gogol’s death

IN last years something was wrong with Gogol. According to friends, he became infected with maleria in 1839 while visiting Rome. Despite the fact that the disease subsided, after this the writer began to have seizures, fainting and visions. This lasted until the autumn of 1850, when he, being in Odessa, felt relief. He returned to Moscow and seemed completely healthy and cheerful. Gogol read out to his friends individual fragments from the second volume “ Dead souls"and rejoiced like a child, seeing the delight and hearing the laughter of the listeners. But as soon as he put an end to the second volume, it seemed to him that emptiness and doom had fallen upon him.

On February 21, 1852 (old style), Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol died a month before his 43rd birthday.

According to one version, Gogol fell asleep in a lethargic sleep, since after the exhumation of his remains, some eyewitnesses believed that the writer’s skeleton had taken an unnatural position in the coffin.

According to another version, Gogol’s death is associated with his repentant rejection of everything carnal, as a result of which he, according to the historian A.V. Kartashev, “starved himself to death in the feat of spiritualism.”

There is another version of Gogol's death. It consists in the fact that as a result of erroneous treatment by three doctors who did not know about previous prescriptions, the writer was prescribed calomel, a mercury-containing drug used to treat gastric disorders, three times. As a result of an overdose and slower elimination of this drug from a weakened body, general intoxication could occur, similar to poisoning with mercury poison sublimate.

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol- Russian prose writer, playwright, poet, critic, publicist, one of the classics of Russian literature. What do you know about Gogol?Interesting incidents from the life of Gogol, from his biography you will read in this article.

Birth name: Nikolai Vasilievich Yanovsky
Gogol's pseudonyms: V. Alov; P. Glechik; N.G.; OOO; Pasichnik Rudy Panko; G. Yanov; N.N.
Years of life: March 20 (April 1) 1809 - February 21 (March 4) 1852 (42 years)
Place of Birth: Bolshie Sorochintsy, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire
A place of death: Moscow, Russian Empire

The most interesting facts about Gogol

• Gogol was from a large family– the third child of twelve (!) children: six boys and six girls.
• Gogol’s mother was known as the first beauty of the Poltava region; she was married at the age of 14 to the writer’s father, twice her age. It is believed that it was the mother who contributed to the development of religious and mystical feelings in the writer.
• Gogol was not married. Gogol never started his own family, and, in general, it is not known whether he had any connections with women. True, in the spring of 1850 N.V. Gogol made an offer (first and last) to A. M. Vielgorskaya, but was refused.
• When the future great writer studied at school, his essays were very mediocre, he was weak in languages, but did well only in Russian literature and drawing.
• Gogol had a passion for needlework. He loved to knit scarves, cut dresses for his sisters, weave belts, and sew neckerchiefs for himself for the summer.
• Also Nikolai Vasilievich loved to cook and often treated his friends to dumplings and dumplings. He also brewed a special drink from goat milk with the addition of rum, which he jokingly called “mogol-mogol.”
• Gogol always carried sweets in his pockets which he constantly chewed. He especially loved to nibble on pieces of hidden sugar while working or talking.
• Gogol was embarrassed by his nose, and, apparently, even asked artists to smooth out this lack of appearance in their paintings. Therefore, in all portraits of the writer, the nose looks different. Perhaps one of Petersburg stories It is no coincidence that N.V. Gogol is named “The Nose”.
• Gogol was very shy: if a stranger appeared in the company, the writer disappeared from the room.
• In June 1836 Nikolai Vasilyevich went abroad, where he stayed intermittently for about ten years. Abroad he was in Germany, Switzerland, Paris, Italy, and Jerusalem.

• An interesting fact is that your mystical work - story "Viy"- the writer called folk legend(he heard the story and wrote it down without changing a single word), while not a single literary critic, historian, or folklorist could ever find any mention (oral or written) that even remotely resembled the plot of “Viy” . Researchers say that the name “Viy” may have come from combining the name of the owner of the fire “Niya” (a deity in Ukrainian mythology) and the word “viya”, translated from Ukrainian meaning “eyelid”.
• Source of the plot plays "The Inspector General" There was a real incident in one of the cities of the Novgorod province, which Pushkin told Gogol about. Pushkin also suggested the plot of “Dead Souls” to Gogol.
• The history of his native Ukraine was one of his favorite studies and hobbies. It was these studies that prompted him to write an epic story "Taras Bulba". It was first published in the collection “Mirgorod” and in 1835 Gogol personally handed one copy of this magazine into the hands of Mr. Uvarov, the Minister of Public Education, so that he presented it to Emperor Nicholas I.

Gogol interesting facts about death

• The writer in his will 7 years before his death, he warned that his body should be buried only if there were obvious signs of decomposition. This then became the reason for numerous mystical assumptions that in reality the writer was buried in a state of lethargic sleep. Rumor has it that during his reburial in 1931, a skeleton with a skull turned to one side was discovered in his coffin. (According to other sources, the skull was completely absent.)
• What happened shortly before his death on February 12, 1852 (and the writer died on February 21) no one will ever know. Biographers say that the writer prayed earnestly until three in the morning, after which he burned the contents of his briefcase (the second volume of Dead Souls), and then sobbed until the morning in his bed.

Nikolai Gogol interesting facts Little known from his life and biography, he led a modest lifestyle. An inventory of Gogol's property showed that he left behind personal belongings worth 43 rubles 88 kopecks. His things were complete cast-offs and spoke of the writer’s complete indifference to his appearance V recent months his life. At the same time, S.P. Shevyrev still had more than two thousand rubles in his hands, donated by Gogol for charitable purposes to needy students at Moscow University. Gogol did not consider this money his own, and Shevyrev did not return it to the writer’s heirs

In our article we have collected the most interesting and noteworthy facts related to life and destiny famous writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1809 - 1852). He has produced many truly great works, such as “Viy”, “Taras Bulba”, “ Dead Souls", "Overcoat" and others, which made him famous throughout the world.

1. An interesting fact in Gogol’s biography lies in the history of the origin of his family. The writer came from a respected noble family of the Gogol-Yankovskys, which dates back to the 17th century. As legend has it, the founder of this Ukrainian Cossack family was Ostap Gogol, the hetman of Right Bank Ukraine. It is worth noting that Nikolai Vasilyevich lost his father quite early and it was his mother, Marya Ivanovna Gogol, being a very religious person, who instilled in her son a passion for religion and mysticism. In addition to Nikolai, the family had 11 more children.

2. While studying at the Nizhyn gymnasium, where Nikolai Gogol entered at the age of 10, he did not show any particular inclination to study subjects. He had, among other things, difficulties in studying Russian literature and languages. IN school years He was already so passionate about reading, theater and painting that Gogol had neither time nor desire to do homework and memorize poems that did not inspire him.

3. The first ones literary works Nikolai Gogol betrayed the public for assessment while already living in St. Petersburg, where he went after finishing his studies at the gymnasium, in 1828. An interesting fact is that the first works published under a pseudonym were severely criticized by the public. Traveling a lot to his native Ukraine, the writer conceived a plan to write a book dedicated to Ukrainian customs and traditions, which he loved so dearly. The young man was greatly helped in this by his mother, who lived in the village and knew many details of the true life of the Ukrainian hinterland. Gogol’s first successful work was “Evenings on the Eve of Ivan Kupala,” published in 1830, but “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” brought real fame.

4. As mentioned earlier, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was passionate about mysticism and religion, and the most mysterious and exciting work of the writer can confidently be called “Viy”. As the creator himself said, this work was created on the basis folk legend, popular in one of the Ukrainian farms. In addition, he claimed that when writing “Viy” he did not change a single word. However, contemporaries, as well as literary scholars and historians who studied this issue, were unable to find a single legend, even remotely resembling this.

5. Known fact is that Gogol, in a fit of emotion, burned the second volume of the novel “Dead Souls.” Until now, biographers believe that this happened on February 12, 1852 and are unsuccessfully trying to restore the chronology of the events of that day. It was absolutely proven that Nikolai Vasilyevich prayed until 3 o’clock in the morning, and then he took the briefcase, took out some paper sheets from there, and ordered everything remaining in the briefcase to be immediately burned. Having crossed himself, he returned back to bed, where he sobbed until the morning. Modern psychiatrists who studied his behavior came to the conclusion that Gogol did not suffer mental disorders, but most likely at that time he simply had depression that required treatment.

6. There is also a lot of talk and controversy regarding the death of the writer. Until now, no one can definitely answer the question of how another late genius passed into the world. One of the most common versions of Gogol's death is that he was buried alive. Such a terrifying version was put forward in 1931, when, in view of the liquidation of the cemetery, it was decided to rebury it. When the coffin was opened, eyewitnesses discovered with horror that the skeleton was lying with its head turned on its side. This was aggravated by the fact that during his lifetime Nikolai Vasilyevich noted that being buried alive was his worst nightmare. In addition, he was subject to a state of so-called “lethargic sleep”, so in his will he ordered to be buried only when signs of cadaveric decomposition became obvious. Another version of the classic’s death is calomel poisoning (a drug containing mercury). Gogol was in poor health and was treated by many doctors, so many historians believe possible reason his death was due to medical error.

It is known that Gogol, especially in the last years of his life, led a very ascetic lifestyle, avoided people, was fond of religion, and was characterized by depressive states. Perhaps he starved himself by completely refusing food during one of his religious fasts.

So you've met some interesting facts from life famous classic Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol. Now Gogol is buried in Moskovsky Novodevichy Cemetery. The writer left this world in the prime of his life, but, as literary critic V.A. Voropaev, this is “a death filled with spiritual meaning.”

Nikolai Gogol was a great prose writer, playwright, and poet. Most of us are familiar with his basic biography.

He was born April 1, 1809. In memory of the great playwright, journalists collected the most interesting facts from the life of this man.

Gogol came from a sick family. So, his father Vasily Afanasyevich often had fevers, and a few days before his death he started bleeding from his throat. And in my mother’s family there were mentally ill people. Maria herself was “extremely impressionable, suspicious” and attributed everything to her son latest inventions and told everyone about it. She also tormented her son with her superstitions. Paintings Last Judgment, drawn by his mother in childhood, haunted Gogol all his life.

There were 12 children in Gogol's family: six boys and six girls, Gogol was the third. The first two babies died immediately after birth. And he was named Nicholas in honor of the miraculous icon of St. Nicholas, kept in the Church of Bolshie Sorochintsi, where the writer’s parents lived. By the way, at birth the writer’s surname was Yanovsky, and only at the age of 12 did he become Nikolai Gogol-Yanovsky.

Nikolai often used original methods to assert himself. So, one day he... drowned a cat in a pond. In addition, at the Nezhin Lyceum, where Gogol studied, he was feared for his secrecy and unexpected dangerous tricks. Nikolai never took part in violent pranks, but he could give someone an apt nickname. And once, in order to avoid punishment, Gogol pretended to be crazy so convincingly that he frightened all the gymnasium authorities.

Gogol had a big sweet tooth: in one “sitting” he could eat a jar of jam. He always had sweets in his pockets. And as an adult, Gogol collected sugar from hotels, which they gave for tea, and hid it so that he could gnaw it later while working or talking. The writer could not be stopped even by the fact that he suffered from pain in the stomach and intestines almost all his life. Moreover, Gogol described in detail his “colic” and “hemorrhoidal constipation” in letters to friends. He also boasted to his acquaintances: they say that doctors from Paris checked him and found a pathology - his stomach was upside down.

A little-known portrait of Gogol was made by Antonio Zona in Venice 5 years before the writer’s death.

Gogol had many hobbies. For example, he loved miniature editions. Once, completely ignorant of mathematics, he subscribed to a mathematical encyclopedia only because it was published in size 10.5 x 7.5 cm. Gogol also loved handicrafts: he knitted scarves, cut out dresses for his sisters, wove belts, and sewed for himself for the summer neckerchiefs.

In addition, the writer was interested in the history of Ukraine. By the way, it was these studies that prompted him to write the epic story “Taras Bulba”. It was first published in the collection “Mirgorod” in 1835. Gogol personally handed one copy of this magazine into the hands of Mr. Uvarov, the Minister of Public Education, so that he presented it to Emperor Nicholas I.

According to Gogol's correspondence, he fell in love with women twice. However, these feelings did not end in anything: living alone, he remained alone. At the same time, he had a beloved mother and sisters. But they also did not have the power to destroy his loneliness.

Gogol loved to travel. He often wandered around strange corners and lived in rented apartments. His habit of homelessness made him an eccentric and an ascetic. The writer did not have many of his own things: they fit into a large briefcase and a small suitcase. At the same time, his wardrobe included: colored velvet vests, light yellow nankeen trousers, a blue tailcoat with gold buttons, colorful ties, a long raincoat and a feather hat.

The road was a lifesaver for Gogol. So, one day in Rome, he suddenly turned to his companion with a look of complete despair: “Save me, for God’s sake: I don’t know what’s happening to me... I’m dying... I almost died from a nervous attack this night... Take me somewhere, “Yes, quickly, so that it’s not too late.” He immediately hired a carriage. The road to Albano completely healed Gogol, he became calm and never returned to this episode.

In the last years of his life, something was wrong with Gogol. According to friends, he became infected with maleria in 1839 while visiting Rome. Despite the fact that the disease subsided, after this the writer began to have seizures, fainting and visions. This lasted until the autumn of 1850, when he, being in Odessa, felt relief. He returned to Moscow and seemed completely healthy and cheerful. Gogol read out to his friends individual fragments from the second volume of Dead Souls and rejoiced like a child, seeing the delight and hearing the laughter of the listeners. But as soon as he put an end to the second volume, it seemed to him that emptiness and doom had fallen upon him. He felt the fear of death, such as his father had once suffered...

No one knows exactly what happened on the night of February 12, 1852. Biographers, collecting information bit by bit, found out that Gogol prayed earnestly until three o'clock in the morning. Then he took his briefcase, took out some sheets of paper from it, and ordered everything that was left in it to be immediately burned. After which he crossed himself and, returning to bed, sobbed uncontrollably until the morning.

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