Turning the pages back... April 1, 1809 (03/31/96)

Turning the pages back...

April 1, 1809

As some of Ukraine's Communists and other political factions consider reunification with a re-established Russian empire, no better cautionary tale of a tortured biography could be more instructive than that of the moody genius Mykola Hohol, known to the world as Nikolai Gogol.

The Encyclopedia of Ukraine refers to him as "the most famous Russian writer of Ukrainian origin." Fyodor Dostoyevsky, perhaps the most famous Russian writer, considered Gogol to be among the greatest in literature's pantheon.

Born on April 1, 1809, in Velyki Sorochyntsi, Myrhorod county in the Poltava Gubernia, to a Kozak family of the petty nobility, Gogol graduated from the prestigious Nizhen gymnasium.

At the age of 19 he left for the imperial capital, St. Petersburg, with a manuscript under his arm and virtually messianic aspirations in the field of letters. Gogol published the Romantic narrative poem "Hans Kuchelgarten" at his own expense in 1829, but it was savaged by local critics.

A neurotic at the best of times, Gogol was devastated and embittered by this setback. He bought up all copies of this work and destroyed all traces of it, then tried to make a living in the imperial bureaucracy, as a teacher at a boarding school, a tutor for the daughters of the elite (an experience which reappears dramatically in his "Diary of a Madman"), and very briefly as a lecturer in history at St. Petersburg University.

While working as a minor civil servant, Gogol spent his free time composing short stories based on his observations and memories of life in Ukraine. The first two volumes of these stories, published in 1831-1832 under the title "Evenings on a Farm near Dykanka," brought him the fame he sought.

In the second volume, "Mirgorod," which appeared three years later, the tone of his writing turns from nostalgia imbued with a sense of the fantastic, to satire of a sort that would grow ever more bitter, although rarely less brilliant.

His most renowned satire was a masterpiece, "The Inspector General," a play that needed the approval of the emperor to be staged. It premiered in 1836. Shattered by the fact that his idea of the moral influence of true art did not have the desired effect he left Russia to live in Rome.

He concentrated on producing his epic work, "Dead Souls," but managed to finish only the first of three intended parts. The writings that did make it into print, such as "The Overcoat" (1841), were attacked, and Gogol became increasingly consumed by wrenching anguish that he was incapable of producing morally ennobling art.

To prepare himself for the task of, as he put it, "serving God and humanity," Gogol embarked first on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Returning to Russia, he came to Moscow, where he fell under the influence of a religious fanatic, the Rev. M. Konstantinovsky, who demanded that he enter a monastery and destroy his "evil" works.

Gogol burned the manuscript of the second part of "Dead Souls," refused all food, and stayed in bed until his death on March 4, 1852.

The famous writer's relation to Ukraine is a controversial issue. His indifference to the Ukrainian question as a political matter was sharply condemned by critics such as Serhiy Yefremov and even more severely by Yevhen Malaniuk.

Others focused on the importance of Ukrainian elements in his writings, allegedly the source of the rhythm and euphony of his language.

Sources: "Gogol, Nikoai," Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Vol. 2 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988); G.S.N. Luckyj, "Between Gogol" and Sevcenko, Polarity in the Literary Ukraine, 1798-1847" (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1971).

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