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Evenings on a Farm Near Dykanka
Status: Collection of Stories
- Published 1831
- Gogol’s first publication, which well imminently well-received and prefaced his fame to follow
- Based off of memories of Gogol’s childhood in Ukraine
- A collection of stories set in Dykanka, a settlement in central Ukraine
- Includes “Sorochyntsi Fair”, “The Lost Letter”, “Christmas Eve”, “A Bewitched Place”
- Heavily Influenced by the works of Alexander Pushkin
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The Nose
Status: Short Story
- Published 1836
- Major Kovalyov searched for his nose after a barber cut it off
- Challenges Russia’s obsession with social rank and image
- Based on Gogol’s own experience with an oddly-shaped nose, which was often a subject of self-deprecating jokes in his letters
- One of Gogol’s many displays of absurdist magical realism
- Major Kovalyov sends a letter to Madame Podtochina, a woman who has been pushing him to marry her daughter, and accuses her of stealing his nose
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The Government Inspector
Status: Stageplay (Comedy)
- Published 1836
- Social criticism of Russian governmental corruption
- Follows Khlestakov in a series of dream-like scenes where he falls under an endless vertigo of self-deception and image
- Khlestakov is mistaken as someone else and hobnobs with the wealthy upper class
- Ranked 15th greatest play ever written by The Telegraph
- The Telegraph emphasizes: “is not only supreme in character and dialogue – it is one of the few Russian plays constructed with unerring art from beginning to end."
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The Overcoat
Status: Short Story
- Published 1842
- Claimed “The greatest Russian short story ever written” by Vladimir Nabokov
- Later adapted into a series of stage and film interpretations
- Narrates the life and death of titular councilor Akaky Akakievich, who is often a subject of teasing in his work place
- Akakievich’s reputation is restored by a fresh and newly made overcoat
- His coat is promptly stolen, and he dies from disease, coming back as a ghost to haunt the Nevsky Prospekt and steal coats from passerbies
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Diary of a Madman
Status: Short Story
- Published 1835
- One of Gogol’s most absurd and bizarre stories
- Poprishchin slowly goes insane in the sight of his wife, all recorded in his diary
- Speaks with dogs and purchases the belief that he is the Tzar of Russia
- His relationships with the Director, the Section Chief, and Sofi contribute significantly to his descent into madness, fueled by alienation from society
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Nevsky Prospekt
Status: Short Story
- Published 1835
- Narrator describes the Nevsky Prospekt in great detail, then splits to follow two acquaintances after they spot a beautiful woman on the prospect
- Piskaryov follows a dark-haired woman who turns out to be a prostitute
- Lieutenant Pirogov follows a blonde woman, the wife of a German tinsman
- Story concludes with a narrator’s warning: “Nevsky Prospekt deceives at all hours of the day…kindling the street-lamps with one purpose only: to show everything in false light.”
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Arabesques
Status: Collection of Short Stories
- Published 1835
- Includes “The Portrait”, “A Chapter from an Historical Novel”, “Nevsky Prospekt”, “The Prisoner”, and “Diary of a Madman”
- Contains geographical chronicles, art, as well as fiction
- Includes A Few Words About Pushkin where he talks about Alexander Pushkin
- Includes Gogol’s estimation of Ukrainian folk arts in articles about Karl Bryullov’s paintings and The Last Day of Pompeii
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Mirogorod
Status: Collection of Short Stories
- Published 1835
- Includes “The Old World Landownders”, “Taras Bulba”, “Viy”, and “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich”
- Mirogorod is named after the town near Khorol river, which bakes bread with black dough
- This was the publication met with the most backlash as much was ultimately censored and Gogol was forced to add two superfluous pages to “Viy” to fill space
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Viy
Status: Novella
- Published 1835
- First and only horror novella
- Kleptomaniac theologian Khalyava, merry-making philosopher Khoma, and younger-aged rhetorician Tiberiy Gorobets are extorted by a witch
- Based on Ukranian folklore of Viy, the chief of gnomes
- Psychological interpretation of sexual fulfillment in the making of this story
- Adapted into Viy (1967)
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The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan
Nikiforovich
Status: Novella
- Published 1835
- Two Ivans are gentle landowners but complete opposites
- Ivanovich is tall, thin, and well-spoken; Nikiforovich is short, fat, and bitingly honest
- Mini farmlandly wars and quarrels, stealing, fighting, and destroying property, while maintaining a great friendship
- Adapted by BBC Radio 4 into Three Ivans, Two Aunts, and an Overcoat in March 2002
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Dead Souls
Status: Novel
- Published 1842
- Gogol’s most renowned satirical work yet
- Despite ostensibly completing the trilogy’s second part, Gogol destroyed the manuscript shortly before his death after determining it was not up to standard
- Written during a time of great emancipation and extortion for serfs
- Names of dead serfs are still registered so landowners may feign social superiority and get away with taxation; selling and buying souls
- A dark look at the cruelty occurring, where Gogol posed possible solutions, though they were mostly forgotten piled under the more poignant parts of the story
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