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Gogol was born in Sorochintsi in Ukraine, but moved to Saint Petersburg in 1828. In 1831, he met Aleksandr Pushkin, who supported him as a writer and became his friend. He later taught history at Saint Petersburg University from 1834 to 1835. He went on to write a number of short stories set in Saint Petersburg, including the Diary of a Madman, The Overcoat and The Nose (which was later turned into an opera by Dmitri Shostakovich). However, it was his play The Inspector General, produced in 1836, which first drew him to the public's attention as a writer. Its satirical tone, which it shares with much of his other work, caused some controversy, and Gogol fled to Rome. Gogol spent the rest of his life living mainly abroad. It was in this period that he wrote his novel Dead Souls, possibly his most famous work, and seen by many as the first modern Russian novel. The first part was published in 1842. In 1848, becoming increasingly religious, he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. After his return, he renounced literature in favour of religion under the influece of the priest, Father Konstantinovskii. He burnt what he had worked on of part two of Dead Souls ten days before he died on March 4, 1852 in Moscow. |
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