Among the geniuses of Russian literature there are those whose names are associated with all other readers with something otherworldly and inexplicable, awe-inspiring ordinary people. These writers undoubtedly include N.V. Gogol, whose life story is undoubtedly intriguing. This is a unique person; mankind inherited from him an invaluable gift of works, where he appears either as a subtle satirist, revealing the ulcers of modernity, or as a mystic, forcing goosebumps to run on his skin. Gogol is a mystery of Russian literature, which is not completely solved by anyone. The mysticism of Gogol continues to intrigue his readers at present.
A lot of the mysterious is connected both with the work and with the life of the great writer. Our contemporaries, philologists and historians, trying to give answers to numerous questions related to his fate, can only guess about how things really were and build numerous theories.
Gogol: a life story
The emergence of the family of Nikolai Vasilyevich was preceded by a rather interesting story. It is known that his father, as a boy, had a dream in which the Mother of God showed him his name. After some time, he recognized in the neighbor's daughter the features of the bride intended for him. The girl at that time was only seven months old. Thirteen years later, Vasily Afanasevich proposed to the girl, and the wedding took place.
Many misunderstandings and rumors are associated with the date of birth of Gogol. The exact date became known to the general public only after the funeral of the writer.
His father was an indecisive and rather suspicious, but undoubtedly gifted person. He tried his hand at writing poems, comedies, took part in staging home performances.
Mother of Nikolai Vasilievich, Maria Ivanovna, was a deeply religious person, but she was interested in various predictions and signs. She managed to instill in her son God-fearing and belief in forebodings. This affected the child, and he grew up, from childhood experiencing interest in everything mysterious and inexplicable. These hobbies fully embodied in his work. Perhaps that is why many superstitious scholars of the writerās life had doubts about whether Gogolās mother was a witch.
Thus, having absorbed the features of both his parents, Gogol was a quiet and pensive child with an indefatigable passion for all the otherworldly and rich imagination, which sometimes played evil jokes with him.
The story of a black cat
So, the case of a black cat is known, which shocked him to the core. Parents left him at home alone, the boy went about his business and suddenly noticed a black cat that was sneaking up on him. An inexplicable horror attacked him, but he overcame his fear, grabbed it and threw it into the pond. After that, he did not leave the feeling that this cat was a converted person. This story was embodied in the novel "May Night, or the Drowned Woman", where the witch had the gift of transforming into a black cat and doing evil in such a guise.
The Burning of Hans KĆ¼chelgarten
While studying at the gymnasium, Gogol simply raved about Petersburg, he dreamed of living in this city and doing great things for the benefit of mankind. But the move to St. Petersburg did not live up to his expectations. The city was gray, dull and cruel to the bureaucratic class. Nikolai Vasilievich creates the poem āHans KĆ¼chelgartenā, but publishes it under the pseudonym. The poem is crushed by critics, and the writer, unable to bear this disappointment, redeems the entire circulation of the book and puts it on fire.
Mystical "Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka"
After the first failure, Gogol turns to a subject close to him. He decides to create a cycle of stories about his native Ukraine. Petersburg puts pressure on him; his mental state is aggravated by poverty, which, it seems, has no end. Nikolai writes letters to his mother in which he asks her to tell in detail about the beliefs and customs of Ukrainians, some lines of these messages are blurred by his tears. He sets to work after receiving information from his mother. The result of long work was the cycle āEvenings on a Farm near Dikankaā. This work simply breathes mysticism of Gogol, in most stories of this cycle people are faced with evil spirits. It is surprising how colorful and lively the author's description of various evil spirits turned out, mysticism and otherworldly forces rule their ball here. Everything down to the smallest detail makes the reader feel involved in what is happening on the pages. This collection brings popularity to Gogol, the mysticism in the works attracts readers.
"Viy"
One of Gogolās most famous works is the novel āViy,ā which was included in the collection Mirgorod, published by Gogol in 1835. The works included in it were enthusiastically accepted by critics. As a basis for the novel āViyā Gogol takes old folk traditions about the terrifying and powerful leader of evil spirits. It is surprising that the researchers of his work so far have not been able to find a single legend similar to the plot of āWiiā by Gogol. The plot of the story is simple. Three Bursaks go to work part-time as a tutor, but, having lost their way, they ask for an old woman's billets. She reluctantly lets them in. At night, she sneaks up to one of the guys, Homa Brut, and, having saddled him, begins to rise with him into the air. Homa begins to pray, and it helps. The witch is weakening, and the hero begins to beat her with logs, but suddenly he notices that before him is no longer an old woman, but a young and beautiful girl. He, overcome by inexpressible horror, escapes to Kiev. But the witch's hands reach out there. They come for Homa to take him to the funeral of the deceased daughter of the centurion. It turns out that this is the witch that he killed. And now the bursak should spend three nights in the temple in front of her coffin, reading the waste.
The first night made Brutus turn gray as the little girl got up and tried to catch him, but he outlined himself around, and she did not succeed. A witch flew around him in his coffin. On the second night, the guy tried to escape, but he was caught and brought back to the temple. This night has become fatal. Pannochka called for help all evil spirits and demanded to bring Wii. When the philosopher saw the lord of the dwarves, he flinched in horror. And after Viyās eyelids were lifted by his servants, he saw Homa and pointed him to ghouls and ghouls, the unfortunate Homa Brutus died on the spot from fear.
In this story, Gogol depicted the clash of religion and evil spirits, but, unlike the āEvenings,ā demonic forces won here.
Based on this story, the film of the same name was shot. He is tacitly assigned to the list of so-called ādamnedā films. The mysticism of Gogol and his works carried away many people who took part in the creation of this film.
Loneliness of Gogol
Despite his great popularity, Nikolai Vasilievich was not happy in heart affairs. He never found a life partner. There were periodic falls in love, which rarely escalated into something serious. Rumor had it that he once asked for the hands of Countess Villiegorska. But he was denied because of social inequality.
Gogol decided that his whole life would be devoted to literature, and his romantic hobbies eventually faded away.
Genius or crazy?
1839 Gogol spends traveling. During a visit to Rome, a disaster happened to him, he caught a serious illness, which was called "swamp fever." The disease was very difficult and threatened the writer with death. He managed to survive, but the disease affected his brain. The consequence of this was mental and physical upset. Frequent fainting, voices and visions that visited Nikolai Vasilievichās inflamed encephalitis tormented him. He sought somewhere to find solace for his troubled soul. Gogol wanted a true blessing. In 1841, his dream came true, there was a meeting with the preacher Innocent, about which he had long dreamed. The preacher presented Gogol with the image of the Savior and blessed him on a trip to Jerusalem. But the trip did not bring him the desired reassurance. Deterioration of health is progressing, creative inspiration is exhausting itself. The work is given to the writer more and more difficult. Increasingly, he says that evil spirits affect him. Mysticism in the life of Gogol has always taken its place.
The death of a close friend, E. M. Khomyakova, knocked down the writer completely. He sees this as a terrible omen for himself. It increasingly seems to Gogol that his death is near, and he is very afraid of her. His condition is aggravated by the priest Matvey Konstantinovsky, who scares Nikolai Vasilyevich with terrible afterlife. He blames him for his creativity and lifestyle, bringing the already shaken psyche to failure.
The phobia of the writer is incredibly aggravated. It is known that more than anything in the world he was afraid to fall into a lethargic dream and be buried alive. To avoid this, in his will he asked to be buried only after all signs of death become obvious and decay begins. He was so afraid of this that he slept exclusively sitting in armchairs. Fear of mysterious death constantly haunted him.
Death is like a dream
On the night of February 11-12, an event occurred that still worries the minds of many Gogol biographers. Visiting Count A. Tolstoy, Nikolai Vasilievich felt extremely anxious that night. He did not find a place for himself. And so, as if deciding on something, he took out a pack of sheets from his briefcase and threw it into the fire. According to some versions, this was the second volume of Dead Souls, but it is also believed that the manuscript survived and other papers were burnt. From that moment on, Gogolās illness progressed with inexorable speed. More and more often he was haunted by visions and voices, he refused food. Doctors called by his friends tried to treat him, but it was all in vain.
Gogol left this world on February 21, 1852. The doctor Tarasenkov ascertained the death of Nikolai Vasilievich. He was only 43 years old. What age Gogol died was a great shock to his family and friends. Russian culture has lost a great man. There was some mysticism in the death of Gogol, in her suddenness and swiftness.
The writerās funeral took place with a huge crowd of people in the cemetery of St. Danilov Monastery, a massive tombstone was erected from a single piece of black granite. I would like to think that he found eternal peace there, but fate decreed completely differently.
The posthumous "life" and mystic Gogol
Holy Danilovskoe cemetery did not become the last resting place of N.V. Gogol. 79 years after his burial, a decision was made to liquidate the monastery and place a receiver for street children on its territory. On the path of the rapidly developing Soviet Moscow stood the grave of the great writer. It was decided to rebuild Gogol at the Novodevichy cemetery. But everything happened completely in the spirit of Gogol's mysticism.
An entire commission was invited to conduct the exhumation, by which a corresponding act was drawn up. It is strange that practically no details were indicated in it, only information that the writerās body was removed from the grave on May 31, 1931. There was no information about the position of the body and the conclusion of a medical examination.
But the oddities don't end there. When they began to dig, it turned out that the grave was much deeper than usual, and the coffin was placed in a brick crypt. The remains of the writer removed when dusk came. And here the spirit of Gogol played a peculiar joke on the participants of this event. The exhumation was attended by about 30 people, including eminent writers of that time. As it turned out later, the memories of most of them were very contradictory to each other.
Some claimed that there were no remains in the grave, it was empty. Others claimed that the writer was lying on his side with outstretched arms, which testified in favor of the version of the lethargic dream. But most of those present claimed that the body lay in its usual position, but the head was missing.
Such different testimonies and the figure of Gogol herself, which has fantastic fantasies, gave rise to many rumors about Gogol's mysterious death, the scratched cover of the coffin.
What happened next can hardly be called exhumation. It was more like the blasphemous looting of the grave of the great writer. Those present decided to take āsouvenirs from Gogolā as a souvenir. Someone took a rib, someone a piece of foil from the coffin, and the director of the cemetery Arakcheev pulled off his boots. This sacrilege did not go unpunished. All participants cruelly paid for their actions. Almost each of them for a short time joined the writer, leaving the world of living people. Arakcheeva was haunted by terrible dreams, in which Gogol appeared to him and demanded to give his boots. Being on the verge of insanity, the unfortunate director of the cemetery listened to the advice of an old grandmother and a burial ground and buried his boots near the new grave of Gogol. After this, the visions ceased, but a clear consciousness never returned to him.
The riddle of the missing skull
Interesting mystical facts about Gogol include the unsolved mystery of his missing head. There is a version that it was stolen for a famous collector of rarities and unique things, A. Bakhrushin. This happened during the restoration of the grave, dedicated to the centenary of the writer.
This man collected the most unusual and creepy collection. There is a theory that he carried a stolen skull with him in a case with medical instruments. Later, the government of the Soviet Union in the person of Lenin V.I. invited Bakhrushin to open his own museum. This place still exists and has thousands of the most unusual exhibits. Among them, there are also three skulls. But it is not known for certain to whom they belonged.
The circumstances of the death of Gogol, the scratched lid of the coffin, the stolen skull - all this gave a huge impetus to human imagination and fantasy. So, an incredible version appeared about the skull of Nikolai Vasilievich and the mysterious express. It suggests that after Bakhrushin the skull fell into the hands of Gogolās grand-nephew, who decided to hand it over to the Russian consul in Italy so that part of Gogol rested in the land of his second Motherland. But the skull fell into the hands of a young man, the son of a sea captain. He decided to scare and amuse his friends and took the skull with him on a train trip. After the express train on which the young people rode into the tunnel, he disappeared, no one could explain where the huge train with passengers disappeared. And there are still rumors that sometimes different people in different parts of the world see this ghost train that carries Gogol's skull across the borders of the worlds. The version is fantastic, but has the right to exist.
Nikolai Vasilievich was a man of genius. As a writer, he completely took place, but as a person he did not find his own happiness. Even a small circle of close friends could not unravel his soul and penetrate thoughts. It so happened that Gogolās life story wasnāt too joyful; it was filled with loneliness and fears.
He left his mark, one of the most striking in the history of world literature. Such talents appear very rarely. Mysticism in the life of Gogol was a peculiar sister of his talent. But, unfortunately, the great writer left us, his descendants, more questions than answers. Reading the most famous works of Gogol, everyone finds something important for himself. He, as a good teacher, continues to teach us his lessons through the ages.