Perhaps this is the most mysterious person in Russian literature - Nikolai Gogol. His tendency to contradictions and mysticism can be traced in all works. Tragicomedy as a mirror of society as a whole and of each person individually is the writer's favorite genre. About his mysterious soul evidence of biography. Even the numerous pseudonyms of Gogol tell the reader about the author’s inner insecurity in himself and his work.
Early gogol
The future writer was born in 1809 in the poor Gogol-Yanovsky landowner family in the village of Bolshoi Sorochintsy in the Poltava region. In his youth, being a gymnasium student of the Nezhin Gymnasium of Higher Sciences, he was heavily attracted to acting and literature, as well as freethinking, fashionable at the beginning of the century. In his dreams, he saw for himself a high civilian field, with these dreams he left for St. Petersburg, thinking of devoting himself to justice. However, the love of literature supplanted all throwing, and Nikolai Vasilyevich devoted himself entirely to writing.
However, along with creativity, geniuses and doubts rooted in the future, which prevented him from openly publishing his creations. Gogol's pseudonyms for many years appeared on the front pages of his books. At the age of twenty, he published the first book, the idyllic novel "Ganz Küchelgarten", under the name of the author V. Alov. The publication was not successful, the criticism in literary magazines was murderous, and Gogol bought up the entire circulation and burned it, although no one would have exposed him under an assumed name. But all the pseudonyms of Gogol were still to come.
New creative hoaxes
The truly mature works of the writer originate from "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka." The narration was conducted on behalf of a farm beekeeper named Rudy Panko.
No matter how the author hid from fame, he hinted at his personality in pseudonyms: “ore” means “red”, by the color of the hair of Gogol himself, and Panko is the name of his grandfather Panas (Athanasius). "Evenings" brought him fame, the whole Petersburg learned about the young Little Russian author. But he continued to write and print not under his own name. Gogol’s pseudonyms followed one after another: G. Yanov, P. Glechik, OOOO and others. And this was so until V. Belinsky openly reproached him: why was he hiding so much and why so afraid? The writer understood that there was no point in hiding further, and Gogol’s pseudonyms ended on this, and his main books were already published under his last name: the plays The Inspector General, The Marriage, the poem Dead Souls, St. Petersburg novels Nevsky Prospect, Nose "," Overcoat "," Notes of a Madman. "
"Mysterious Carlo" - another pseudonym for young Gogol?
No, it was not a pseudonym, but a nickname given to him by fellow gymnasium for a secretive nature. Secrecy, mystery, fear of God and a tendency to mysticism inherited from his parents. Belief in prophecies and evil spirits were reflected in Gogol’s works “Viy”, “May Night, or the Drowned Woman”.
Obviously, these phobias became the source of his ever-growing depression. Internal dissatisfaction with his work accompanied the writer to the end of his life. Even as a well-known writer, recognized and treated kindly by Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Belinsky and other literary geniuses, Gogol was tormented by doubts that affected his state of mind. In 1852, shortly before his death, experiencing a grave mental crisis, the writer burned the second volume of Dead Souls. The pseudonym of early Gogol Alov, which signified the color of the morning dawn and high hopes, would hardly correspond to the late Gogol, who realized the depressing loneliness and tragedy of a person's presence in this huge crowded world.
In recent years, he has been panicky afraid of death, not so much death, as the prospect of being buried alive. He asked his friends to be especially careful after his death. February 21, 1852 a rumor swept through Moscow: Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol died. Three days later, he was buried, and other rumors spread around the capital: Gogol was nevertheless buried alive. Even after the writer left, many mystical stories circulated around his name ...