Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was a Russian novelist, short story writer and playwright of Ukrainian origin. Gogol was one of the first to use the techniques of surrealism and the grotesque in his works. According to Viktor Shklovsky, Gogol's strange style of writing resembles the "ostranenie" technique

Cossack Tales

Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

At the Cossack community The Cossack chief Yavtukh (nicknamed Kovtun) explains that his daughter expired before she finished revealing how she knew Khoma; at any rate he swears horrible vengeance upon her killer. Khoma turns sympathetic, and swears t...

The Inspector-General

Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

The corrupt officials of a small Russian town, headed by the Mayor, react with panic to the news that an incognito inspector (the incognito one) will soon be arriving in their town to investigate them. The flurry of activity to cover up their conside...

Taras Bulba and Other Tales

Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

Taras Bulba's two sons, Ostap and Andriy, return home from an Orthodox seminary in Kyiv. Ostap is the more adventurous, whereas Andriy has deeply romantic feelings of an introvert. While in Kyiv, he fell in love with a young Polish noble girl, the da...

The Mantle and Other Stories

Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

The story narrates the life and death of titular councillor Akaky Akakievich Bashmachkin (Russian: Акакий Акакиевич Башмачкин), an impoverished government clerk and copyist in the Russian capital of St. Petersburg. Although Akaky is dedicated to his...

Dead Souls

Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol

The government would tax the landowners based on how many serfs (or "souls") the landowner owned, determined by the census. Censuses in this period were infrequent, so landowners would often be paying taxes on serfs that were no longer living, thus t...