Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol was a Russian writer of Ukrainian descent, a classic of 19th-century Russian literature. A novelist, playwright, critic, and publicist, his works are among the golden treasures of world literature.

Biography

He was born on March 20 (April 1, new style), 1809, in the village of Sorochintsy, Poltava Governorate (in what is now Ukraine), to the family of landowner Vasily Afanasyevich Gogol-Yanovsky. The family traced its lineage to an ancient Cossack clan.

Gogol spent his childhood on the family estate of Vasilyevka in the Mirgorod district. The places where he grew up were later immortalized in his collections of stories, Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka and Mirgorod.

At the age of 10, Gogol was sent to Poltava for an education: he studied science at a school and then with a local teacher. From 1821 to 1828, he attended the Grammar School of Higher Sciences in Nizhyn. During this period, his artistic talent emerged: in addition to his early attempts at prose and poetry, he drew and performed in plays.

In 1828, Gogol moved to St. Petersburg, where he tried to build a career as an official, but soon devoted himself entirely to literature.
NPS

Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky (poet, mentor)

Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin (poet)

Maria Ivanovna Gogol (writer's mother)

Vissarion Belinsky (critic)

Faddeus Bulgarin (journalist)

Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin (publisher)

Servant Osip (prototype of the servant from "The Government Inspector")

Young admirer (socialite)

Priest (spiritual mentor)

Bookseller (literary dealer)