Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852) was born in the Ukrainian town of Sorochyntsi in the Russian Empire. His father was a landowner and amateur writer, while his mother was deeply religious. His talent was evident while he was still at school. In 1828, he moved to Saint Petersburg, where he worked in various departments in the civil service. His Romantic poem Hans Küchelgarten was poorly received, causing him to buy up all the available copies and burn them. In 1831, he met Alexander Pushkin, whose friendship had a profound effect on him. He became a teacher and was then appointed to the University of Saint Petersburg as a professor of History, a position from which he resigned two years later to devote himself to his writing. His work is characterised by the transformation of familiar motifs and characters from comedy and their integration into his own unique universe. He held up a magnifying glass to everyday life, using sarcasm but also compassion to reveal the absurdity at the core of human existence and society. He brought to light a humble reality, figures who were not precisely good or bad, but who reflected the passions of real human beings. He is also considered to have introduced critical realism into Russian literature.
The controversy stirred by the staging of The Government Inspector, which cast a caustically penetrating eye on the ills of Russian society, led him to move to Western Europe for twelve years, settling in Rome. Towards the end of his life, he turned to religion and political conservatism, becoming an apologist for absolute monarchy and serfdom, as a result of which he faced rejection by old friends and associates. In 1851, he moved to Moscow, where he starved himself to death at the age of just forty-three, having burnt unpublished extracts from the second part of Dead souls.

 

A short list of his plays:
Marriage, Diary of a madman, The gamblers, The government inspector.

 

 

I’ve never been so hungry in my life. Shall I try to raise something on my clothes? Shall I sell my trousers? No, I’d rather starve than come home without a St. Petersburg suit. (The government inspector)

Let my own father sit down at a game with me –I’d skin him the same as any stranger. Who tells him to play? At the card table all are equal. (The gamblers)