Secrets, riddles and pseudonyms of Gogol

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Perhaps, this is the most mysterious person in Russian literature - Nikolai Gogol. His penchant for contradictions and mysticism can be traced in all his works. Tragicomedy, as a mirror of society as a whole and of each person individually, is the writer's favorite genre. The facts of his biography also testify to his mysterious soul. Even Gogol's numerous pseudonyms tell the reader about the author's inner insecurity in himself and his work.

Early Gogol

The future writer was born in 1809 in a poor landowning family Gogol-Yanovsky in the village of Velyki Sorochintsy in the Poltava region. In his youth, being a gymnasium student at the Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences, he strongly gravitated towards acting and literature, as well as freethinking, which was fashionable at the beginning of the century. In his dreams, he saw for himself a high civil career, with these dreams he left for Petersburg, thinking of devoting himself to justice. However, the love of literature forced out all the throwing, and Nikolai Vasilievich devoted himself entirely to writing.

However, along with creativity, geniuses and doubts took root in the future, which prevented him from openly publishing his creations. Gogol's pseudonyms appeared on the title pages of his books for many years to come. At the age of twenty, he published his first book, the idyllic novel "Hanz Kühelgarten", 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 print run and burned it, although no one would have exposed him under an assumed name. But all Gogol's pseudonyms were yet to come.

New creative hoaxes

Really 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 hides from fame, he hinted at his personality in pseudonyms: “ore” means “red”, according to the color of Gogol’s hair, and Panko is the name his grandfather Panas (Athanasius). "Evenings" brought him fame, the whole of St. Petersburg learned about the young Little Russian author. But he continued to write and publish under his own name. Gogol's pseudonyms followed one after another: G. Yanov, P. Glechik, OOOO, etc. And so it was until V. Belinsky openly reproached him in the press: why is he hiding so much, and what is he so afraid of? The writer realized that there was no point in hiding further, and this was the end of Gogol's pseudonyms, and his main books were already published under his last name: the plays "The Government Inspector", "Marriage", the poem "Dead Souls", Petersburg stories "Nevsky Prospekt", "The Nose”, “Overcoat”, “Notes of a Madman”.

"Mysterious Carlo" - another pseudonym for the young Gogol?

No, it was not a pseudonym, but a nickname given to him by his schoolmates for his secretive nature. Secrecy, mystery, fear of God and a penchant for mysticism inherited from his parents. Belief in prophecy and evil spirits are reflected in Gogol's works "Viy", "May Night, or the Drowned Woman". Obviously, these phobias became the source of his growing depression. Internal dissatisfaction with his work accompanied the writer until the end of his life. Even being already a well-known writer, recognized and treated kindly by Pushkin himself, Zhukovsky, Belinsky and other literary geniuses, Gogol was tormented by doubts, which affected his state of mind. In 1852, shortly before his death, experiencing a severe mental crisis, the writer burned the second volume of Dead Souls. Meaning the color of the morning dawn and great hopes, the early Gogol's pseudonym Alov would hardly correspond to the late Gogol, who realized the depressing loneliness and tragedy of a person's stay in this vast crowded world.

In recent years, he was terribly afraid of death, not so much death as the prospect of being buried alive. He asked his friends to be especially attentive after his death. On February 21, 1852, a rumor swept through Moscow: Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol had died. Three days later he was buried, and other rumors spread around the capital: Gogol was nevertheless buried alive. Even after the writer left, there were many mystical stories around his name…