Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (; ; ) (March 31, 1809 – March 4, 1852) was a Ukrainian-born Russian language writer. Although his early works were heavily influenced by his Ukrainian upbringing and identity, he wrote in Russian and his works belong to the tradition of Russian literature; often called the "father of modern Russian realism," he was one of the first Imperial Russian authors to criticize Russia's way of life. The novels Taras Bul'ba (1835; 1842 [revised edition]), Dead Souls (1842), the play The Inspector-General (1836, 1842), and the short story The Overcoat (1842) are among his masterpieces. Gogol was born in the Ukrainian Cossack village of Sorochyntsi, in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire. (The village is now in Ukraine.) His father was Vasily Gogol-Yanovsky, a small squire and an amateur Ukrainian playwright who died when the boy was 15 years old. Some of his ancestors culturally associated themselves with Polish szlachta. In 1820 Gogol went to a school of... full article at wikipedia