Born on March 20 (April 1), 1809 in the village of Sorochintsy, Poltava province, in the family of a landowner. Gogol was the third child, and in total there were 12 children in the family.

Training in the biography of Gogol took place at the Poltava School. Then in 1821 he entered the class of the Nizhyn gymnasium, where he studied justice. IN school years the writer did not have any special academic abilities. He was only good at drawing lessons and studying Russian literature. He was only able to write mediocre works.

The beginning of a literary journey

In 1828, Gogol’s life took place when he moved to St. Petersburg. There he served as an official, tried to get a job as an actor in the theater and studied literature. His acting career was not going well, and his service did not bring Gogol any pleasure, and at times even became a burden. And the writer decided to prove himself in the literary field.

In 1831, Gogol met representatives literary circles Zhukovsky and Pushkin, undoubtedly these acquaintances greatly influenced his future fate and literary activity.

Gogol and theater

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol showed interest in theater in his youth, after the death of his father, a wonderful playwright and storyteller.

Realizing the power of the theater, Gogol took up drama. Gogol's work "The Inspector General" was written in 1835, and first staged in 1836. Due to the negative reaction of the public to the production of "The Inspector General", the writer leaves the country.

Last years of life

In 1836, the biography of Nikolai Gogol included trips to Switzerland, Germany, Italy, as well as a short stay in Paris. Then, from March 1837, work continued on the first volume in Rome greatest work Gogol " Dead Souls", which was conceived by the author back in St. Petersburg. After returning home from Rome, the writer publishes the first volume of the poem. While working on the second volume, Gogol experienced a spiritual crisis. Even a trip to Jerusalem did not help improve the situation.

At the beginning of 1843 it was first printed famous story Gogol's "The Overcoat".

What really happened

In January 1852, Gogol’s close friend, Ekaterina Mikhailovna Khomyakova, died in Moscow. This death, caused by a serious illness, struck the writer so much that when he came to the funeral service, all he could say, looking into the face of the deceased, was: “It’s all over for me...”.

Immediately after this shock, Gogol fell into severe depression and began to conduct sleepless nights for prayers, refused food and, without saying a word, just lay on his bed for days, not even bothering to take off his boots.

Modern researchers are inclined to argue that Gogol suffered from a severe form of bipolar affective disorder, or, as it is also called, manic-depressive psychosis. This disease consists of alternating two opposite phases of mood. Manic periods are accompanied by a highly elevated mood and irrepressible energy. But with the onset of the depressive phase, Gogol went to the opposite extreme - he lost the motivation to do anything, suffered from thoughts that tormented him until his appetite completely disappeared.

IN mid-19th century, this disease had not yet been described by anyone, so doctors of that time did not connect the writer’s behavior with mental illness, preferring to look for the cause in physical illness. As a result, when Gogol’s condition became extremely serious by February, a assembled council of the best doctors in Moscow treated him for anything but exhaustion due to mental anguish.

When the patient's condition became worse than ever, the doctors gave him another incorrect diagnosis - meningitis, after which they began to forcibly treat the patient. The writer had his nose bleed, had leeches placed on his face, and was doused with cold water, although Gogol himself resisted the procedures as best he could. But with their joint efforts, holding his arms and legs, the doctors continued to treat him for a non-existent illness.

Against the backdrop of extreme exhaustion of the body and poor health of Gogol since childhood, such procedures worsened his condition so much that he eventually could not stand it. On the night of February 20-21, old style, Gogol died. From that very day, all sorts of speculation began on the topic of the death of a genius, the cause of which was, for the most part, himself.

What did they talk about after?

In 1839, Gogol, while in Italy, suffered from encephalitis, after which he began to experience prolonged fainting, turning into lethargic sleep. Being in such a state, Gogol could show virtually no visible to an ordinary person signs of life - his pulse and breathing were barely noticeable, and there was no way to wake up the sleeping man. These circumstances gave rise to a fairly common mental illness in Gogol - taphophobia, or the fear of being buried alive.

History knows several examples when people who were plunged into lethargic sleep were mistakenly declared dead and buried. This prospect frightened the writer so much that for 10 years he could not bring himself to sleep in bed. Gogol spent the night on armchairs and couches, being in a sitting and semi-sitting position.

In his will, Gogol specifically asked not to bury him until there were obvious signs of decomposition of the body. This writer’s will was never fulfilled - precisely because this fact Stories have become popular that Gogol was buried alive.

This version became widely discussed only in the second half of the 20th century and is connected with the fact of the writer’s reburial in 1931. Then the Soviet government wanted to convert the Danilovsky Monastery, where the writer’s grave was located, into a children’s boarding school. It was decided to rebury Gogol at the Novodevichy cemetery.

The ceremony of exhumation of the body was attended by several significant writers of that time, including Vladimir Lidin. It was he who later said that after the opening of the coffin, everyone saw Gogol’s head lying turned on its side. At the same time, the inner lining of the coffin was allegedly torn to shreds, which could testify in favor of the version of burial alive. But modern researchers do not take this version too seriously. And there are several weighty arguments for this.

Firstly, the same Lidin told some acquaintances a completely different version - supposedly Gogol’s skull was not in the coffin at all, since it had previously been dug up by the famous Moscow collector Alexei Bakhrushin. This rumor also became very popular, although no one could be found to confirm it.

The second argument suggests that in the 80 years that have passed since the writer’s funeral, the lining of the coffin should have completely decayed. And if his head nevertheless turned out to be turned on its side, then there is a simpler explanation for this - due to subsidence of the soil, the lid of the coffin lowers over time and begins to put pressure on the head, since it is located higher than the rest of the body. Changes in the position of the head of the deceased, discovered after the exhumation of graves, are a fairly common phenomenon.

And finally, thirdly, even despite the erroneous diagnosis, there is no doubt about the professionalism of the doctors who treated Gogol. These were truly some of the best doctors in Russian Empire. And the likelihood that all of them could incorrectly record the death of a person was extremely small, even if he fell into a very deep lethargic sleep. Many people knew about this feature of the writer’s body and they simply could not help but check him.
In addition, the morning after his death, Gogol’s face was removed death mask. This procedure is accompanied by the application of very hot material to the face and, if Gogol were alive, his body could not help but react to such an irritant. Which, of course, didn't happen. That is why, despite the writer’s will, the decision to bury him was made almost immediately.

But, despite all rational arguments, you can be sure that rumors about mysterious death geniuses will not disappear anywhere. And it’s not just about society’s need for this kind of speculation. No matter how paradoxical it may sound, Nikolai Gogol, in part, himself became the author of rumors about his mysterious death. And it will be discussed as long as the classic himself is remembered.

"Wonders and Adventures" 11/95

GOGOL DIDN'T STARVE HIMSELF, DIDN'T GO CRAZY, AND DIDN'T DIED FROM MENINGITIS.

HE WAS POISONED BY DOCTORS!

Konstantin SMIRNOV

The work of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol (1808-1852) has long been recognized as a classic, and in the opinion of his descendants he has long been rooted as the greatest Russian writer. But there is no unanimity when it comes to assessing him as a person. In the memoirs of his contemporaries, he is often characterized as a secretive, mysterious, crafty person, prone to hoaxes and deceptions. And this was said not only by enemies or casual acquaintances, but even by true admirers of his talent, friends who more than once helped the writer out of life’s difficulties. When Gogol once asked Pletnev to openly express his opinion about him as a person, this oldest and most helpful friend of his wrote: “A secretive creature, selfish, arrogant, distrustful and sacrificing everything for glory...”

And Gogol, who lived and breathed only by his writing and artistic inspiration, who doomed himself to poverty and homelessness and limited all his wealth to “the tiniest suitcase” with four changes of linen, was forced to listen to all this and turn to these same people for services and even for financial help.

What prompted Gogol to endure these impartial assessments from his friends? What made him beg his friends for trust, to assure them of his sincerity?

He was forced to do this by the great goal he had set for himself: the completion of the second volume “ Dead souls", the main work of his life, which he decided to carry out according to the ideal discovered as a result of his religious quest. Labor into which he decided to invest the whole truth about Russia, all his love for it, all the wealth of his soul.

“My work is great,” he told his friends more than once, “my feat is saving!”

With even greater amazement and distrust, every unbiased researcher should approach those widespread guesses and generally accepted opinions that now explain the reasons that prompted Nikolai Vasilyevich to burn the manuscript of his great work a few days before his death...

DRAMA IN A HOUSE ON NIKITSKY BOULEVARD

Gogol spent the last four years of his life in Moscow in a house on Nikitsky Boulevard. This house has survived to this day; Two rooms on the first floor, which were occupied by Nikolai Vasilyevich, have also been preserved; the fireplace in which the writer, according to legend, burned the manuscript of the second volume of “Dead Souls” has been preserved, although in a modified form...

Gogol met the owners of the house - Count Alexander Petrovich and Countess Anna Georgievna Tolstoy in the late 30s, the acquaintance grew into a close friendship, and the count and his wife did everything to ensure that the writer lived freely and comfortably in their house. “Here Gogol was looked after like a child,” recalled one contemporary. “He didn’t care about anything at all. Lunch, breakfast, tea, dinner were served wherever he ordered. His linen was washed and put in chests of drawers by invisible spirits... In addition to the numerous servants of the house, he was served in his rooms by his own man from Little Russia named Semyon, a very young guy, meek and extremely devoted to his master. The silence in the outbuilding was extraordinary. Gogol either walked around the room from corner to corner, or sat and wrote, rolling balls from white bread, about which I told my friends that they help solve the most complex and difficult problems.” It was in this house on Nikitsky Boulevard that Gogol’s final drama took place.

On January 26, 1852, the wife of Gogol’s friend, the famous Slavophile Khomyakov, unexpectedly died. The death of Ekaterina Mikhailovna, whom Gogol loved very much and considered the most worthy of the women he met in his life, shocked the writer. “The fear of death came over me,” he told his confessor. And from that moment on, literally every day began to bring Gogol closer to death.

On Wednesday, January 30, after the memorial service he ordered for Ekaterina Mikhailovna in the Church of Simeon the Stylite on Povarskaya, he went to the Aksakovs, where he among other things said that after the memorial service he felt better, but he was afraid of the moment of death. On February 1 and 3, he again visited the Aksakovs and complained of fatigue from reading the proofs of his collected works that were being prepared for publication. And already on Monday, February 4, he was overcome by a breakdown: he told S. Shevyrev, who came to see him, that he now had no time for proofreading, because he was not feeling well and decided to fast and speak. The next day, February 5, to the same Shevyrev, Gogol complained of “an upset stomach and the too strong effect of the medicine that was given to him.”

In the evening of that day, he accompanied the then famous preacher, Archpriest Matthew Konstantinovsky, to the station, who severely reproached the writer for his sinfulness and demanded that he strictly observe fasting. The stern sermon had an effect: Nikolai Vasilyevich quit literary work, began to eat little, although he did not lose his appetite and suffered from food deprivation, prayed at night, and began to sleep little.

On the night from Friday to Saturday (February 8-9), after another vigil, he, exhausted, dozed off on the sofa and suddenly saw himself dead and heard some mysterious voices. The next morning he called the parish priest, wanting to perform unction, but he persuaded him to wait.

On Monday, February 11, Gogol became so exhausted that he could not walk and went to bed. He received friends who came to see him reluctantly, spoke little and dozed off. But I still found the strength to defend the service in Count Tolstoy’s home church. At 3 o'clock in the morning from February 11 to 12, after fervent prayer, he called Semyon to him, ordered him to go up to the second floor, open the stove valves and bring a briefcase from the closet. Taking a bunch of notebooks out of it, Gogol put them in the fireplace and lit them with a candle. Semyon begged him on his knees not to burn the manuscripts, but the writer stopped him: “It’s none of your business! Pray!” Sitting on a chair in front of the fire, he waited until everything burned down, stood up, crossed himself, kissed Semyon, returned to his room, lay down on the sofa and cried.

“That's what I did! - he said to Tolstoy the next morning, - I wanted to burn some things that had been prepared for a long time, but I burned everything. How strong the evil one is - this is what he has brought me to! And I understood and presented a lot of useful things there... I thought I would send out a notebook to my friends as a souvenir: let them do what they wanted. Now everything is gone."

AGONY

Stunned by what had happened, the count hastened to call the famous Moscow doctor F. Inozemtsev to Gogol, who at first suspected the writer of typhus, but then abandoned his diagnosis and advised the patient to simply lie down. But the doctor’s equanimity did not reassure Tolstoy, and he asked his good friend, psychopathologist A. Tarasenkov, to come. However, Gogol did not want to accept Tarasenkov, who arrived on Wednesday 13 February. “You have to leave me,” he said to the count, “I know that I have to die”...

A day later it became known that Inozemtsev himself fell ill, and on Saturday, February 16, Tolstoy, extremely alarmed by Gogol’s condition, persuaded the writer to accept Tarasenkov. “When I saw him, I was horrified,” the doctor recalled. “Not even a month had passed since I had dinner with him; he seemed to me a man of flourishing health, vigorous, strong, fresh, but now before me was a man as if exhausted to the extreme by consumption or brought by some prolonged exhaustion to extraordinary exhaustion. He seemed dead to me at first sight.” Tarasenkov convinced Gogol to start eating normally in order to regain strength, but the patient was indifferent to his admonitions. At the insistence of the doctors, Tolstoy asked Metropolitan Philaret to influence Gogol and strengthen his confidence in the doctors. But nothing had any effect on Gogol; to all persuasion he quietly and meekly answered: “Leave me alone; I feel good." He stopped taking care of himself, didn’t wash, didn’t comb his hair, didn’t dress. He ate crumbs - bread, prosphora, gruel, prunes. I drank water with red wine and linden tea.

On Monday, February 17, he went to bed in a robe and boots and never got up again. In bed, he began the sacraments of repentance, communion and blessing of oil, listened to all the gospels in full consciousness, holding a candle in his hands and crying. “If God wills me to live longer, I will live,” he said to his friends who urged him to undergo treatment. On this day, he was examined by the doctor A. Over, invited by Tolstoy. He did not give any advice, moving the conversation to the next day.

In Moscow they had already heard about Gogol’s illness, so the next day, February 19, when Tarasenkov arrived at the house on Nikitsky Boulevard, the entire front room was filled with a crowd of Gogol’s admirers, standing silently with mournful faces. “Gogol was lying on a wide sofa, in a dressing gown, in boots, turned to the wall, on his side, with his eyes closed,” recalled Tarasenkov. “In front of his face is the image of the Mother of God; in the hands of a rosary; near him there is a boy and another servant. He didn't answer my quiet question... I took his hand to feel his pulse. He said: “Don't touch me, please!”

Soon M. Pogodin brought Doctor Alfonsky, who suggested resorting to the services of a “magnetizer”, and in the evening Doctor Sokologorsky, known for his psychic abilities. But as soon as he, placing his hands on the patient’s head, began to make passes, Gogol jerked his body and said irritably: “Leave me alone!” At this point the session ended, and Doctor Klimenkov appeared on stage, striking those present with his rudeness and insolence. He shouted his questions to Gogol, as if there was a deaf or unconscious person in front of him, trying to forcibly feel his pulse. "Leave me alone!" - Gogol told him and turned away.

Klimenkov insisted on active treatment: bloodletting, wrapping in wet cold sheets, etc. But Tarasenkov suggested postponing everything to the next day.

On February 20, a council gathered: Over, Klimenkov, Sokologorsky, Tarasenkov and the Moscow medical luminary Evenius. In the presence of Tolstoy, Khomyakov and other Gogol acquaintances, Over outlined the history of the disease to Evenius, emphasizing the oddities in the patient’s behavior, allegedly indicating that “his consciousness is not in its natural state.” “Leave the patient without benefits or treat him as a person who does not control himself?” asked Over. “Yes, we need to force-feed him,” Evenius said importantly.

After this, the doctors entered the patient and began to question him, examine him, and feel him. Moans and screams of the patient were heard from the room. “Don’t bother me, for God’s sake!” - he finally shouted. But they no longer paid attention to him. It was decided to put two leeches on Gogol’s nose and do a cold douse on his head in a warm bath. Klimenkov undertook to carry out all these procedures, and Tarasenkov hastened to leave, “so as not to witness the torment of the sufferer.”

When he returned three hours later, Gogol had already been taken out of the bath; six leeches hung from his nostrils, which he tried to tear off, but the doctors forcibly held his hands. At about seven in the evening, Over and Klimenkov arrived again and ordered to maintain the bleeding as long as possible, put mustard plasters on the limbs, a front sight on the back of the head, ice on the head, and a decoction of marshmallow root with cherry laurel water inside. “Their treatment was inexorable,” recalled Tarasenkov, “they gave orders as if he were crazy, shouted in front of him as if in front of a corpse. Klimenkov pestered him, crushed him, tossed him around, poured some caustic alcohol on his head...”

After their departure, Tarasenkov stayed until midnight. The patient's pulse dropped, breathing became intermittent. He could no longer turn on his own; he lay quietly and calmly when he was not treated. Asked for a drink. In the evening he began to lose his memory, muttering indistinctly: “Come on, come on! Well, what then? At the eleventh hour he suddenly shouted loudly: “The ladder, quickly, give me the ladder!” I tried to get up. He was lifted out of bed and sat on a chair. But he was already so weak that his head could not hold up and fell, like that of a newborn child. After this outburst, Gogol fell into a deep faint, around midnight his legs began to get cold, and Tarasenkov ordered jugs of hot water to be applied to them...

Tarasenkov left so that, as he wrote, he would not encounter the medical executioner Klimenkov, who, as they later said, tormented the dying Gogol all night, giving him calomel, covering his body with hot bread, why Gogol moaned and screamed shrilly. He died without regaining consciousness at 8 a.m. on Thursday, February 21. When Tarasenkov arrived at Nikitsky Boulevard at ten o'clock in the morning, the deceased was already lying on the table, dressed in the frock coat in which he usually wore. A memorial service was served over him, and the plaster mask was removed from his face.

“I looked at the deceased for a long time,” wrote Tarasenkov, “it seemed to me that his face expressed not suffering, but calmness, a clear thought carried into the coffin.” “Shame on the one who is attracted to the rotting dust...”

Gogol's ashes were buried at noon on February 24, 1852 by parish priest Alexei Sokolov and deacon Ioann Pushkin. And after 79 years, he was secretly, thieves removed from the grave: the Danilov Monastery was transformed into a colony for juvenile delinquents, and therefore its necropolis was subject to liquidation. It was decided to move only a few of the graves dearest to the Russian heart to the old cemetery of the Novodevichy Convent. Among these lucky ones, along with Yazykov, Aksakovs and Khomyakovs, was Gogol...

On May 31, 1931, twenty to thirty people gathered at Gogol’s grave, among whom were: historian M. Baranovskaya, writers Vs. Ivanov, V. Lugovskoy, Y. Olesha, M. Svetlov, V. Lidin and others. It was Lidin who became perhaps the only source of information about the reburial of Gogol. With his light hand they began to walk around Moscow scary legends about Gogol.

The coffin was not found immediately, he told the students of the Literary Institute; for some reason it turned out not to be where they were digging, but somewhat further away, to the side. And when they pulled it out of the ground - covered in lime, seemingly strong, from oak boards - and opened it, then bewilderment was mixed with the heartfelt trembling of those present. In the fob lay a skeleton with its skull turned to one side. No one found an explanation for this. Someone superstitious probably thought then: “The publican is like not alive during life, and not dead after death - this strange great man.”

Lidin’s stories stirred up old rumors that Gogol was afraid of being buried alive in a state of lethargic sleep and seven years before his death he bequeathed: “My body should not be buried until obvious signs of decomposition appear. I mention this because even during the illness itself, moments of vital numbness came over me, my heart and pulse stopped beating.” What the exhumers saw in 1931 seemed to indicate that Gogol’s behest was not fulfilled, that he was buried in a lethargic state, he woke up in a coffin and experienced nightmarish minutes of dying again...

To be fair, it must be said that Lida’s version did not inspire confidence. The sculptor N. Ramazanov, who removed Gogol’s death mask, recalled: “I did not suddenly decide to take off the mask, but the prepared coffin... finally, the constantly arriving crowd of those who wanted to say goodbye to the dear deceased forced me and my old man, who pointed out the traces of destruction, to hurry... “There was also an explanation for the rotation of the skull: the side boards of the coffin were the first to rot, the lid lowers under the weight of the soil, pressing on the dead man’s head, and it turns to one side on the so-called “Atlas vertebra.”

Then Lidin launched new version. In his written memoirs about the exhumation, he told new story, even more terrible and mysterious than his oral stories. “This is what Gogol’s ashes were,” he wrote, “there was no skull in the coffin, and Gogol’s remains began with the cervical vertebrae; the entire skeleton of the skeleton was enclosed in a well-preserved tobacco-colored frock coat... When and under what circumstances Gogol’s skull disappeared remains a mystery. When the opening of the grave began, a skull was discovered at a shallow depth, much higher than the crypt with a walled coffin, but archaeologists recognized it as belonging to a young man.”

This new invention of Lidin required new hypotheses. When could Gogol's skull disappear from the coffin? Who could need it? And what kind of fuss is being raised around the remains of the great writer?

They remembered that in 1908, when a heavy stone was installed on the grave, it was necessary to build a brick crypt over the coffin to strengthen the base. It was then that mysterious attackers could steal the writer’s skull. As for the interested parties, it was not without reason that rumors circulated around Moscow that the unique collection of A. A. Bakhrushin, a passionate collector of theatrical memorabilia, secretly contained the skulls of Shchepkin and Gogol...

And Lidin, inexhaustible in inventions, amazed listeners with new sensational details: they say, when the writer’s ashes were taken from the Danilov Monastery to Novodevichy, some of those present at the reburial could not resist and grabbed some relics for themselves as souvenirs. One allegedly stole Gogol's rib, another - a shin bone, a third - a boot. Lidin himself even showed the guests a volume of the lifetime edition Gogol's works, into the binding of which he inserted a piece of fabric that he tore from the frock coat lying in Gogol’s coffin.

In his will, Gogol shamed those who “would be attracted by any attention to rotting dust that is no longer mine.” But the flighty descendants were not ashamed, they violated the writer’s will, and with unclean hands they began to stir up the “rotting dust” for fun. They also did not respect his covenant not to erect any monument on his grave.

The Aksakovs brought to Moscow from the shores of the Black Sea a stone shaped like Golgotha, the hill on which Jesus Christ was crucified. This stone became the basis for the cross on Gogol's grave. Next to him on the grave was a black stone in the shape of a truncated pyramid with inscriptions on the edges.

These stones and the cross were taken somewhere the day before the opening of Gogol’s burial and sunk into oblivion. Only in the early 50s, the widow of Mikhail Bulgakov accidentally discovered Gogol's Calvary stone in the lapidary's barn and managed to install it on the grave of her husband, the creator of The Master and Margarita.

No less mysterious and mystical is the fate of the Moscow monuments to Gogol. The idea of ​​the need for such a monument was born in 1880 during the celebrations dedicated to the opening of the monument to Pushkin on Tverskoy Boulevard. And 29 years later, on the centenary of the birth of Nikolai Vasilyevich on April 26, 1909, a monument created by the sculptor N. Andreev was unveiled on Prechistensky Boulevard. This sculpture, depicting a deeply dejected Gogol at the moment of his deep thoughts, caused mixed reviews. Some enthusiastically praised her, others fiercely condemned her. But everyone agreed: Andreev managed to create a work of the highest artistic merit.

The controversy surrounding the original author's interpretation of the image of Gogol did not continue to subside in Soviet era, which did not tolerate the spirit of decline and despondency even among the great writers of the past. Socialist Moscow needed a different Gogol - clear, bright, calm. Not the Gogol of “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” but the Gogol of “Taras Bulba,” “The Inspector General,” and “Dead Souls.”

In 1935, the All-Union Committee for Arts under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR announced a competition for new monument Gogol in Moscow, who laid start of development, interrupted by the Great Patriotic War. She slowed down, but did not stop these works, in which the greatest masters of sculpture participated - M. Manizer, S. Merkurov, E. Vuchetich, N. Tomsky.

In 1952, on the centenary of Gogol’s death, a new monument was erected on the site of the St. Andrew’s monument, created by the sculptor N. Tomsky and the architect S. Golubovsky. St. Andrew's monument was moved to the territory Donskoy Monastery, where it stood until 1959, when, at the request of the USSR Ministry of Culture, it was installed in front of Tolstoy’s house on Nikitsky Boulevard, where Nikolai Vasilyevich lived and died. It took Andreev’s creation seven years to cross Arbat Square!

Disputes around Moscow monuments to Gogol continue even now. Some Muscovites tend to see the removal of monuments as a manifestation of Soviet totalitarianism and party dictatorship. But everything that is done is done for the better, and Moscow today has not one, but two monuments to Gogol, equally precious for Russia in moments of both decline and enlightenment of the spirit.

IT LOOKS LIKE GOGOL WAS ACCIDENTALLY POISONED BY DOCTORS!

Although the gloomy mystical aura around Gogol’s personality was largely generated by the blasphemous destruction of his grave and the absurd inventions of the irresponsible Lidin, much in the circumstances of his illness and death continues to remain mysterious.

In fact, what could a relatively young 42-year-old writer die from?

Khomyakov put forward the first version, according to which the root cause of death was the severe mental shock experienced by Gogol due to the sudden death of Khomyakov’s wife Ekaterina Mikhailovna. “From then on, he was in some kind of nervous disorder, which took on the character of religious insanity,” recalled Khomyakov. “He fasted and began to starve himself, reproaching himself for gluttony.” This version seems to be confirmed by the testimony of people who saw the effect that the accusatory conversations of Father Matthew Konstantinovsky had on Gogol. It was he who demanded that Nikolai Vasilyevich comply strict fast, demanded from him special zeal in fulfilling the harsh instructions of the church, reproached both Gogol himself and Pushkin, whom Gogol revered, for their sinfulness and paganism. The denunciations of the eloquent priest shocked Nikolai Vasilyevich so much that one day, interrupting Father Matthew, he literally groaned: “Enough! Leave me alone, I can’t listen any longer, it’s too scary!” Terty Filippov, a witness to these conversations, was convinced that the sermons of Father Matthew set Gogol in a pessimistic mood and convinced him of the inevitability of his imminent death.

And yet there is no reason to believe that Gogol has gone mad. An involuntary witness last hours Nikolai Vasilyevich's life became a servant of a Simbirsk landowner, paramedic Zaitsev, who noted in his memoirs that a day before his death Gogol was in clear memory and of sound mind. Having calmed down after the “therapeutic” torture, he had a friendly conversation with Zaitsev, asked about his life, and even made amendments to the poems written by Zaitsev on the death of his mother.

The version that Gogol died of starvation is also not confirmed. Adult healthy person can go completely without food for 30-40 days. Gogol fasted for only 17 days, and even then he did not give up food completely...

But if not from madness and hunger, then could the cause of death be some kind of infectious disease? In Moscow in the winter of 1852, an epidemic of typhoid fever raged, from which, by the way, Khomyakova died. That is why Inozemtsev, at the first examination, suspected that the writer had typhus. But a week later, a council of doctors convened by Count Tolstoy announced that Gogol had not typhus, but meningitis, and prescribed that strange course of treatment, which cannot be called anything other than “torture”...

In 1902, Dr. N. Bazhenov published a small work, “The Illness and Death of Gogol.” Having carefully analyzed the symptoms described in the memoirs of the writer’s acquaintances and the doctors who treated him, Bazhenov came to the conclusion that it was precisely this incorrect, debilitating treatment for meningitis, which in fact did not exist, that killed the writer.

It seems that Bazhenov is only partly right. The treatment prescribed by the council, applied when Gogol was already hopeless, aggravated his suffering, but was not the cause of the disease itself, which began much earlier. In his notes, Doctor Tarasenkov, who examined Gogol for the first time on February 16, described the symptoms of the disease as follows: “... the pulse was weak, the tongue was clean but dry; the skin had a natural warmth. By all accounts, it was clear that he did not have a fever... once he had a slight nosebleed, complained that his hands were cold, his urine was thick, dark-colored...”

One can only regret that Bazhenov did not think to consult a toxicologist when writing his work. After all, the symptoms of Gogol’s disease described by him are practically indistinguishable from the symptoms of chronic mercury poisoning - the main component of the same calomel that every doctor who began treatment fed Gogol with. In fact, with chronic calomel poisoning, thick dark urine and various types of bleeding are possible, most often gastric, but sometimes nasal. A weak pulse could be a consequence of both the weakening of the body from polishing and the result of the action of calomel. Many noted that throughout his illness Gogol often asked to drink: thirst is one of the characteristics of the signs of chronic poisoning.

In all likelihood, the beginning of the fatal chain of events was laid by an upset stomach and the “too strong effect of the medicine,” about which Gogol complained to Shevyrev on February 5. Since gastric disorders were then treated with calomel, it is possible that the medicine prescribed to him was calomel and was prescribed by Inozemtsev, who a few days later fell ill himself and stopped seeing the patient. The writer passed into the hands of Tarasenkov, who, not knowing that Gogol had already accepted dangerous medicine, could prescribe calomel for him again. For the third time, Gogol received calomel from Klimenkov.

The peculiarity of calomel is that it does not cause harm only if it is relatively quickly eliminated from the body through the intestines. If it lingers in the stomach, then after a while it begins to act as the strongest mercury poison, sublimate. This is exactly what apparently happened to Gogol: significant doses of calomel he took were not excreted from the stomach, since the writer was fasting at that time and there was simply no food in his stomach. The gradually increasing amount of calomel in his stomach caused chronic poisoning, and the weakening of the body from malnutrition, loss of spirit and Klimenkov’s barbaric treatment only accelerated death...

It would not be difficult to test this hypothesis by examining the mercury content of the remains using modern analytical tools. But let us not become like the blasphemous exhumers of the year thirty-one and, for the sake of idle curiosity, let us not disturb the ashes of the great writer a second time, let us not again throw down the tombstones from his grave and move his monuments from place to place. Let everything connected with the memory of Gogol be preserved forever and stand in one place!

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol - (1809 - 1852) - classic of Russian literature, writer, brilliant satirist, publicist, playwright, critic. Belonged to the ancient noble family Gogol-Yanovskikh.

Although the mysterious mystical aura around Gogol’s personality was to a certain extent generated by the blasphemous destruction of his grave and strange inventions, much of the circumstances of his illness and death remain a mystery. In reality, from what and how could Gogol die at the 43rd year of his life?

Writer's Oddities

Nikolai Vasilyevich was a difficult person to understand. For example, he slept only sitting up, being careful not to be mistaken for dead. He took long walks around... the house, while drinking a glass of water in each room. From time to time he fell into a state of prolonged stupor. And Gogol’s death was mysterious: either he died from poisoning, or from cancer, or from mental illness...

Doctors have been trying to determine the cause of death and how Gogol died for more than a century and a half to no avail.

Causes of death (Versions)

Khomyakov put forward the first version of depression, according to which the root cause of Gogol’s death was the severe mental shock that the writer experienced due to sudden death Khomyakova Ekaterina Mikhailovna, sister of the poet N.M. Yazykov, with whom Gogol was friends. “From that time on, he was in some kind of nervous disorder, which took on the character of religious insanity,” from Khomyakov’s memoirs. “He fasted and began to starve himself, reproaching himself for gluttony.”

Ekaterina Mikhailovna Khomyakova (1817-1852), born Yazykova.

This version is allegedly confirmed by the testimony of people who saw the impact that the accusatory conversations of Father Matthew Konstantinovsky had on the writer. It was he who insisted that Gogol observe strict fasting, demanded from him special zeal in fulfilling strict church instructions, and reproached both Nikolai Vasilyevich himself and, whom Gogol revered, for their sinfulness and paganism. The denunciations of the eloquent priest shocked the writer to such an extent that one day he, interrupting Father Matthew, literally groaned: “Enough! Leave me alone, I can’t listen any longer, it’s too scary!” An eyewitness to these conversations, Terty Filippov, was sure that the sermons of Father Matthew set Nikolai Vasilyevich in a pessimistic mood, and he believed in the inevitability of imminent death.

Yet there is no reason to believe that great poet went crazy. An involuntary witness to the last hours of Gogol’s life, a servant of a Simbirsk landowner, paramedic Zaitsev, noted in his memoirs that a day before his death Gogol was in clear memory and sound mind. Having come to his senses after the “therapeutic” torture, he had a friendly conversation with Zaitsev, was interested in his life, he even made amendments to the poems written by Zaitsev on the death of his mother.

The version that Nikolai Vasilyevich died from starvation is also not confirmed. A healthy adult can go without food for 30-40 days. The writer fasted only 17 days, and even then he did not completely give up food...

However, if not from madness and hunger, then could Gogol’s death be caused by some kind of infectious disease? In Moscow in the winter of 1852, an epidemic of typhoid fever raged, from which, it should be noted, Khomyakova died. That is precisely why Inozemtsev, at the first examination, suspected that Nikolai Vasilyevich had typhus. However, a week later, a council of doctors, which was convened by Count Tolstoy, announced that the writer did not have typhus, but meningitis, and he was prescribed that strange course of treatment, which can only be called “torture”...

1902 - Dr. N. Bazhenov published a small work, “The Illness and Death of Gogol.” After a careful study of the symptoms described in the memoirs of Nikolai Vasilyevich’s acquaintances and the doctors who treated him, Bazhenov came to the conclusion that it was precisely this incorrect, debilitating treatment for meningitis, which in reality did not exist, that killed Gogol.

First symptoms

Bazhenov is probably only partly right. The treatment, which was prescribed by a council of doctors, applied when the writer was already hopeless, increased his suffering, but was not the cause of the disease itself, which began much earlier. In their Notes from Dr. Tarasenkov, who examined Nikolai Vasilyevich for the first time on February 16, described the symptoms of the disease as follows: “... the pulse was weakened, the tongue was clean but dry; the skin had a natural warmth. By all accounts, it was clear that he did not have a fever... once he had a slight nosebleed, complained that his hands were cold, his urine was thick, dark-colored..."

Was Gogol accidentally poisoned by doctors?

One can only regret that Bazhenov, while writing his work, did not think to consult a toxicologist. Because the symptoms of the disease that he described are practically indistinguishable from the symptoms of chronic mercury poisoning - the main component of the same calomel that every doctor who began treatment fed the writer. In fact, with chronic calomel poisoning, there may be thick dark urine and various types of bleeding, most often gastric, but sometimes nasal. A weak pulse could be either a consequence of the weakening of the body from polishing, or the result of the action of calomel. Many noted that throughout his illness, Nikolai Vasilyevich often asked to drink: thirst is one of the characteristic features chronic poisoning.

Apparently, the beginning of the fatal chain of events was an upset stomach and the “too strong effect of the drugs,” about which the writer complained to Shevyrev on February 5. Because at that time gastric disorders were treated with calomel, it is possible that the medicine prescribed to him was calomel and was prescribed by Inozemtsev, who a few days later fell ill himself and stopped observing the patient. Gogol came under the tutelage of Tarasenkov, who, not knowing that the writer was already taking a dangerous drug, could once again prescribe him calomel. For the third time, Nikolai Vasilyevich received calomel from Klimenkov.

The peculiarity of calomel is that it does not cause harm only if it can quickly be eliminated from the body through the intestines. If it lingers in the stomach, then after some time it begins to act as the strongest mercury poison, sublimate. This is exactly what could have happened to Gogol: the large doses of calomel he took were not removed from the stomach, since Gogol was fasting at the time and there was simply no food in his stomach. The gradually increasing amount of calomel in his stomach caused chronic poisoning, and the weakening of the body from malnutrition, loss of spirit and Klimenkov’s barbaric treatment only brought the onset of death closer...

The room where Gogol died

Lethargic sleep

According to experts, contrary to popular belief, the classic did not have schizophrenia. But he suffered from manic-depressive psychosis. This disease could manifest itself in different ways, but its most powerful manifestation was that the writer was terrified of being buried alive. Perhaps this fear appeared in his youth, after he suffered from malarial encephalitis. The disease was quite severe and was accompanied by deep fainting.

This is one of the most common versions. Rumors about the allegedly terrible death of Gogol, who was buried alive, turned out to be so persistent that to this day many consider it a completely proven fact.

To a certain extent, rumors about his burial alive were created, without knowing it... by the writer. All because, as already mentioned, Nikolai Vasilyevich was prone to fainting and somnambulistic states. Therefore, the writer was very afraid that during one of his attacks he would be mistaken for dead and buried.

This fact is essentially unanimously denied by modern historians.

“During the exhumation, which was carried out in conditions of a certain secrecy, no more than 20 people gathered at the classic’s grave...,” Mikhail Davidov, associate professor at the Perm Medical Academy, wrote in his article “The Mystery of Gogol’s Death.” — Writer V. Lidin became, in fact, the only source of information about the exhumation of Nikolai Vasilyevich. At first he talked about the reburial to students of the Literary Institute and his acquaintances, and later wrote written memoirs. What Lidin said was untrue and contradictory. It was according to him that Gogol’s oak coffin was well preserved, the upholstery on the inside was torn and scratched, and in the coffin there was a skeleton, unnaturally twisted, with the skull turned to one side. So, with the light hand of Lidin, who is inexhaustible in inventions, the gloomy legend that Gogol was buried alive began to walk around Moscow.

To understand the inconsistency of the lethargic dream version, you need to think about this fact: the exhumation was carried out 79 years after the burial! Known fact that the decomposition of the body in the grave occurs incredibly quickly, and after just a few years, only bone tissue remains from it, and the bones no longer have close connections with each other. It is unclear how, after so many years, they could establish some kind of “twisting of the body”... And what can remain of a wooden coffin and upholstery material after 79 years of being in the ground? They change so much (rot, fragment) that it is absolutely impossible to establish the fact of “scratching” the inner lining of the coffin.”

And from the memoirs of the sculptor Ramazanov, who removed the death mask of the classic, post-mortem changes and the beginning of the process of tissue decomposition were clearly visible on the face of the deceased.

And yet, Gogol’s version of lethargic sleep is still alive today.

Vanished Skull

Gogol died on February 21, 1852. He was buried in the cemetery of the St. Daniel Monastery, and in 1931 the monastery and the cemetery on its territory were closed. When the writer's remains were transferred to Novodevichy Cemetery, discovered that a skull had been stolen from the deceased’s coffin.

And the writer Lidin, inexhaustible in inventions, amazed listeners with new sensational details: According to the version of the same V. Lidin, who was present at the same time, Gogol’s skull was stolen from the grave in 1909. At that time, philanthropist and founder of the theater museum Alexei Bakhrushin was able to persuade the monks to get Nikolai Vasilyevich’s skull for him. “The Bakhrushinsky Theater Museum in Moscow contains three skulls that belong to someone unknown: one of them is presumably the skull of the artist Shchepkin, the other is Gogol’s, nothing is known about the third,” Lidin wrote in his memoirs “The Transfer of Gogol’s Ashes.”

Interesting Fact (Tombstone)

Exists interesting story, which is told to this day at Gogol’s grave... 1940 - another famous Russian writer, who considered himself a student of Nikolai Vasilyevich, died. His wife, Elena Sergeevna, went to choose a stone for the gravestone of her late husband. By chance, from a pile of blanks gravestones she chose only one. When they lifted it to engrave the writer's name on it, they saw that it already had another name on it. When they looked at what was written there, they were even more surprised - it was a tombstone that had disappeared from Gogol’s grave. Thus, Nikolai Vasilyevich seemed to give a sign to Bulgakov’s relatives that he was finally reunited with his outstanding student.

Arts and entertainment

How did Gogol die? In what year did Gogol die?

November 27, 2014

For more than 150 years, many doctors, historians, analysts and other experts have been trying to understand how Gogol died, what caused such painful last days of the writer and what kind of ailments he suffered from. recent years your life? Some believe that famous author was simply “crazy”; others are sure that he committed suicide by starving himself to death. However, the truth, as it turned out, in this whole story is only apparent, somewhat ephemeral. The facts that have survived to this day, and the research of contemporaries, make it possible to draw certain conclusions about how Gogol died. Therefore, now we will consider in detail all these materials and his last years of life.

A few words about the life of the writer

The now famous playwright, writer, critic, writer and poet was born in the Poltava province in 1809. On my native land He graduated from high school, after which he entered the Academy of Higher Sciences for children of the provincial nobility. There he learned the basics of literary criticism, painting and other forms of art. In his youth, Gogol moved to the capital - St. Petersburg, where he met a number of famous poets and critics, among whom it is important to highlight A. Pushkin. It was he who became the closest friend of the then young Nikolai Gogol, who opened new doors for him in literary studies and influenced the formation of his social and cultural views. In St. Petersburg, the writer begins to compile the first volume of Dead Souls, but in his homeland the work begins to be criticized very harshly. Nikolai Vasilyevich goes to Europe and, having visited a number of cities, stops in Rome, where he finishes writing the first volume, after which he begins the second. It was after he returned from Italy that doctors (and all his close people) began to notice changes in state of mind writer, not at all good side. We can say that it was from then on that the very story of Gogol’s death begins, which exhausted him mentally and physically and made him last days his life was extremely painful.

Was there schizophrenia?

There was a time when rumors circulated in Moscow that the writer, who had just returned from Rome, was a little out of his mind and was suffering from schizophrenia. His contemporaries believed that it was precisely because of this mental disorder he brought himself to complete exhaustion. In fact, everything was a little different, and slightly different circumstances caused Gogol’s death. The biography of this writer, if you read it in more detail, tells that for the last 20 years of his life the author suffered from manic-depressive psychosis. That is, he had periods when his mood became especially cheerful, but they were quickly replaced by the opposite - severe depression. Not knowing such a definition in those years, doctors gave the most ridiculous diagnoses to Nikolai - “intestinal catarrh”, “spastic colitis” and others. It is now believed that it was the treatment of these imaginary ailments that played a fatal role in his fate.

Video on the topic

Did the author wake up in his own coffin?

Very often, in a conversation about how Gogol died, many argue that he was buried alive. They say that the writer fell into a lethargic sleep, which everyone took for death. The rumors are based on the fact that during exhumation, Nikolai’s body in the coffin was unnaturally bent, and the upper part of the lid was scratched. In fact, if you think about it, you can understand that this is fiction. By the time the exhumation took place, only ashes were found in the coffin. The wood and upholstery were completely rotten (which, in principle, is natural), so they could not find any scratches or other traces there.

Interesting fact about... the fear of being buried alive

In fact, there is another circumstance that has led people for many years to believe that famous writer was buried alive, in a state of lethargic sleep. The fact is that Gogol suffered from taphephobia - this is precisely the fear of being buried in the ground during his lifetime. This fear was based on the fact that after suffering from malaria in Italy, he often fainted, which caused his pulse to slow down too much, and his breathing almost completely stopped. Then the author of “Viy” and “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka” woke up and felt normal. It was for this reason that he hardly went to bed for the last 10 years of his life. Nikolai Vasilyevich dozed in an armchair, fell asleep over his manuscripts in constant anxiety and readiness for awakening. Moreover, in his will he indicated that he wished to be buried only after his body began to show signs of complete decomposition. His will was fulfilled. Official date Gogol's death was February 21, 1852 (old style), and the date of his burial was February 24.

Other ridiculous versions

Among the conclusions of doctors who personally saw how Gogol died and how he spent his last days, or indirectly knew about this, guided by his analyzes and examination results, there were many absurd notes. Among them is that the writer took mercury poison to take his own life. They say that due to the fact that he ate practically nothing and his stomach was empty, the poison was corroding him from the inside, which is why he died for a long time and painfully. The second theory is typhoid fever, which caused Gogol's death. The author’s biography indicates that he did not actually suffer from this illness, and moreover, not a single similar symptom appeared in his entire life. Therefore, at a consultation held among doctors after this version was put forward, the latter was officially rejected.

Causes of severe dying condition

It is believed that the story of Gogol's death dates back to January 1852, when Ekaterina Khomyakova, his sister, died close friend. The poet experienced the funeral service of this person with particular horror, and during the burial he said very scary words: “It’s all over for me too...” Physically weak, prone to various ailments, with poor immunity, Nikolai Vasilyevich completely gave way that day. It is also worth considering the fact that he had been suffering from bipolar affective personality disorder for 20 years, which is why such a significant and sorrowful event drove him into the phase of depression, and not hypomania. Since then, he began to refuse food, despite the fact that previously he always preferred hearty meat dishes. Eyewitnesses claimed that the writer seemed to have left reality. He stopped communicating with friends, often closed in on himself, and would go to bed in a robe and boots, while muttering something. The culmination of his depression was the fact that he burned the second volume of Dead Souls.

Cure attempts

Throughout many years analysts and researchers did not understand why Gogol died. The poet and playwright, stricken by an unknown disease at that time, was under careful medical supervision and care. Although it is worth noting that the doctors treated him very harshly, however, trying to do the best. They treated imaginary “meningitis”. They forced me into a hot bath and poured water on my head. ice water, and then they didn’t let me get dressed. Leeches were placed under the writer’s nose to increase bleeding, and if he resisted, his hands were twisted, causing pain. It is likely that another of these procedures is the answer to the question of why Gogol died so suddenly. At 8 a.m. on February 21, he fell into unconsciousness when no one was nearby except the nurse. By 10 am, when the doctors had already gathered at the writer’s bed, they found only a corpse.

An unbroken chain leading to demise

Thanks to the research of contemporaries, it is possible to build a logical and correct connection between all the events and circumstances during which the playwright died. Initially negative impact turned out to be the place where Gogol died (Moscow). Rumors about his madness often circulated here; many of his works were not recognized. Due to these factors, it began to worsen mental illness, and as a result, Nikolai Vasilyevich came to the conclusion that he should refuse food. Complete bodily exhaustion and distortion of the perception of reality weakened the person indescribably. What became fatal was that he was subjected to sudden changes in temperature, shock and other harsh therapeutic methods. The date of Gogol's death was the last day of such bullying for him. After a long and painful night, on the morning of February 21, he did not wake up.

Was it possible to save the writer?

It's definitely possible. To do this, it was necessary to force-feed highly nutritious foods, inject saline solutions under the skin, and also force the person to drink a lot of water. Another factor is taking antidepressants, but given the year Gogol died, we can say that this was impossible. By the way, one of the doctors, Tarasenkov, insisted on exactly these methods, in particular, on forcing Nikolai Vasilyevich to eat. Nevertheless, most Doctors rejected this prescription - they began to treat non-existent meningitis...

Afterword

We briefly reviewed all the circumstances of his death famous writer and playwright Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. It was he who, with his works, won the hearts of ordinary readers and directors, children and adults. You can read his works avidly, without looking up from the book, because each of his creations is extremely interesting. Now you know when Gogol was born and died, how he lived his life, and in particular, what his last years were like. And most importantly, we tried to understand at least a little about how this genius died and why there are so many rumors around his death.